Chapter Nine Dessert
I’m not sure what Madelyn and I are, but whatever it is, I like it.
I cook steaks one night, and she makes meatloaf the next.
Swim lessons become the highlight of my morning, and I gradually wiggle my way into her trust, careful never to break it, so that when I have a day off, I come over and get Zack all to myself.
We explore the backyard together, go for ice cream, build cities of blocks, color endless pictures, and read dozens of books.
Maybe I’m just the babysitter to Madelyn.
Fine, I tell myself. This is like hunting a rogue shark that preys on kraken communities. You play the long game. You take the opportunities at a moment’s notice. If I am dear to Zack first, and Madelyn second, then so be it.
But on a Tuesday night a week later, I get the feeling that perhaps I’ve been burrowing my way into Madelyn’s heart the same way she’s been growing deeper into mine.
“Allison!” Zack bounces out of my lap as we sit on the porch. Madelyn closes her laptop.
“Hi, Zack! Hi, Madelyn.” Allison approaches the gate into the backyard gingerly, as if unsure of her welcome.
Madelyn, to her credit, greets the pre-teen warmly. “Hi, Allison! I didn’t realize we were neighbors until yesterday when I saw you and your little brother making the chalk art a few houses away.”
“Yeah, practically, next door,” Allison smiles. “It’s a nice night, and my little brother got one of those balls that you throw to make ice cream. I was wondering if Zack wanted to come over and help us make some vanilla and strawberry, and then eat ice cream cones?”
Zack is already scrambling off my lap, books on dinosaurs and diggers flying. “Can I, Mommy?”
“A ball that makes ice cream?” Madelyn is intrigued.
“You have the mix in one compartment and the salt and ice inside the other, and you toss it to freeze it. You have to be really energetic.”
“Mom says I’m endergentic!” Zack hops up and down to illustrate this point.
“Well... If you have him back by seven, then yes.”
“Thank you!” Zack squeals and runs to the gate. I hoist him up and over, and look back at Madelyn.
“We’ll walk him over,” we say as one.
Madelyn and I have discovered we have a few important things in common over the past two weeks.
Tonight, we discover another—we’re both overprotective parents (or whatever I am).
We linger, and then we decide that it’s such a nice night that we’ll go for a walk up and down Settler Avenue—right around Allison’s house.
“I can hear them playing in the yard. Zack’s voice is the cutest thing,” I sigh, partially in relief, partially with happiness.
“His birthday is in ten days. I think we’ll invite Allison’s family.
My parents will come up. My mother-in-law might come, too.
She’s about four hours away from us, now, and I know she’s not fond of long car trips alone at her age.
I haven’t asked her officially. Ever since she sent that text— Well, ever since Eli took Linda’s phone and used it to send the text, you know the one—”
“Yes, I do,” I snarl.
“Where Eli says she wants to raise him and he won’t even be around.
.. I don’t know how he spun that, but now I don’t feel like I can trust her.
We’ve had a tense relationship since Eli and I separated, but this is a whole different level of betrayal.
I never kept Zack from her,” Madelyn says, shaking her head, eyebrows drawn together in hurt and confusion.
“I don’t know how she could claim to love him and then say she’d help Eli get custody of him.
Like, Eli’s never been around Zack. And Zack has only ever known me and my parents as caregivers, mainly just me.
Whisking him away from all of us? That would be cruel. ”
“I won’t let that happen, Madelyn. If that man should ever try... Well, I know we’re not a couple, but I love Zack, and I can’t let that happen to him. Or you. We would go somewhere else. Somewhere remote, where he couldn’t find us.”
Madelyn is silent, and I wonder if I’ve said too much. Was that threatening? Unhinged?
I can suddenly picture some faceless, selfish man pulling Zack away as he screams and reaches for Madelyn, and I can’t breathe.
Instead of speaking, Madelyn’s hand slips into mine. Holds onto my hand tightly, slender, pale fingers through my thick, muscular teal ones. “Thank you, Mercer.”
“You’re welcome. I mean it.”
More silence, just a heartbeat of quiet where we can hear the kids in Allison’s yard giggling and calling out to each other. Then, Madelyn murmurs, “I know you do.” Her fingers tighten around mine.
There are no flashes of the future this time, just a golden, all-consuming warmth.
This is right. This is mine.
“You getting tired?” Madelyn asks.
I realize that I’ve stopped moving, and I shake myself. “I’m sorry. This is the first time you’ve ever held my hand. I was savoring.”
Madelyn snorts out a little laugh, then looks embarrassed, and laughs harder. “It is pretty nice.”
“It’s perfect. Like everything is just so smooth and beautiful. So warm and right with your hand in mine.”
I feel her relax—and then tense up again.
“It’s been an easy few weeks. You know, except for the moving, the horrible ex threats and insults, and Zack’s near-drowning.
” She shudders and tosses me a wry smile.
“I guess we’re into a routine—but it isn’t always like this.
I don’t want you to get the idea that things with Zack and me could ever be ‘easy.’”
Wisdom might tell me not to argue with the woman of my dreams, but sometimes, stubbornness outruns wisdom.
“Madelyn, don’t you think perhaps it’s been easier because you’ve had help for some parts of the day?
I know dinner, bedtime, and an hour or so in the morning are not much, but when I came over to play with Zack for a bit, and you were able to finish that big project, that was probably helpful. ”
Not entirely to my surprise, she glares at me. “Yeah, it’s been so nice.”
“Then why do you look like you’re trying to broil me with your eyes?”
“Because it seems easy because of you, but when you leave—”
“Who says I want to leave?” I tug her to a halt at the corner of the block. It’s my turn to unleash a glare and let my tentacles swirl and thrash along the ground in agitation. “Have I given any indication of that?”
“No, but... But it won’t always be this easy.”
“No, one day it might be even better!” My voice is urgent, both of my hands claiming hers.
“Life is always going to throw hard things at you. Zack could get hurt at school, the house could need repairs, illnesses strike... I want to be there for those hard times and the easy times. I want to make things easier for you and Zack, and the magical thing is, Madelyn... You said things are better when I’m around, and I’m not even doing anything difficult or noteworthy.
All I’m doing is showing up and helping, because I want to.
Because I want you and Zack in my life. I don’t want to insult your intellect, my dearest friend, but don’t you think that the more I’m around, the easier it might get? ”
“Hypothetically, yes. You sound like you want to make this last, God knows why—”
Because I’m falling in love with you. I love your bravery, and your resilience, and your beauty, and the soft curves of you, and the way you raise Zack.
I love being part of a family, I love feeling like I have something to protect and cherish, finding a treasure on land after searching every ocean.
I think all of that, but none of the words come out.
“I have hundreds of reasons, but the main ones are you and Zack,” I supply.
“But lots of guys think they want to make it permanent in the first rush of excitement. I admit, Zack is the prize at the bottom of the box. I’d be tempted to do anything just to spend more time with him,” she hints.
My tentacles disobey orders and slowly creep around her waist and wrist. One strokes back her hair as I continue to keep her hands locked in mine.
“You are the prize. If Zack were someone else’s child, then I would think he was a precocious, bright boy, probably gifted.
But because he is yours, I love him. Because you let me get to know him, he’s captured my heart. ”
“You... You love my son?”
“Like he was my own. And I know you cannot fathom that yet, so I will show you. By staying.”
Madelyn blinks, her eyes suddenly hazy with tears. “But the water?”
“We live a few blocks from a lake. The town is full of rivers.”
“In the winter?”
“We’ll put in a pool. Or buy a house that has one.”
“Dude, I’m a single mom. You’re a lifeguard. There’s no money for that.”
I shake my head, impatience on my features.
I give her hands a little shake. “You are throwing up walls, but I am a kraken. My kind have brought down the greatest sailing ships of the ages. Do you really think something as small as money will stop me from being with the woman I love? I’ll hunt treasures for you, for us!
I can find a fortune at the bottom of the sea, and I have already started amassing some savings over the years, and I’ve had almost nothing to spend it on.
You’re welcome to all of it. You and Zack are my greatest treasures. ”
He said he loves my son. He called me the woman he loves.
My heart feels like it’s wobbling, off-balance, and the head rush is unexpectedly glorious. I never imagined someone would say those words to me again, or if they did, that I would trust them.
But I trust Mercer, I trust him with Zack’s life, and that’s the gold standard of trust.
He loves me.
Willing to stay.
Willing to make things easier.
Willing to find us the money we need to be together.
After just two weeks of knowing each other. After seeing each other pretty much every day.
My heart and my brain are at war. Skepticism and dreamy idealism are not a good mix.