Chapter Six ZOE
Chapter Six
Z OE
“One more, pleeeease.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I think you broke me.”
Mira giggled, and her warm, soft hands gripped my face until I had no choice but to open my eyes. She pressed her forehead against mine, her features going blurry because of how close she was.
“You not broken; you need a nap.”
We’d been playing a modified game of tag in which Mira instructed me to act like various animals while I chased her around my fenced-in backyard. During the last round, I was deemed a crab, and it became clear that my crab walk needed some work. My glutes were going to be sore for a week after that one.
“I do need a nap,” I told her. Then I tapped her nose. “So do you, young lady.”
Mira took off running, her curly hair streaming out behind her. “No nap! I not tired.”
I snorted. She could be falling asleep at the dinner table and would still say she wasn’t tired.
Because I was allowed to chase after her in my human form, I caught her quickly and swung her up into my arms. She arched her back when I tickled her side.
“Come on, Mirabelle, you need some quiet time, okay?”
“Das not my name,” she said through her giggles.
I blew a raspberry into the side of her neck. “No, but that’s what I call you, pretty little girl.”
Most days during her quiet time, she ended up fast asleep in the upstairs bedroom that we’d turned into hers. But given her current energy level, I wasn’t sure as I wrangled her into the house that we’d get any actual rest.
Which was problematic, because she had a penchant for waking up in the middle of the night to throw a two-hour party, and I was ready for the phase to be over.
We walked into the bathroom, her arms still tight around my neck, and she refused to let go when I tried to set her down.
“One tinkle and we’ll get a sticker for your book.”
“Two stickers?” she asked, immediately setting her feet down on the ground.
“One sticker.” I gave her a look when she pushed her lip out in a pout. “You know the deal, kiddo. One sticker for number one, two stickers for number two.”
She set her jaw mulishly. “No number two. I hate stickers.”
Good.
Awesome.
I tapped the edge of her chin with my finger. “You can try, though.”
While she did her business, I washed my hands and sighed internally. Potty-training regression wasn’t uncommon at all when a child had experienced a major loss, and I reminded myself that we’d already made progress the last couple of weeks.
Four weeks of the single-mom club already under my belt, and I’d come to understand that in situations like this, time moved in strange, immeasurable ways.
The meeting at the lawyer’s office felt like it had just happened.
Sometimes.
Other days, it felt like it had been a year ago.
Most days, I managed not to think about Liam.
Sort of.
My days were spent in a loop; each one felt long and exhausting. But at the end of each week, I could hardly believe how quickly they had passed.
I remembered feeling the same way when I worked full-time at the hospital. But it was nothing compared with raising a toddler—on my own—day in and day out. No one handed me an instruction manual. There was no easing into it. I just had to deal with it. Answer questions on my own. Figure out what she wanted the hard way.
Like when I’d tried to give her broccoli at dinner and it had ended with so much screaming and crying that I was sure someone was going to call the cops on me.
Mira did not like broccoli.
Noted.
When she finished in the bathroom and did a passable job of washing her hands, I followed her into the bedroom.
Because I had been advised not to give her too much change at once (the beauty of my mom being a therapist), Mira was still sleeping in a crib. Without fail, she tucked herself into the top right corner, pulled her stuffed duck under her arm, and then rubbed the edge of her soft yellow blanket against her face.
Her eyes were still bright and awake, but she didn’t fight me on lying down.
“Just a little quiet time,” I told her.
“Five minutes?”
I smiled, leaning down to tap the edge of her nose. “Maybe a few more than that. I’ll check on you in a little bit.”
“I have my froggy?” she asked. “Duck needs a friend.”
I glanced back at the pile of stuffed animals. No frog in sight. It was likely still in her bedroom next door. “I’ll look for it, okay? You close your eyes, and I’ll bring it in if I find it.”
Mira nodded.
“I kiss you?” she asked.
Despite how precocious she was, Mira hadn’t quite learned the proper way to phrase things when she was asking for something specific, and when my heart melted in my chest, I kinda hoped she never did. I leaned down to kiss her forehead, and she patted my cheek as I did.
“Have a good rest, kiddo,” I whispered.
She smiled, and already her eyes looked just a little bit heavier.
When I left her bedroom, I sagged against the wall.
From where I was standing, I could see Chris and Amie’s house through the window at the end of the hallway.
Once, Amie and I had joked that we should put in a walkway connecting our houses. It was shortly after my divorce, when I was still adjusting to living in the big house by myself. So many nights I’d found myself in their kitchen, eating ice cream with Amie, because sometimes that was the healthiest way to deal with life’s shitstorms.
I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Rosa.
Me: Can you sit here for a few minutes? She’s having her quiet time, but I need to look for something at the house.
Rosa: Be right there.
While I waited for Rosa to arrive, I didn’t even hesitate to grab a carton of mint chocolate chip out of the freezer, pull a spoon from the silverware drawer, and dig in unceremoniously. She let herself in through the front door, eyeing my eating habits with unconcealed judgment.
“Bit early in the day for that, don’t you think?”
“Not everyone eats apples when they’re stressed, okay?”
She raised a haughty eyebrow. “I never should’ve told you that.”
I laughed around my bite of ice cream, then put the carton back into the freezer. “This shouldn’t take me long,” I told her.
But Rosa waved me off. “Take your time if there’s anything else you need to do over there. Any idea when you’ll sell the house?”
I shook my head. “Technically, that’s the lawyer’s decision. He’s the executor of their estate. I think he’s waiting on guidance from me.” I made a vague gesture with my hand in the direction of where Liam lived, wherever the hell that was. “In case what’s-his-name ever pulls his head out of his ass.”
“Fuck that guy.”
I barked out a laugh. “Rosa, I’ve never heard you say an ill word about him before. What a delightful change of pace.”
She took a seat on the couch and sighed, pulling her Kindle from her purse. “Yeah, well, that was a couple weeks ago. I thought he’d change his mind by now. Clearly, having a great ass and perfect arms and the sexiest accent known to man doesn’t actually make you a good person.”
“A shocking realization, I know.”
Rosa grinned, then shooed me out the door. I snagged the key to Chris and Amie’s from the hook in my laundry room, then walked down the cobblestone path that led to their backyard gate.
Their house was bigger than mine, with the arched architecture and big windows of an Italian villa. Their yard was bigger too, with a pool and mature trees giving much-desired privacy to their property. The pool was still covered, and I couldn’t decide if it was worth hiring someone to come open it so that Mira and I could use it during the summer.
It was somewhere on a mile-long list of decisions that weren’t pressing (they didn’t really matter), but good Lord did those decisions weigh heavily on my shoulders.
The house was quiet and dim when I let myself in through the back door from the patio. For the first time since the accident, it smelled musty and stale. That alone had my heart hammering just a little bit harder.
It would only get worse as time went on.
Rosa had hired a crew to come in and clean the house the week after they died. It was too hard to walk in and see Amie’s coffee mug still sitting in the sink. Her book tossed onto the end table by the couch. Chris’s Denver hoodie slung over the back of a dining-room chair.
Those things were gone now, so even with the slightly stale scent, it felt a bit less like walking through a graveyard.
I kissed the tip of my finger and pressed it against the family photo that hung on the wall, then slowly made my way upstairs to Mira’s bedroom.
The walls were still painted a gorgeous soft blue—the shade Amie had chosen when she was pregnant. She’d said it made her feel like she was looking at the sky.
When I peeked into the crib, I saw that it was empty of stuffed animals. I pulled open a few drawers and riffled through them but still couldn’t find the frog Mira wanted. While I was there, I grabbed a few items of clothing and tucked them under my arm.
As I tugged open a bin at the back of the closet, a sound from downstairs had me freezing in place.
I paused, listening closer.
It was the unmistakable sound of a door opening.
Heavy footsteps on the floor.
My heart pounded wildly behind my ribs, and I realized I’d left my phone behind after texting Rosa.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Not that I thought a burglar would politely come through the door, but there was no way for me to get out of the house without going back down to the main floor. I tiptoed out of the bedroom and held my breath as I eased into Chris and Amie’s room.
“Please, please, please,” I mouthed while pulling up the bed skirt.
Jackpot. Amie had always kept a metal baseball bat underneath her side of the bed for protection when Chris was at away games.
Chris had teased her relentlessly about it.
“What’s your plan?” he’d asked with a grin. “Close-quarters combat so you can whack him in the head?”
But the bat had remained in place.
I gripped it tight in my hands and took a deep breath before starting down the stairs. The top step creaked when weight was put on it, so I skipped that one, almost pitching forward when the bat just about swung into the wall.
I winced, but nothing happened. I took a few more steps.
Whoever was in the house was rummaging through some drawers in the kitchen, and my fingers held that bat with a death grip.
Now I was just pissed. Who the hell thought they could break in here and take my friends’ stuff?
In my head, I was Lara Croft. I was Buffy. I was Wonder Woman. And I’d absolutely fuck someone up if they tried to take a single thing from this house.
The last few steps had an open railing, so there was no hiding my presence once I cleared those.
I’d jump down.
Yell.
Swing.
Then keep swinging.
The bottom steps came closer, and I pinched my eyes shut.
Go, I yelled in my head.
With a roar fit for an Amazon queen, I charged down the steps.
“What the bloody fuck?” I heard him yell.
Bloody.
British.
British accent.
It was the accent that messed up my glorious warrior queen entrance, because I’d already started to swing the bat when my toe caught on the edge of the stairs, and I pitched forward.
The bat lodged itself in the drywall, and I tumbled forward, landing on my ass on the floor, where I found myself staring up into the face of one Liam Davies.
And the asshole was smiling.
“My goodness, that was entertaining.” He clucked his tongue. “What were you gonna do? Bash my head in? I’m glad your aim is as bad as your entry.”
“Fuck off,” I snapped, groaning when I tried to roll to my feet. “Ouch.”
The smile melted off his face. “You all right?”
“No.” My ass would be sore for a week, and that was nothing compared with the bruising my ego had just taken. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve always had a key to their house. No one told me I had to give it back.”
“Maybe because you stormed out of the office before we could tell you anything .”
I raked a hand through my hair and grimaced when I realized the bat was still stuck in the wall. Liam sighed, holding his hand out to help me up. I smacked it away and got up without his help, thank you very much. My entire body screamed in protest.
“Why are you using the key now? Have you come here before?”
He glanced around, eyes darkening. “No.”
I rubbed my tailbone and winced. No crab walking for me for a few days.
“Cleaner in here than I thought it would be,” he said.
“Rosa hired a cleaning crew to come in and pick up everything so that I didn’t have to do it.”
He grunted. “Lady from across the street? With the white hair and the scary eyebrows?”
I rolled my eyes. “They’re not scary, but yes.”
“She watches the girl for you.”
With a tilt of my head, I studied him before answering. “You can’t even say her name.”
“What a load of bollocks! Yes, I can.”
“Then do it.” I crossed my arms and faced him fully. “Look me in the eye and say her name.”
Liam sighed and did that thing with his face where he pretended to glare but was really just stalling. “This is ridiculous.”
“It’s quite easy, actually. If you feel so guilty about betraying your friends’ final wishes that you can’t even say her name, then I’m glad you’re walking away.” My face was hot, my tone loud and harsh. “Go. Whatever you’re doing here, be done with it.”
His jaw clenched. “You used to be nicer to me, Valentine.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve changed the last month. I no longer care if you like me or not.” I held his gaze unflinchingly. “What are you doing here?”
“Dropping off the shit from his locker. Couldn’t handle looking at it, and it’s been in my trunk for a few days. Got sick of hearing it rattle around back there.”
My attention darted to the box on the island. “What’s in there?”
“Fuck if I know. I shoved it in there and taped it up. Last thing I want to do is go through someone’s private shit.”
I walked over to the box and started peeling back the folded edges.
“Oy!” he barked. “I want no part of this. You have some morbid curiosity, indulge it when I’m gone, yeah?”
There was a Post-it on the counter, and a pen. That’s what he’d been looking for in the drawers. On the note, he’d messily scrawled a message: Chris’s locker shit. Do whatever you want with it.
I shook my head slowly.
Liam was no different from the kids my mom saw in her office every single day. When I took a pause and pushed past my anger toward him, it was easier to filter through the way he was acting and see the messy, tangled roots.
He was a big man with big feelings that he wanted nothing to do with.
It wasn’t my job to usher him through that. But I felt guilt all the same. I peeked up at him through my lashes, and he was still studying the house with a tired look on his face.
That was the second thing I noticed, now that I wasn’t trying to decapitate him or accidentally give myself a concussion.
Liam looked like absolute hell. Like he’d barely slept in days.
I took my hands away from the box, and when he noticed the movement, his big frame relaxed.
My chest ached as I fought with my warring instincts about how to handle this man. It was the bags under his eyes. The complete exhaustion stamped across his rugged features.
“Mira would love to see you,” I said quietly. “I know she liked you.”
“Yeah, well, kids have shit taste sometimes.”
I simply stared at him for a moment, until he broke eye contact and looked at the floor.
“I am trying, Liam.” I raised my shoulders and let them fall helplessly. “I am trying , because that’s what they wanted. It matters that this is what they wanted. Just ... come and see her sometimes. Hang out with her. Talk to her about her dad. I’m not asking you to split custody or move into the house. I’m asking you to just try.”
His jaw was so tight, his eyes unrelenting.
“It’s not that simple,” he said quietly. “You can’t do something like this by halves, and I have nothing to give her. Not any of the things she needs.”
“It is simple,” I told him. “You’re the one complicating it. And if you’re too chickenshit to come hang out with a little girl who misses her dad, then I don’t know what to tell you.” I left the box where it was and stepped around the island. He braced for impact, even though I had no weapon this time. “I’ll tell you this, though. Don’t send me a penny. I don’t want your money.”
“Don’t be stubborn. I can help.”
I laughed. “‘Don’t be stubborn,’ he says.” I shook my head. He could hardly look me in the eye. “Go home, Liam.”
I’d be damned if I stood there again and watched him storm out.
I brushed past him, and when my shoulder bumped against his, he rocked back on his heels, emitting a harsh puff of air.
“Lock up before you leave,” I told him. “And leave the key on the counter. This house is for family.”