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Thirty-One
During the five-minute drive to Jack’s house for Sunday brunch, Evan continued the tantrum he had started at an ungodly 4 a.m. Teething rings were useless. Rubbing his gums made him antsy. No doubt he was picking up on her weird mood. She hadn’t talked to Tad since she left his house yesterday afternoon. Oddly, she had felt closer to him—cooking together, sharing her sad sack story, the off-the-charts sex—yet there had been a tectonic shift. In telling Tad about Simon’s legacy of heartbreak, including the pattern he had set for her fragile heart, a timer had been set. Full acknowledgment that their fling had an expiration date.
They had known it would come, but the pain in her chest at the thought of it had been unexpected. Going back to what they had before would be a hard road but it was necessary. Today at Jack and Lili’s, they could practice being friends again, and take a step in the right direction. Onward and upward.
“Come on, Demon. Time to be brave.”
Her little soldier pushed out his bottom lip in a pout that accessorized wonderfully with his red, puffy eyes. Gently, she stroked his tear-ravaged cheek and buried her nose in his shock of blond hair.
“I love you, Evan,” she whispered. “You’re going to help me get through these next few months. You’re going to mend my heart.”
Evan sighed and then launched into a fit when she unhooked him from the car seat. It took her ten minutes to get him out of the car because he had lost his dino-giraffe and was inconsolable until she extracted it from under the front seat. Between that and wrangling the bag of necessities she carried around with her constantly, it took a while to register the voice coming from the backyard at Jack’s house. A shiver coursed through her body, like someone had danced across her grave.
It couldn’t be.
Fleeing was a viable option. She had done it once and while her brain acknowledged she wouldn’t get far, her heart was already in the Minivan. But Lili had seen her and it was too late.
She stared, unblinking, at the man who had broken her. Two years and he looked no different except for a slight hardness around the mouth. Tall with a leonine mane, he wore the casual air of arseholes everywhere.
He laughed at something Jack said, but it sounded false. A brittle, rusty sound.
“Hey, Jules, let me take that.” Lili grabbed the bag that had slipped from Jules’s jellied grip.
Simon’s cold blue eyes scanned Jules briefly before shifting to Evan, who was playing squirmy monkey in her flagging arms. The gaze turned hungry, but there was also the hint of performance in it—the man more sinned against than sinning. He dragged his eyes away slowly and sharpened them on her.
“Hullo, Jules. Long time.”
“I’d forgotten you two had met,” Jack said, his tone curious.
“Why are you here?” she asked Simon, ignoring Jack, whose eyes darkened in awareness.
“You know why.”
Moments passed as the emotional landscape was rearranged.
“Jules?” Jack’s voice sounded muffled and distant while Evan’s cries grew louder, echoing Mummy’s distress. Had she fallen over? She felt like she should be on the ground. Just as that thought formed and her knees weakened to make it a reality, a strong arm circled her waist.
“I’ve got you, honey,” he whispered in her ear.
Thank Tad.
She turned into him, drawing strength from the big hand curled possessively around her hip. Evan felt unbearably heavily but luckily, Tad scooped her precious out of her arms with a, “Hey, buddy.” Her son—her beautiful, perfect son—stopped his needy wail and blinked at Tad, who drew a bright giggle from him with a well-placed tickle.
She turned to Simon and girded her loins for battle.
Nobody moved until Simon stepped forward and Jules instinctively filled the gap, her claws sharpening under her skin. She could deny it, pretend he wasn’t the father, but one look at Jack told her it was too late. Her brother’s jaw had tensed to the point that she suspected he might be losing teeth in that grim-set mouth of his.
“Jules,” Jack said. Not a question now. Not even a plea for confirmation, just an acknowledgment that she had been found out.
For once in his life, Simon didn’t look all-knowing or smug. Evan had that effect on people. His rambunctious sunniness turned everyone into a melty goo of obeisance and adoration.
“He’s healthy?” he asked, no longer with the sharpness of before.
“He’s healthy,” she confirmed, parsing the words out like precious commodities. She knew what he was asking. Was he a dummy like her or had he inherited his father’s smarts? It was much too early to know for sure if her son was dyslexic and it wouldn’t matter if he was.
He was perfect.
Her heart thundered, her cheeks burned.
