8. Ryan
RYAN
I drive home in the dark. I don’t speed and I don’t punch my steering wheel. I don’t do any of the stupid things younger men do when a woman leaves their bed at three a.m. because I am not a younger man and also because I already know what happened.
I can’t believe she used the word rebound. That woman is anything but a rebound. But I’m not angry, not at her. Because I think I know what happened.
I have been studying her from the moment we met and I already know the shape of her fear.
I saw it on that very first day when she told me she didn’t need me to pay for the diapers.
I saw it in the truck when I picked her up and she had to physically arrange her shoulders to walk out the door.
I saw it in the cabin when she laughed and caught herself doing it, like laughing was a thing she was not sure she had permission for yet.
She didn't leave because she wanted to leave. She left because she is a woman who has been trained to distrust anything that feels good.
I pull into my driveway and cut the engine. But I sit in the truck and let myself imagine what her life was before she arrived. Some asshole put my girl through it. The thought makes my blood boil. I may not have caused her hurt, but I sure as hell am going to be the man who fixes it.
By the time I go inside, a loose plan starts taking shape in the back of my mind. There’s no question as to whether Cece is meant to be mine. She is. I just have to figure out how to make her believe it.
I stand in my kitchen in the dark and a quiet calm washes over me. I’m not going to chase her. That is the first thing I know. She needs a man to build. She needs to see something solid. She needs evidence, not words.
Talk is cheap. Talk is what Birdie’s father did.
I am going to make her something.
I pour a coffee I don’t need and look out of the window.
The sky over the canyon is starting to go gray at the edges.
I look at the strip of land between the cabin and the tree line.
There’s a flat piece I have been meaning to clear for a garden for two years and never gotten around to because there was nobody to garden for and I start building the thing in my head.
A stand. A little farm stand right where the drive meets the road.
Cedar, because I have cedar in the shed from the last fence project.
A roof to keep the sun off the baked goods.
A counter she can work from. A chalkboard for the menu.
Hook for her apron. And behind it. Between the stand and the cabin. A playhouse.
Not a store-bought one either... a real one.
I’ll use the same cedar and the same roof shape.
Birdie needs a tiny front door and a little window with shutters.
Maybe I’ll put a chalkboard inside because she is going to want to pretend to run her own shop next to her mother's. I’ll have to make it safe too with some kind of soft ground cover.
Maybe a little bench for Birdie to sit on and eat whatever her mother is making her.
They can be together all day. Cece can bake and sell. She can watch her kid through the window of the playhouse while she works. My hands are starting to warm up. I have not felt this good about an idea in four years. I set the coffee down and get my phone. I text James.
Me: Need your truck bed and your saw. Building something for her. You in?
I send it at 4:17 a.m. and I don't expect an answer for hours.
But the response comes back in ninety seconds.
James: I'm in. What's the project?
I type out every detail and include the timeline. I want this done in days not weeks because I am not going to let her sit in her spiral. I’ll call a few buddies, take some time off and give it everything I’ve got because she deserves it.
James writes back one word. Yes.
Then, thirty seconds later, another text.
James: Evelyn is going to lose her mind.
Me: Don't tell her. Let me tell her. I want to see her face.
I put the phone down and look out the window. The sky is going pink at the eastern edge and Iron Peak is starting to wake up below me. The steam off the hot springs goes gold in the first light and I make a promise out loud to an empty room.
"You're mine, Cece. You don't know it yet. But you will."
I go to the shed for the cedar.