Chapter Seventeen ZOE
Chapter Seventeen
Z OE
“Where did you go?” I muttered under my breath. I scanned the printed statements on the table next to me, whispering numbers as my finger went down the column. With my leg tucked up against my chest, I could set my chin on my knee as I searched.
Or I would have been able to, if the walking peanut gallery kept his mouth shut.
“Your posture is awful.”
I glanced into the kitchen. Liam wasn’t even looking at me. His broad back was turned toward the sink as he finished filling his mug with coffee.
Slowly, I set my leg down. “It’s not that bad.”
“Doesn’t your neck always hurt? You’re constantly poking at it.”
“It’s not constant.”
He turned slightly, one eyebrow raised.
Even as I denied it, I fought the urge to dig my thumbs into the sides of my neck, which really did always hurt.
“I have to look down at my computer for work, okay?”
“Don’t you have those big fucking screens over in your fancy office?”
“Yes, but Mira is still sleeping, and you leave for training in an hour.”
He made a grunting noise.
Over the last few weeks of living with Liam, I’d learned that this was his way of agreeing with me without actually saying the words.
“Doesn’t your neck hurt? You tackle people for a living.”
His face was even, his eyes tracking over my face as he settled his hips against the edge of the counter. “Nope.”
“Not even a little?”
“Not even a little. We’ve got a masseuse who beats the shit out of us on the regular. And training staff whose sole existence cycles around making sure our bodies don’t hurt so that we can do our jobs.”
I snorted. “Must be nice.”
“What’s stopping you from going to get one?” he asked. “They’ve got all those fancy fucking spas around here. Make you listen to gong sounds and weird chime music. And the techs all whisper when they talk.”
I fought a smile. “Yes, they do have those.”
“Why don’t you go to one?”
Slowly, I set the stack of papers down. “Is this really bothering you, or do you just suck at making morning conversation?”
And I’ll be damned, Liam’s cheeks turned the rosiest shade of pink when he paused to take a sip of his coffee.
I sat back in my chair and studied him openly. We’d found a strange rhythm in our days. It wasn’t bad; we never outright argued about anything, but there was a simmering sort of tension behind every single interaction we had.
I’d been operating under the assumption that Liam didn’t notice it, because he was prickly with everyone. But I felt it. It was like the air vibrated, just a little bit, every time we found ourselves without the natural buffer of Mira. And every time that vibration hit my skin, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was imagining it.
I hadn’t lived with a man since Charles, and things had been so bad those final few months that any existing tension was the byproduct of me wanting to smack the shit out of my then husband anytime he opened his mouth.
As much as I’d threatened or imagined violence against Liam, my feelings toward him were never rooted in that same place. Liam niggled under my skin, an itch that I couldn’t quite scratch, and now he was everywhere.
A constant, unyielding source of irritation that I couldn’t quell.
Maybe irritation wasn’t quite the right word.
Provocation came the closest.
Yup. That was it. Liam provoked me more than any man I’d met in my entire life.
We talked the most in the mornings. Especially on the rare days when Mira slept in past six thirty. He’d already gone for his run, and now he was drinking his coffee, his sex-soap smell wafting around him, while I was taking advantage of the quiet morning by getting a bit of work done.
Or had been until Grumpy Pants decided to critique my posture.
“It is likely that I’m bollocks at polite conversation,” he said slowly, eyeing my face as he answered. “But I can’t help noticing that you don’t ... go anywhere.”
See? Provoking. The man must’ve had a weird argument kink.
I crossed my arms. “I go places. Mira and I ran errands yesterday; we saw you at the facilities.”
“Yeah, but don’t women need to do, like, self-care shit?”
“Self-care shit,” I repeated slowly.
“You know what I mean, and don’t pretend like you don’t. Massages and facials and I don’t fucking know—going for a walk or hanging out with friends. You have friends, right?”
A hot prickle of defensiveness clawed its way up my throat, and I fought very hard to push it down. “Of course I have friends.” Who I never saw. Hardly talked to.
“Who?” he asked.
“Well, I had friends I worked with at the hospital. But they’re busy; they work full-time and have families of their own. And I have Rosa—she’s my friend. And Martha and Phyllis.”
“Why’d you quit at the hospital? Didn’t you love it?”
I blew out a slow breath. “I did. It is possible to love your job and still need a break from it. After the divorce, it just felt too hard to try to find a new job at a different hospital. I couldn’t stay where I’d been and not run into Charles all the time—he was still the hospital’s legal counsel. And with the settlement, I could afford to reduce my hours. I wanted something flexible in case I decided to travel or volunteer somewhere.” I sighed, waving my hand around the room. “And then ... all this. I can’t imagine going back full-time right now. Not until Mira is in school.”
“Let me get this straight. You were burned out, so you quit your job, and now you go even fewer places in order to fix that?”
“I’ve been a touch busy raising my friends’ child, if you hadn’t noticed,” I said, desperately trying to keep the edge from my tone.
There was the tightrope again, only this time it wasn’t a wobble that I worried about. We hadn’t fought in weeks, and I wasn’t looking to break that streak. Something like that could snap the rope in two.
“I have,” he said in a rough voice. “But you’re not doing it alone, if you hadn’t noticed.”
I snapped my laptop shut and pinned him with a searching look. “Obviously I know you’re helping, but you’re heading into training camp shortly. Then the season starts. It’s not like I can run off and spend half my day trying to relax when you’re traveling to away games and practicing every day.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re right. Once the season starts, you’ll have the lion’s share of the work.”
We’d stuck so firmly to our one-month-at-a-time motto that we’d never tiptoed into these conversations about the future.
What would the fall look like? As much as I missed my house, and I did, it was strange to imagine us moving back after just a few weeks in this new setup.
Already, this felt like home too.
“I’m prepared to carry my weight during the season,” I told him. “Why bring this up now?”
He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw, and the sound it made, the scratch of his facial hair against his skin, had me fighting a shiver. “You should get out of the house.”
My chin notched up an inch. “What if I like being at home? It’s not like you’re Mr. Social.”
“I spend all fucking day with my friends,” he said. “I had breakfast yesterday with the defensive line and our coach. Today, I’m having lunch with Trey and his QB coach so we can discuss a few things. Who do you see besides me and the kid?”
I swallowed.
No one. That was the answer. I’d hardly even seen Rosa the last few weeks because I didn’t need her babysitting services and didn’t have the energy for her book club once the evenings hit.
The truth of it had me answering just a touch defensively. “Well, my best friend died in a car accident, and the guy I was dating at the time decided he didn’t want an instafamily, so my calendar has been a little light. Sorry I’m not a social butterfly, but I haven’t really been in the mood for it the last couple months.”
The moment I said it, I wanted to suck the words right back in. But that was the thing about words and how we say them to people. No matter how much we want to, we can’t undo them.
“That wasn’t fair,” I said immediately. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
Liam’s features were so immovable that it was easy to imagine an artist somewhere carving his profile into marble. He’d look harsh and unforgiving etched into stone. Like a warrior or a king.
And it was beyond comprehension to me that he was aiming that look in my direction because I didn’t get massages or go see my friends.
It was also beyond comprehension that I found myself feeling grateful for it. That he hadn’t backed down simply because I’d swiped at him unfairly.
“People say a lot of unfair shit when they’re hurt, yeah?”
I nodded.
“I might have done that a time or two,” he added quietly.
My eyebrows arched of their own volition.
He frowned. “Fine. I’ve done that a lot.” At his admission, I desperately tried to swallow down the lump in my throat. It was big. But he wasn’t done. “I’ve done that a lot to you.”
I sighed, rubbing at my forehead. “I know I don’t get out much. I just ... get really tired when I think about trying.”
Liam’s jaw clenched. “You need to get out of this house, Valentine. Go have some fun.”
Fun. My definition had changed the last few months. I wasn’t even sure I knew how to define it anymore.
If I was being honest, there had been a slow shift over the last few years. Amie had always been the one who pulled me out of my ruts, and if she were here, she’d smack me upside the head and tell me the man was right.
Finally, I nodded. “I think Rosa and her book club friends are going out tonight. I can probably join them.”
If possible, his already serious face flattened even further. “You are joking.”
“What?”
“I tell you to go out and have some fun, and you’re joining the local group of octogenarians while they talk about their Amish romances.”
“Please, you should see the books Rosa brings home.” I blew out a puff of air. “So much dirtier than what I read.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You taking notes, Valentine?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
Liam’s eyes held mine for a moment, and then he looked away. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Take care of what?”
He set his mug down and crossed his arms over his chest. Whenever he did that, it did horrible things to the muscles in his arms. Biceps weren’t supposed to flex that way. It wasn’t natural.
“Finish your work. If planning it makes you tired, then I’ll get it figured out.” Mira called his name from her bedroom, and he jerked his chin. “Coming, duck,” he called out.
With my jaw hanging open, I watched him stride from the kitchen and bound up the stairs.
Less than five minutes later, he sent me a text.
Liam: Be ready at 5:30. That’s when you’re getting picked up.
At the early hour, my head tilted in confusion. Liam Davies had planned a girls’ night for me?
“What the actual hell,” I whispered.
Liam
It was good that I’d hardly seen Zoe the rest of the day, because I wanted to take back everything I’d said to her.
Who wanted to go out? Not me.
Who was I to judge her lack of a social life? No one.
I’d rather have had my balls chopped off with a rusty blade than have been forced to go clubbing, and I’d sent her out with a group of the team wives, knowing they’d be taking her someplace fancy and fucking loud.
By the time I got back from the facilities, she was on the phone in her bedroom, and after we danced politely through the postnap transfer, she disappeared back to her own house to get ready for the night.
The long dark car with tinted windows picked her up at her own front door, and I tried to swallow my disappointment that I hadn’t gotten to see her ready for a night out. Hadn’t quite managed it, unfortunately.
Thankfully, I had a very effective built-in distraction in the form of one very bossy almost three-year-old.
“I can’t read it again, Mira. I swear, I’ll lose it.”
She shoved the book at my chest. “One more time.” Then she opened it and pressed it by my face. “Please,” she begged.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mouthed, quiet enough that she couldn’t hear me. I gently lowered the book, and the sight of her big, pleading eyes was like a blade straight into my fucking chest.
I growled under my breath, and she bounced a little on the couch, like she could taste the victory already.
“One more time,” I bit out. “And then I’m done.”
Mira nodded dutifully, plopping herself forward so she could see the book.
“Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?” I said by rote. Immediately, she joined in on reading the pages.
When we got to the bloody duck, she showed just as much excitement as she had the first hundred times. But if I tried to let her read it by herself? No bloody way did she let me get away with that.
I tried skipping a page, and she shook her head vehemently. “No, no, you missed it.” Her little hands, surprisingly strong, flipped back to the correct page.
We ended up reading it four more times.
“We go outside?” she asked, tugging my arm to the slider.
“It’s hot, duck. We could swim. You gotta start practicing.”
“No swimming. I don’t like it.” Her face scrunched up with a forehead-creasing frown, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Fucking hell, she looked like me.
“Swim lessons start tomorrow, kid. We gotta be safe, all right?”
Mira got that look in her eyes; a tantrum had begun brewing in that brain of hers.
“Zoe wants you to swim too,” I said. “I’ll be right out there with you.”
The mention of Zoe wasn’t wise, though, because Mira immediately ran to the front door, slapped her hands onto the window overlooking the street, and pressed her nose to the glass. “Where’d Zoe go?”
“She went out with some friends, duck. Remember? She’ll be back when you’re asleep.”
For a few more minutes, she stared. “Zoe come home?”
Her voice was quieter, and something horrible and cold bloomed in my stomach. “Yeah, she’s coming home. I promise.”
Mira’s tiny frame expanded on a deep breath, her eyes never wavering from where she watched the silent street. “I hold Zoe?”
I swiped a hand over my face, gentling my voice when I answered. “Soon, little love. She’ll be home soon.”
Eventually, I was able to distract her while we put together a puzzle, even though it was missing a piece, which bugged the living fuck out of me.
I glanced at the time. Zoe had been gone for a couple of hours, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was having fun. Even though I wasn’t close with Trey’s wife, he’d given me her number when I’d asked if they’d invite Zoe to their night out.
Me: How’s she doing?
Rochelle Wilkins: She’s sweet. I can see why you like her.
Me: WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT? No, I don’t.
Rochelle Wilkins: ... right. Never mind.
Me: Tell your husband to quit gossiping when he’s at home.
Me: And tell him he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
Rochelle Wilkins: I’ll do my best. Back to Zoe, though ...
Rochelle Wilkins: She needed to get out of the house. You did the right thing.
I fucking hated the immediate warmth that spread through my chest. Taking care of Zoe wasn’t my responsibility. But bloody hell if I could convince that useless organ trapped under my ribs of this.
When she looked tired, I fought the urge to cup her face and trace the dark circles under her eyes. When she looked stressed, my fingers twitched from wanting to press all that tension out of her muscles. See if her skin was as smooth and soft as I’d imagined.
If I did that, I’d damn us both.
There was no universe in which I could touch her without consequences. The kind that shook the walls and cracked all the foundations that held our world intact. That’s what would happen if I kept letting this thing for her slide out unchecked.
Instead of replying to Rochelle, I tucked my phone away.
It buzzed almost immediately.
Zoe: Are you checking up on me?
Me: No.
Zoe: Liar. Now everyone is asking about you, and how unfair is that? I can’t even escape you at girls’ night.
Me: What are they asking? I can guarantee none of those women think anything good if they believe what their husbands say.
Zoe: I’m not telling you shit, Davies. The stuff they’re saying would inflate your ego too much.
Zoe: Ignore that. I shouldn’t text and drink. I’ll see you when I get home, unless you’re asleep, which would probably be safer for me because I never drink and I can’t have you holding any of this over my head.
I found myself fighting a grin. And at the thought of their husbands, I switched over to a different message thread and punched out a text with brutal taps of my thumbs.
Me: What the bloody fuck did you tell your wife about Zoe?
Trey: Nothing that wasn’t true, my friend.
Me: Oh please, be cryptic, I so enjoy it.
Trey: If I tell you the way your eyes changed when you saw her, you’d call me a fucking asshole and go about your night. But if she hasn’t noticed it yet, it won’t be long before she does.
Trey: I think she’d be good for you, if you’re wondering.
Me: I’m not. Fuck off.
Trey: I love you too.
Me: I’m knocking your ass to the ground in practice. No holding back.
Trey: Good. You just keep proving me right, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than that.
When I set my phone down again, Mira ran up to the couch.
She poked at my cheek. “You smiling?”
“No.”
It made no sense that my gruff response didn’t deter her in the slightest. But she smiled, giggling at whatever she saw on my face.
I wasn’t like Chris.
Zoe wasn’t like Amie.
We were both just muddling through each day, trying to do our best in a shit situation that neither of us had asked for. Most of the time, I could hardly make sense of this place where the three of us had ended up. And I was an adult; I had more than three decades of life under my belt.
Mira was so little. Her entire world revolved around what she could see and touch and experience. And right now that was me and Zoe.
“Sometimes I wonder what you think about when you look at us, duck,” I said quietly.
She’d never tried to call us Mum and Dad, and I was thankful for that. It was already hard enough to be in my position, trying desperately to be something that I’d never wanted to be. Even though I’d made peace with it, there was still this gaping hole that would never quite heal. A wound that would never be erased, because this strange family unit had been cobbled together from something unnatural.
One who wanted it more than anything.
One who didn’t.
And one who had no choice in the matter.
Someday, Zoe would find someone. She was too beautiful and too fucking perfect not to. Where would that leave me? Leave Mira?
Mira sensed the shift in my mood, perceptive little shit that she was.
Tentatively, she climbed onto my lap, something she didn’t usually do. I kept my hands on the couch. Zoe was the cuddler, and we all knew it. But Mira settled her slight weight onto me and studied my face.
In turn, I studied hers.
She was tired. I knew the signs now.
“What is it?” I asked her. “And, no, I’m not reading that book again, so don’t even think about asking with that little face you make. It won’t work.”
Mira blinked, and I got the oddest sensation that she was looking into my fucking soul or something.
After another moment, she finally asked, “I hold you?”
Something tight and hard lodged itself in my lungs. It was big and wildly uncomfortable. My breath came faster, and my pulse thundered in my ears.
This entire time, I’d held myself back from Mira, and not once had Zoe called me out on it, even though she had every right. But could I say no to her now?
I couldn’t. I’d never forgive myself if I did.
Somehow, I managed a jerky nod, and in the next heartbeat, she snuggled herself onto my chest, settling her head just under my chin.
Despite her request to hold me, Mira tucked her hands underneath her own body. Carefully, I settled my arms around her, holding her as tight as I dared.
The weight of her against my chest shouldn’t have felt so warm, so sweet and heavy. But it was. It was all those things.
My heart was racing, and I wondered if she could feel it against her face. If she wondered why this made me so fucking nervous. Why this gutted me so thoroughly.
My nose was hot and uncomfortable, my eyes dry and full of sand or something. It felt like someone had punched a block of dirt down my throat, and I couldn’t swallow past it no matter how hard I tried.
And I tried .
It was anchored right there, in my eyes and nose and throat and heart. Things I didn’t want to name, grief that I’d shoved down, and all my fears were wrapped up in one tiny package, hell-bent on choking the shit out of me.
If I dared move, I might be tempted to break something, just to see if it would release some of this tension.
But I wouldn’t, I realized. Not for the world.
It was inevitable, I suppose, that this tiny little girl would be the thing to knock over the first brick, to shove through all the mortar and bindings keeping the bricks in place.
All along, I’d been so terrified of Zoe because she’d been in the back of my head for bloody years . But I’d been afraid of Mira too.
That was probably why I’d resisted moments like this. I couldn’t breathe, not with the sweetness trying to push through my lungs. I felt like Mira was suffocating me with all that pure, innocent love.
Whatever I felt for Zoe was complicated. It was hemmed in by all the history between us. But this, with Mira, wasn’t. Not really. Not once I’d set aside all the bullshit fears clouding my head. They were still there. They were always there. But right now, in this singular moment, I could ignore them.
She’d taken a bath after dinner, and when I pressed a featherlight kiss onto the top of her hair, I tried to imagine a world in which that soft smell wouldn’t remind me of her.
You didn’t think too much about the responsibility of raising a child until they were there in your arms. There was no committee telling you what to do. No coach screaming in your ear about how you could improve. No binder or training manual that could guarantee you’d one day be able to send this person out into the world as a self-sufficient, non-asshole human being.
There were so many of those—the assholes. It was highly likely that I was one of them, a product of my own upbringing and history. And I refused to let Mira become a victim of that.
She’d be a good person, because she was born from good people and had at least one other good person with a hand in raising her.
All I could do was not make things worse and do what I did best.
Fucking destroy anyone who got in the way of Mira having the best life in the entire world.
Her breathing was even and slow, and I gently rubbed circles on her back to see if she stirred. I tilted my head and sighed.
Eyes closed.
Mira had been sound asleep during the middle of my emotional epiphany.
“Fucking hell,” I whispered. “You’re killing me, kid.”
But I kissed the top of her hair again, then settled my head back against the couch. My eyes closed after a few minutes and stayed shut until my back protested the position.
Slowly, I shifted Mira in my arms until we were stretched out on the couch, a pillow wedged under my head and the soft weight of her body tucked against my chest.
Just a few more minutes, I thought to myself.
It was hours later when I woke, the house dark around us, the two of us covered with a big fuzzy blanket.
I grabbed my phone to check the time, and Mira stirred slightly.
It was after midnight, and there was an unread text on my phone.
Zoe: Thank you for making me go out.
Zoe: And I promise that your secret cinnamon roll side is safe with me.
She had attached a picture, a dimly lit snap of Mira wrapped firmly in my arms. My face looked calm in sleep, but when I saw the way I held her, my chest went tight and my ribs hot, a strange, undefinable ache growing underneath them.
I didn’t know how to do any of this, didn’t know where to put all the feelings growing out of this situation. How to pretend like I didn’t want the things I wanted.
Maybe that’s what I needed to make peace with now.
I could no longer pretend that I didn’t want those things. I just didn’t know how I was supposed to have them either. Not without ruining everything.