Chapter 29 #2
As I sat there, leaning forward, elbows on my knees as I watched the crowd ebb and flow, eyes trying to find someone who looked like a mini-Rach, it boggled my mind to realize that I was nervous. But that was the long and the short of it.
Jigging my foot against the ground, I allayed some of that tension into fidgeting, which made me feel like Link who was someone who acted like he had ants down his pants at all times.
Feeling off balance, I almost called the dickhead just to give him shit about telling Rach that most of the time, Peach and I hung out playing fucking chess together.
That, of course, was when I saw her.
She… Jesus. She was stunning. A mixture of her mom and me.
She had the delicacy of Rachel’s features, with the rich dark hair that was all mine.
She had my jaw, though, and my height. A bit of my stockiness too, but that could have been a sign of good health.
It had been a long while since Rachel was a healthy weight, though she hadn’t been as skinny at Christmas.
Her hair was pinned back in a braid, and she wore a pair of black tailored pants and a white shirt that I figured were a part of her uniform.
The warmth of the morning combined with how fast she was walking gave her a rosy-cheeked glow that melted my heart.
I jerked to my feet the second I saw her, and as she crossed the street and her gaze collided with mine, the nerves disappeared. Melted away with the power of recognition.
That was the only way I could describe it.
She knew me, as much as I knew her, and it had nothing to do with how we looked.
Wynter, pausing once she’d crossed the street, sucked in a breath before she moved over to me.
Determined to make this as easy on her as I could, I stuck out my hand for her to shake when she approached the table I’d staked out for us.
Gingerly, she accepted it and shook mine before she murmured, “Hi.”
“Hi,” I greeted back. “Do you want a coffee or some breakfast?”
Her eyes lit up at that, but it immediately dampened. “Just coffee will be fine, thanks.”
Wondering what that was about when she was clearly hungry, I asked, “Will you be okay here? While I go and order?”
She scowled at me. “I think I can handle sitting by myself for five minutes.”
Shooting her a sheepish glance, I apologized. “What would you like to drink?”
“A latte, please. One shot of espresso.”
Nodding my understanding, I retreated to the counter, and I put in an order for our drinks and then grabbed a couple of pastries and ordered some hot food for breakfast too.
If my kid was hungry, she’d eat.
It was a testament, I thought, to my anxiety that my sweet tooth wasn’t triggered by all the pastries. I was too fucking nervous to eat.
This was worse than being interviewed by the cops on a murder charge.
When I returned with a tray stacked high with different kinds of food, she jerked upright, mouth rounding as I made it outside.
That she might love sweet treats as much as I did made me hide a smile.
“I didn’t know what you’d like to eat,” I said awkwardly. “So figured you could graze whatever caught your eye.”
I didn’t say that I’d have asked her if she’d have told me what she wanted to order.
This was our first meeting, and I intended for there to be more.
“You’re going to eat some?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” I told her, even though I wasn’t hungry at all. “There’s an omelet coming and a sausage muffin if you’re really hungry.”
She didn’t have to answer—I saw in her eyes she was.
What the fuck was going on with her?
It set my nerves on edge, but I made myself take a seat and lounge back. Every part of me wanted to shake some answers out of her, fix whatever was broken, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the right.
Yet.
As she picked up a pain au chocolat, moaning when the chocolate hit her tongue, I took a sip of my espresso and monitored her.
She had shadows under her eyes, and some strain around them too.
“What time does school start?”
Wynter peered at me from under her lashes. “An hour.”
“How far away is it?”
“It’s a ten-minute walk.”
I jerked up my chin. “I can take you there if you’re not afraid of bikes?”
“You would?”
“I would.”
She bit her lip, looking so much like Rachel at that moment I nearly fucking wept.
Before she could say anything, I pulled out my wallet. Flipping through the folds, I retrieved my driver’s license. “So you know I am who I say I am.”
Hesitantly, she took my license, and her shoulders dropped some. “I thought you were, but thank you for showing me.”
“Trust your instincts, but trust proof even more,” I said jokingly.
She graced me with a measured glance.
“Here,” I said next, passing her a photo.
Her mouth rounded when she saw a much younger me holding a much younger her.
She’d been swaddled in hospital blankets, faded pink that offset just how rosy her cheeks were.
“That’s me?”
“It is.”
“You carry it with you?” she asked, her finger tracing a dog-eared corner.
“Always.”
Her bottom lip got nibbled some more. “Do you have a picture of my birth mom?”
I nodded and handed her another couple photos. “This is her back then.”
Wynter blinked as she took in the truly horrendous sight of Rachel back when she’d given birth. Her fingertips drifted over her mom's face.
“She’s almost skeletal.”
“She was in bad shape.” I sucked in a breath. “I'm sure you have questions but, in all honesty, I don’t have the details yet. I’m working on it.”
She frowned. “What makes you think she’ll tell you now?”
“I gave her an ultimatum.”
“About what?”
“Your mom and me…” I sighed. “Your birth mom and me, I mean—”
“I knew what you meant.”
My smile was tight. “We’re together. But it’s a weird relationship. I’m tired of that. I want to move forward but she’s buried in the past. We agreed, last night, that we were going to try to make things more normal between us.”
“What’s normal?”
Well, how the hell did I explain without her wondering what kind of freaks her birth parents were?
I cleared my throat. “We don’t currently live together. She lives next door.”
“She’s your neighbor?”
“We’re exclusive, but we don’t date. We don’t really hang out that much either. Most of the time, we only talk business.”
Her mouth rounded. “Wow. That’s very dysfunctional.”
“It is,” I agreed, laughing self-deprecatingly at her statement of surprise. “It’s not ideal. I miss her, and I know she misses me.”
“What’s made the change? Is it like with me? It’s to do with your dad?” Her tone, I noted, wasn’t as sour as it had been yesterday.
“Yeah, it is.”
I wasn’t about to tell her that I didn’t think I could take another of Rachel’s cutting dismissals. She didn’t need to know that. Neither did Rach. That would only set things back.
I knew it would take a while to get through Rachel’s barriers, and I didn’t doubt there’d be painful times ahead. But with the promise of us working together to resolve things, I could deal with her being an ice queen from time to time.
I just needed progression.
I just needed to know we were both working toward the same end goal.
“Was she sick?”
“When I left?” I asked.
Wynter’s lips tightened. “No. When she gave birth to me.”
“Oh. Mentally, psychologically, yes. There were a couple of weeks over the summer break where she was institutionalized.”
Her eyes widened, and I realized I wasn’t exactly painting a nice picture here. Trouble was, this was the truth. It was why I was just meeting her now instead of raising her. There was no sugarcoating this.
“I didn’t think… I just thought I wasn’t wanted. You know?” Her fingers traced Rachel’s gaunt cheekbones again. Even when she was pregnant, Rachel looked like she was anorexic. “Another teen mom who didn’t use a condom.”
Anger flushed through me, but I dampened it down. “Sometimes life hands you lemons and you can’t make lemonade.”
Wordlessly, she returned the photo to me then picked up the other. “She’s still very thin. Is she… whatever she was institutionalized for, is that still a problem?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“You don’t know?”
I felt her disapproval and squirmed at it. “Your mother’s a very private person.”
“You love her, right?”
“I do. Very much.”
“Then why don’t you keep an eye on her?”
I did. In very illegal ways. It wasn't like I could tell Wynter that. “It’s not as simple as you think.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Because if I get too close, Rachel either pushes me away or runs to the city for work.” I rubbed a hand over the hair I’d gelled when I never used gel. The crispy pointed edges agitated me. “She’s a successful lawyer, so she drowns herself in her caseload. Before…”
“Before what?”
“She has an eighteen-year-old brother who she’s the guardian for.”
She reared back. “So, she’s his caretaker?”
I heard her jealousy and empathized with her.
“Yeah. Only for the last ten or so years. But she looked after him when he was a baby. It was a lot for her. Her mom walked out, leaving the baby—his name’s Rain—with Axel, Rachel’s stepfather. He worked long hours to put food on the table, and she did everything until she left for college.
“It was… I never meant to put her in a position where she’d have a kid so young. She’d already had too much responsibility, you know?”
She stared at me, unblinking, and I realized I was revealing all her biological parents’ secrets over coffee and croissants before she had to spend the rest of the day in school.
Blowing out a breath, cheeks gusting with it, I muttered, “Sorry, this is heavy shit before a day of studying, isn’t it?”
Wynter didn’t smile. “It is, but you can’t sugarcoat the truth.”
Hadn’t I just thought that?
She was clearly her parents’ daughter.
“She moved away for college.”
“From where?”
“West Orange. New Jersey.”
Her eyes met mine, and I got the feeling I was about to be tested, “Which college?”
“Brown. Like I told you.”
Her mouth rounded. “You said that yesterday but I wasn't sure I believed you. My mom really went to Brown?”
Pride filled me on Rach’s behalf. “She did. Then she went onto Yale.”
“Wow.” She stared down at the picture. “She doesn’t look happy.”
“I don’t think she is.”
She turned that gimlet stare on me again. “Are you trying to make things better?”
Jesus.
This kid.
I rubbed my thumb along my chin. “I’m trying.”
She frowned at her mom’s cool expression. “Good.”
I studied her. “How did you get an apartment when you’re seventeen?”
“My mom helped me. She co-signed.”
“Ally knowingly helped you get an apartment in that building?” I sputtered, my disbelief clear.
Her mouth turned down at the edges. “It’s all we can afford.”
Though I had to play this cool, it was goddamn hard. “You can afford a better place if you let me help you out.”
“It’s all right. I’m okay where I am.”
“I’m a grown man and I’m frightened of that place.”
Her lips curved as she dragged her gaze up and down me. “Somehow, I think that’s a lie. Even if you do look like a Ken doll today. Where’s the leather vest thingy?”
If I hadn’t known better, I’d say she and Rachel had conferred about this.
She didn’t need to know about the Disciples, so I just told her, “I wanted to make a good first impression so it’s back in my hotel room.”
I didn’t realize, until that admission, that there was a hardness in her eyes that softened. I couldn’t explore that though, as a waitress made an appearance with a couple plates of food.
She gaped in surprise as the dishes were stacked on the table. Once the server left, after she and Wynter greeted each other, I told her, “Eat whatever you want.”
She didn’t mess around.
As I watched her devour, albeit daintily, the omelet and sausage muffin, we slowly started to talk about other topics.
Without dragging it out of her, she told me that she had history class today and that that was her favorite, and that she had band practice later as well—she played the piano.
When she’d finished her breakfast, then looked at the time, I took note of her reluctance to leave, and I’d admit, relief hit me. I didn’t want this to end either.
“Shall I drive you over to school?” I asked carefully.
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t,” was my quick response.
“Then, thank you.” She cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I take the rest of these for lunch?”
There were a couple pastries left.
“I’ll get a doggy bag for you.”
Her cheeks were pink from embarrassment, but I ignored that as I returned to the café, which had calmed down some, and asked for a takeout box. While I was there, I bought her a large bottle of water, a banana, a pre-packed sandwich, and some chips.
When I returned, she’d shrugged on a school blazer, and though she looked mature, that was diminished by the childish relief at the sight of all the food. “You didn’t have to do that.”
I shrugged but wisely kept my mouth shut as I watched her pack them into her bag.
Together, we walked over to where I’d parked my bike, and I gave her my helmet which was too big but better than nothing, and I made a mental note to buy her one today.
Her hands showed her nerves as they cupped my waist after she climbed on, the fingers pinching slightly, but I remained quiet as I set off, taking it slow so I didn’t amp up her anxiety.
Having followed her yelled directions, the ride was much too short when we made it to school.
As she climbed off, I noticed she bounced on her toes as she stood at my side, unfastening the helmet.
“That was awesome,” she enthused, gracing me with her first genuine grin.
“Once it’s in the blood, it’s in the blood,” I teased, accepting the helmet once she gave it to me.
“I’ll bet.” Her grin started to die as she stared at me. But when her toe turned in, her shoe scuffing the floor, I braced myself as she muttered, “If… I mean, we can hang out again, if you’d like?”
“I’d love to,” I told her honestly. “Tonight?”
Nibbling on her bottom lip, she nodded.
It was a pretty long walk from her apartment to school so I offered, “I can pick you up if you want?”
“That’d be nice. Thanks.”
She told me a time, and after I said I’d be there, I murmured casually, “We can go out for something to eat before I drop you at home?”
Relief flashed in her eyes. It had nothing to do with meeting me and everything to do with food.
My kid was hungry.
Fuck, how could I have failed her this much?
“That’d be great.” She backed off, turning around after a couple steps, before running into the building.
I almost took off, but I waited, hoping…
Before she walked through the main door, she twisted back to look at me.
I raised a hand in farewell, which prompted her to dart inside.
Blowing out a sharp breath, one that was loaded with relief and lingering nerves, I reached for my cellphone and tapped out a text.
Rex: She’s her mother’s daughter.
Which, of course, was when I realized I hadn’t gotten a picture of us.
Maybe later. Seeing as there would be a later now.