Chapter 5
SUMMER
Six weeks later…
Iglance over my shoulder, convinced there’s someone else behind me other than reporters hidden behind a hedge of boxwoods. There’s no way Rhett Dawson would be inviting me—some random fan he met one time in the back alley of a concert venue—into his house.
Is this even his house?
“You live on Harrison Boulevard?” I ask, frozen on his covered porch. With all the media-fed facts I know about this man, how is it that I didn’t know he lives here?
I mean, sure, I knew he moved home after the concert fallout. The news said as much. And his presence does a better job of explaining the random reporters out front. I just didn’t know home was five minutes from me.
If I hadn’t seen him up close without his cowboy hat on, I might not have recognized him.
His hair is ruffled, and dark circles frame his eyes.
Weathered is how I’d describe his posture, with slumped shoulders and hands stuffed in the front pocket of a well-loved gray hoodie.
He looks like he’s lived a thousand lifetimes since I saw him all those weeks ago.
He blinks at me. “You have a kid?”
Maybe he meant it as a statement, a compliment about my age or something.
But it sounds more like a surprised question to me, and it strikes a nerve.
The topic of a growing family is the only thing anyone comments about my life these days.
As a childless woman in her thirties, with a biological clock that’s ticking, I don’t need to be reminded of it every damn day.
It’s no one else’s business. Not even Rhett Dawson’s.
“This is Henry.” I push him in front of me as if I can hide behind a five-year-old’s spikey hair.
Rhett’s eyes flit back and forth between our faces. Likely cataloging the one characteristic that we share: bleach blonde hair.
“Well… are you just going to stand in the doorway?”
His delivery is so blunt it would knock me back a stair if I wasn’t curious about what lies beyond this grand entrance.
I’m practically leaning into his foyer. This might be the only time I’m ever invited in, so sue me.
I glance over my shoulder at all of the jealous reporters and cross the threshold, pulling Henry inside with me.
I spin in a full circle, greeted by picture frame–covered walls and lamp-adorned surfaces. It’s as cozy as a Nancy Meyers movie.
“Everett. I’m just saying—” A woman once hidden behind his tall frame squares her shoulders to him. The whole room fills with his deep exhale as she speaks. “She’s too old now for the Infant Toddler Program. I checked. And you make too much money for Head Start.”
He begins to turn back toward me when she jerks his arm. “Everett! She needs something. You could use some help.”
The tension in the room is so thick I feel as if we’ve intruded on a private moment. This woman is half his height and yet he looks intimidated under her stare. I wonder if this is what he meant by I’m not sure I’ll ever be good enough.
“This is not the time, Caroline. We have guests.” His formal tone surprises me. In fact, everything about him is different from last time. Tense and serious and properly pissed.
“When would you suggest is a good time for doing what’s best for your child, Everett?”
The way this woman continues to lay into him doesn’t sit right with me. I can handle a condescending tone—got good at it with Brian—but talking down to someone just because they aren’t fulfilling the expectations you set for them is a no for me now.
I thrust out my hand to the woman. “I’m Summer, Rhe—Everett’s nanny.”
Her eyes widen.
I don’t dare look at Rhett Dawson to see what he thought of that lie.
The woman has the decency to shake my hand but doesn’t offer anything about herself.
“And you are?” I press.
Her eyebrow lifts. “Caroline Blackwood. I’m Quinn’s grandmother.”
With the same last name as his fiancée, this must be Rhett Dawson’s almost mother-in-law.
An adorable little girl in overalls turns the corner of the hallway. “To-To, come see!”
“Aw, what a cute nickname,” I comment. “Is The Wizard of Oz her favorite movie?”
Caroline scowls at me. “It’s Coco.”
“Oh.” I catch Rhett smirking out of the corner of my eye as I squat down so I’m eye level with Quinn. “You must be the birthday girl! I love your boots. Do they come in my size?”
She giggles and shakes her head.
I snap my fingers. “Darn it. I was hoping we could match.”
“You asked a woman to be your nanny before she’s ever even met Quinn?” Caroline accuses him.
Oops.
“When do we get cake?” Henry yells, and I’ve never been more thankful for one of his bold interruptions.
I pivot to face him, still on my haunches. “We wait patiently until they say it’s time.”
I can’t imagine, after a couple of weeks, anyone in this family knows much about Henry. I stand to explain that he’s on the spectrum, but I don’t get the chance. A gentleman with a perfectly manicured beard and combed-over gray hair—Caroline’s husband, I presume—waves us into the kitchen.
“I think it’s the perfect time. Wadda ya say we dive into those cupcakes?” he says.
“Cupcakes?!” Henry drops my hand and pushes past Caroline.
She glares at him, and I have to bite my tongue not to tell her to have some patience. Despite working hard on them, social cues are not his strength.
They’re not Rhett Dawson’s either, given the way he abandons me in his entryway. I remind myself it was only ten minutes we spent together. Not nearly enough time to know much of anything about someone. It’s unfair of me to consider his demeanor uncharacteristic in comparison.
“Henwee!” Quinn shouts, wrapping her small arms around his shoulders.
At least she knows who he is.
His hands remain clenched at his sides, and when she accidentally knocks into his glasses, he lifts a hand to straighten them.
“I’d like a cupcake,” he tells her.
I lean forward and whisper in his ear. “Please.”
“Please,” Henry adds.
“Da-eee, tuptates?” Quinn runs to Rhett and jumps up and down.
He brushes a hand through her curls, and they bounce back into place. “Let’s do it.”
With Caroline already corralling the kids to the kitchen table, I need something to do. Standing off to the side as an observer is not my forte, so I sidle up next to Rhett and ask how I can help.
“I’m good, thanks,” he says.
He’s fishing through an Albertson’s sack, and everyone but me misses it when he pauses. His eyes flash to Caroline as she divvies up the dessert. He pulls open a drawer in the kitchen island, rustling through tongs and spatulas.
“You sure I can’t help with something?”
Either he didn’t hear me or is lost in his own world. He doesn’t respond.
Another drawer gives way with his frantic tug, sending measuring cups and silverware sloshing around it. He shoves the drawer closed and reaches for an upper cabinet. The deep wrinkle seated between his eyebrows is the definition of overwhelmed and stressed.
What is he looking for?
“Does everyone have one?” Caroline asks.
A guy in a flannel shirt—another adult in the room I haven’t met yet—flags her for a cupcake.
“Wade, I need another plate,” Caroline says, finally granting me the name of the bearded guy in the entryway. There haven’t been many introductions since I walked through that front door, so I’m having to piece this family together one name at a time. So far, I know half of them.
Henry lifts his cupcake to his mouth, and Caroline reaches over and takes it from him.
“We have to sing first. Everett? We’re ready for the candles.”
He’s looking for candles.
I can’t bear to watch this poor guy receive another lecture.
Even if it feels intrusive, he needs the help.
I open the cabinet opposite from him, inspecting the shelves and find nothing but a hodge-podge of drinking glasses.
I swing the door closed and catch it right before it smacks the frame. Subtle.
My hope wavers with one final Hail Mary cupboard between us. It opens to several spinning spice racks, sprinkle shakers, cookie cutters, and—bingo!—a mason jar filled with candles.
I pull it out and whirl around, the jar colliding with hard muscle. Impossible-to-read eyes bore into mine as Rhett looks from me to the object pressed to his chest.
Is he mad I went through his cupboards?
I don’t know if I’m supposed to offer it to him or wait until he makes the next move. All of my nerves decide to wad up into a softball and squeeze their way down my esophagus as I swallow.
His hand, two sizes larger than mine, closes around the jar.
Fingertips brush my skin when he pulls it from my grasp and pushes past me.
It feels like the air has been punched from the room.
I’m staring at his kitchen sink, wondering what in the hell just happened to me, before I finally get a grip on my surroundings.
People. Light. Fire.
Caroline has taken the candles from Rhett, pressed them into the frosting, and lit them. I get myself together and join everyone gathered around the table. The number of people I don’t know is up to five at this point if you count the kids. This is a strange party.
I’m about to introduce myself to the dark-haired woman in an adorable tie-front linen vest next to me when Rhett starts singing.
I’m suddenly very aware that this isn’t some arena view. I’m in his kitchen. He’s five feet from me, and my eye contact could not be less discreet if I tried. I’m gaping at him. Lost in the way his voice expands the four walls of this room and carries us all to some otherworldly distant place.
Or maybe just me. Definitely just me. Everyone else is watching Quinn.
He looks more uncomfortable singing in his own house to his family than he did to a stadium of strangers. For the first time, I feel like Rhett Dawson and I might have something in common. I felt nothing but uneasy in my own skin under the roof I shared with Brian.
When the song ends, the woman next to me—who looks an awful lot like a female version of Rhett—says to Quinn, “Close your eyes and make a wish.”