Chapter 10
BAILEY
I sit on the vinyl bench, feeling threadbare after four hours of sleep, staring at the storm of children swirling like a hurricane in front of me.
Ocean Island. No ocean, though. And no island.
Just thirty thousand square feet of children’s play equipment spreading out in front of me in a brilliant eyesore of neon green and stinging blue.
With a laugh, my son Noah peels from a nearby cluster of kids and races toward me.
He slides to a stop a foot away and stands there, bouncing in place in front of my husband Ethan and me, electric with energy.
His cheeks are tinged pink, the corners of his lips stained blue with remnants of the frosting from the cupcake he inhaled only minutes earlier.
“Mama, Mama! Luke said they have a ball pit! Can you believe it?”
“Come here,” I say, licking my thumb before dabbing his lips. “Look at you. You’re a mess.”
“Hey, stop it!” he protests as Ethan chuckles.
“Never!” I pull him tighter and tickle him. Noah wriggles and attempts to break free, giggling as my fingers dance over his ribs. I release him and he straightens with a smile, his eyes sparkling.
“You’re so silly, Mama.”
“You’ll never know how much I love you, Little Man,” I say.
He shakes his head firmly, his smile growing wider. “Nuh-uh, you’ll never know how much I love you!”
I tap his nose with my fingertip. “Nope, you’ll never know how much I love you.”
You’ll never know is a game we play, usually at bedtime, to see who can say it last before I slip from his room. Noah won’t go to sleep until I let him win.
He giggles and says, “Okay, I gotta go. Luke is waiting.”
“Oh, is he now?” I follow his gaze toward a massive tub of red, blue, and yellow balls.
Kids leap from the edges with spirited shrieks.
A girl with butter-yellow hair plunges down a curving slide and slides face first into the tub like it’s full of water.
Noah’s cousin stands next to it, clad in a pair of denim overalls, frantically waving his hands at Noah like a mini aircraft marshaller.
Luke is five years old as of today, one year older than Noah. I can’t help but smile.
“Can I go in the balls?” Noah asks.
“Of course you can go, buddy,” Ethan says, biting back a laugh. “You can do whatever you want in here. You don’t need our permission.”
Noah’s eyebrows climb a full inch, nearly disappearing beneath his straw-blond curls. “Weally?”
“Yes, weally,” Ethan says. “Go on. Have fun.”
With a cry of delight, Noah spins on his heel and races for Luke, weaving through the sea of children with reckless abandon.
“Anything he wants, huh?” I cock my head and study my husband.
Freshly thirty, Ethan carries the look of someone five years his junior.
He still has the round cheeks of a teenager and the same thick, acorn-colored bangs as when I originally met him, but his eyes are those of a man’s—slightly hooded with the beginnings of crow’s feet.
Eyes that, when combined with his dimpled smile, illuminate his features like a sunrise.
It was his smile that drew me to him in the first place, and I’ve never grown tired of seeing it since.
Seven years married now, and I couldn’t love him more.
“You baby him too much, Bay,” he says. “We need to let him off the leash from time to time.”
“The last time we did, he wound up with a chipped tooth, remember?” I recall the incident, Ethan running next to Noah on his Strider balance bike one minute, guiding him by the back of the seat, letting go the next.
Noah, wheeling for the curb in a lazy arc, looking my way with a shout, “Look at me, Mama!” before flipping over the handlebars and skidding across the cement face first. We were in the ER twenty minutes later.
Ethan smirks. “Okay, point taken. But nothing’s going to happen here.”
“Famous last words.”
He leans back and props his head against the wall, a dimple flashing as he watches Noah leap into the balls. “We did good, didn’t we?”
“So good,” I say, forgetting my exhaustion for a moment.
Ethan’s right. Our son is perfect in every way—the best thing we’ve done by a mile.
And I’m thankful when he points it out. Ethan lives every day with gratitude.
It’s one of the things I love about him most. And he’s also a wonderful father.
Ethan’s job as a part-time shift manager at Petey’s, the corner grocery store four blocks from our house, allows him to spend most of his time hanging out and playing with our son.
Which, in turn, has allowed me to pursue my career.
He’s the yin to my yang—my perfect match.
He reaches over and laces his fingers with mine. “So, what time did you get in last night?”
“Two.”
“Jesus, Bay,” he says as a trio of wrinkles form over the bridge of his nose. “Seriously?”
“Unfortunately. I feel like a zombie.”
“I bet.” He squeezes my hand. “You know how much I appreciate what you do for us, right?”
“You do? Why don’t you ever tell me then?
” I say it with a grin. He does. He tells me all the time.
Still, I know my job can be hard on him, especially during tax season.
It means four grueling months governed by client and governmental deadlines that rule my life with an iron fist. Sixty-to-seventy-hour weeks are the norm.
But my position as a tax director at PricewaterhouseCoopers also provides us with the means to afford a very comfortable life.
It allows us to live in our modern two-story home in Montlake, one of the premier neighborhoods in Seattle with access to some of the best schools in the entire state.
My career is why we’re able to eat organic meals and go on nice vacations and will be able to someday send Noah to whatever college he wants to attend.
It’s why I drive an Audi and Ethan drives a Lexus and both of us have closets full of nice clothes.
All of this with money to spare, and I haven’t even made partner yet.
Ethan gives me a mock wince. “Ouch. Probably because I’m such a terrible husband.”
“That’s the last thing you are,” I say, leaning into him.
“Hang in there,” he says, patting my knee. “Busy season will be over soon enough.”
“You do realize it’s barely getting started, right?”
“Yes, but—” he pulls me closer. “You have my permission to forget about it today. You can worry tomorrow.”
I lean my head against his shoulder. “Deal.”
“This is nice,” he says, looking at the play area like it’s a tropical oasis and we’re parked on the beach near the water.
I nearly laugh. Only my husband would find a place packed with shrieking kids like this relaxing.
But he’s right. Being here with him and Noah is nice.
And Noah’s having a blast. He’s waving at me now from across the room, waiting for me to return the gesture.
When I do, he smiles then turns and leaps into the balls.
Two more years.
That’s all I need, and then I can devote more time to my family.
Two more years of understanding from Ethan and Noah, and I’ll be promoted to partner.
After that, I—we—can do whatever we want.
I’ll set better boundaries with work. We’ll take more of the vacations Ethan is always going on about.
I’ll spend more time at home. I will. I won’t think twice. It will happen.
But not yet. Not when I’m this close to achieving what I’ve been working toward for so long now.
Not after sacrificing my soul for nearly a decade to reach this point.
And sacrifice is exactly what it’s taken for me to be promoted to director by the age of twenty-nine.
I’m one of the youngest employees in the firm to ever achieve that title, and as a woman no less.
I haven’t greased any wheels. I’ve done it all through hard work, blood, sweat, and tears with a vision toward creating a beautiful life for me and my family.
And we’re so close to realizing that dream. So close.
The thought dies when a cry fills the room. Noah’s cry.
I spot him and another boy crumpled near the ball pit with their hands pressed to their heads, both of them wailing.
A collision of some sort. Ethan jumps to his feet and rushes over.
I follow, stopping when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
My stomach clenches. I want to ignore the call, but I can’t.
Not if it’s who I think it is. Not if I want to remain employed.
I pull my phone free and my stomach knots. It’s him. Of course it is. Who else would it be? With a sigh, I bring it to my ear.
“Hey, Bob, what’s up?”
“We have a situation,” he says.
I tense, but it’s not a surprise. There’s always a situation, some urgent fire to put out for some pissed-off client. And at this time of year, they’re all pissed off.
“What is it?” I ask, trying to mask the note of displeasure creeping into my voice.
This is my first day off in the last two weeks, and I don’t appreciate being disturbed—not that it matters.
Inconveniencing me seems to be one of Bob Sanders’ favorite pastimes.
As the newest directing partner of the Seattle branch, Bob is deeply unpleasant at times.
He pursues his goals with a blatant disregard for his personal health and that of his staff, but there’s no arguing the man gets results.
He’s tripled our bottom line in a little over two years.
So, when Bob Sanders asks you to do something, you drop everything and you do it, no questions asked.
“One of the seniors on the Miller engagement discovered a discrepancy in the cash account,” he says. “It’s not good. And it’s big. I think we’re looking at fraud, here. How soon can you get to the office?”
I hesitate, the words jamming in my throat as I study Ethan. He’s kneeling in front of Noah, gingerly thumbing his forehead.
Two more years. Just two more years.
“Can you give me an hour?” I ask. “I’m at a birthday party with my kid.”
“Sooner would be better.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I’ll do my best.”
The phone clicks, Bob gone without another word.
I rub my eyes and groan, knowing this means we’ll have to leave.
Noah and Ethan are going to kill me.