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His son had just woken up from his morning nap and they were going to have an early dinner together here and talk about the marina and the next step to get it out of their lives.
Ren needed something to take his mind off of what happened with Zara a few days ago. It didn’t go nearly the way he’d hoped.
In his mind, he saw them talking, him apologizing and saying he wanted to see where the two of them could go from here.
None of that worked. Nothing came out the way it was supposed to. Least of all him saying he wanted her angry. He supposed if she showed some of it, she’d get it out of her system so it wouldn’t be thrown in his face later on.
So she would hold onto it and have it build to hit him when he least expected it.
He wanted a clean slate and realized now what a stupid thought that was.
Instead, he’d made a huge mistake and said he wanted to see it to prove she loved him. He hadn’t been aware he felt that and had no idea where those words had come from. Maybe all those years he fought with his father, he tried to tell himself that anger was his father’s form of love, however stupid it sounded. If he saw that anger in Zara, he’d think she loved him.
Obviously those feelings were hidden deep down and being around her brought out all sorts of emotions besides attraction and the need to pull her into his arms. He was so messed up in the head at times and knew that now. But as a kid, he was more so.
He wanted to hold her again. Touch her. Anything.
He did none of that.
He set the car seat down on the table while his mother unbuckled his son and took his jacket off. He put the bottles in the fridge and set the diaper bag on the counter.
“He should be in a good mood. He woke up about twenty minutes ago.”
Max had a big grin on his face while Ren’s mother was blowing raspberries on his belly. His mother hadn’t spent as much time with Max as she wanted, but he’d gone to dinner there a few times last week and then let the two of them have some time together yesterday while he ran to the store and got food and anything else he needed that he’d forgotten to pack.
He’d made do for the week and was able to order other things to be delivered. Some of it clothes for his son who was growing faster than dandelions on his lawn in the late summer. He’d go back to his house at some point to get more but wasn’t planning the exact date.
“He was fine with me yesterday. He’s warming up well. I don’t feel like a stranger to him,” she said. “I didn’t think I felt it that much the first day. Do you think he knows we are family?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Though he didn’t know it when he was dropped off to me the first time. He cried a lot for days.”
“I wish I’d known, Ren.” Max was on her hip, his mother walking into the living room. He followed and saw some toys that weren’t there yesterday. Guess his mother was making Max comfortable in the house too and he was thrilled to see it.
Maybe all that time he hated living here could be wiped away and filled with better memories. At least for Max. He wasn’t sure his would ever be gone completely. All he could hope for was some good ones to overshadow the bad.
“It’s in the past. I got through with the help of friends.”
“I’m glad you did. But I would have helped you. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve cared for a baby, but I see so much of you in him. I could have told you what worked for you.”
“Like what?” he asked. That never occurred to him.
“Your mind was always working. Processing things. Even as a baby. You looked around at your surroundings and it was almost as if you needed to know how it worked. If I gave you something in your hand that made you think or work, you relaxed.”
“Max is like that,” he said. “Stuffed animals only work at bedtime. The rest of the time, he needs to interact with things.”
Which was why he had everything he could think of in his house for that for Max’s age and the next level. He was always one level ahead of where Max should be.
He’d done it to see if there were any side effects from Rachelle’s drinking and drug use but found that his son thrived.
Just like Zara giving Max the toy phone on the first day. Once Max knew there were buttons to push for sounds and nobs to turn, that was all he was focused on.
“How long did it take you to figure that out?” she asked.
“He was barely two months old when he came to me. I thought soft things would calm him, but they didn’t. I tried music. Nothing there either. I think it was a rattle that I had that worked. From that point on I bought everything I could that made a noise or had an action.”
“You figured it out,” she said. “Like you did most things in your life. But this isn’t as easy as writing a program or whatever you do.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m learning a lot of things aren’t going to be as easy as I thought they would.”
