Chapter 23
ZACH
On our first night in Wisconsin, the girls demanded pizza for dinner. Jennifer climbed onto one of the barstools in the kitchen, her expression completely serious. “We want cheese, but like, fancy cheese. Because this is a fancy house.”
“Fancy cheese is not a thing,” Lu informed her.
“It is too.”
“What kind of cheese qualifies as fancy?” I asked carefully, sensing danger when my brain jumped straight to top-tier blue and aged cheeses. I highly doubted that was what she was referring to, though. “Do you know the name of it?”
Jennifer thought about it for a beat. “The stretchy kind.”
“That’s very helpful,” I said. “What else do you want on yours?”
“I want pepperoni,” Lu announced.
I nodded and ordered enough pizza to feed a small army. In the few hours we’d been here, I’d rapidly started learning that children operated on unpredictable hunger patterns and constantly asked for snacks.
In the meantime, Adeline sat beside me with a serene expression on her face, her blue eyes on the rain pelting the swimming pool outside. She’d pulled her hair up into a ponytail that hung in a smooth, strawberry blonde wave down her back.
Like this, she looked so much like she used to. Even the dark circles that had been under her eyes when I’d first seen her again in that restaurant were lighter now. I didn’t know this for sure, but it definitely seemed like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
I didn’t want to take all the credit for it, but I sure as hell hoped I’d had something to do with it, at least.
Amber resurfaced from the guest house before I could ask if she’d like to stay here with the girls even longer, walking into the kitchen and immediately starting to throw digs at me again. “My recovery nap was awesome, but your guest house has too many bedrooms.”
“You have too many opinions,” I replied easily, finally deciding that if she was going to insist on dishing it out, she was going to have to take it too. “Especially for someone who drove here in a car that looks like it lost a fight with a Crayola box.”
She scoffed. “It’s vintage. That color was limited edition.”
“For a reason,” I said. “No one wanted to buy them.”
Her eyes rolled as she dropped into the stool beside Jennifer’s. She hadn’t stormed out and she didn’t seem offended at all, which was a good sign. “Green is a great color,” she said.
“For a tree,” I said. “Also, have all the curbs in Chicago sparred with your car or did you drive into them on purpose?”
Jennifer burst into giggles and even Lu laughed at that. I blinked hard, surprised, but I had to admit, that was a high point for me. Lu didn’t seem to laugh easily.
Amber folded her arms. “My car has personality.”
“The only thing that car has is a short future ahead of it.”
“Only because it’s had such a storied life,” she said. “Which is more than I can say for that monstrosity you’ve got parked outside. What, did you get it yesterday when you realized we wouldn’t all fit into whatever spiffy little sports car you really drive?”
“I got it this morning, actually.”
The girls dissolved into hysterics, obviously not realizing that I’d been serious, but I didn’t point it out either. Across the table, Adeline was still looking soft and relaxed, watching us and listening. Amusement lit her eyes, but she didn’t say anything.
I caught myself looking at her again every few seconds, unable to stop now that it had dawned on me that she was really here. Adeline Morris, in my ranch house. Never thought that was going to happen.
Naturally, I also kept pretending I wasn’t staring at her. Theo had spent my entire adolescence informing me I had the subtlety of a freight train when I liked someone. If the knowing look on Amber’s face was anything to go by, he’d been correct for once.
When the pizza arrived, I went to get it.
We ate right there at the kitchen island while Bear stationed himself beneath the table like a hopeful little scavenger.
Lu stole olives off Jennifer’s plate for the sole purpose of instigating conflict and Adeline laughed with Amber, but she kept sneaking glances at me too.
At one point, I even caught her flashing me a smile and my heart did something in response that was completely unhealthy.
After dinner, the girls launched into negotiations to try and weasel their way into my theater room.
They’d discovered it earlier and the squeals had been ear piercing, but there had been something satisfying about it.
Clearly, they liked the place, and although it was probably just the novelty of having so much space after being cooped up in that condo, I found it strangely gratifying that my house had their seal of approval.
“Can we have a movie night?” Jennifer asked hopefully.
“With popcorn,” Lu said.
Adeline checked her watch, then snorted softly. “Not tonight, ladies. It’s way past your bedtime and you still need a bath, too.”
“But we’re on vacation,” Jennifer argued. “There’s no bedtime on vacation.”
“There is when you’re both going to be crabby tomorrow if you don’t get enough sleep.”
Amber nodded her agreement. “Even I’m going to bed. I have plans to explore tomorrow and I don’t want to be too tired to enjoy that. Do you?”
Jennifer immediately shook her head, but Lu seemed to be considering it. Either way, Adeline stood and herded them to the stairs, much to their dismay. Loud groans rang out, but they went with her after saying goodnight to Amber and me.
She stood up too, sending me a curt salute as she backed out of the kitchen. “Good luck tomorrow. You’re going to need it.”
I didn’t argue with her. “Thanks. Good luck choosing a bed in all those bedrooms.”
She laughed and left, and I suddenly found myself alone. Amber wasn’t a teenager, but I weirdly felt uncertain about having her sleep in the guest house all by herself anyway. Can kids still sneak out to go partying if they’re in their early twenties and out in the Wisconsin countryside?
As I considered it, I decided it probably wasn’t classified as sneaking out anymore at that age.
It was probably just leaving. I started collecting the pizza boxes, transferring all the leftover slices to one before carrying that over to the fridge, but the longer I was alone, the more uncertain I was.
About everything.
For fuck’s sake. Two crises of confidence in one day?
I hadn’t even had one of those in the last decade, but at this rate, I was going to be surviving on them for the next ten years. The problem was that I’d had almost no time to prepare myself for this and I had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to look like.
Adeline was upstairs putting the girls to sleep. I knew that much. What I didn’t know was whether I was supposed to help or stay out of the way. Once Adeline and I were married, I was going to be their stepfather, but only just thinking that word almost gave me heart palpitations.
In the end, I took the empty pizza boxes to the trash and cleaned up instead of trying to figure out what—if any—role I was supposed to play in the girls’ lives.
An hour later, soft footsteps sounded behind me and I turned to find Adeline standing in the doorway. Her eyes were soft and sleepy. They’d always looked that way after nine at night, even back in the days when our parties at college had only started at ten.
I tried not to imagine lifting her onto the counter and kissing her senseless like I used to when she looked like that. Fuck, remembering those days was not helpful right now at all, so I cleared my throat and kept my eyes on hers instead of letting them roam all over her body.
“They finally crashed?” I asked.
“Barely,” she replied with a laugh. “Jennifer wanted to know if cows sleep standing up and Lu somehow turned the question into an existential crisis involving sharks, sheep, and the moon.”
“Wow.”
A soft, small smile appeared on her lips. “Yeah, bedtime is always a laugh a minute, but it’s still one of my favorite parts of the day.”
“It is?”
“There’s nothing quite like those few minutes when they’re finally relaxing after a long day and just talking about nothing and everything at once.”
I nodded like I knew what she was talking about, but honestly, I didn’t understand and wasn’t sure I ever would.
To me, it’d seemed like it might be her favorite part of the day because she knew then that they’d be asleep soon, but apparently, it was about the period before she finally got some peace and quiet.
Confusing much?
“Anyway,” she said as she drifted further into the kitchen. “Where did you put my suitcase? I was looking for it to change, but I wasn’t even sure where to start.”
“Right. Of course. It’s in the master bedroom. Last door on your left,” I said without thinking at all about what it was going to sound like, and by the time my brain caught up, Adeline was staring at me with wide eyes.
I nearly swallowed my own tongue before I started backtracking. “What I meant to say is that you’re staying in the master bedroom. I’m in one of the guest rooms.”
Smooth, Zach. Real smooth. Excellent recovery.
“I just thought you should have the best room,” I said.
“They’re all great. Of course. I didn’t put you in there because I wanted you sleeping in my be—” I finally cut myself off when a tiny smile tugged at her mouth.
“You know what, never mind. Your suitcase is in the master. Let’s leave it at that. ”
“Thank you,” she said, still looking way more amused than the situation called for.
If I was a blusher, I would have been beet red right about now, but instead, I tipped my head toward the fridge. “Wine?”
“Please.”
“That was the right answer.”
She laughed. “Was there a wrong one?”
“Yes, and it was no.” I headed over to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of white, filled two glasses, slid the cork back into the bottle, and pushed her glass across the counter.
“Do the girls, uh, do they usually sleep through the night? Shit, I don’t even know at what age that stops being a thing. ”