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I still hated it, and he knew that. I appreciated all the work the interior decorator had done, and I appreciated Landon hiring her to do it, but all the throw pillows and candles in the world couldn’t change the fact we were trapped in a glass box at the top of the city. The lush, tropical paradise I’d raised Emma in felt like a world away instead of just an ocean.
“It’s only for three weeks, right?” I asked, dodging the question.
“Only three weeks,” Landon agreed, his expression unreadable.
13
LANDON
There was a time when I’d eaten grilled cheese two meals a day–sometimes three. Bread was cheap, especially when you got it from the bargain bin because it was about to mold. The Kraft slices of cheese were cheap, too. On a good week, I’d peel two or three of them out of their plastic envelopes and fry the bread with mayonnaise. More often, I nicked single-serving butter packets from the diner down the street and toasted one piece of cheese between the slices of bread that were graying at the crust.
I hadn’t eaten a grilled cheese sandwich in over twenty years. Not since I graduated high school and joined the Army. I fucking hated the sight of them.
So when Cami told me Emma’s favorite food was grilled cheese, I fought my churning stomach and said, “Okay, that’s what we’ll make tonight.”
I went to the store while Cami unpacked their things. Even though I was picking out a loaf of crusty bread, made in-house, and buying fancy cheese by the block, I couldn’t stop the flashbacks. I hadn’t thought about the past in a long time, but ever since I learned about Emma, it kept coming at me from all angles.
I’d have to tell my mom about her. We weren’t that close, but I couldn’t not tell her. Besides, it wasn’t like I had a plethora of grandparents to offer up. Not unless my dad fulfilled my childhood fantasy of making a dramatic, third act appearance, and Elyna would stop getting her hair done before that happened. The thought of my dad piled onto the out-of-body experience that grocery shopping was giving me. How the hell was I supposed to be her dad when I’d barely had one myself?
I’d fallen in love with Emma instantly, but that didn’t change the fact I hadn’t wanted to be a parent. Her appearance in my life did help me understand why though. The avalanche of love that had come along with finding out she existed was falling from the mountain of bullshit I thought I’d put behind me. The mountain I’d built one shovelful at a time, starting from the first day my dad left. All the anger, the hurt, the damage–I thought I’d put it behind me. Frozen it solid.
It was melting now, sliding down. Icy flows of loss and confusion. Lava flows of rage and pain. For years, I’d wonderedwhymy dad had left. Now that I knew what it felt like to be a father, I wonderedhowhe’d been able to do it. I’d just met Emma and I knew nothing short of death would keep me away from her now.
Hell, it was even getting me to make fucking grilled cheese again.
I stopped by the butcher’s counter to pick out a steak, then thought better of it. Cami had never pressured me not to eat meat around her, but it sent a confrontational message to cook up a cow on her first night. I picked up the ingredients for Pasta alla Norma instead.
When I got back, they were out on the small terrace. Emma had a small watering can I’d never seen before in my life and was tipping its contents into a plant I’d also never seen before. Cami was leaning against the chest-high wall, her elbows hooked over the edge, looking out. For a minute, I stood in the living room and watched them.
Cami’s hair was in a loose braid, and she was wearing a flowy cotton dress that hid her curves but showed off her long, tan legs. Even in profile, I could see the wistfulness on her face. She’d always loved the outdoors. She preferred hiking to expensive dinners. Nearly five years ago, she’d done shit like go to Burning Man and MOAB under the stars. She’d always been reading books about alternative medicines and plant therapy. She cared about people and the planet. She thought one could heal the other, and vice versa. It didn’t surprise me at all that she wanted to be a Naturopath. She’d be a good one.
As if she felt my eyes on her back, she turned to look over her shoulder. Squinted, thinking she could see a form through the glass, but she wasn’t sure because it was tinted. I waved so she would know it was just me and headed into the kitchen to unpack the groceries. As I was opening the refrigerator, I heard the patio door slide open.
“I don’t want to go in yet!” Emma protested.
“You can stay, baby.”
The door slid closed but didn’t latch.
I tensed as I heard Cami’s quiet footsteps cross the living room. “I got the ingredients for Pasta alla Norma,” I said without turning to look at her. I wasn’t mad at her exactly, but Cami was mixed up in all my myriad of emotions about my past, the memories she’d unearthed with the revelation about Emma.
“I always loved that when you made it,” she said quietly. A very careful reference to our shared past.
I remembered. I’d made it the first time she spent the night. Cami had told me she was a virgin and I nearly choked on the ziti, wondering how I’d managed to misread the situation so fucking terribly. Then she’d told me she wanted me to be her first, and I realized I hadn’t misread it.
The silence was stiffening between us as we both remembered the conversation that came after. The one where I told her there was no way. The one where she told me she didn’t want anyone else. She wanted someone who knew what they were doing, who wouldn’t think it was a commitment. The one where I caved because she was so damn beautiful, and it was so hard to say no that any argument would have swayed me. Then we’d left our uneaten food and our full glasses of wine on the table and gone to the bedroom.
My hand tightened on the box of ziti until the cardboard crunched in my fist. I turned slowly to see Cami watching me, her dark eyes shadowed. Was she regretting it now, after all these years? It hadn’t exactly been the fun, no complications, no commitment deal we’d agreed on. Now she had my daughter, and I had her trapped in what she’d always referred to as my fortress of solitude.
And not in a joking way.
“It’s only three weeks,” I said, repeating her words from earlier. Though right now, spending the next twenty-one days and nights in proximity to Cami and all our memories was a daunting prospect.
She nodded. “Three weeks.”
I prepped the pasta sauce, then made the grilled cheese while the noodles were cooking. Cami floated in and out of the kitchen, checking on Emma, disappearing into her room, coming back to see if I needed anything. I didn’t. Both of us were good cooks, and both of us preferred to work alone. I’d once thought that was the perfect metaphor for our relationship. Neither of us wanted a sous chef.
“You’re upping the grilled cheese game on me,” she said, inspecting the Shullsburg Creamery Colby Jack I’d picked up. “I usually do those Kraft singles.”
