Chapter Twenty-Two Gavin
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gavin
As I gently shook Ben awake, his beautiful blue eyes opened—eyes that were the same color as his mother’s—and he rubbed them and yawned.
“Hi, Daddy.” Once he rolled onto his back, my hand covering most of his stomach, I massaged his tummy as he stretched his arms over his head, his small fists reaching as high as the headboard.
“How’s my boy? Did you sleep good?”
“I dreamed of this big dinosaur, and it was flying through the sky, and you know what happened? It landed right by us, and it picked up Fenway and the dinosaur grabbed the poor doggy and flew away with it and Fenway was crying.”
I flattened some of his hair. The rest needed water to tame it. “Did you rescue Fenway?”
“I tried to, but it got so high up and I didn’t have a dinosaur I could fly on to go get it.” His bottom lip jutted out. “Emily was so sad. I didn’t like to see her sad.”
When Emily had left last night, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was going to talk to Ben about our relationship. I needed his input before I made any decisions. I was pretty positive I knew what my son was going to say. Still, he had a voice and an opinion, and both mattered.
His dream couldn’t have been a better introduction.
“I wouldn’t like to see Emily sad either.” I stroked his cheek with my thumb. “What do you think of her?”
“She’s pretty, Dad. And she’s so nice. I like that she’s like Dr. Kap, but she doesn’t stick any needles into me and make me cry.”
I chuckled. “She’s a little gentler than Dr. Kap, huh?”
He nodded on top of his pillow.
“So you’re telling me you like Emily?”
“Lots!”
“What do you think about having her come around more often?” I pulled the blanket down to his knees, preparing him to get up. “Would you like to hang out with her?”
“Yes!”
I tickled his stomach, and once he stopped screaming and laughing, I said, “I thought you would, buddy.”
Me: Good morning, baby.
Emily: Hi! Morning.
Me: I wish I had woken up to you.
Emily: Me too. But since it was the first time Ben saw us together, especially without my nursing scrubs on, I think it was a good choice to have him wake up to just you. How’s he feeling?
Me: He’s good.
Me: I’ve now gotten three texts from my mom about you. Fucking three, Emily.
Emily: I was going to ask you . . . you guys were whispering last night when I was checking out Ben. I get the feeling you were talking about me. True?
Me: We were.
Emily: That’s all you’re going to say? You need to give me more than that.
Me: I was telling her how I feel about you.
Emily: !!!!!!
Emily: And the texts from Mom, I hope they weren’t bad?!?
Me: You’ve won over Grandma and Mom. They weren’t bad at all.
Emily: You know what that means?
Me: Tell me.
Emily: Your mom needs to come to our next girls’ night.
Me: I thought you were going to tell me we’re meant to be together . . .
Emily: I didn’t have to, you just did.
Me: That mouth.
Emily: You love it.
Me: I do.
Me: Do you have to work tomorrow night?
Emily: I have to work for the next three nights.
Me: Sounds like I need to make my way over to the coffee shop.
Emily: I wouldn’t hate that.
Me: Your next night off, do you want to come over and hang with Ben?
Emily: I know you said you’re sure, but are you really sure? And I know we sorta talked about this last night before I left, but you’ve now slept on it and had more time to think about it. I just want you to be positive that this is what you want.
Me: Emily, I just invited you to come over to hang with my son. If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t have asked.
Emily: I know. It’s just a huge step.
Me: I’m ready for it. I want you to be part of his life.
Emily: I wish I could kiss you right now.
Me: You can.
Emily: How?
Me: Denis and I will be outside the rehab center in ten minutes.
Emily: You make everything happen and you probably don’t even realize you’re doing it.
Me: See you soon.
Emily: Do you have flour at your house?
Me: Yes.
Emily: Sugar? Butter? Oil? Eggs? Vanilla? Baking powder? Milk? Powdered sugar? And heavy whipping cream?
Me: All of it but the heavy whipping cream.
Emily: You don’t bake, do you?
Me: My chef does.
Emily: I thought of a fun thing to do with Ben, and I wanted to make sure you have all the ingredients. You probably don’t have any piping bags. I’ll bring those. Or sprinkles.
Me: I have a seven-year-old with a sweet tooth. I have sprinkles.
Me: Do me a favor, don’t forget Fenway.
Emily: He’s already packed in my bag.
“I love him so much.” Ben hugged Fenway against his chest. My boy had a swipe of flour on his cheek, and I swore the dog had one too. “He’s so cute, Daddy. I want a Fenway. A real Fenway. That can bark and do tricks, and we can go to the park and play fetch with him.”
I was leaning against the counter in the far side of my kitchen, holding a tumbler of scotch while Emily and Ben were sitting at the island. It had been a full day for the three of us, starting with ice-skating, followed by dinner at home, and now we were on to dessert.
A dessert that Ben and Emily were making together.
I took a sip, trying to process the responsibility of a dog while managing everything else in my life.
“I’ll make a deal with you, buddy. When you’re old enough to walk the dog on your own, I promise I’ll get you one just like Fenway.”
“How old is that?” he asked. While Emily checked the temperature of the cupcakes on the cooling rack, Ben set Fenway on the island, running his hand up and down the dog’s spine. “’Cause I’m ready to walk.”
“Not for several more years.” I chuckled.
“Ugh.” He pouted. “That’s not fair.”
Emily’s arm went around his shoulders. “Dad just wants to make sure you’re going to pick up after the dog. You know, like when it goes potty outside.” Emily squeezed him, and he laughed. “You can’t leave it out there, you have to put it in a bag.”
“I have to pick it up?” His eyes went wide as he watched me nod. “Ewww.”
“Do you still want a dog?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Maybe a fish.”
I laughed even harder. “That, we can do, buddy.”
“Ben, I need you to do me a favor.” Emily dipped a spoon into the bowl of frosting that they had just finished beating in my mixer. “I want you to taste this and, in your expert frosting opinion, tell me if it needs anything.”
He took the spoon and touched the glob at the end with his tongue. “Mmmm.”
She faced him. “It’s good?”
“It’s sooo good!”
“Does it need anything? Maybe a bit more vanilla?”
He put the whole spoon in his mouth, and with the metal still between his teeth, he replied, “It’s extra perfect! I want to eat the whole bowl.”
“The whole bowl?” Emily smiled. “Well, we can’t have you do that, or you’ll get another wicked stomachache. How about we frost these cupcakes and then you can have one?”
Ben’s nod was exaggerated. “Yay!”
She scooped some of the frosting into a bag that had a metal tip and handed it to Ben. “You’re up, mister. Your job is to frost all three of these.” She had placed the cupcake bases on a plate in front of him.
“I’m doing all of them? Wow.”
“All of them, yes. Let me show you. You’re going to aim the tip like this”—she moved his hands toward the bases, placing the tip against the cake—“and squirt. When you’re happy with how much frosting it has, you move on to the next one. Sound easy?”
“Yep! Then we get to sprinkle?”
“You sure do.” She pointed at the three bowls in the middle of the island. “We have lots of different kinds of sprinkles. Even ones that are shaped like dinosaurs.”
“So coool.” Ben began to swirl the frosting over a vanilla base, Emily holding the bottom of the cake so it wouldn’t move. “This one is for me. I want it to be as tall as the ceiling!”
“How about we stick to triple the frosting, like the ones I sent you?”
“More!”
I took another drink of my scotch, smiling as soon as I pulled the glass away.
Emily was a natural. She needed no warming up—she was already so in tune to Ben and what he needed.
Ben took to her immediately, holding her hand when we went skating, talking to her while Denis drove us, walking next to her as we entered and left the arena.
He wanted Emily to cut his steak at dinner and to squirt the ketchup on his plate.
And now, watching them make Ben’s favorite dessert, my chest was fucking pounding.
The accidental run-in had worked out just the way it was supposed to.
Emily needed to be in my son’s life.
For Ben.
And for me.
“I think the cupcake is on the verge of toppling over,” Emily said to him. “Before the frosting makes it too heavy to stand, how about we move on to the next one?”
“I’m gonna eat it all!”
“I have no doubt you will.” She laughed. “Now we’re on to Dad’s cupcake.” She glanced at me. “With a strawberry base. His absolute favorite.”
“You mean your favorite.” I winked.
She smirked. “No, I mean, your new favorite.”
“We’ll see about that,” I teased.
“Come on, you’re going to love it.” She held the strawberry base in front of Ben.
“Dad gets allll the frosting too!”
“How about you give Dad just a little bit,” I requested.
“You’re no fun.” He stuck his tongue out at me.
Ben quickly finished my cupcake and Emily’s, and she placed the bowls in front of him. “I want you to decorate the cupcakes however you want to.”
“I get to sprinkle all of them?” His mouth dropped open. “With all this stuff?”
“Of course you do. This is your dessert. You’re the chef. We’re going to eat whatever you make us, so you can place the sprinkles however you like them.”
“I love this so much!”
Emily laughed, and as Ben got to work, she took out her phone. “I’m going to snap some pics of the chef, is that okay?”
“Yep!” Ben, with sprinkles covering his hand, put his fingers on Emily’s arm and leaned in to look at her phone. “I know that picture!”
She tilted her phone toward him. “Yes, you do.”
“I drew it!”
Emily nodded as she looked at me. “Yes, you did.”
He . . . drew it?
“Hold on a second.” I took a deep breath as I stared at my girl. “The picture Ben drew you is the wallpaper on your phone?”
She scrunched her face, her expression adorable.
“It’s hanging on the wall in my bedroom, but since I’m hardly home, I thought making it my wallpaper would mean I’d get to see it more often.
” She bit her lip. “The only thing missing in the drawing is you.” She put her hand on Ben’s head, roughing up his dark, overgrown locks.
“Ben, you might need to draw me another picture soon, and this time, include your dad.”
“Okay! But cupcake first. Mmm.”
In that moment I knew, without a doubt in my mind, I fucking loved her.