Chapter 15 #2
“She’s going to be very good. She’ll try to control things, so they don’t feel so out of hand.” How had he never made the connection before? His preoccupation with numbers, with besting his own times, that was how he controlled the world.
He remembered so clearly, the compulsion to push faster, harder.
It wasn’t about beating the other kids. It had nothing to do with them.
It was about shaving off a second. As long as he focused on it, he couldn’t feel his hunger, his loneliness, his fear.
The way the kids made fun of his dirty, ill-fitting clothes—
Wait—they’d stopped making fun of his clothes, though, hadn’t they? Because he’d become someone special. Valued. An athlete.
At his small high school, he’d become a legend. He’d gotten them to State for the first time since Cassian Ellis. He’d brought them wins.
This is good. The memories might be painful, but they’d help him understand Birdie. And that meant he'd take better care of her.
He thought of the rocks, the silly things she’d said. “She’s going to escape into her imagination because reality doesn’t make sense, and it’s painful.”
“What did you escape into?” Kindly, she wasn’t looking at him. Cupping a hand, she swept the flour off the counter and tossed it into the garbage.
“Numbers.”
She hiked up onto the counter. “Oh, interesting.”
“When I got into sports, all the noise in my head went quiet.” He shaped another flower and moved on to the next. “I don’t want that to happen to her.”
“But you just said the confusion ended when you found sports. That’s a good thing, right?”
“Not if it keeps her from living a full life.” Like me.
He’d never seen it before. Not until this moment.
“My dad was working his butt off to get us out of the club, so he wasn’t there to help us.
” He was just a little kid, turned loose in chaos.
Nothing made sense. “I’ll ask Cady to send pictures of her mom.
Toys, blankets, anything that gives Birdie comfort. She needs that.”
“Do you think the word Fifi might have something to do with her mom? Maybe a nickname?”
“I don’t know. But hopefully, Brian can give us some answers.”
Willa reached for his hand and brought it to her mouth. She kissed the palm, leaving a dusting of flour on her nose. “You’re a good man, Decker. I’m so glad she’s got you.”
“She doesn’t, though. That’s the thing. I’m gone for the next five months. Six if we make it to the Super Bowl.” He grabbed the edge of the counter and lowered his head between his stretched arms. “I don’t know how this is going to work.”
“You don’t need to know right now. You take it one step at a time.”
His head snapped up. “That’s what Ava says.”
“Well, she might’ve been your nanny, but she’s my friend, so I’ve learned from her, too.
You don’t have to see a path forward right now.
You just have to keep taking steps.” She cupped his chin.
“I know it’s all going to work out because you care enough to think about all this.
You could’ve seen her sleeping like that and thought, Good.
Now I have the night to myself. But you didn’t.
And, in fact, you’re the exact right dad for her because you’ve lived her experience. You know what she’s going through.”
He pulled the pie out of the fridge and draped the dough on top of it. Then, he stuck the flowers in a circle around the edge.
She watched him. “That’s really pretty. Where’d you get that idea?”
“It’s in the recipe. I guess it was her signature on the pies. Sunflowers on the edge and then a bigger one in the center.” He touched a flower. “I keep it up out of respect for her. I’m using her recipes, after all.”
“Decker McKenna.” Warmth infused her tone. “You’re amazing.”
Finished, he slid the pie into the preheated oven. When he turned back to start cleanup, he found Willa had already brought the bowls to the sink and turned on the faucet.
“How much time do we have?” she asked.
“An hour. Why?”
She cut off the water and reached for his hand. “Come here. I want to show you something.” She led him back up to the family apartment. She let go of him to peek into her dad’s room. “You good? You need anything?”
“Willa-Bear, if you check on me one more time, I swear I’m going to sleep at the warehouse.”
“It must be hard to be so loved. But fine. I’ll leave you alone.” She was smiling when she closed his door. With a tip of her head, she led him through the kitchen and into the laundry room.
He opened the dryer. “Sorry about that. I forget I’m just a guest here. I’ll be better about getting my stuff.”
She kicked it shut with her knee. “We’re not doing laundry.” She pulled a cord, and a staircase dropped down. “Oh, shoot. I forgot.” She glanced at his boot. “Can you get up these?”
“It’ll be tight, but yeah. I can do it.” He followed her. “What’s up here?”
Cool, crisp air rushed over him as he emerged onto the roof. Willa flicked a switch, and little white lights lit it up. Since it was the tallest building in town, it had total privacy. Standing at the far edge, he took in the view.
The sun was low, glancing off mountain peaks and casting golden light over the old western town. A couple sat in the gazebo, licking ice cream cones, while three little kids wrestled on the lawn. A dog chased a Frisbee, and the antler arches cast long, crooked shadows on the grass.
“Pretty cool up here, huh?” Her voice was distant enough to catch his attention. He turned to find her pulling a soft blanket out of a plastic tub and spreading it across an outdoor daybed.
“You’ve got quite a setup out here.”
She smiled. “It’s my favorite place in the world.”
“Please don’t tell me you lost your virginity on that.”
“Would you look at how your mind works? Bed,” she said in a gruff, masculine voice. “Sex.” She laughed. “No. No one came up here but me, my dad, and Finlay. It’s probably why I want that penthouse so much.” She mumbled that last sentence.
“So you can watch the world from a safe distance?”
“Yeah, maybe.” She looked away, seeming a little embarrassed. “Come on.” She patted the space beside her. “You’ve been standing long enough.”
He was foolish enough to join her on that damn bed because he was thinking of sex. It was getting harder to keep his hands off her, and this bed wasn’t built for her and a six-four quarterback. But he had a pie in the oven, so it wasn’t like anything would happen.
“You’re worried about that pie, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Would you stop reading me so well? It’s starting to freak me out.”
“Well, you don’t express yourself, so what choice do I have?”
He settled in beside her. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re my road trip buddy, that’s why.”
He reached for her hand. He couldn’t help it. “Is that all I am to you?”
“It’s all you can be to me.”
She was right about that. Against every instinct in his body, he let her go. “Why did you like coming up here so much?”
Her gaze took a slow scan of the space. “When I was little, my dad and I would have a picnic dinner with candles and balloons and pink lemonade.” She smiled softly.
“Always pink lemonade. And when I got older, I’d come up here to cry when my mom blew me off or when my dad wouldn’t let me shave the side of my head. ”
“Why the fuck would you want to do that?” He lifted some of her silky hair.
“It was my hipster phase.” She gave a bitter smile. “Want to know how it ended?”
“I’m guessing when your mom got a look at you?”
She cast him a grumpy look. “I’ve told you way too much. But yes. We were on a video call, and she took one look at me and said, ‘If that’s your Halloween costume, then you’ve got small-town hick down pat.’”
“Ouch.”
“She always knows just what to say.” She looked away, expression turning sad. “So many times, I’d come up here to beg the universe to make my mom love me. I only figured it out when I got to high school. If I wanted a mom, I had to be the kind of person she’d like.”
That sentence hung in the air between them.
“That sounded bad, didn’t it?” she asked.
It broke his heart for her. “Do you even like practicing law?”
“I like the strategy. The puzzle of it. Everyone comes in wanting something, and it’s your job to find the version where they all walk away thinking they won.”
“You didn’t want to run the inn?”
“Oh, God, no. That’s so—” Her jaw snapped shut.
She smoothed the blanket. “I was going to say I’m not a small-town person, but ever since walking into that warehouse full of furniture, I’m starting to see that all I ever do is channel my mom.
” She gazed up at the sky. The last rays of sunshine cut through white streaks of clouds. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Good question. It's good I’m taking this time off. I really need to think about things.”
“Would you consider leaving your mom’s firm and working somewhere else?”
“Ha. Can you imagine if someone called the firm for a reference?”
“What do you mean? You’ve done outstanding work, haven’t you?”
“I have, but my mom would say something like, ‘Willa’s a talented lawyer, but she sometimes lets personal considerations influence her professional decisions.’ Or ‘She has so much potential. With the right guidance, she could become a very strong attorney.’”
Her mother was a piece of work. “I’m guessing you’ve heard her say that for other attorneys who’ve left her firm.”
“Oh, yes. And she’ll go even harder to sabotage me.” Slowly, she rolled her head to look at him. “Yes, I hear myself. I’m making my mom sound like a terrible person.”
That’s because she is. But he figured she was coming to that realization on her own. “What about going out on your own? I don’t know how mergers and acquisitions work, but what if you took a job in private equity or something like that?”