Chapter 9
It all becomes clear the next morning.
The fact is, I’m lonely.
I’ve lived the last year on autopilot, taking care of two kids, my in-laws, hell, the entire town, all on my own. And now Will is here. He’s another adult, and as reluctant as he is, he’s been there.
Helping at the practice, joining us for dinner, spending time with the kids. He’s someone I see every day, and I’ve been alone for a year. So when he looks at me, and my heart picks up, it’s not because I want him.
I don’t even like him.
He’s a familiar face, and I’m lonely. My heart is confused.
I think it’s time to get back out there.
I’ve been telling myself I’m not ready, but at some point, not ready turns into confusing feelings toward your brother-in-law, and that’s not what I want. What I want is a woman who didn’t spend the last decade in prison. Someone warm and kind. Family-oriented.
So I’m going out with Karen this Friday. Karen, who likes me and is uncomplicated and who knows. Maybe this could be the start of something great.
Addie is already in the kitchen when I come downstairs at six, standing at the stove in her pajamas, frowning at a pan. “What are you doing?” I ask, coming up beside her.
“Making eggs.”
I stare down into the pan. “I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”
“I watched a video,” she argues, and I let her be, no energy to try to help this early in the morning. It’s not like I’m any better at this than she is.
Jess always cooked for the family.
I pour a cup of coffee and lean against the counter. Mostly to make sure she doesn’t burn the house down, while she prods the eggs with a spatula, frowning at the mess in the pan.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” I say after a few minutes, hiding my smile behind my cup.
“Okay.”
I’ve been turning over how to say this since four in the morning, but the truth is, I have no idea how this is gonna go. I’ve never navigated dating with kids. “How would you feel if I went out with someone?”
“Like a date?”
“Yeah. You could say that.”
“With who?” she asks, and I don’t think I’m imagining that she’s gone quiet, a bit more still than usual.
“Karen. She cuts hair at the salon, you’ve probably—”
“I know who Karen is, Dad.”
She’s quiet for another moment, and I grow more and more uncomfortable with the idea the longer the silence stretches on. Maybe I shouldn’t do it. Maybe the kids aren’t ready. I’m not even ready, so why would I think they—
“I think you should,” she cuts through my spiral, shocking me with her words.
“You do?”
“Yeah.” She slides the pile of slime you could call eggs onto a plate. “Mom left us, Dad. And you spend all your free time moping around about it. It could be good for you.”
“Thank you,” I say, my chest filling with relief.
She shrugs, but she’s pleased, her dimples taking over her full cheeks when she smiles. “Just take it slow. And don’t talk about mom. Girls hate when guys talk about their exes.”
“Well, I’m sure Karen wouldn’t mind. Mom was my wife—”
“She will definitely mind,” she interrupts, the look of horror on her face enough to make me feel bad.
“I’m messing with you, kid. I’m not that socially inept.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Addie.”
“I’m trying to help you, Dad. It’s been a while since you’ve been on a date. You need pointers. And fashion tips. You’re not planning on wearing the khakis, are you?”
I take a sip from my coffee, narrowing my eyes. “What’s wrong with them? They’re comfortable.”
“Comfortable,” she repeats with a scoff, taking her eggs to the table. I follow, sitting across from her, relaxing into the morning quiet before Ollie comes downstairs and it becomes utter chaos.
“Don’t tell Ollie,” I say when I think of my son. “I don’t want to confuse him.”
“Obviously.” She gives me the ‘you’re an idiot’ look, but I have to make sure. I can’t imagine how confusing it would be for Ollie…
“Okay.” I relax into my chair. “Good. It’s this Friday.”
She picks up her fork, grimacing before she takes a bite.
“I have plans Friday, remember? Emmett and I have been waiting to see this movie literally forever, and you said I could go.” Now that she mentions it, I do remember that.
“That’s fine. I’ll ask your grandparents to take Ollie. And you can sleep over at Emmett’s?”
She nods, satisfied, while part of me is freaking out inside. Now it’s real. A plan. I’m going on a date with someone new for the first time since high school.
Joyce answers on the fourth ring, slightly out of breath, like she might have rushed to her phone. “Nolan, honey. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” I lean back in my chair, my lunch growing cold in front of me. “I was wondering if there was a chance you could take Ollie Friday night?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” she says, “we’ve got the church dinner that night, and it’s adults only, I’m afraid.”
“Of course.” I rub my eyes under my reading glasses, more resentful than ever that this is what my life’s come through. If Jess were still here, I wouldn’t be having to do this. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Is everything alright? Friday is supposed to be your day off—”
“It is, everything is perfectly fine. I have an errand. It’s nothing. I’ll do it another day.”
An errand.
I can’t even tell my mother-in-law what I’m doing.
How would she respond to that news? It feels like telling them that is an acknowledgment of the one thing we’ve all been trying to avoid. Jess isn’t coming back, and things aren’t going back to the way they used to be. Joyce would be supportive, but I know it would hurt her.
“You sure you’re alright?” she asks, and I don’t know what to say to that, so I lie.
“I’m sure. See you at dinner this weekend. Tell Frank I said hi.”
Will strolls in the moment I hit the end call button, looking like he’s lost a fight with the can of paint he was supposed to be putting on the wall. There’s a streak of white across his forearm and another one along his cheek that I’d bet he doesn’t even know is there.
His clothes are painted too, and his sweat-covered shirt clings to him in a way that makes me avert my eyes.
I’m just lonely.
He drops into the chair across from me at the small table with a tired sound, and I can’t say I blame him. I painted one wall myself before I realized that wasn’t the job for me.
While he unpacks his sandwich, I watch the coffee maker. Anything to not look at my brother-in-law’s arms I’m suddenly finding very interesting.
“You’re off Friday,” he says around a bite of food. I glance his way reluctantly, and he nods at the phone in my hand. “Why do you need somebody to watch Ollie?”
I set the phone down on the table with a sigh. There’s no point in trying to lie, even though the same nagging feeling of guilt remains. “I have plans.”
“What kind of plans?”
“Drinks. With a… friend.”
He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes when I shift in my seat. “You’re going on a date.”
“Karen invited me out and I—” I pause before I start explaining myself like some sort of cheater. I’m not cheating. Jess left me. “I think it might be time to get back out there.”
I brace myself for anger, for him to call me out, to defend his sister’s honor. But none of that happens. The corner of his mouth twists into a smirk that makes me want to shift in my seat again.
“Well, shit,” he says with a dry laugh. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“It’s not—” I look away, hating what he’s implying. “It’s not like I want this. But I don’t have a choice anymore. Jess left, and it’s time to move on.”
“Hey,” he says around his sandwich, and I question my sanity as my eyes drift back down to his shirt, tight around his arms. “I ain’t judging. You ask me, you and Jess should’ve broken up a long time ago. I never knew what you two saw in each other.”
That makes me frown. “You did?” We had our moments, but back when he was around more, I figured we were pretty happy. The discontent came later, with responsibility and our careers and children—
“Yeah, I mean—” He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Never figured my sister to be the marriage and kids type.”
“It always seemed to be something she wanted,” I challenge. Jess never said anything to me about not wanting the life we had.
“Maybe so, but you gotta admit, she ain’t all that empathetic.”
“She is—”
“Dude, look who you’re talking to.”
“You’re not exactly the best judge of character.” I narrow my eyes, my hands tightening around the armrest. Who does Will think he is, talking about Jess like that? Our marriage? Last I heard, his own relationship history wasn’t much to speak of.
Besides, he wasn’t even there.
He nods, like I’m confirming something in his head, and that angers me more. But I don’t want a repeat of our argument the other week, so I force myself to move past it.
“I need to feel like a person again,” I say, and it sounds pathetic, but that’s where I’m at. “That’s what Friday is. I’m not looking to fall in love. I just want to spend time with someone who isn’t my kids or my patients. Is that so bad?”
Will’s eyes stay on my face for an absurd amount of time, but whatever he sees, he must decide to take pity on me. “Alright. I’ll watch the kid.”
I blink. “What?”
He picks up his chips, stuffing way too many in his mouth with a shrug. “I’ll watch him.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I don’t mind. I like kids. Kids like me. I’d be a great babysitter if I wasn’t a criminal,” he says plainly, and I have to choke back my laugh.
That’s not funny at all.
We sit there for another few minutes in the quiet of the breakroom, the only sound coming from the front where the phone rings and Victoria answers. It’s almost comfortable, in a way it’s never been between us before.
When he gets up to go back to work, I call his name, and he stops without turning around, a big hand resting on the door frame. He has paint on his knuckles. “Be over by five.”
“Sure thing, Doc.”
I lose track of time, charting, catching up on work I should have already finished. I fall into the rhythm of it, updating notes, calling patients with results, the kind of work that I can do without thinking too much about it.
By the time I look at the clock, it’s nearly seven.
I pull my glasses off, rubbing my eyes where a migraine is threatening to form from the strain. The practice is empty, Victoria left hours ago, but a sound can be heard from across the building, where Will is still working too.
I’ve decided to trust him to lock up when he wants to stay late. Anything he could potentially steal is put up, and I don’t want to think that way. He’s given me no reason to believe he isn’t trustworthy thus far.
And I think he secretly likes being here. He doesn’t have much to go home to.
When I head toward the room I hear him working in, it’s only because I’m being polite. It would be rude to leave without saying goodnight.
As I approach the room, I can hear him in there, the roll of the brush, the sound of the tray scraping against the floor. Music playing from his phone, some rock from the nineties.
I pause in the doorway, all the breath leaving my lungs.
He’s got his back to me, the roller moving in long even strokes covering the dark purple with a crisp white. The color looks good, opening the space the way Addie said it would.
But that’s not what I’m looking at. My eyes don’t care about the color of the wall at all. Because sometime between lunch and now, Will took off his shirt.
It’s thrown on the floor off to the side, and he’s there. All of him. Miles of pale skin and muscle shifting every time he moves the roller. His shoulders and the curve of his spine, the waistband of his jeans sitting low, his body on display.
He looks like a statue, my brain supplies before all of the blood in my body heads south.
He rolls up toward the ceiling, his arm flexing, and a drop of paint lands on his bicep and—
I need to go.
Right now.
I’m not in my car five seconds before I drop my hand into my lap, pressing down against the front of my scrubs with the heel of my palm, trying to take the edge off the pressure with a whimper, throwing my head back against the seat.
I press down harder, until it doesn’t feel good anymore.
This can’t happen. I am not touching myself in the parking lot of my business, thinking about my brother-in-law that I don’t even like.
I take a deep breath, fighting the urge to thrust up into my hand. It’s not happening.
Eventually, my breathing evens out, and my heart stops pounding, my cock softening enough that I can let go and relax in my seat.
This is getting ridiculous. And I’m not going to think about what just happened. I’m shutting that door and locking it and never opening it again because what is wrong with me?
Pulling out my phone, I find Karen’s name amongst the vast list of patients. When she picks up, her voice is warm and clearly pleased. “Nolan. Hi. What a nice surprise.”
“Hey, Karen,” I say, and luckily, I don’t sound like I was thinking about jerking off in my car a minute ago. “I wanted to see if the offer for Friday still stands.”
“Of course it does.” I can hear her smile. “I’m really glad you called.”
“Me too,” I say, and right now, I mean it.