15. Jaime
— ? —
Jaime
I haven’t heard that one aimed at me in four years.
I chose this proximity as penance, and it is working.
Wanting her is the rent I actually pay.
The spaghetti is not cooperating.
I’ve watched five YouTube videos. I’ve bought three different brands of sauce. I’ve even called my mother’s housekeeper, who laughed at me for six straight minutes before walking me through the basics.
And still, the noodles are sticking together in clumps.
Tuesday dinner. The one Josh negotiated with the ruthlessness of a tiny corporate raider. Spaghetti Tuesday. I have to bring the bread, the crunchy kind. These are the terms of my visitation, and I take them more seriously than any contract I’ve ever signed.
Visitation is back. Tuesdays and Saturdays. Last week she returned my casserole dish with a sticky note on top: Not bad for a billionaire. Try less salt next time. I tasted the ocean.
I kept the sticky note.
I’m thirty-four years old and I kept a sticky note like a teenager with a locker shrine.
My lawyers want to sue Leslie into the sea over the tell-all, citing defamation, invasion of privacy, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress on a minor, with a case that would bankrupt her three times over.
I told them to hold.
I’ve been doing something slower instead. Something that required patience I didn’t know I had.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
4:12 p.m. One word: DONE.
I allow myself one small smile. Then I go back to unsticking the spaghetti.
The bread is warming in the oven. The sauce is simmering. Josh will be here in forty-five minutes, and for two hours I get to pretend I’m a regular father in a regular apartment making a regular dinner for his son.
Then I hear it.
Heels on the stairs.
I know that walk. It is the sharp, deliberate click of someone who demands attention, someone who has spent years perfecting their entrance, and my blood runs cold.
I’m at my door and I see her. Leslie. Standing at Skye’s threshold in a designer dress and too much perfume, her hand raised to knock.
Skye opens the door.
For a moment, nobody speaks. Skye stands in the doorway like a blade, blocking the entrance, and Josh peeks out from behind her leg with curious eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Skye’s voice is flat.
“I wanted to see how you’re enjoying your fifteen minutes.” There is a dangerous edge to Leslie’s smile. “The sympathy must be nice. Poor single mother, victimized by the mean assistant. Very compelling narrative.”
“Get out of my building.”
“Your building. That’s cute.” Leslie’s eyes slide past Skye to Josh. “Hello, sweetheart. You’re even cuter in person than in the photos. Such a pretty little ransom note.”
“Don’t talk to him.”
“Why not? He’s the whole product, isn’t he? The bank account with curls.” Leslie crouches slightly, addressing Josh directly. “Enjoy being worth something while it lasts, sweetheart. Daddy will get bored eventually. He always does.”
I’m out my door before I’m aware of moving.
“Jaime!” Leslie straightens, her face lighting up with genuine pleasure. “Finally. An audience.”
“Leave.”
“Or what?” She laughs, high and brittle.
“You’ll glare at me some more? Hire another lawyer to send another letter I’ll throw away?
” She steps closer, dropping her voice to a stage whisper that carries perfectly down the hall.
“Go on, glare. You’ll do nothing. You never do.
Remember the altar? You watched. You stood there in your pretty suit and you watched me burn her life down, and you didn’t do a thing to stop me. ”
The truth lands hard, and it hurts because I know it’s real.
Four years ago, I was a coward. I deleted messages instead of having hard conversations.
I watched.
Instead of rage, a cold sense of calculation takes over. I pull out my phone, dial, and set it to speaker.
The voice that answers is clipped, professional. “Mr. Miller. It’s done, as I said. The acquisition cleared at 4:12.”
Leslie’s smile flickers. “What acquisition?”
“Tomorrow’s front page.” I keep my eyes on her face, watching the curiosity happen behind her eyes. “The tabloid company where you sold a lie years ago. The same publisher will destroy you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The 7 a.m. lobby setup. The photographer you paid to be in position. The payments behind the tell-all.” I pause, letting it sink in. “All of it. Page one. Above the fold.”
Leslie’s face goes white. “You’re bluffing.”
“The file’s been typeset, sir.” The editor’s voice is calm. “We were waiting on your word.”
“Print it.”
“Yes, sir. And the apology?”
“Full retraction. Printed apology to Skye Warren. Name above the fold, right next to your star source’s receipts.”
I end the call.
Leslie stares at me. Her mouth opens.
“You bought a tabloid.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “You bought a tabloid to destroy me.”
“You were right for four years. So I bought the megaphone you’ve been screaming into.” I slip the phone back into my pocket. “Tomorrow it tells the truth. On both paper and digital tabloid.”
“I’ll sue.”
“With what money? Your tell-all dried up three days after it aired. The follow-up bookings evaporated. You found her the way you find everything. By following the noise I made. The gossip that I bought a company for my runaway bride. The video. The cameras outside my door. You had someone follow me to the daycare weeks ago. That’s how you learned there was a son at all.
You came here tonight because you’re desperate.
I can see your paparazzi out there. You’re trying to make another story. ”
“I’ll go to another outlet.”
“They’ve all seen the file. I made sure of it.” I step closer, and she stumbles back. “There’s also a restraining order being served with your morning paper. Tonight’s trespass is already on the cameras you bragged your way past.”
“Jaime, please.” Her voice changes. Softer now. “We were friends once. I made mistakes, I know I did, but you can’t just-”
“You have until I count to ten to leave this building. After that, the trespass charge upgrades to harassment, and my lawyers stop being polite.”
She doesn’t make me count.
Her heels are unsteady on the stairs, clicking arrhythmic and panicked. The first honest exit she’s ever made.
The door slams below.
Silence. Then a small voice from behind Skye’s leg.
“Daddy?” Josh peers up at me with wide eyes. “That’s the mean lady. She says bad things about Mama.”
I crouch down to his level, meeting his eyes.
“She’s never coming back, buddy.” I reach out and ruffle his curls. “That’s a promise with paperwork.”
Josh considers this. “Good. I don’t like her. She smells weird.”
Despite everything, I almost laugh. Skye hasn’t moved from the doorway. She’s staring at me.
“The spaghetti’s getting cold,” I say. “And I think I overcooked the noodles again.”
Josh’s face lights up. “Spaghetti Tuesday! Mama, can we eat at Daddy’s house? He has the big TV!”
Skye looks at me and looks at Josh.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Let’s have dinner.”
***
We eat at my folding table, the one I bought to replace the chair. Josh tells us about daycare, about Mika’s new puppy, about the dinosaur project he’s making for show and tell. The spaghetti is overcooked but the bread is perfect. And for one hour, we’re just three people eating dinner together.
Like a family.
After, we put Josh to bed together. Skye reads the first book. I read Hoppy Bunny with the squeaky bunny voice, and Josh giggles at all the right parts and provides commentary on the mush that I’ve now heard a hundred times and will never get tired of.
“Night, Mama.” He yawns, eyes already closing. “Night, Daddy.”
Nobody flinches. For the first time since he started calling me that, nobody in the room flinches.
We tiptoe out, closing the door behind us. The hallway between 4A and 4B stretches out, narrow and dim, and the adrenaline from earlier still hums under my skin.
Skye leans against her doorframe. I lean against mine.
“You bought a tabloid,” she says.
“I bought the parent company. The tabloid was a bonus.”
“To print an apology. To me. On the front page.”
“Above the fold.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Four years ago, I begged you to see her clearly but you raised your voice at me.”
The memory burns. “I know.”
“Tonight she stood in my hallway and called our son a ransom note.” Skye’s voice is quiet. Wondering. “And you didn’t even raise your voice.”
“Rage is cheap.” I hold her gaze. “I bought receipts instead.”
She laughs. It’s aimed at me. For the first time in four years, it’s aimed at me.
And it undoes me more than the cabin ever did.
She crosses the hallway in three steps. Her fist closes around my shirt, and she pulls me through my door.
“Skye-”
“Shut up.”
Her mouth finds mine, and I stop thinking.
The door kicks shut behind us. My back hits the wall. Her hands are everywhere, pulling at my shirt, my belt, my hair. I lift her without thinking and she wraps her legs around my waist, and we make it to the bedroom through sheer luck and desperation.
I lay her down on the bed and take my time. The shirt first, button by button, watching her watch me. Her bra, simple cotton, nothing fancy, and I love it more than anything I’ve ever bought her. Her jeans, tugged down over her hips while she lifts for me, helps me, wants this as much as I do.
“You’re beautiful.” I breathe the words against her stomach. “You’ve always been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Jaime-”
“Let me.” I kiss the stretch marks she thinks I haven’t noticed. The evidence of what she went through alone. “Let me worship you.”
I take my time with her. Mouth and fingers and everything I have. I relearn every inch, every sound, every way to make her gasp and moan and grip the sheets. When she comes the first time, I watch her face and memorize every second of it.
Then I do it again.
“Please.” She’s pulling at me now, dragging me up her body. “Jaime, please. I need you.”
I slide into her slowly. Watch her eyes flutter closed. Feel her clench around me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“Look at me.” I cup her face in my hands. “Skye. Look at me.”
Her eyes open. Dark and desperate and full of something that looks like trust.
I move.
Slow at first. Watching every flicker of her expression. The freckle on her collarbone that I never forgot. The sound she makes when I hit that spot inside her. The way my name sounds in her mouth when she’s close.
“I’ve heard you through the wall.” The confession spills out between thrusts. “Every night. Your laugh during Josh’s bath. The pipes when your shower starts. I’ve been going crazy, wanting you.”
“Jaime-”
“Someday I’m going to marry you.” I murmur it against her skin, not expecting an answer. “Whenever you say. Whenever you’re ready. But someday.”
She doesn’t respond. Just pulls me deeper, kisses me harder, and falls apart in my arms.
I follow her over the edge, her name on my lips, my face buried in her neck.
***
Dawn light creeps through the curtains. We’re tangled together, her head on my chest, my hand tracing patterns on her spine.
“I love you.” She says it into my skin, quiet, like she’s testing the weight of the words.
I go completely still.
“I love you too.” My voice cracks. “I never stopped. Not for one second.”
She lifts her head. Her finger traces my knuckles. The ones that split on Aidan’s jaw, long healed now.
“That someday question,” she says. “Ask me again.”
My heart stops.