Round Twenty-Seven
BILLY
After climbing out of Ramone’s hot tub on Saturday night and shivering all the way home, I dropped Maggie off with nothing more than a murmured goodbye.
I didn’t get to touch. Didn’t get to kiss.
For as long as Jeremy was in the backseat, warming my skull with his beady stare, I couldn’t even reach across and stroke her fidgeting hand.
I simply got to watch her climb out of my car and collect her things, her long hair soaking into her sweater, her toned legs covered in goosebumps as the late-year weather chills the air.
The snow will come soon. The idiots on the road, too. The fires, probably, when folks light one to keep warm and the flames get out of control. Work will ramp up, like it always does as the holidays approach, and school will let out for Thanksgiving. Then Christmas.
It’s really fuckin’ hard juggling single fatherhood, being a cop, and getting through the weeks when school is out and my kid needs extra supervision.
I especially don’t have time to obsess over a woman who can hardly stand to be around me.
I didn’t see her at all on Sunday, although I stayed outside all damn day hoping to lay eyes on her beautiful face. I didn’t see her on Monday either. Or Tuesday. For three nights in a row, I woke at one o’clock in the morning and peeked out my windows, only to discover her car not in her driveway.
Where could she be?
Why won’t she talk to me?
I thought things changed for the better on Saturday!?
On Wednesday evening, I step out of my house with a steaming cup of coffee—the decaf kind, so I don’t destroy my sleep tonight—and wandering all the way to the porch railing, I set the mug down and take out my phone.
Resting my elbows on the rail, I unlock the screen and navigate to the text thread she started a little over a week ago.
The one she insisted we have.
Instead of something sweet sitting in my inbox—like good morning, or how was your day?—I find more dating profiles I don’t want to read. More women she’d like to foist me toward. More love matches she seems intent on creating.
Even after that thing we did Saturday night…
I texted her on Sunday with a simple: come outside and hang with me.
She replied with a bio of a woman named Karina Taylor.
On Monday, I texted: Jeremy misses you. He asked if he could come stand at the boundary garden and scream your name for a little while.
It was me. I missed her. But my son would never pass up an opportunity to do the boundary-garden thing, so I said sure, buddy. Have at it.
She didn’t come outside. But she replied with a new bio. Samantha Rhodes.
On Tuesday, I texted a weather warning, since a shitty storm was predicted to roll through the next day—today—and it would be her first since coming back to Plainview. I didn’t want her driving in those conditions.
She thumbs upped that one, and then she sent another bio. Sadie Brown.
I thought we’d turned a corner on the weekend, like maybe we could explore what we’d started. But now, I think the only corner involved in our lives is the one she hightailed it around in her effort to run and hide.
I glance up at the ugly gray clouds and sigh as a clap of thunder booms through the sky, then I glance to the left again and study her driveway.
Empty.
“Dad!” Jeremy charges down the stairs inside, risking his life and an emergency trip to the ER, but he doesn’t give a shit.
My boy is terrified of storms, and a night spent in the emergency room is still better than the prospect of being alone inside while the skies open above our house.
I stay put, brace myself for the impact, and a single second later, I peek toward the front door as he bursts through with wide, petrified eyes.
He slams into my legs, not the same boy who faked drowning a few nights ago to get Maggie’s attention.
He’s not the same boy who flirts with a grown woman, or shares his hidden bag of chips.
He’s not even the same boy who shows off over at the Love and War Gym, learning how to fight under Eliza Darling’s tutelage.
No. This Jeremy burrows between my legs and the solid porch railing, wrapping his arms around my stomach, and crushing his skull against the hardwood frame behind him.
“I don’t like these storms, Dad.” He trembles all over, moisture transferring from his cheeks to my shirt. “I hate them.”
“I know, buddy.” I lock my phone without texting Maggie to hurry home. Without the be safe message I wish didn’t feel weird to send. Instead, I slip the device into my pocket and lean back far enough to search his splotchy face. “You wanna hop up?”
His eyes, large and green and welling with tears, splinter my heart. “You don’t think I’m too big?”
“Too big to get up?”
“I’m a man,” he whimpers, swiping a shaky hand beneath his nose. “Men don’t let their dads pick them up anymore.”
“I would let anybody pick me up. If they could,” I chuckle.
Leaving my coffee where it is, I grab him under the arms and lift him up, but instead of sitting him on my hip like I used to do when he was smaller, I set his butt on the porch railing and loop my arm around his back.
I stand between his legs, close enough that he can rest his face on my chest. “You know, being a man doesn’t mean you can’t be scared sometimes.
It doesn’t mean you can’t hug people, or cry a little bit. ”
His breath comes out on a bouncing exhale. “It doesn’t?”
“It’s the opposite, actually. Being a man means being brave enough to acknowledge how you feel, and surrounding yourself with people who can help you when you’re down.
Later, when you’re feeling brave and maybe those other people are having a tough time, then you get to be the person who helps.
” I smooth his hair down and drop a kiss on the top of his head.
“I wouldn’t care if you were fifteen or twenty-five.
If you need a hug, I hope you come to me. ”
“I wish Maggie was here. Her hugs feel better.”
I bark out a laugh that hovers somewhere between humor and desperation. “I wouldn’t know. Maggie never hugs me.”
“Sucks for you,” he murmurs, arrogant and shaky at the same time.
“Her hugs feel so good, Dad. I can’t even explain it.
I think girls must have magic boys don’t, don’t you think?
But not all girls.” He pulls back and searches my eyes.
“Cos sometimes Molly and I are rolling, which is kinda like a hug.” He wrinkles his nose.
“That doesn’t feel as good. And sometimes Alana hugs me if I get hurt at the gym, and it feels okay.
It doesn’t feel bad. But it doesn’t feel like when Maggie hugs me. ”
“I think you might be right. About the magic, that is. But I think each person has their own kind of magic, special for them and for the people they love. Like, I bet Alana’s hugs feel like the best thing in the world to Franky.
But if Maggie hugged Franky, he might not like it.
And I bet to Chris, Fox’s hugs are magic.
But if Fox hugged me, it wouldn’t feel the same. ”
“So Maggie is my special magic?”
Another thunderclap booms in the sky, scaring Jeremy a whole foot off the railing and back down again with a cry of terror.
He wraps his arms around my neck, smooshing our cheeks together and breathing sugar-flavored breath straight into my mouth.
“I hate these storms,” he growls. “Can we go inside now, Dad? I really, really want to go inside.”
I glance across at Maggie’s house again. The lights are out, the doors are locked, and her driveway is empty.
Is she driving in this shit?
“Do you think I have any of the magic, buddy?” I peel him back just far enough to study his face. “I know I’m not Maggie, and I know I’m not your mom, but since we’ve been best friends for eight years now, maybe I have a little bit of it?”
Wary, his glittering eyes water as lightning flashes across the sky. “Why?”
“Well… I just thought, maybe if I had a little of the magic, I could tell you I would keep you safe from the storm. No matter what, no matter how big or loud or mean it gets, as your dad, I can make that promise.”
“Really?”
“Mm. So then I guess I’m wondering if you would believe me?
If you’d look right into my soul and see the magic and the truth of my words, then you could believe that I’ll keep you safe.
And if you believe me, then maybe you could be brave enough to hang with me for just a few more minutes?
” I glance across Maggie’s yard, past the furious sway of her lavender as wind shakes them up.
“Maggie’s not home yet,” I rasp. “I’m a little worried about her being in the storm, so that’s why I came outside.
I was hoping to see her drive in, and if I was extra lucky, I could wave her over and tell her to come sit with us until it blows over. ”
“Do you think she crashed in the storm?” His breath catches, his entire body swinging to the side as he wrenches his head around and searches her house. “Dad! What if she crashed?”
“She didn’t crash. Don’t jump to conclusions like that and make yourself worry more than necessary.”
“But you said you were worried! You said—”
“That I didn’t like her being out in this weather.
I didn’t mention car accidents or her being hurt.
” I grab his chin and force his eyes back to mine.
“There’s already enough bad stuff in the world without our imaginations adding to it.
So don’t do that, okay? Don’t carry that fear for no reason at all. ”
He studies me for a long beat, his eyes flickering between mine.
His throat bobs, and his entire body jolts in response to another clap of thunder.
But then he nods, sniffling and sending his gaze back to Maggie’s front door.
“I won’t think those things anymore.” He nervously gulps. “And I can wait five more minutes.”