Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
The birds were singing when Maeve came home.
Finches and sparrows clung to the feeder that her grandma had hung in the aspen tree.
She had sat with Zoey as a toddler pointing out all the tiny birds that relied on it.
Maeve kept it topped up in her grandma’s memory and Zoey could name every bird species that fed from it.
Now, however, the birds just served as a reminder that it was morning already and she hadn’t had any sleep.
The house was silent when she walked in. She’d let Brodie know as soon as she found out herself that she wasn’t going to make it back till morning and given him Carole’s number but he’d texted back a thumbs-up emoji and said all was good, he could stay.
Maeve felt weird about the idea of him being in her house. His zippy little car parked outside. His shoes in the corridor.
She peered into the living room to see Zoey asleep on one couch under her comforter and Brodie asleep on the other, tucked up under her grandma’s quilt that usually lived on the back of the couch.
She paused in the doorway watching them sleep.
Brodie on his back, legs too long for the space so his feet poked out the end.
Zoey curled up like a mouse, all her stuffed animals positioned around her.
Maeve imagined the scene, the total lack of bargaining that would be needed for Brodie to allow her to decamp downstairs. Zoey would have loved it.
Brodie opened one eye as if he could sense Maeve in the room. Then both eyes. Then he stretched and said, “What time is it?”
“Seven,” Maeve replied, feeling a strange intimacy at the fact he was waking up, stretching in front of her, his hair unkempt. He sat up and rubbed his face.
The night they had spent together eight years ago, he’d been up and dressed when she’d woken up.
All traces of the Autumn Falls boy were gone and the famous person back in place.
“Gotta go to work,” he’d said, like he was off to the office.
With a quick peck on the forehead, he’d left, saying, “Enjoy the room service.” She’d gathered up her belongings and fled, couldn’t imagine anything more humiliating than sitting around eating eggs Benedict as a consolation prize.
She said, “Sorry it took so long.”
He shook his head. “Not a problem.” He yawned again. “I slept pretty well, actually.”
Maeve never slept well at other people’s houses. Brodie was obviously one of those people who could sleep anywhere, or, she thought wryly, had a lot of practice.
“Mom!” Zoey woke up. “Brodie let me sleep on the couch!” Her tone was gleeful.
“So I see.” Maeve raised a brow in mock-admonishment at her daughter, as they both knew it wasn’t really allowed.
Brodie frowned. “You said you always do it!”
Zoey bit down on a guilty grin.
Maeve said, “You were very lucky.” Then, “Now go and get ready for school and I’ll make you breakfast.”
After much cajoling, Zoey gathered up all her plushies and went upstairs to change.
Brodie followed Maeve into the kitchen. He’d slept in his jeans and a T-shirt. He watched her putting toast in the toaster and said, “Have you slept at all?”
She scooped coffee into the machine. “No.”
He pulled out a chair. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
“Yes.” She turned round to face him. “Toast or cereal?”
He shook his head. “I don’t really eat breakfast. Just a coffee. Do you want me to do it?”
She didn’t even pause, so unused to having another adult in the house to help. “No, it’s fine, thanks.”
Brodie sat down at the table. “Is this what it’s always like?”
She didn’t know how to answer. Couldn’t work out if it was a judgment. Didn’t want him to think that she couldn’t cope. “Not always. It’s fine,” she said, flicking on the coffee machine. “I’m used to it.” But it came out more defensively than she’d intended.
She felt his eyes on her back as she got the peanut butter from the cupboard and spread it on the toast.
“I want to tell her.”
Maeve paused her spreading. She turned to face him, the knife still in her hand. “I want you to wait. Let her get to know you.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. Again, she wondered how often he heard the word no. “Why?”
“Brodie, you’re new in her life It’s too much to come in and tell her you’re her dad. Last night you were about to tell her you were once as famous as Taylor Swift—”
He looked mildly affronted by the word once.
“I mean, I’m sure you’re still as famous—”
“No, of course not.” He glossed over her clumsy attempt to make it better.
It hadn’t occurred to her before that he might still crave that level of fame.
Sometimes, late at night, she’d go on his Instagram, see him standing with a scantily clad model on some Malibu beach with his surfboard under his arm or taking a selfie on the world’s best golf course, and presumed he relished retirement.
“Anyway,” she said, going back to the toast. “It’s too much. She’s only little. We have to take our time.”
Brodie gave it two seconds’ thought before seemingly accepting the rationale and said, “Maybe I could pick her up from school?” He stood up to pour the coffee when the machine was done. “Take her for a smoothie at the diner or something? You take milk?”
Maeve looked at the cups he’d chosen. They weren’t her normal coffee cups. On instinct, she was about to say something about how she liked the striped ones for morning coffee but stopped herself in time. How used to living on her own she had become. “No milk, thanks.”
Brodie turned so that he was leaning against the countertop, one hand wrapped round his coffee mug. For some reason, it seemed obvious that he wasn’t someone who’d use the handle.
Maeve took a deep breath and said, “If you take her out, someone will photograph the two of you together and then I—we—lose control of the narrative.” She saw Brodie about to protest that she was being overly cautious, but she carried on before he could.
“Why else would you be photographed with an eight-year-old?”
He shrugged. “She could be my niece?”
“But she’s not,” Maeve shot back.
Brodie sighed, clearly annoyed. He looked away out the window, squinting in the shaft of sunlight.
Hair sticking up, faint stubble on his face.
His attractiveness was a dominating presence to have in the room, took some of the air away, made it difficult to breathe.
Made her want to just say, fine have what you want.
Then she looked past his profile at where he was looking and saw a sparrow on the birdfeeder and a goldfinch taking a bath in the water bowl. She thought how much she had gone through to get to this point and rolled her shoulders back, resolute.
“So how do I—we—do this?” he asked, turning back after the pause had hung for long enough without him getting his way.
“I don’t know,” she replied, willing the floor to open up and for him to disappear. “We make a plan.” She moved to the hallway to shout, “Zoey, your breakfast is ready.”
When she came back Brodie had moved so he was standing in the kitchen doorway and they almost collided. He seemed completely normal again, any hint of annoyance gone, as if he couldn’t be derailed by anything for long. “Are you working this weekend?”
“Why?” she squeezed past him suspiciously. How could someone smell so good after a night on the couch?
He followed her back into the room where she busied herself putting the toast on the table and pouring Zoey’s juice.
“We could go to the cabin,” he said, eyes now alight as if there had never been an idea better.
“It’s my uncle’s. It’s in the middle of nowhere.
No one around for miles. We used to go there to write songs.
I’ll call and check it’s empty, but he’s rarely there.
Yeah?” He already had his phone out his pocket.
Maeve buttered herself some toast, she was starving—she’d barely eaten since their pizza the night before. “Brodie, I’m not staying in a cabin with you in the middle of nowhere.”
That made him pause, look up from his phone and grin. “Why not?”
She tipped her head exasperated. “I don’t know you.”
“Oh, come on,” he huffed like that was the stupidest reason he’d ever heard. “We grew up together.”
“You’d barely spoken to me before—” She paused, then a little too formally said, “Before that night.”
Brodie raised a brow, grinned knowingly. “We have a child together, Maeve, I think we know each other well enough.”
Maeve was about to both protest and shush him, but the subject closed at the sound of Zoey thundering down the stairs and swinging round the banister to hurl herself into the kitchen. “Don’t you think my school uniform’s gross?” she said to Brodie, pulling at the collar of her maroon polo.
“Awful,” he agreed. “But we all had to wear it.”
“You wore this?” She looked down at the shirt with its Autumn Falls Elementary School logo.
He nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
Zoey sat down in her chair and picked up her toast, seeming to suddenly wear the uniform with a little more pride. “Brodie loves Harry Potter, Mom. He’s a Gryffindor, like me.”
Maeve had taken a seat and was spreading jam on her second slice of toast. She looked up at Brodie and said disbelievingly, “You’re not a Gryffindor.”
Brodie’s mouth opened in shock. “I am!” he said, defensively, pulling out the chair closest to him. “What are you?”
“Mom’s a Ravenclaw,” Zoey said, as she was chewing. “She took it twice and still got Ravenclaw.”
Brodie sniggered. “Who wants to be Ravenclaw?” he said conspiratorially.
Zoey giggled back.
Maeve put her toast down. “For someone who’s only halfway through book five, I don’t think you’re in a position to mock me.”
Brodie frowned, feigning offense. “Are you making fun of me for being a slow reader?”
Zoey raised her brows. “Mom?”
Maeve sighed. “No. Yes. I suppose so.”
Brodie shook his head. “That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, Mom.” Zoey folded her arms over her chest.
Brodie leaned over to Zoey and, without taking his eyes off Maeve, whispered, “Typical Ravenclaw behavior.”
Zoey nodded, wide-eyed with knowing.
Maeve shook her head, refusing to succumb to the smile tugging at her lips or the feeling of how like a family this felt. “I apologize.”
“I should hope so,” Brodie said allowing his own smile to spread across his face. She remembered then how the full power of his attention blinded like the sun.
She had to look away, downing the rest of her coffee and standing up, she said, “Zoey, we need to go.”
Zoey nodded, holding her piece of toast between her teeth as she yanked on her school bag, then taking the toast out again, she asked, “Are you coming over tonight as well, Brodie?”
Maeve had told her they were old friends catching up, that he hadn’t been in town for years, which Zoey seemed to think meant he’d be there every second of the day.
Brodie pushed in his chair and went over to the dishwasher to put his cup in. “Not tonight, unfortunately,” he said, following them out into the hallway, “but maybe at the weekend.” He looked pointedly at Maeve over Zoey’s head as she put her school shoes on.
“Why, what’s happening at the weekend?” came Zoey’s muffled voice.
Maeve couldn’t believe he’d mentioned it in front of Zoey and, glaring at him dumbfounded, shrugged as if she had no choice now.
Brodie chose to completely ignore the undertone and grinned at her over Zoey’s head. “Excellent,” he said. “So, I’ll send you directions to the cabin.”
“Cabin!” Zoey gasped.
When Maeve’s mouth pursed, he winked, as if a flash of his boyish charm would make up for getting his own way.
She shook her head to let him know it hadn’t worked, while at the same time trying to ignore the little burst of stars exploding in her stomach.