Chapter Three #2
“Wait for Mommy, Amos. Don’t touch anything,” Josie said as she left the kitchen and made her way down the hall to the bedrooms.
Who the hell was Pider-Man? What was he the best at? Did it have anything to do with oranges?
A clicking noise caught Pax’s attention. Where the old gas stove had sat two seconds before was a new electric stove, dozens of push buttons and lights replacing black plastic knobs.
A thud of his heart, like a punch from the inside out, nearly sent Pax to the floor. He would have to tell Raphe.
One new stove did not mean they were out of the woods.
Still, it was a beginning.
· · ·
Josie gripped the door handle and tried to appear calm even though she was freaking out.
She’d toured this apartment three weeks ago and this bedroom had not been furnished, the walls had been green, and yellow curtains had hung in the window above the cushioned reading nook.
Amos ran around the room, pointing out the blue curtains above the red window seat cushion, the blue metal-framed bed covered with a plush Spider-Man blanket, and a shelf full of books about trucks and nature—and Spider-Man.
“I will open the back entrance and unload your possessions into the elevator.”
Pax had come up behind her and she’d jumped a little, then spun around. It pissed her off to have to look up to speak to him. His height might not be his fault, but Josie decided she could take it personally if she wanted.
A headache pounded directly behind her eyes, adding to the pain in her neck and the exhaustion from lying awake last night wondering if this had been the right move. Like every other major decision she’d made since Dan died, Josie had second thoughts.
Third thoughts.
Abject terror, really, that everything she’d done up until now was a mistake.
If Dan were alive, Josie could have shifted some of the burden. He’d taken in stride his family’s disappointment with Josie as a partner and been achingly sensible. For him, the world was a place that made sense; he had been blessedly free of anxiety or self-doubt.
“Never cry over spilt whiskey,” was his motto. It was the second thing he said when Josie told him she was—thank you, antibiotics—pregnant with Amos.
The first thing he said was “Holy shit.”
Once Dan made a decision, he never questioned himself. That was his most compelling attribute, as far as she was concerned.
Josie had never managed that, and Dan’s parents knew it.
The last time Amos was hospitalized, Dan’s mother had asked in a saccharine-sweet voice whether it wouldn’t be safer for Amos to live with her instead.
Josie had pulled herself together enough to decline politely, but the look in her mother-in-law’s eyes was the stare of a raptor who’d found a nest full of eggs.
“…their father?”
Mr. Pax had asked her a question. Josie’s headache morphed into a pair of wings, battering the inside of her skull.
“What did you ask?” she said.
Rocking back on his heels, Pax lifted his chin in Amos’s direction. “I asked whether Mr. Amos’s father or another family member would be joining you at some point, and should I issue him a key?”
Josie shuddered at the thought of Dan’s mother, Gloria, having access to Amos at any time of day.
“No,” said Josie with emphasis. “No one else gets a key.”
“Is there conflict with the boy’s father?” Pax’s jaw clenched and his hand went to his side in a gesture straight out of a cowboy film. “Tell me what he looks like.”
Confused, and a little bit turned on by his protective reaction, Josie pressed her fingers to her temples and tried to focus. “No conflict. It’s just us. Me and Amos.”
The right corner of Pax’s mouth twisted.
Ugh. That sounded pathetic when she said it out loud.
“Mom, Mom, can I go to sleep right now in my ’Pider-Man bed?” Amos asked.
“The fact I’m a single mom isn’t the point. The point is, who did this?” Josie asked. “Who decorated Amos’s room? How did they know his favorite superhero? I can’t afford to pay anyone back for this. Who was in here?”
The questions spilled out like dominoes even as she winced at how thin and high her voice sounded.
She could stand to learn a thing or two from this guy’s poker face. For years, Josie had done a beautiful job denying her fear, but with the arrival of Amos, her fear had grown thorns and poked holes in her pretentions.
Pax rubbed his chin over the shadowy promise of stubble to come.
“There is no cost to these furnishings,” he said, no hint of what he thought anywhere on his face. “This was organized by the building.”
“The building?” She cocked her head, signaling her dissatisfaction with his answer.
“Yes?” He raised his eyebrows, voice pitched up at the end as if asking for permission to be obtuse.
“Maaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaa-a. I has to poop!”
Dammit.
“But someone came in here and left these things. Who was that?” Josie asked, rummaging through her handbag, looking for wipes in case there was no toilet paper in the bathroom.
Unless the mysterious decorator had already supplied that, in which case, cool. Still creepy, but cool.
Pax’s eyes darted back and forth between Amos’s and Josie’s faces.
“Maddy,” he said, nodding as though he’d figured out the answer to a quiz. “Maddy is the…president of the tenants’ association and…and she loves children.”
Hmmmm. The sharp scent of cinnamon wafted from the hallway. Shit. A bottle of room spray must have cracked open during the move.
Pax continued. “She loves children so much she knew exactly what a six-year-old boy—”
“He’s just turned four,” Josie said.
“—what a just-turned-four-year-old boy would enjoy in his bedroom.”
“My son is the most important person in my life, Mr. Pax,” Josie said sternly. Fear tugged at her stomach and settled in her guts. “My sole priority is keeping him safe. Please don’t let anyone into this apartment again without me present, no matter how maternal their urges.”
Pax made a small bow. “Amos will be perfectly safe in this building,” he said. “I swear to it.”