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And he'd been trying to work with Harmon on her fear of cars, now that she was pregnant and couldn't be on his bike, so he took her on little trips at least once a day, trying to desensitize her to them.
It was amazing how hard he was trying to be a good husband, a good father.
"It's kind of sweet," I said, shrugging. "That he's so protective when the baby isn't even here yet. That will be a lucky kid."
"Your father missed out, Sass," he said, shaking his head.
I didn't know much about my father. Other than he was Dutch. And had no interest in being a father. Not to me, and certainly not to my older siblings that weren't his by blood. My mother had told me his first name was Luuk, but that his last name was "weird and hard to remember."
He'd never even held me.
He damn sure never sent any child support.
"So did yours," I said, shaking my head.
"I was grown when he left," he reminded me.
"It was still a shitty thing to do to your child. Even if he wasn't a child anymore."
"Some men suck," he said. "Huck isn't one of them. I wouldn't have signed on to be part of this if I thought he was that kind of guy." He paused, checking his text.
"What about you?"
"What about me what?" I asked.
"Do you want kids? I know you were a little on the fence back in the day. But I figured it was because you'd practically needed to be a mom to all your siblings, and you needed a chance to get to live your life before you made up your mind about it."
"I do. I mean, it's obviously not on my radar right now with my life as it is. But someday, I think it would be nice. You always wanted kids. Four of them, right? Your mom wanted to have four, but couldn't, so she wanted you to have four."
"You have a good memory. Yeah, something like that. With the right woman," he added, making me turn away, reminding myself that I was not the right woman, that I would need to give him divorce papers for him to have that life he wanted so badly.
"Huck is fine with it. In fact, he asked why he would give a shit," Che said, chuckling. "So, food?" he asked, making me turn back.
"That depends."
"On?"
"If we can take the Lambo," I said, smiling.
"Oh, I think that can be arranged," he told me, walking over toward the bowl where he tossed his keys, then had Remy's bird step up, so he could secure him in his massive cage upstairs.
"Can I drive?" I asked as he came back down, leading me into the garage.
"Don't get carried away," he said, eyes bright, as he opened my car door for me.
I never got the fuss about men opening car doors before. I was capable of doing it myself, after all. But I guess I never understood it because no one had ever done it for me before.
That wobble in my belly? It was the kind of thing a girl could get used to.
So I went ahead and buried that wobble under a metric ton of Chinese food that we ate sitting on the ground beside the car since neither of us would ever sully the inside of a car like his with possible take-out food grease. No way.
"You want to take a drive?" he asked as we tossed our containers, and made our way back toward the car.
"God, yes," I said, sharing a smile with him. Because he was one of the few people on the planet who knew what long drives meant to someone like me. I did my best thinking in a car. Music on, music off, it didn't matter. I just needed an open road and the hum of a car underneath me.
All-night drives were also how Che and I had originally gotten to know each other well enough for our interview. He would swing by and pick me up, and we would just drive and talk.
A part of me wanted that again, craved that connection I hadn't shared with someone in so long.
The other part knew just how much I might miss it when it was gone.
Still, as we drove with some soft music on the speakers, just barely loud enough to hear, air on, but the windows down, I held my breath, waiting for one of us to ask some sort of question that would break the ice, get us talking like we used to.
"Say something," I demanded what felt like hours later. My head was so noisy that it was driving me half-crazy.
"What's your biggest fear, Sass?" he asked, giving me a short glance before focusing on the road.
He'd asked me that once upon a time.
