16. Eli
Eli
I’m sitting on my front porch rocking Wren in one of the white-painted wooden chairs waiting for my sisters to get to my house for a sibling night when a car pulls into Kendra’s driveway.
It’s a shiny yellow Porsche. Not something you see often in our small town.
It screams “look at me” just like the man that steps out of the vehicle does.
He’s wearing navy-blue slacks, fancy shoes, and a crisp white polo that probably costs more than my house payment.
His slicked-back mousey-brown hair looks like it took him way too long to get just right.
He’s lanky but has an air about him that suggests he doesn’t know it.
He grabs a pitifully small bunch of deep red roses from the passenger seat of the car, then checks his stuffy reflection in the side mirror before marching up to Kendra’s porch.
Nope. Don’t fucking like that one bit.
I watch as he knocks on the door and waits impatiently for her to answer, checking his oversized gold watch—and when she does the breath is sucked right from my lungs.
Kendra is wearing a sexy as fuck sundress that is cream with a mix of tiny flowers all over in various shades of pink.
The sleeves are capped at her shoulders and look like they could slip off at any little movement she might make.
A tiny string, tied in a tempting bow, rests between her gorgeous tits .
. . the ones that I insulted, but simultaneously can’t get out of my damn head.
That slimy prick kisses her cheek as he passes her the flowers. Her smile is not her real one. I know what her real, genuine, happiness looks like, and it sure as hell is not this.
Why is she going out with this guy?
As she pulls back from him, her eyes roam over his shoulder and lock in on me looking at her, and I can tell that she lets out a little gasp of surprise.
Yeah I see everything, neighbor.
Just then my sisters make their noisy arrival to greet their niece and argue over who gets to hold her first this time, and I lose sight of Kendra as she slips inside her house with a man that has no business being anywhere near her.
“Why do you keep looking out the window?” Hannah asks from her place on the floor.
All three of my sisters are laid out on the living room floor now on a play mat—from Sutton of course—with Wren in the center of them.
They had all been fussing over my perfect baby girl and passing her around for the past couple hours.
I had been watching my sisters continue to fall in love with my daughter, but my mind was not totally present.
Hannah was right, I did keep looking out the window toward my neighbor’s dark green house, waiting for headlights of that fancy fucking car to flash across the yard . . . Praying that Kendra wouldn’t invite that pretentious prick inside with her again.
“Hello? Earth to Eli!” Sarah, our youngest sister says, pelting me in the side of the head with a soft baby rattle, which makes Rebecca and Hannah fill the room with familiar giggles.
“Sorry, I was just checking on . . . something.” I try and avoid answering the actual question, but I know my sisters will never let me off the hook that easily.
Hannah hums. “How is Kendra doing?”
“How should I know?”
“She is your best friend’s fiancée’s best friend. Geez that’s a mouthful. And now your neighbor, so you obviously must have interacted with her, Eli.” Hannah levels me with a squinted stare.
“How do you know she is my neighbor?”
“Really, Eli?” Rebecca rolls her eyes, her sassy, impatient attitude a constant since we were children. “Hannah and Kendra spent almost every summer together. Of course she knows that was her nana’s house.”
“Yeah, and when her nana died,” Hannah continues, “she left the house to Kendra in her will. That’s when she decided to move back to Fox Grove for good.”
“I didn’t know you were still close with her,” I admit. Because I tried my damndest to not know too much about Kendra, while wishing I had licked up every fucking bread crumb. Now my sisters are giving me a whole baguette and I am not going to refuse any part of it.
“I mean, we unfortunately lost touch for a while after that first summer I was at camp and she was here alone. It was hard for her that summer, I’m sure.
” I say nothing but feel heat creeping up my neck.
“Then she never came back for longer than quick visits with her nana. Not like her past summers when we were kids. We saw each other, but it was like she was trying to get out of town as fast as she could for a while. Once her nana passed and Kendra got the house, I guess she couldn’t stay away. ”
I hum in acknowledgment at what she just told me. An uneasy knot twists in my gut, knowing that the summer my sister was away Kendra wasn’t alone—she was with me. With me in every possible way. And it was probably the reason she never wanted to be in town longer than a simple visit afterward . . .
“I’m glad you two are good friends again,” Rebecca says. “We should plan a girls’ night. I bet she, Lainey, and Sutton would all like to get together too! We can bring the babies.”
“Let’s leave Wren out of your girls’ nights for now, okay. She doesn’t need to be out on the town yet.” I glare at them, hands on my hips, trying to look intimidating. I’m sure to most other people I do, but to my sisters, well, they just roll into another fit of laughter.
“We would obviously have a girls’ night at one of our places, Eli. We are not taking a baby ‘out on the town,’ you overprotective baboon,” Sarah quips and wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “Then you could go have a guys’ night.”
“Don’t need a guys’ night,” I shoot back, feeling prickly.
“Since when do you turn down a night out? I figured you would be itching for a break from Wren,” Sarah says.
“I do not need or want a break from my daughter right now, Sarah. I can barely stand to let the three of you play with her and not snatch her back. Probably not healthy, right? But it is like a switch was flipped the minute they said she was really mine.” I rub my hands over my face.
All three of my sisters move in and wrap me in a hug, and I can see tears swimming in their eyes.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to be a dick. It’s very nice of you to offer to watch Wren. When I’m ready to have a night out, I will let you know.”
“You are a great dad, Eli. She is so lucky,” Rebecca whispers, wiping away a tear.
Wren starts to fuss, signaling to me that she’s ready for a bottle and her bedtime routine.
Sarah scoops her up and offers to change her.
Rebecca designates herself to bottle-making duty and Hannah helps me pick up the family room.
She puts away baby items while I clear the pizza boxes from our dinner.
Just like when the girls came to meet Wren at Mom’s house the first day I took her there, they jump into action and know exactly how to help me. I really am lucky to have them.
Headlights blaze up the driveway next door, a yellow Porsche whipping into the space way too fast. I hear car doors and low voices, which make me freeze in place and listen.
It takes everything in me not to rush to the window and get a closer look, spy on every second, every moment that man gets to be in a space he doesn’t deserve.
“His name is Bennett Cross,” Hannah says, coming to stand next to me.
“Who?”
“The guy Kendra is seeing, that’s his name. She has only been out with him a couple times. He’s a doctor, but I can’t remember what kind,” she says, watching me for a reaction.
“Good for her,” I say, trying to give my sister nothing. I know she is fishing, but I don’t want to take the bait, even if it’s killing me not to pepper her with a million questions.
“Here she is! Fresh and grumpy.” Sarah smiles at us as she strolls back into the room with a still fussy Wren. Thankfully Rebecca is steps behind with a nice warm bottle.
“Can I please feed her?” Sarah asks.
“Sure,” I relent, dropping my arms from where I was about to take Wren back.
It was really nice to have all three of my sisters here to play with their niece and spend time with me, but I miss the snuggles and one-on-one time with my daughter.
Sharing her is so much harder than I thought it would be.
Maybe it’s just me being overprotective?
I have never felt this need to be close, to hover, to know I am in control of things like I am with Wren.
Apparently the dad switch really has been flipped and there is no going back.
It makes me think of my own piece of shit sperm donor.
I look at my daughter and then each of my sisters.
If he had felt even an ounce of the love and devotion I feel for Wren toward his own four children and wife, he’d never have been able to up and leave us the way he did.
Having a child of my own, something I thought I was not built for, has just scraped back another layer of scum my soul was sourced from.
Like a snake shedding a skin it no longer fits into.
I hate that I have any ties to him.
My name.
My blood.
My history.
My promise to my little girl is to not let that history repeat itself through me.