Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Miles
The more time I spend with Chloe and Jake, the more time I want to spend with them. It’s like I can’t get enough.
Without any planning or discussion, we’ve fallen into a comfortable routine. On the afternoons that Jake’s team has practice, I skate out of work early to pick him up from school. We grab a bite to eat, pick up Bronson, and head for the rugby pitch.
God knows, with as early as I’ve been getting into the office, I’m putting in almost a full workday by the time lunch rolls around.
Jason leans out of his office and stares intently until I can practically feel his thoughts running. “Miles, you got a minute?” It’s not really a question when the owner of the company you work for asks it.
“Yep.” I push back from my desk and stand, stretching out my back.
As I close my laptop, popping it off the docking station, Jason taps the top of my desk with his keys and adds, “Let’s go grab a bite to eat.”
Erin’s office door is closed, and any hope I have of getting a read from her on what this impromptu meeting is about is squashed. The glow of her monitors reflects off her computer glasses, hiding her eyes. She’s hunched forward, concentrating, though I can’t be sure if it’s on whatever she’s working on or if she’s just focused on avoiding making eye contact.
I pull my keys and wallet from my drawer, tuck my phone into my pocket, and follow the big boss out into the clear spring day.
“What are you feeling like? New River Tap House?” Jason asks without looking up from his phone.
Normally, I wouldn’t be fazed by the attention, the request for lunch, any of this, but with the way plans have been changing lately, I just don’t know.
“Sure. Sounds good.” I pause, waiting for a sign that he’s heard me.
Seconds tick past, scrolling into minutes.
Finally, Jason raises his head and lifts his chin toward his vehicle. “How are things?” he asks bluntly.
“Good.” I pull the seat belt across me, clicking it into place.
“Your performance at work is solid, man. I’m not questioning that. I want to know how you’re doing outside of that. Personally. You and Chance still tight? Coaching rugby?”
I nod along at each thing he mentions.
“What about the other stuff?” he asks more solemnly.
I huff out a surprised laugh. “You getting touchy-feely on me here?” I slide my aviators off and toss him an eyebrow waggle.
“Not my type, though I can’t blame you for hoping.” He tosses a wink back at me.
A hint of relief pushes away some of the tension that sprang into my shoulders the minute I was summoned.
“The other stuff. You’ve been busting out early, and that trip to California was canned? What’s happening there? Anything I need to know?”
I shift in my seat, the tension rolling back in, pulling my muscles tight. “I’m not skipping out. I’ve been getting in early, around five most mornings. If I need to adjust back to what I was doing before, I will. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”
Jason doesn’t know Chloe, and his kids are too young to have her as a teacher, but he doesn’t need to know why I’m up and out of bed at the ass crack of dawn every morning. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I spent the night at my apartment.
“Flexible hours, man. You work when it suits you. I just want to make sure you’re good. Not struggling with…” He glances at me before spinning the steering wheel and backing into a spot in the far corner of the lot.
“No, no. I’m good.” I give him a brief outline on what the trip was for and why it was postponed.
While Calvin Feuerborn was right there while I was in California, going through my worst nightmare in real time, Jason has only gotten an overview. The highlights.
“Jesus Christ, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says as we walk into the restaurant. Jason bypasses the hostess stand and walks straight to the bar, pulling out two barstools and planting his ass in one. “Pretty sure I’m going to need a beer after hearing that.” He holds two fingers up and points to the tap with a local brew.
“We drinking on company time, boss?” The hoppy brew releases a tropical citrus burst as I take a cautious sip.
Jason, on the other hand, drains a third of his pint, turning to me as he sets the glass back down on the ratty paper coaster. He huffs out an uncomfortable laugh, pushing his blond hair back from his face. “I don’t know whether to kick your ass or applaud you. How… how the hell are you so fucking good?” he asks incredulously.
I get it. What happened with my ex-wife isn’t something I discuss often. Generally, I avoid talking about it at all costs, but as my boss, Jason needs to know. “I’m not. Not at all. I’m just trying to do the right thing. Make sure a tragedy ends the best way it can for everyone.” I shrug and pull a menu toward me, studying every line of each description, hoping that we can drop the subject.
“You really are a goddamn mild-mannered superhero. How did you not lose your mind and go all Bizarro?”
In need of an escape, I nod to the bartender and place my lunch order. After she sashays down to the register at the other end of the bar, I roll my pint glass between my palms. “You don’t know that I didn’t. Talk to Calvin. He saw the shitshow. Had front row seats to it.” I pick at the frayed edge of my coaster, making a small pile out of the bits of paper.
I can feel Jason wanting to say something more, something important. Some sage nugget of wisdom to soothe the chafing burn of the senselessness of a pointless loss. But there’s not a damn thing he can say—that anyone can—that will make any difference. Much as I hate the saying, it is what it is.
“Miles—”
“You know, sometimes, I wonder if there was some higher lesson I was supposed to learn from the whole thing. Something that maybe I’d missed in a former life. An opportunity I missed in this one, and losing her—them—is my punishment.” I steal a glance at him from the corner of my eye. “Like, somehow, I deserved it. Earned it.”
“I can’t believe that, man. No one deserves that kind of trauma.” Jason drains his beer. Silently, he orders another round.
“I don’t know. If I can’t find the lesson, the least I can do is try to do right by the whole thing.”
“Well, we’re here for you, man. Anything you need.”
“About that,” I start, holding my breath.
Jason pins me with an arched brow. I’m almost certain he’s already dreading his offer.
“I’m going to have to bounce when I get the call from Aly’s lawyer. I’m guessing I won’t have a ton of notice before I need to leave, so until then, is it cool if I keep working the odd hours? In early, out early? Hell, I don’t really even need to leave early most days. I just… Whatever I can work ahead on is what I’m doing.”
Jason nods, huffing out a laugh. “You don’t have to kill yourself with the job. It’ll be there when you get in and still fucking be there at the end of the day. I’m not worried about things falling through the cracks, not from you.”
I wish I felt the same way. Instead, all I feel is the looming potential of disappointment.
“Why are we digging up all the grass?” Jake asks. “Does this mean I won’t get paid as much?” He leans against the fence at the back of the small lot, draping his arms along the length, sagging dramatically.
“Nope. Pay is for the job, not per blade of grass. Come on. Let’s get the grass up before your mom decides to make her garden bigger.” The spade cuts through the sod, lifting it in clumps.
Jake works, humming something that sounds a hell of a lot like one of the songs for his video game. Knocking dirt from the clods of grass and chucking them into the wheelbarrow.
By the time we are down to bare earth in some curved pattern that Chloe drew out for reference, Jake and I are hot, sweaty, dirty messes.
“You boys want a cold drink first, or should we go straight to the garden center to pick up dirt and plants?” Chloe asks, juggling a couple of big cups filled to the brim with ice and water and… cucumber ?
Jesus, she put chunks of cucumber in the water.
I take a cup and sip, tasting. And then I drain it. The cold water, while good on its own, is better, more refreshing with the light flavor I can’t even describe.
“It’s good, right?” She’s smiling huge, relaxed and happy.
“It is. Not used to drinking my salad unless it’s in a protein shake or smoothie, but this is…”
“It’s weird,” Jake says, cutting in. “She always hides veggies—like, in everything. I know you do it with muffins and other stuff, Mom,” he adds, plucking cukes from his water like they’re bugs floating but popping them in his mouth anyway.
Chloe shrugs. “Yep. You’ve got me all figured out, don’t you? Okay, are we ready?” She collects the empty cups and marches back across the yard, her sweet ass swaying, ponytail bobbing.
Dear God, she’s beautiful.
“Let’s go, bud,” I say, wrapping a hand on Jake’s shoulder, steering him after his mom.
“I just don’t understand why we need any more dirt. She always does this stuff, and it’s crazy.” Jake rolls his eyes and throws his hands out, letting them fall to his sides.
“Yeah, this one falls under work hard and respect your elders . And when in doubt, just do what your mom says. That’s probably the best rule to live by.”
We pile into my truck and spend the next couple of hours picking out flowers and vegetables. Dirt and rocks and mulch. Chloe agonizes over decisions. Which colors to put together. Which variety of tomato plant. Carrots and cucumbers, beans and berries. And Jake and I just follow along behind her. Pushing the cart, checking out the flowers in other people’s carts, looking at the pictures of full blooms on the little tags.
“What about this one?” I hand Chloe a plastic pot with a bunch of leaves and nothing else. I bite down on my lip to fight a smile as she scrunches up her face.
“What is that?” She takes the pot from me and looks at the tag. “Poppies?”
I glance over my shoulder. Jake is at the end of the row, looking at the Venus flytraps.
“Mmhmm. Those pretty pink petals remind me of— oof .”
The back of Chloe’s hand whacks me in the stomach as her face turns the most beautiful shade of pink, deeper than the petals in question.
Yeah, she knows exactly what those delicate folds remind me of.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe you.” Her head darts around as she checks to see if anyone is paying any attention to us.
News flash: they weren’t until she backhanded me.
“I like it. I think we need to get some.”
“No.”
“Why not? They’re actually really pretty,” I say, picking up two more pots.
She said something earlier about clusters of threes.
Chloe takes the poppy plants out of my hands and sets them back with the others. “Because you ruined it.” She laughs. “I’ll never be able to look at poppies again without thinking about…” She waves her hands around in the air, her cheeks getting redder.
She takes charge of our full cart and steers it away from the flowers I desperately want to get now, toward the front of the garden center, Jake and I falling into line behind her again.
“Oh, hang on. There’s one more thing I need to grab. You guys get in line. I’ll be right back.” She ducks down an aisle and disappears from sight.
“Did you have a garden at your old house?” It’s not often that I bring up their old house with Jake. They moved here to get on with life and leave the past behind.
“Yeah, but alls we had to do was plant new things and then pick them. My dad did all the hard stuff when I was little.”
Jake was young when he lost his dad, probably doesn’t have a ton of strong memories of him, but he doesn’t shy away from talking about Dallas. I swear Chloe has a harder time with it than Jake.
Before long, we’re at the front of the line, the cashier scanning each plastic pot with her gun, and finally, Chloe’s black curls bob up the side of the line.
“What the hell?” I laugh. “Why didn’t you let me lug the tree up here while you waited in line?”
She leans back, stopping her flatbed next to the one Jake and I babysat while Chloe was wrestling an entire tree onto her cart. “Did you already get the dirt and?—”
“It’s on there. We just need to swing around the back of the store and load it.” I flip the tag from the tree for the cashier to scan and reach for my wallet.
“What are you doing? You’re not paying for my garden.” Chloe bats at my hand and reaches inside the top of her shirt.
I would totally pay for her garden— our garden? I definitely feel invested.
She pulls out a credit card, wiping it on her yoga pants. “What?” she asks. “I wiped it off, no boob sweat.”
“Yeah, there’s still boob sweat,” I say, reaching for my wallet again. “We’ll just use mine.”
Chloe reaches past me and pumps a glob of hand sanitizer onto the tips of her fingers. With a dark brow cocked above the frame of her sunglasses, she rubs the gel onto her hands and then over the plastic card, wiping it on the bottom of her shirt this time.
“There. It’s clean.” She slides it into the slot of the card reader and signs on the kiosk. She smiles, takes the receipt, and wheels her cart out to the truck.
At least she allows me to hoist the ornamental cherry tree into the bed of the truck. “You know this thing isn’t going to produce fruit, right? Nothing edible anyway.”
Chloe blows at a stray curl that escaped from the mass on her head and unloads the other cart with Jake. “That’s fine, Superman. I know. You do the heavy lifting, dig the hole, and let me have my dreams of my farm. There are things I miss from New York, and the orchard down the road is one of them. Don’t you crush my dreams.”