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People like Ryker made parenting impossible. None of the rules I’d taught them seemed to apply to him, so what the hell was I supposed to tell them to make them understand that the man was dangerous, when I couldn’t actually tell them he was dangerous?
“Do you want to see your rooms?” he asked the kids, and my eyes widened as I picked up the pace to fling myself into the door that led to the main living space. It was still as massive as it had been earlier, but the space tucked in the corner that had been empty before was filled with things from the kids’ playroom at home. Ines’s toy kitchen looked absurd next to the beauty of the natural stone and grey cabinets in Ryker’s kitchen right next to it.
There was a little couch, an area rug, and shelves for her favorite toys. I didn’t know where the couch and rug came from, because the playroom at home hadn’t been that organized.
Axel’s video game system was set up on the stand below the flat screen in the living room, and they had positioned a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. Ryker opened that gate, taking the kids up. He let Axel lead the way, bringing up the rear. The wall on the side of the stairs was extreme, and I hadn’t noticed earlier the way it was a recent addition. I wanted to melt that he’d thought to make his home safe for Ines, because I imagined the warehouse had been much more striking when the stairs and loft upstairs had been open the way the designer meant it to be.
I followed them up, catching the gate before it could close. The metal contraption seemed too complicated for me to figure out, so it at the very least comforted me that Ines wouldn’t be at risk. There was another one at the top of the stairs, and Axel couldn’t get it open. “Slide the button over and then lift and it should swing out,” Ryker said, and Axe managed just fine somehow. Even though the metal of the gate seemed like a prison, apparently my six-year-old could handle it.
Watching my kids round the corner and walk around the loft was too much for me. As they walked past the office with the solid glass wall and then around the corner, I spoke. “Ryker, can we talk about this? I don’t think—”
“Nope,” he grunted. When he stopped at the place where the hall forked in opposite directions, I sighed.
“Mommy, do we live here now?” Axel asked, his little eyes peering up at me in confusion. Down one end of the hall toward what I assumed was the master, a mover came out of the door and gave Ryker a nod.
“Should be all set, Sir,” he said as he passed us in the hall.
Ryker grinned at me before going in the opposite direction of the Master. The halls were bright, a light grey that tinted just the slightest bit blue, and with the skylights in the ceiling, natural light flooded the space and illuminated the random industrial art pieces hanging on the wall.
They were like sculptures made from wood and metal, designed to lay flat against the wall and pieced into intricate patterns. “Boss’s wife’s friend Duke made them,” he said in explanation. He didn’t seem fond of the man, but no one could deny the unique beauty of his art. “Nursery.” Ryker tapped on the door on the right briefly and then turned to the one on the left. I blanched, looking down at where Axel peeked at my stomach in confusion.
Nope.
I would not relive that conversation with my son. Ever.
“Do you have a baby?” Axel asked, saving me from t
he awkwardness of not being able to ask him. What would it tell my son if I didn’t even know that the man who’d moved us into his home had a baby?
Fuck sake, where had my life gone so wrong?
“Not yet,” Ryker declared, shoving the door on the left open. “This is the bathroom you and Ines will share." Subway tile covered the space, making it look bright, and a blue vanity with double sinks gave it a splash of color. It was better than my master bathroom at home. “Down there are your rooms. Ines on the left, Axel on the right.” Axel’s curiosity outweighed his hesitation, and he fled down the hall to throw open the door.
“Mother puffin!” he yelled excitedly, and he disappeared into the room.
“I hate you,” I whispered to Ryker, and Ines only giggled in response.
“Ready for your room, Princess?” Ryker asked her, tapping Ines’s foot playfully.
“Uni! Uni!” she shouted, and I stepped up to peek into Axel’s room with a sigh. Some boys had plastic car beds. Evidently my son had one that looked more real than any other I’d seen, built into the room and looking like a car in the shop. He had his own desk and chair, with a bookshelf, and all those things sat on a platform he had to climb three steps to get to.
He had a gentle slide that looked like a road to get down. His dressers looked like tool chests, and I just knew, I knew that I would never get him out of that room. Not when he could send his toy cars flying down that slide all day long.
“Mommmmyyy!” Ines shrieked, and I turned and ducked out of Axel’s room to find my girl. Terror filled me, the sound of her high-pitched cry making me think the worst.
As soon as I peeked in the room, my body sagged with relief. My relief disappeared the next moment when I realized my daughter was lost to me.
She was in love.
He’d given her a fucking castle.
The prick.
Ines's bed was covered in soft pink linens, with way more pillows than any one person could need thrown on there. And it was all tucked inside a massive set of turrets like a castle. But at least they functioned as bookshelves. Some of her stuffed animals peeked over the top of the bed frame, looking oh-so-cozy as they hung out up there with plenty of personal space. To think back home, I’d had the nerve to shove them in a chest in her closet.
How dare I?
Her dolls even had a miniature princess bed and there was a massive life size unicorn standing in front of the wall opposite her bed. The one that was painted in pastel colors with a mural of a Unicorn on it.
