Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
DREW
I arrive home from work on Tuesday, expecting Sarah Beth to run to the front door with tales of the day’s adventures, only to find the house weirdly quiet and all the lights off downstairs.
“Sarah Beth?” I call out as I hang my coat in the hall closet and flick on the lights. “Tatum? Are you here?”
But of course, they’re here. The van is in the garage and Tatum’s car is in the driveway. I’m headed upstairs to see if maybe they’re watching a movie in my room—Sarah Beth likes to snuggle up in my bed, sometimes, and watch the big screen—when my daughter’s head pops up over the couch, nearly giving me a heart attack.
“Shh!” she hisses, pressing a little finger to her lips. “Quiet, Daddy. Tatum’s sleeping.”
“What?” I frown as I cross to the couch, peeking over to see Tatum indeed asleep beside Sarah Beth. She’s curled up in a ball with her head on one of the throw pillows.
I’m on the verge of getting angry—I understand watching a four-year-old all day can be exhausting but falling asleep and leaving Sarah unattended isn’t okay—when Sarah Beth adds, “I think she’s sick, Daddy. Her head is really hot. Like when I had the flu and had to go to the hospital.”
I reach down, resting gentle fingers on Tatum’s forehead, my stomach sinking as I feel the waves of heat coming off her skin. “You’re right, honey. She has a fever.”
My daughter’s face crumples. “Oh no, Daddy. We have to help her. I don’t want Tatum to die.”
I hold out my arms, gathering Sarah Beth up and holding her close. “She won’t die, sweetheart. It’s probably just a cold, like when you were sick. The doctors will get her some medicine and maybe an IV and she’ll be just fine. We just need to get her to the urgent care place before it closes.”
“No, I can’t,” Tatum mumbles, sitting up on the couch, her hair a fuzzy red ball around her flushed face. “I don’t have insurance and I need to save money. I can’t go to the doctor.”
“You’re going to the doctor,” I insist, setting Sarah Beth down, telling her to go get her coat before turning back to Tatum. “I’ll pay for it.”
Tatum stands, swaying a little but holding out a hand when I reach to steady her. “No, seriously, Drew. I’m fine. I think it’s just a little infection and I have some old antibiotics at my apartment. I just need to clean the wound better and take those and I’ll be fine.”
“The wound?” I echo, her words doing nothing to allay my fears. “What happened?” An idea leaps into my head, adding a healthy dose of guilt to my concern. Glancing over my shoulder to see Sarah Beth still donning her coat and mittens, I turn back to Tatum and whisper, “Is it from the other night? Did you… Did you get an infection from when we were…stuck?”
Her already pink face flushes a deep red. “No. It’s not that. It was Kyle.”
“Kyle?” I ask, an irrational surge of jealousy rising inside me. “Who the hell is Kyle?” If he’s an ex who’s roughed her up, I’m going to kill him. Or at least strangle him, threaten him, and promise to cut off his hands if he doesn’t leave town and keep his wound-giving mitts off Tatum for the rest of his miserable life. “If you’re having trouble with a guy, you should stay here tonight, where I can keep an eye on you. I have a cousin on the police force I can ask?—”
“No, it’s not a guy, Drew,” Tatum cuts in. “It was Kyle. You know, Kyle.” In response to my no-doubt still confused look, she adds, “The turkey who’s terrorizing Wren? I followed her home to play hero last night and ended up getting pecked for my trouble. He broke the skin and I guess the wound is getting infected.” She winces. “It’s been aching all day, but it really hurts now. It feels like it’s on fire.”
“I’ll go get some water to put it out!” Sarah Beth says, dashing past us into the kitchen in her pink coat and snow boots.
Tatum smiles and calls out, “It’s not that kind of fire, sweets. But thank you.”
Sarah Beth pokes her head around the fridge. “Are you sure? I can get a cup all by myself. Daddy put the plastic cups on the bottom shelf so I can reach them.”
“Well, that was smart. How can I refuse an offer like that,” Tatum says, swaying again as she moves around the couch. “I’d love a cup of water. Then I’ll get out of your hair and let you get dinner started. I took the chicken out of the freezer this morning so it should be…” She trails off as her knees buckle.
I step in, catching her around the waist as she sags, and swinging her into my arms.
“Oh no, you can put me down,” she says, pushing weakly at my chest. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. I just…There were stars for a second. Black fuzzy ones. In front of my face. But I’m fine now.”
“You’re not fine and we’re going to the doctor,” I say. “Now.” To Sarah Beth, I say, “Fill up a water bottle, honey. We’ll take that in the car for Tatum.”
“Roger that,” Sarah Beth says, making me raise an eyebrow.
“We were playing Stuffed Animal Air Force earlier,” Tatum says. “Ajax was the pilot and Petra Picklepants had to be rescued from the top of a mountain.”
“She tried to go skiing on the highest mountain in the world but got too scared to go down and had to jump into the helicopter,” Sarah Beth says, running in with her glittery purple water bottle and grabbing Ajax from the couch. “I’m ready, Daddy. Let’s go. We have to save Tatum. Ajax is going to help.”
“Thank goodness,” Tatum says. “Then I’m in good hands. In fact, if you’d just drop me at my place with Ajax for the night, I’m sure I’ll be fine by tomorrow. Old antibiotics work, you know. They tell you they expire before they really do so you’ll buy more. It’s all a racket.”
I set Tatum down briefly by the door, bracing her against me as I reach into the closet for her coat. I brush her lower back as I shift my arm. She winces and sucks in a breath on a hiss. “Ouch. Jeez. How did that get so messed up so fast? I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sit down in the car. That’s why I laid down on the couch and accidentally fell asleep. It hurt to sit.”
“Sarah Beth, can you go grab the neck pillow from upstairs?” I ask. “One of the blue ones we used on the plane when we went to Disneyland last year?”
She sets the water bottle and stuffed dog on the floor and races for the stairs. “On it! Roger that!”
“I’m so sorry,” Tatum whispers as she dashes off. “I hate that she’s scared. I’m going to be fine, really.”
“Let’s let the doctor be the judge of that.”
“I can’t go to urgent care, Drew. Please, it’s so pricey,” she begs. “At least let me try to take care of it first. And if I’m not better by tomorrow, I’ll go to the doctor. I swear.”
I nod toward her lower half. “Show me.”
Her brows lift. “What?”
“Show me. Quick. Before Sarah Beth comes back downstairs.”
Tatum chews her bottom lip. “But it’s on my…backside.”
“I’ve seen your backside before, Tatum,” I say, doing my best to keep this professional. Or professional adjacent, anyway, considering I’ve already been balls deep in this woman and think about being balls deep in her again almost constantly. “Let me see how bad it is.” She hesitates and I push, “Or I’m taking you to the doctor tonight, even if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you there on foot.”
“That’s awfully caveman of you,” she says, a different kind of shine in her glassy eyes. “If I didn’t feel like garbage, I would have a hard time not making a flirty joke about that. Even though we’re not those kinds of friends anymore.”
“Bottom. Now,” I say, refusing to flirt with her when she’s burning up with fever. No matter how much I want to.
“Fine.” She huffs, swiping her hair from her forehead as she turns and tugs down her black leggings.
“Shit, Tatum,” I say, as I gently pull back the Band-Aids covering the swollen lump beneath her skin. “It’s infected. No doubt about that, and it looks…” I trail off, bending down low to get a better look at the center of the wound.
“It looks like what?” she asks, sounding worried for the first time. “Did Kyle give me rabies? Or gangrene? Am I going to lose my right butt cheek?”
“I don’t think you can get rabies from birds,” I say, pressing gently on one side of the wound.
“Ouch,” Tatum yips. “But gangrene is still on the table? I can’t lose my booty to gangrene. It’s one of my best body parts, and I need it for sitting and lifting heavy things. They say lift from your legs, not your back, but the butt is absolutely involved in that process, Drew. You can’t carry a four-year-old to the van because she’s exhausted after gymnastics without a butt. Dear God, what did you find in there? Tell me before I imagine something horrible like worms, horrible maggoty worms.”
“I…” I shake my head; pretty certain I’m going crazy. “It looks like a tooth.”
“A tooth?!” Tatum screeches, craning her head back, trying to get a look. “What the actual fudge? I’m no turkey expert, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t supposed to have teeth, Andrew.”
“Agreed,” I say, ignoring how much I like the sound of my full name on her lips. “Can we also agree we need to get this checked out ASAP? Before it gets any worse?”
“Or any weirder,” she agrees, tugging up her pants and lifting wide eyes to mine. “I knew Kyle wasn’t a normal turkey. He’s a beast from the depths of hell, Andrew. He has an unholy hunger for blood and human flesh.”
I smile. I can’t help it. She’s adorable. Even when she’s scared, feverish, and potentially has a mutant turkey tooth lodged in her right ass cheek.
“Why are you smiling?” she asks, her lips also starting to twitch. “This is awful.”
“It really is,” I agree, brushing her hair from her sticky forehead. “I guess I just like it when you say my full name. Most of the time, I’m not a fan, but there’s something about the way you say it.”
Her lips part, her eyes soften, and for a moment I think she’s going to say the words that have been playing on endless repeat in my head since I called it quits with her yesterday morning.
I think she’s going to say— We can’t walk away from a connection like this, Andrew. We just can’t —but before she can speak, Sarah Beth shouts from upstairs, “Daddy, I can’t find the neck pillow! It’s not in my closet or your closet or anywhere. I think it’s losted!”
Dragging my gaze from Tatum’s, I call back, “That’s okay, honey. Just come downstairs. We’ll let Tatum lie down in the back behind your car seat.” To Tatum, I say, “Come on, Turkey Butt, let’s get you in the car.”
She groans as I scoop her into my arms again. “That can’t be my new nickname. I’ll never live it down. Never.”
Sarah Beth clatters down the stairs, grabbing the water bottle and Ajax before rushing in front of me to open the door to the garage. “What nickname? I want to know.”
“Your dad wants to call me Turkey Butt,” Tatum says. “Because a turkey bit me on my backside.”
Sarah Beth starts giggling hysterically. “What? On the booty?”
“Yes, right on the booty,” Tatum says, playing up the silliness as I open the sliding door on the side of the van. “But you can’t let him call me Turkey Butt, Sarah B. You have to come up with a better nickname. Quick. Before we get to the doctor’s office.”
“Roger that!” Sarah Beth says as Tatum gingerly crawls into the very back seat to lie down. Sarah hops up into her car seat and reaches for the straps without waiting for me to do it for her, the way she usually would. “Don’t worry, Daddy,” she says, clicking the two locks into place. “Tatum taught me how to do it myself. That way I can get out on my own if I ever need to in an emergency, like if there was a car wreck and the person driving was hurted. Girls have to be prepared to take care of themselves sometimes.”
Brows lifting, I agree, “They do.”
Sarah Beth already seems more grown-up and confident after two days with Tatum. I can’t imagine the transformation after a month, or a year.
I kind of don’t want to, honestly. She’s already growing up so fast. A part of me wants my baby girl to stay little as long as possible. But Tatum’s right to teach her how to take care of herself. I never thought to consider what might happen if I was injured in a car wreck and couldn’t get Sarah Beth out of the car to safety.
I also never imagined she was capable of coming up with nicknames like, “Tatum the Red Ninja” or “Queen T the Fairy Tickler.”
But I love them. I love my daughter, more than anything in the world, and don’t want to do anything to put her happiness at risk.
But I’m also starting to have very serious feelings for the woman laughing in the back seat, teasing and comforting my daughter even though she feels terrible.
It’s a conundrum. One I’m not sure how to sort out.