Chapter 25
JAKE
Ellie
Hello Jake it’s me Noah I got dressed myself.
Jake
Good job buddy! Looking sharp.
Ellie
He was so happy he had to tell you & made me type out exactly what he said. He also says he misses you. I told him it had only been a few hours but he wasn’t having it. He wanted you to know ASAP.
Jake
Tell him I’m so proud of him and I miss him too. I should only be another couple of hours.
Ellie
That’s okay. Take all the time you need! Xx
Jake
BTW does anyone else miss me?
Ellie
I guess you’ll find out later.
Jake
Don’t tease me like that.
Ellie
Patience is a virtue.
Jake
I don’t think I have any of those.
Ellie
You do. More than you think. Xx
“What’s got you smiling like that?”
I glanced up from my phone and peered at my sister across the table.
A mountain of food sat between us—Char Sui rice rolls, burritos, Turkish wraps, pasta, and Nutella doughnuts for dessert—all purchased from the gourmet food trucks dotted around Spitalfields market where I’d been summoned for our regular in-person catch-up.
Whenever we did this, I usually polished off most of the food myself, but five-months-pregnant Talia wanted to eat everything in sight.
Naturally, I catered to her cravings, as the best brother would.
“Noah sent me a photo saying he dressed himself,” I told her. “He’s been having trouble with tiny buttons lately, and getting really frustrated about it. But he did it, like I knew he would.”
Mouth full, Talia could only widen her eyes theatrically while she chewed and hurried to swallow. “Aw, that’s so sweet,” she said, swiping a napkin at the sauce smudged across her chin. “But since when can four-year-olds send texts?”
“Ellie helped him, but it wouldn’t shock me if he could. He’s so smart and picks up stuff so quickly, and he knows more about my iPad than I do. Look at him.”
“Very cute.”
“Right?” I set my phone aside, digging in to my pulled pork bagel, but my grin deflated once I noticed Talia staring, all tilted head and dreamy smile. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re like a proud dad. It’s so nice seeing this side of you, all attached and everything.”
Glued to the proud dad part of her statement, it took me a second to say, “It’s not like that.”
But it was like that now, wasn’t it?
Almost six months of living with Ellie and Noah, weeks and weeks of sleeping in Ellie’s bed, starting the days with her wrapped in my arms, ending them buried inside her…
I wasn’t attached. I was full-blown hooked. That wasn’t up for debate anymore.
And while I wasn’t Noah’s dad in the biological sense, every time he succeeded and discovered and learned something new, I was unbelievably proud of him.
Last week I’d pointed him out to some old woman sitting beside me on the park bench while Noah played in the playground. I just wanted people to know. I’m with him. He’s mine.
He felt like mine anyway.
Maybe I couldn’t put a label to what that meant, or the relationship between Ellie and me, but I loved being with her—with them—and that was all that mattered right now.
Right?
“It is like that,” Talia insisted. “And that’s okay, great even. But only if you mean it.”
I sat upright, annoyance drenching me like a bucket of ice water. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t get me wrong.” She reached for me, somehow knowing I wanted make a run for it. But Don’t get me wrong meant I was about to hear something that pissed me off.
“It’s obvious you care for them a lot and I love seeing that, I really do,” Talia carried on. “But I think you should tread carefully. You’ve become Noah’s de facto father figure, and that complicates things, especially when you’re gone.”
“Gone? Where am I going?”
She sent me a look that said seriously? “Wherever you usually go when you get bored. Aren’t you off to New York soon?”
“Not until August, and who’s to say I’ll get bored?” Months had passed and I was still here, very much not bored in the slightest. There had to be a reason for that.
“That’s not far away,” Talia said, sniffing at one of food containers. “Also, August is the worst time to go to New York. It’s so hot. I don’t know what you were thinking.”
“I don’t plan on staying there long. Christian wanted to go road tripping. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll be back soon enough, and Noah will be fine.”
“I’m not just talking about Noah though.”
My chest tightened. Or maybe it was indigestion after all that rich food.
“Ellie knows me. She knows what I’m like. I’ve never hidden that from her. She’ll be fine too.”
The truth. Ellie was one of the strongest people I knew. Raising a child by herself, working all hours to make ends meet, and not letting her trauma turn her into a cynic? She was Wonder Woman to me. I fucking marvelled over her daily.
“And she’s still sleeping with you?” Talia asked.
My whole body rooted still. “Have you been talking to Grace and Leo?”
And why wouldn’t she sleep with me?
“Not recently, but thanks for confirming my suspicions.”
Her smile was too smug, and this whole conversation was like nails-on-a-chalkboard on my temper level. I had to take a moment to breathe slowly, to not lash out with the angry words clawing at my throat.
“Is this why you wanted to meet up today, to get some gossip? Since when did you turn into our mother?”
Her smile slipped. “Take that back.”
“No. I love you, but it’s none of your business. I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you? Because I don’t remember you ever being in this kind of situation before. This is the longest you’ve ever stayed home, and the last time you had a long-term girlfriend was never.”
“What are you talking about? What about Anvi?”
“You mean Anvi Sharma who you dated for barely a month when you were seventeen, that Anvi?”
“It was longer than that.”
Wasn’t it?
Talia laughed, shaking her head as if to say this fucking guy.
“Are you purposely trying to mess with my head or does it come naturally to you?”
She sobered quickly at that. “No. God no. That’s the last thing I want.”
“Then why are you saying this shit to me? I’d buy it coming from Oliver or mum and dad, but not you.”
“I don’t want you or Ellie or her little boy to get hurt. I’m trying to protect all of you. Can I blame my pregnancy hormones?”
“No,” I snapped, then felt bad about it.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” A bitter-sounding breath gushed out of me. “It’s like I can’t fucking win with this family.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“You all think I’m some kind of joke, that I don’t take things seriously. Always gone, that’s what you said. Now I’m right here and it’s still not good enough.”
Talia sagged in her seat. “Don’t say that.”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
“I never meant to make you feel that way. Please believe that. I worry about you. You’re in a serious situation with Ellie and Noah, whether you think you are or not.”
“What if that’s what I want though? What if I want it to be serious?”
“Do you?”
I scrubbed at my forehead like I could scrape away the frustration somehow. “I don’t fucking know, okay?”
“Then you need to figure it out, Jake. Trust me, I know better than anyone how powerful clarity can be. You’ll be doing all of you a favour if you know where you stand. Now, can you pass me one of those Nutella doughnuts because the baby wants one.”
I scowled at my sister, huffing in annoyance and nudging the box across the table.
I didn’t want to consider that maybe she had a point.
I was irritated for the rest of the day.
As a kid, my dad often brought home whatever hellish thing had happened at work, destroying our after-school high spirits, and I didn’t want to be like that.
I didn’t want to take this feeling home with me, to force Ellie and Noah to carry the weight of my bad mood, so I spent a few hours walking it off and taking photographs whenever the mood—and good light—struck me.
By the time all that irritation eased, the sun had slipped low, but the June heat still lingered thick in the air. I grabbed an Uber back home and wondered when I’d started to think of it as home and not just Ellie’s.
I had no idea.
Music and laughter met me at the door, and there was no better greeting. I leaned against the living room doorframe to watch my two favourite people, and let the joy of it wash over me.
The dining table was covered in sheets of old newspaper and the air smelled like paint.
Noah wore a red and yellow plastic apron but he’d still managed to get paint on his forehead and a smudge on his nose.
They were both focused on their individual paintings, and it struck me then, how dumb I’d been not to race home.
If anyone or anything could’ve lifted my mood instantly, it was them.
Noah caught sight of me first. “Jake, you’re back!”
“I am.” I couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to each of their heads, inhaling the scent of them. They smelled like home too. “Are you having fun?”
“I made you a picture.” He held up his painting of three colourful blobs. “See, that’s us as Squishmallows!”
“It’s another masterpiece. But which one is me? I’ve always wanted to be the pancakes one.”
“I told you, Mummy. I said Jake would be pancakes!”
“And which one is your mum?”
“She’s the pink cow because she likes pink.”
“Humbled by my own child,” Ellie muttered, her voice tinged with amusement.
I couldn’t hide my grin if I tried. “I like pink cows. Very much.”
Ellie’s head tipped to one side, her smile dreamy soft. She patted my abdomen, low enough to make me clench with the tease of it, then slid her palm all the way up to my heart.
I covered her hand, needing to keep her there for a few moments longer.
“I didn’t expect you back so late,” she said. “Everything okay?”
The warmth of the two of them filled my empty cup to overflowing. “It is now.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened today?” Ellie asked a couple of hours later.
Dressed in mint coloured silk pyjamas ready for bed, her forehead crumpled in confusion as I dragged a dining room chair into the bedroom and pressed it up against the now closed door.