12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
Stephen
By the fourth night, we’ve established a worrying routine.
Once Kiara and her team leave the estate, Landon and I raid the fridge and freezer for whatever we can find to bake or cook.
Cookies. A banana cake. Spaghetti and meatballs from scratch.
Basic stuff, but he seems thrilled with each process from start to finish.
While we’re doing that, Ava sits on the couch, reading one of her romance novels, occasionally setting it down to watch us or participate in whatever conversation Landon and I are having.
As soon as we have a finished product, the three of us eat dinner at the small table, and Landon regales the two of us with all the exciting things that happened at school.
I’ve taken a page from my parents’ book, and I ask him for the best moment of his day.
It’s a remarkably good way to get him talking, which often leads to anything that didn’t go well that day.
Ava then fills me in on Bellerive’s gossip and whatever plot twist has occurred in the book she’s reading. If Landon wasn’t sitting at the table with us, if that big rock wasn’t on her finger, it would be like time had been erased.
Or maybe, more accurately, like life swerved onto the path of “what could have been,” but I can’t let myself consider that idea too much or too long. What-ifs and if-onlys are fruitless branches that’ll merely rot with unhappiness.
After we eat, I do all my security checks around the property and in the house while Ava spends time with Landon. Last night, she taught him how to play checkers, and my fucking heart almost burst out of my chest to see the two of them bent over the board. A flood of bittersweet emotion.
When we were younger, Ava’s certainty she’d be child free made sense, even though I wanted them and wished she did too. She didn’t gravitate to kids or babies, and she didn’t appear to have much of a mothering instinct in any environment.
Landon has unlocked some secret door. She’s amazing with him. Now, I’m wondering why she’s only had one. How much she loves him and being a mom is obvious, but I can’t ask her.
The idea of her and Raul together in any way makes me want to punch something until my knuckles are bloody, black and blue, and that physical pain is all I can feel.
That’s how intensely I’m starting to wish things were different.
I’d welcome the physical pain if it dulled the sharp edges of emotional turmoil.
Years ago, I never cared if she was with someone else.
I mean, I didn’t like it, but I was confident that no matter who she was with, she’d come back to me eventually.
Anyone else was a blip, as insignificant as stubbing a toe.
Her pattern was so well established, it was comical when she tried to make me jealous.
Do your worst, Ava, I used to think. You’ll be back in my bed by the end of the week.
Giving her that sexual freedom made me feel better about how early our relationship started and eased my guilt about my desire to keep her mine in all the ways that truly mattered.
I hate that she’s with Raul. That he’s her husband, a title I wanted so fucking badly and that my heart thought would be mine. The fact that I have to keep reminding myself he exists to avoid doing something stupid, something familiar, causes my stomach to sour even more.
She’s married. She’s married. She’s married. She chose this life. With him.
She wanted this house, her successful company, and a man like Raul. That’s the truth.
Before I see her, I hear the creak of the stairs, and I steel myself to tell her no.
The longer I let myself soak in her undivided attention, the worse it’ll be when her husband returns.
This pattern, these moments in the house, are fleeting.
Getting close to her changes nothing. She wanted the life.
She’s not leaving him even if she still wants to fuck me.
Maybe their marriage allows that. I’m not asking. Married women aren’t for me. Never have been. Never will be.
Even if I changed my mind, she’s my employer, and her husband is an asshole. Messy. Really fucking messy.
“Can you teach me to play chess?” she asks as she descends the stairs, her hand trailing along the ornate railing.
“That’s what you want to do tonight?” My resolve evaporates at the mere sight of her. I’m so fucking doomed. Where she’s concerned, my willpower is beyond repair. The scraps she feeds me have always been better than someone else’s five-star meal.
“My parents didn’t play games with us. Sometimes Nathaniel or Sawyer would, but it wasn’t something we did a lot. It was fun trying to teach Landon how to play checkers yesterday.”
“I would have thought you’d find it frustrating.” I take the security unit off the wall and follow her into the main living room.
She laughs and then throws me a grin over her shoulder. God, she’s beautiful.
“Are you trying to say I don’t have any patience?”
“Never used to,” I say.
“Surprised me too,” she admits. “Honestly, that’s been the whole thing about being a mom, though. I still don’t love other people’s kids, but I can’t believe how much I love my own.” She presses a palm to her chest. “It’s unreal.”
The chessboard is already out, but it’s not set up. I guess she knew I’d say yes. A foregone conclusion.
“You’re a good mom.” My voice is gruff.
We’re at the table, and she steps close to me. Vanilla and lilies waft toward me, and I recognize the Reckless scent from the hours I’ve spent in the building. But it’s never smelled as good as it does right now.
“You think I’m a good mom?” she whispers.
“You must know you are.”
“No one’s ever told me.”
The fact that her husband, who seems to have left most of the child raising to her, has never given her a pat on the back—at the very least—for her efforts makes my throat tight with emotion.
Even putting her body through pregnancy and childbirth to have my child would have made me endlessly grateful.
I’d have told her every day, every chance I could.
“Having Landon has made me realize my mom wasn’t so great.
” She plucks a chess piece from the table, toying with it.
“And I feel bad for thinking that because I know parenting is not easy. That it’s probably easier to fuck up than it is to get it right.
Five kids—what are the chances you make the right calls for all of them? Any of them?”
“Your mom is a complicated woman,” I say. “It doesn’t seem like you’re alone in thinking she could have been better.” I try to keep my voice gentle.
“I’m the only one still speaking to her,” she admits, even though I already know.
“She’s not sick anymore?”
“Her kidneys are currently functioning properly. The chemo-type treatment they did seems to have kicked them back into working right. So she doesn’t need my kidney. Nathaniel says he wouldn’t have given her his, but I don’t know… He’s got those martyr tendencies.”
“Why are you close with Celia?” That’s been the biggest surprise since my return.
“We’re not that close, not really. We’re just not estranged.” She runs her fingers along her forehead, clearly thinking. “I never thought I’d be the last one standing. Mom and I fought a lot when I was younger.” She gives me a wry smile. “Which you know.”
“Even if you’re not close, you’re definitely closer.”
“She was there for me when I really needed someone,” she says.
“My brothers and sisters were all busy leading their own lives, and I…” She shakes her head.
“Maybe she was there for me in case she needed a kidney. Maybe she was there for me because she’s my mother and she loves me.
I’ve chosen to believe the second version. ”
“Is she a good grandmother?” I ask.
“When Landon was a baby, yes. Not as much now that he can walk and talk and have opinions. No storybook grandparents on my side. My dad’s obsessed with the WHL team, and I barely see him.
” She lets out another laugh that’s almost bitter.
“Raul’s parents are dead, so Landon doesn’t really have any grandparents who are involved in his life. ”
When she looks up and we make eye contact, I want to ask why the hell she married him, had a kid with him. She doesn’t seem happy. But I know why. I know why.
“I’ll set up the board,” I say, stepping back and sliding into my chair, grabbing a handful of pieces and slotting them into place.
Ava sits across from me and mirrors how I set up the board. To avoid talking about anything personal, I go through the object of the game and then what each chess piece can and can’t do.
Once we’ve played one game in which I help her a lot with moves and strategy, Ava settles in on the second game and starts to move the pieces with more confidence.
“Has your sister said anything about what’s happening at The Nile?” she asks, sneaking a glance at me before resuming her calculations, lifting pieces and trying moves before putting them back.
“We don’t talk about it,” I say, which isn’t strictly true. I know the unionization vote is coming up soon, that my time in this house is likely coming to an end. We do dance around what we’re both doing and the impact on each other, but I don’t like having information Ava doesn’t.
Raul doesn’t seem to tell Ava anything. Maybe they’ve spoken on the phone or texted while he’s been gone, but I haven’t seen any evidence of communication.
They live in the same house, but their lives aren’t connected.
Ava used to love the appearance of independence, even as she spent a lot of her free time in my apartment.
How much she seemed to not just want me but also my company was what made me believe we had something real.
“You’re happy with Reckless?” I ask. “Vanessa tells me that the word on the street is that you’re a good boss.”
“Oh my god,” Ava says, her palm pressing into her chest again. “Your sister said that?”