Chapter 22
Kevin
Andi’s got the cutest house in the world. It’s like a magical little witch’s cottage.
I shouldn’t have hugged her the other night. I can’t stop thinking about how she felt in my arms, her arms coming around me to hold me tight too. If she’s a witch, she’s welcome to lure me right into her oven. She can do it sight unseen, even, using just words. Like last night, on our good-night call, when out of the blue she said all casual-like, her voice low and husky and inviting, “Hey, wanna come up to my place tomorrow afternoon? You can see what I have in mind for the baby’s room.”
We’d just been talking about the month-four chapter in our baby book, and a couple of kids I’ve been working with at the shelter, and a student I’m concerned about at school. Andi’s every bit as interested in it all as I am. She’s a wonderful listener. Asks great questions that help me see answers more easily.
I could swear I’m not boring her any more than she bores me, which is never. Not once. Not in any way.
So I jump at the invitation. All casual-like too, of course. Riiight.
She doesn’t even really live in town. She’s a few miles up in the hills along a twisty, woodsy roller coaster of a road. Her mailbox doesn’t have a name, only a number, and it’s made of stone to match the cottage. No baseball-bat-wielding hooligans are going to damage that sturdy little sucker.
I pull into the gravel driveway and turn off the ignition, looking my fill. She must park in the garage; her car’s nowhere in sight. The modest front yard is probably shady in summer, but now the leaves blow in gold and orange eddies beneath bare branches. The house is low, built of river rock, and looks like it’s been here forever. Only three windows across the front, one to the left of the blue front door and two to the right, all of them multipane with blue trim, none of them big.
I wonder if it’s dark and mysterious in there. Whether I’ll have to stoop to avoid bunches of dried herbs hanging from low ceiling beams.
Thick clouds were gathering on my drive up here and the first raindrop spatters my windshield as the front door opens. Andi crosses her arms, leaning against the doorframe, and smiles at me. Warms me up from twenty feet away. I am out of the car and up that walk before the next drop hits.
This feels momentous to me. Andi hadn’t said , “Hey, I finally trust you enough to let you in,” but that’s how this feels.
I reach for her as I step over the threshold and the rain starts in earnest behind me. Andi laughs and pulls me inside far enough that she can shut the door, and then my arms are around her. I mean to only allow myself one brief hug, but then she’s holding me too and I can’t make myself let go. Can’t not bury my nose in her soft fragrant hair, and then in the warm spicy curve of her neck…
But something starts beeping behind me and Andi says, “Dammit! Hold that thought!” and grips my hoodie with one hand while with the other she punches in a code on a wall security panel. She comes back into my arms, snuggling against me, and I allow myself the absolute joy of holding her just to be holding her again. I know I should let go, step back, but I can’t.
And she burrows into my arms, her own tight around me, her nose in my collarbone, and gives a little sigh. “God, I love your hugs.”
And how can I help but fall for this woman? This kind, affectionate, brilliant, warm, beautiful woman who makes me feel so good with every word and touch and smile. How could I not love her?
I can’t not fall.
But I can’t let myself get in too deep too fast. That’s exactly the mistake I’ve made over and over in my past. Andi is too important to me to take the chance of messing it up like that.
Even without a baby in the picture, I wouldn’t be able to stand messing up with her.
So I take hold of her arms and lean back. Smile down into her eyes and say, “Give me the tour.”
We’re in a little entry area, a bench and coat hooks to the left beside a door that must lead into the garage. The living area is one mostly open space, with the kitchen part a few steps from where we’re standing and a dining table beside that, before a rain-flecked sliding door to what looks like a patio at the back of the house. To our right is a love seat and two chairs in front of a stone fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves. Contrary to what I expected, the space isn’t dark and the ceiling’s not low. Not a cathedral ceiling, for sure, but it does taper up to a peak. The colors are light and mellow, there’s the scent of something delicious wafting from the kitchen, and the whole effect is as warm and welcoming as Andi herself.
It feels like home.
Unlike my apartment, which only feels like that when she’s there with me.
Speaking of home… “Hey, there’s something I want to ask you,” I say as she leads me across the living area to the far corner of the room where three doors open from a tiny hallway.
“Yeah? What’s that?” She doesn’t let me answer though. She points to the doorway on the left. “My room.” She nudges the middle door with her elbow. “Bathroom.” Then she turns me to the right-hand doorway. “This will be Lil Bit’s room. Used to be mine.”
It’s small, but there’s plenty of space for a crib and changing table and dresser and maybe a rocker. And when Lil Bit gets older, to swap out the baby furniture for a twin bed and desk. Maybe one of those lofted twin-desk combos, to make room for a friend to sleep over.
I can imagine building shelves in here for my kid. Building Lego castles in the middle of this floor. Putting together bright, massive puzzles at the dining room table.
Standing hand in hand with Andi in the quiet of the night, watching our child sleep…
She’s beside me now, leaning in, bumping me with her shoulder, her hip soft against mine. “What was your question?”
“Oh. Uh.” I clear my throat and shove the dream images from my mind before I tear up like I’m the one with pregnancy hormones. “My mom wants me to bring you to Lincoln for Thanksgiving.” I hold my breath, hoping this won’t freak her out. I couldn’t think of a better way to bring it up.
“Your… Why…? What does your mom even know of me?” She searches my face. Anxious, I think.
“Listen, it’s no big deal. Whatever you want to do. No pressure, okay?” I take both her hands and squeeze them to reassure her. “My niece got it in her head that I’ve got a girlfriend. I tried to straighten her out. Anyway, she ran and told my whole family, and they all halfway think so too now.”
“Halfway?” Her dark eyes are boring deep, deep into my brain.
“I told my mom—everybody who mentioned it, really—that that’s not the case, that I don’t want to jump too fast into another relationship. I think Mom even kind of approves.”
She frowns. Wiggles her jaw side to side. “So…what does she think I am to you, exactly?”
I shrug and go with the truth, without even knowing how she’ll feel about it. “My best friend here. I told her you’re my best friend.”
***
Andi
My best friend.
My first thought is, But you’re a man!
My second thought is, Wow, Andi, really?
And then it sinks in deep, like a firm, heavy press to my gut and my heart. I am his best friend, at least here.
I’ve been weighted down with indecision and worry, all jumbled up with the wonder and pleasure of pregnancy, and he’s been experiencing our relationship in a totally different way. His own unique and valid way. As a close friendship.
And…he’s absolutely right. All these hours we’ve spent together, running or talking or making food or eating or reading the books he bought us, asking each other questions about favorite childhood games, best teacher ever, saddest song lyric…all those hours were not just passing time. Not just Exceptionally Cautious Andi Trying to Belatedly Vet This Person With Whom She’s Created a Baby. We’ve been building something.
Kevin’s not just somebody I want desperately to sleep with again, or somebody with whom I have to balance attraction with fear and suspicion. He’s somebody I would call for help if my car broke down and I was stranded by the side of the road. Somebody I look forward to seeing, whether we’ve planned a dinner date or errands or just a quick run. Somebody whose stories and thoughts I like and want to hear more of.
Kevin’s become one of my close friends too.
I’m not sure how to reconcile that with my fears. How is it that I trust him implicitly in so many ways…but can’t seem to manage it at all in others?
He stirs beside me, like he’s been deep in thought too, and waves his arm at the room. “How do you want the nursery to be?”
I force my brain to switch gears. “Well, obviously I have to figure out what to do with that stuff.” Five boxes stacked in the far corner, some with Gram’s things I couldn’t make myself part with, others with stuff of mine she’d saved from when I was growing up. “There might even be something in there I could use in here, but…I don’t know.”
“Don’t try to move it, okay? I can carry it to the garage for you, or wherever else you want it.”
There he goes being thoughtful again. “Okay.” I move to stand near the boxes. “I’d like some kind of rocker or comfy chair here, for nursing.”
His face softens instantly, so that it’s all I can do not to cry.
I clear my throat. “Crib on that wall nearest the bathroom. Changing table just inside the door. And maybe a little bookshelf under each window.”
He nods. “Sounds perfect.”
“I was looking at furniture online… Haven’t decided on any yet, but if you like, I’ll show them to you later.” I do love the way he listens to and looks at me, the slightest thinking furrow on his brow.
His smile when my words sink in. “I’d like that.”
I have to blink away to keep from walking right back into his arms, welcome or not. “So, um, I don’t much care for blue or pink. I like the idea of a nice sunny yellow. Not too bright.”
“Nice. You remember I’m doing the painting, right? Don’t want you breathing fumes or climbing ladders.”
I laugh. “Dude, I’m the one who used to do all the manual labor around here. Haul paving stones, demo walls, paint, hammer…you name it. If you want to baby me, knock yourself out.”
His grin is sheepish. Cute, even, with that damn dimple winking at me. “I know you’re plenty capable. And strong. I just want to…do something to help. Take care of you and the baby.”
“I appreciate that.” Not sure what to make of the peculiar sensations it causes in my gut, warm and cold twisting through me though.
“Can I do the painting today? Won’t take but a minute for me to move those boxes. Do we need to run out for paint and supplies?”
“Nope. Already got it.”
He starts to frown, maybe even to gripe at me, and somehow it’s not at all alarming. Huh.
I hold up one hand. “Calm down, big boy. The home store people loaded it into my trunk for me and it’s all still there.”
His brow clears and as I head past him to the door, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for another one of those delicious-yet-not-nearly-enough hugs.
“Smart lady,” he murmurs into my hair. “Smart, pretty lady.” And then, as I knew he would, he lets go and steps back.
I sigh. “I’m cooking. You want to eat first or work first?”
“Let me get a good start on the painting before I take a break.” He pulls his hoodie over his head, flashing me a mouthwatering glimpse of his midsection before his T-shirt settles back down around his waistband, and then pauses in the act of hanging it on the doorknob. “Or wait, do you need to eat now? We can do it whenever you need to.”
The man just will not not be nice. “Nope, I nibbled while I was prepping the ingredients.” I take his sweatshirt and resist the urge to bury my face in it to inhale his scent.
It takes him all of three minutes to carry the storage boxes to the garage and the painting stuff to the nursery, and then he sets to work in there. I crank up a playlist I’ve made of songs he’s mentioned he likes. “Nice!” he calls from the other room.
I put the finishing touches on the soup and whip up a batch of cheese sticks using the top secret recipe Gram and I developed when I was a freshman in high school. Then I make batter for the brownies he liked so much when I took them to July’s, and I get those in the oven.
“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” Kevin hollers from the nursery when the chocolate scent starts to waft from the oven.
“Maybe. But not till your work is done.” I grin the rest of the way through the laundry load I’m folding, remembering him calling my brownie-eating friends buzzards .
This is an amazing way to spend a day, with the sound of rain outside, us safe and warm and snug inside with good music and a good meal to come. Having somebody to share and appreciate these things with.
Sorry, Gram, but I can almost imagine myself getting used to this.
The brownies are cooling and I’ve put away the laundry and baked the cheese sticks a second time—that’s the secret to getting them crispy enough—when Kevin finally steps out of the little bedroom, a big wad of blue painter’s tape in his hands.
“All done. Come see.” He’s speckled with white and yellow and smiling from ear to ear.
The fumes aren’t bad at all because I’d bought water-based paint. Semigloss, for ease of cleaning. He scoops up the drop cloth and waves me in first, stepping in behind me.
It’s lovely. He’s done a lovely job, from the gleaming white ceiling and woodwork to the sunny walls. What a fresh, cheery place for Lil Bit to come home to. My eyes have welled up so that it’s hard to see. “Kev…let me get a paper towel. There’s a couple of smudges… Wait… Are those… Peeps ?” The horizontal window trim boards, upper and lower, have yellow blotches on them.
I move in to look more closely. Behind me, Kevin makes a sound of exasperation.
“Peeps? Dang, Andi…” But then he leans over my shoulder to see too and starts laughing. “Well, okay. I can see why you might think so.”
He has somehow, with one of those clunky paintbrushes, painted little blobby ducklings on the trim.
Little blobby ducklings for the baby I’ve worried he might hurt.
“They’re wonderful,” I say on a sob—fuck me, these hormones are going to be the death of me—and fling myself into his arms.