Chapter 14
ROMAN
I stay at work late on Wednesday, and on Friday too.
I send an email to Aurora letting her know there’s a house key under my front door mat, and although I don’t see her come and go, when I arrive back at my house I can tell she’s been there.
In my mind’s eye I picture the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes, zooming through my home, only instead of leaving everything messy in her wake she leaves it clean—the study is done, accompanied by a list of how everything has been organized, written in neat handwriting.
She’s finished the dining room too, and based on the neat stacks of old DVDs by the TV stand, she’s now working on the family room.
I don’t know for sure, though; I try not to be at home until she’s gone. I’m avoiding her. Not forever—just for a bit, until I figure a few things out.
Because I realized Wednesday morning getting ready for the day that I was excited to see her. Looking forward to it, even. That was an interesting occurrence. The way my pulse jumped in my veins when I got my first glimpse of her at work was interesting too.
She’s the same Aurora. But something about Tuesday evening while she rage-cleaned at my house seems to have changed the way I look at her—slightly enough that it’s hard to put a finger on but noticeable all the same.
Her pride is now tinged with vulnerability, much more fascinating, much more real; she walked through ex-boyfriend muck with her head held high, but she was unthreatened enough by me to cast that dignity off when she retreated and waged war on my spare bedroom.
She’s loud, not literally but in a less definable way. She’s bright. And I…
I find myself wanting to dig until I get to the parts of her that are ear-splitting instead of merely loud. Blinding instead of bright.
If I keep going in this direction, I’ll get greedier and greedier until I want everything. That’s the pull of Aurora Marigold, and I shouldn’t take another step toward her if my future self is going to want out.
So I’m staying away. Not that it’s helping overly much; I fell asleep in my makeshift office during the lunch break on Thursday, and in those thirty minutes, my brain managed to cast her in my dreams. We were laughing, and then we were kissing, and when I jolted awake my heart was beating so fast I thought something was wrong with my health.
Which, you know, might be the case. I’m certainly thinking about things I’ve never thought about before. Things like dating, and what kind of age gap is considered too extreme.
I’m not saying I want to ask her out. But if I did—if—well…
Today is Friday, which means next week I’ll be done at Soul2Soul. If I wanted to get involved with her, that would be the time to do it.
Would she even consider a younger man?
“Not that much younger,” I mutter, kicking my feet up on my desk. “But she’s very condescending.”
And you love it, my brain points out. I ignore that.
When my phone rings, I’m grateful for the distraction. I don’t look at the caller ID, but I already know it’s Denice, because no one else calls me other than my dad, and he only calls when he wants something or needs to keep me in line.
“Hey.” Denice’s voice filters toward me, faintly distracted. “Want to come to dinner tonight? Is it too last minute? Or are you sick at all? I need to socialize with people who aren’t two weeks old.”
“Are you up to cooking?” I say with surprise. I’ve never had a baby, but I can’t imagine I’d want to prepare dinner for multiple people so soon after giving birth. “Or is Louis doing the cooking?”
“Louis is doing it,” she says promptly and sounding pleased. “I am on the couch, flopped sideways like a slug, and I do not intend to move until Nessa needs to eat again. But I am dying for social interaction.”
“Sure,” I say automatically. “I’ll come. I’m healthy. Nessie probably misses her favorite uncle, huh?”
“Don’t call her that. I did not birth the Loch Ness monster. And you’re her only uncle, so she doesn’t have a favorite.”
“I’d be her favorite if she had more.” I pause, my hand finding the Rubik’s cube by my keyboard. I pick it up and begin fiddling. “Is Dad coming?”
“Yes,” she says. “And he grudgingly agreed to bring a salad which means it will probably be one of those bags of premade Caesar, so bring your own if you’re going to want something different.”
I wrinkle my nose because Caesar dressing makes me want to gag, but I don’t complain. “It’ll be fine,” I say instead. “I’ll be there.”
“Seven-thirty,” she says. “See you then. Be prepared to catch me up on anything new in your life, including your clear interest in my employee.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How’s she doing with Grandma’s?”
“It’s looking great,” I admit.
“I hope you’re paying her well.”
I grin at this. “See you in a bit.”
“Bye,” Denice says, and we hang up.
It’s time to start preparing myself to see my dad, I guess. I do better with our interactions if I know they’re coming. He’s not an evil human being. He’s just very flawed, and he expects a lot, and he treated my mother horribly. Those things are hard to set aside when I’m staring into his face.
I sigh.
Do I really want to keep staring into that face my entire life? He’ll always be my dad, and I’m not the kind of person to go no-contact. Not for this kind of situation. But I don’t actually have to work with him all the time, the way I do now.
I swallow the idea, the tempting tendrils of possibility that arise at these thoughts. Then I begin gathering my things into my bag so that I can leave.
I’ve just dropped a folder in when a knock sounds at my door. Shelly, maybe.
“Yeah?” I call absently.
But the door opens to reveal none other than Aurora, who by all accounts should be wrapping up her cleaning at my house right now. Didn’t she include Fridays?
But here she is, and she steps in without invitation. “Hi,” she says, her voice brisk.
I stare blankly at her. “Hi.”
“We should discuss my payment schedule.” Her appearance is businesslike, maybe a bit tired but otherwise professional and put together. She doesn’t say anything about me avoiding her—either she hasn’t noticed, or it’s not worth her time.
At her request, I nod. “Do you have a preference?”
“Yes. I’d like to be paid weekly.”
“Done.”
We look at each other in silence for a brief second, and then she speaks again.
“After Monday you won’t be here anymore.”
“Wednesday,” I correct her. “Wednesday is my last day.”
“Wednesday. And after that it will be the new manager until Denice gets back. Right?” she says.
“That’s correct. Why?” I can’t stop myself from flashing a grin at her. “Going to miss me?”
She folds her arms and narrows her eyes at me. “No.”
“Not even a little bit?” I say, zipping my bag and then standing up. My grin widens at her response: another flat “no” that she delivers without apology.
“But I do want to make sure I can continue working at your home on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,” she goes on.
“By all means. Speaking of which”—I glance at my watch to double check—“aren’t you supposed to be there right now?”
She grimaces. “There’s a lot to do today; several people are out sick.”
“I saw that,” I say with a frown.
“And…” she begins, stretching the word out, “I’ve been shooting myself in the foot because I’m petty. It finally caught up to me.”
My eyebrows jump as I wait for an explanation, and she sighs.
“I’ve been emailing Bart instead of going over to his desk and talking to him,” she says.
“Naturally.”
“But he responded to an email at five-fifteen. So…I was working on some stuff now that I heard back from him.”
See? Even this is something I find amusing, something that has me fighting against another smile.
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” I say. “If you don’t make it over to my house today, that’s fine. Just come on Monday.” I round the desk and nod to the door; Aurora steps out of the way to let me past. She smells like something sweet but sharp. “I need to head out.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Of course.”
I tilt my head to her and then make myself turn away, striding out of my office and down the hall. Out of curiosity I try to gauge how strongly I feel the impulse to look back at her, and as I suspected—or maybe worried—the urge is definitely there.
“Interesting,” I say under my breath. But I don’t allow myself another glance, and it’s a relief to reach the parking lot.
Rarely do I meet a woman who falls outside the parameters of “out of sight, out of mind.” I’m present when I’m with a woman, but once I’m alone, she usually won’t cross my mind.
Aurora is proving to be different.
Denice, Louis, and Nessa live in a neighborhood near mine, close but significantly nicer. Their home is still warm, though, and comfortable, and when I knock on the door, I only wait a moment before letting myself in.
“Denice,” I call, stepping inside.
“In here,” she responds, and I hear Louis’s voice too, nearly obscured by the sound of a kitchen fan and the hissing sizzle of a frying pan.
I step through into the family room where sure enough, Denice is on the couch, propped up more than actively sitting.
Her blonde hair is in a messy ponytail, and she has dark circles under her eyes, but it doesn’t look like the normal kind of tired—more like a bone-deep exhaustion.
And yet when I enter the room, she doesn’t even look at me; her eyes are on Nessa, the tiniest human I’ve ever seen in my life, roughly the size of a very large burrito and fast asleep in Denice’s arms.
I smile as the still-foreign affection rushes through me. I’ve never given much thought to parenthood or being a dad. A baby is a baby; they all look pretty similar, and they cry a lot and poop a lot and throw up on everything.
All of that is still true, from what I can tell. But since meeting Nessa for the first time, I’ve realized it’s not that simple, either. There’s no other baby like my niece. Her fingernails are the size of pepper flakes. Her cheeks are impossibly squishy.