Page 47 of Turning Back

He nods and gets in a waiting car. They disappear and leave me there, holding Rochelle’s keys.

I click the key fob and a white SUV a few spaces down beeps to life. She owns a Lexus. A nice fucking Lexus. I wonder who it’s registered to?

I walk over to it, get in the driver’s side, and start it up. Then I reach over and pull open the glove box to find her registration. Rochelle Bastille.

Not even trying to hide.

So how come it was so hard to find her?

I slam the glove box closed—because I don’t want to think about that answer—and back out so I can pull into her new parking space next to my Suburban.

The back of her car is stuffed with a baby seat and all kinds of things. Nice designer luggage, something that looks like a folded-up baby crib, and a super-sized pack of diapers.

Might as well bring it all upstairs for her.

I spend the next ten minutes stacking all her worldly belongings next to the elevator, then punch the code Bric gave us to call it. A few minutes later, I’m back upstairs unloading.

I don’t know where she wants any of this stuff, so I go over to the bedroom, slide the doors open, and peek inside. “Can I come in?” I ask.

No answer.

So I push the doors open a little more and slip inside. The bathroom door is open a crack, but it’s silent in there except for a few cooing noises from the baby.

I push the door open and Adley is lying back on her mother’s breasts in the bath with one foot in her mouth. She smiles at me.

“Hey, baby.”

“I’m not sleeping,” Rochelle mumbles. “We’re just relaxing. We did this every afternoon in the hot springs. She likes it. Hell, I like it. I like it so much, I almost wish I was back in Pagosa sitting in my hot spring.”

I dwell on that for a minute. Because it plays right into my fears, right? She could leave again. She could leave and never come back.

But then Adley starts talking in that babble language babies have and I lose my train of thought. She is so fucking pretty. Both of them. So beautiful. I take out my phone and snap a pic.

“What are you doing?” she asks, hearing my shutter click.

“Your car came. I had them change the oil since you just drove hundreds of miles. And they washed it.”

She opens her eyes. “That was sweet of you.”

I shrug. “That’s me, right? The nice guy.” The one who always gets fucked, I don’t add. “I brought all your stuff upstairs too. Didn’t know where you wanted it, so it’s just stacked by the elevator.”

“Thank you,” she says, still staring at me.

I shrug and lean against the vanity, crossing my arms. “So she likes the water?” I ask, hating the new awkwardness of our… relationship. If that’s what this is.

Rochelle smiles down at Adley, who is still sucking on a toe. “She loves it. She can swim. I taught her by accident. She always wears a floaty swimsuit in the hot springs. You know those ones that act as a life jacket?”

I have no clue what she’s talking about, but I nod yes anyway.

“And one day about a month ago, her diaper leaked just before we were going to soak. Well, she likes her soak, so I took her in a regular swimsuit. And holy shizz, she could swim!” Rochelle laughs. “I looked it up later and some people say that all babies know how to swim. I think it’s bullshit, hence the floaty swimsuit. But Adley can. Of course, I’d been coaching her for weeks by that time. I’d hold her up and she’d kick her legs. Or I’d hold her around her waist and she’d paddle her arms like a dog. She got lots of water in her mouth, and she hated it, so she started holding her breath.”

I picture it in my head as she talks, imagining them down there in picture-perfect Pagosa Springs, living a nice, quiet, peaceful life in a resort town. Soaking in the hot springs. Making a new routine. Playing their own game with their own rules.

It hurts.

“And that day I let her go—just for a second. Just to see if she learned anything. And she kicked and paddled away. I snatched her up immediately. It scared the hell out of me. And then I took her home and decided never again. But it was cool. I taught her something, you know? I barely had to try and I taught her something.”

I want to be a dick about this right now. So bad. But I decide it’s a horrible idea. I can’t win. I can’t be mad, even though I’m so fucking pissed off. Being mad won’t make anything better. It will, in fact, make everything worse. My little analogy about the drunk boyfriend has already started to fuck things up and we just got back together. If I want to stay here with her—them, including Bric—I need to find a way to get past the anger. So I say, “Sounds amazing,” instead of, So glad you got all that alone time with her and I was left with nothing.