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“Are you sure it’s okay to leave Danny with you? I can cancel...I don’t want you to feel like you have to—”
“I’m happy to babysit Danny.” And I am. “I’m going to answer the door. Pull yourself together, woman.” It’s their first official date, though she and Brandon have been hanging out as friends all this time.
“Shush, Fifi.” I open up the apartment door and hug Brandon. Fifi bounces around his legs happily. She’s very fond of him, like most females.
“Hey, Tru. Is she ready?”
“Of course not. Come in. Can I get you something while you wait?”
“Nope. I’m happy to wait as long as it takes.”
“How’s everyone?” It’s been weeks since I left Brazen Bay and Ironwing to stay at Pauline’s.
“Everyone is fine, Tru. Just fine.”
Right. They probably forgot about me already anyway. I was barely a blip on their radar.
“That Spuds McKenzie beer light you ordered showed up. It looks great. Nash hung it up right away. Said he liked it.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“No. I hung it up when he wasn’t looking. But he hasn’t taken it down yet, so that’s something.”
Before I left, I was thinking that we needed to make Ironwing more ‘80s themed. It already had the vibe, but I figured we should play it up more. I’d been scouting memorabilia and trying to come up with theme nights.
But I don’t need to think about it anymore, do I? Ironwing and its owner can languish away in the obscurity he likes so much.
Pauline makes her grand entrance and the tension between the two of them is making me sweat. If I were still in Brazen Bay, one of the guys from the firehall would make a bet about whether or not they were going to make their dinner reservation or just go get a hotel.
“You look beautiful,” he says. She looks a little like the women who danced on a car in his music video. Which is probably what she was going for.
Pauline turns to me. She’s blinking a lot, which is the only way I can tell she’s still super nervous. “I wrote down everything I could think of on a pad by the phone. Don’t let him have more screen time than he’s allowed or he won’t sleep.”
“I know. I live here now, remember?”
“Right. And his pediatrician's number is on there. And—”
Brandon wraps her coat around her shoulders. “I’m sure Tru can handle it.”
“Sorry. I just...”
He cups her chin. “If you don’t think I was the biggest worrier every time I left Nash with a sitter, you don’t know me well enough yet. I was the worst.”
My heart pings at his name. But I’m getting better. Really I am.
Two hours later, I am tucking Danny into his toddler bed when he asks me why I don’t have any kids. Fifi settles in at the foot of his bed. She sleeps with him on the nights his mom has to work. Some sort of unspoken agreement between Danny and my dog.
I ruffle his hair. “Not everyone gets to be as lucky as your mom.”
If anyone else heard me stay that, they might think I am jealous because she had a child with my ex-husband and I didn’t. But Danny doesn’t know that backstory. He just knows I like him.
“You should have one. Then I’d have a new friend. You’d be a good mommy.”
“You think so?” I tuck his sheet around him tightly, the way he likes it. “Why is that?”
“You smell nice and you read good stories.”
I wonder if that’s all it really takes to be a good mom. I don’t really remember mine, but my grandmother also smelled nice and read good stories. I may not have grown up with the most traditional family, but they loved me. I could love someone like that. Now isn’t a great time, but someday, I could maybe adopt a child. “Get some rest, bug. Your mom told me we can have waffles in the morning.”
