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“Is everything fine?” Nola asked Ally once our silent battle of body language was through.
“We don’t need your expert help, sweetie,” Ally said, as though she was talking to the teenage babysitter who was interrupting two adults.
“Nola has spent more time with Ben than you have,” I said. “And I’m not going to stand here while you talk down to her. So you can either start over, or leave.”
Ally went rigid. A slow spreading red color entered her cheeks, and I thought I still knew her well enough to take it for barely contained rage and not embarrassment. “That’s what I’m trying to fix by being here,” Ally said stiffly.
“Which part are you trying to fix? Not being here, or that Nola has been here doing the job you passed on?”
Ally looked baffled, but she wasn’t as good an actress as she thought.
“Well?” I said. “Is this about you and Ben, or is it about me and Nola?”
“Her?” Ally asked, laughing. “No offense, sweetie, but I’m not threatened by your nanny. I’ve got two platinum records and I think most men would risk their marriages for a night with me.”
“That’s telling,” I said. “Have you always put your value on how effectively you think you could break up happy relationships?”
I thought I sensed Nola trying to hold back a grin at my side.
Ally finally broke. I saw it all in a moment. The civility she’d been wearing like a mask since meeting me in the cafe the other day crumbled. Her lips curled up into the hint of a snarl and she shook her head, then punched her fists out to the side. “Why don’t you just pick, Jack? Would you rather have your fun with the nanny, or do you want to be with the mother of your child? The woman who rocked your world once and could do it again?”
“You can leave,” I said.
Ally waited, as if she’d misunderstood.
“If you decide you want to be part of Ben’s life again, you’ll need to send your lawyer. That’s all I need to say to you.”
She stomped past me and slammed the door.
I let go of Nola and tried to read her expression. “I’m sorry you got dragged into that. And I didn’t mean to use you like a weapon, if that’s how it seemed.”
She chewed the corner of her lip. “As long as you meant what I think you meant when you put your arm around me, I’m not complaining.”
“Every implied word of it.”
Nola laughed softly. “I’ve always been bad at reading implications. Could you spell it out for the slow people in the room?”
“It means you’re mine. That I tried to fight my feelings for you and failed miserably. And that you had better not plan on going anywhere, because I’m not planning to let go.”
She hesitated for a heartbeat, then smiled and hugged me. “Ditto.”
“We should check on Ben,” I said after a few moments. I explained what Ally had said as we walked to his room, then cracked the door. His covers were bulged upward with the point in the shape roughly the size of a small child’s head. There was yellow light spilling through the fabric, but it shut off a second after the door creaked.
“You okay, bud?” I asked.
Ben threw the covers down, showing me the sketchbook he kept under his bed was opened with a half-finished picture. “Daddy!” He rushed off the bed and slammed into me with a hug. “Do I have to stay with Ally more?” he asked. “I didn’t like her.”
“No,” I said. “Not if I can help it.”
Ben saw Nola beside me, then reached his arm out to hug her leg and pull her in toward us. She silently mouthed, awww to me, and hugged him back.
I was afraid to hope. I’d learned what hope did. Hope was like digging holes in your heart. Either the good things you wanted would come fill them, or they’d wind up like graves.
Life was easier if you kept yourself closed off to everything, but I’d come to learn it was also empty that way. So I’d dug a massive hole roughly the size of my heart for Nola, and now the test would be figuring out if she’d be the thing that filled it.
I wondered if this was what it would feel like to be a family. To be happy.
If my history was any indication, this was just the tease point. It was the part where I got to see what it could feel like to be happy, if I was someone else. Next would come the crash and burn. The inevitable descent toward normalcy. The part where Ben and I got our lives turned upside down because we were foolish enough to think we could hope for better.
I hugged them a little tighter.
