“Wow, Rowan’s mom is a Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleader?”
“Was, she’s almost thirty now. I have no idea where she is.”
“Did she ever come here to see her?”
“A few times, but she hasn’t been here since Rowan was maybe eighteen months or so.”
“We would have had Phi by then.”
“Yes, we were married. Ophelia was just a wee little thing.”
“Did I meet her?”
“Yes, she was here that day when I got home from work. That’s not the direction I meant to go in. I don’t want to talk about that. We’re supposed to be discussing how we felt toward each other when this all started.”
“I think I loved you from the beginning.”
Paxton snorted again. “I don’t think you did.”
“Why did you want me? I mean, I’m hardly a Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleader.”
“You’re crazy. You could be if you wanted to be. You don’t have to use makeup and designer clothes to be beautiful. It’s natural for you.”
“Wow. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It probably is,” Paxton admitted with a laugh.
I hated falling asleep in his arms that night. I hated the happy feelings and the security I felt with him. Paxton was the furthest thing from safe and secure. I knew it, and I still let my guard down every single time.
He dozed off first, breathing a relaxed breath while I wondered where to go next.
Eleven
Paxton wasn’t kidding when he said he had guys coming to help him close off my doors. That’s what I woke to. A grinding saw, echoing through the house.
I looked to his side of the empty bed and to the clock. “Seriously?” I said out loud. It was barely eight in the morning, and Paxton was sawing the house in half. On a Saturday to boot.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had Rowan and Phi helping. I could see them as soon as I walked out to the balcony, both carrying debris to a wagon parked right in the middle of the tiled patio, pieces falling into the pool. I tucked the sheet underneath my armpits and yelled down. Five times.
“Paxton!” I yelled just as he shut the saw off.
“What?” He questioned, safety glasses flipping to the top of his head while he looked at me like I was the silly one.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh hey, Mrs. Pierce,” Pete said, eyes peering up from below me.
With a polite nod to Pete, I tightened my sheet and glared down at Paxton. “I thought we were going to talk about this. Don’t you think you’re rushing it?”
“Look, Mom. We’re helping, and then Daddy is going to let us paint,” Phi called up with a hand over her eyes.
Paxton turned to Ophelia, carrying a brick to the wagon. “Not today. We have to let the mud dry first, remember?” He questioned before turning back to me. Phi ignored him when Rowan told her that her brick was bigger. “What did we need to talk about? I don’t get it.”
I groaned and walked inside and slid on a pair of his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. Jumbled thoughts of why I was so mad filled my mind while I rolled the top down on my shorts and descended the stairs.
Seeing the mess seared my rage even more. We had someone from state coming in one day and Paxton decided to tear up the house. All of the clothes from my closet were piled in three piles on our dining room table, my drawers full of clothes were stacked in three stacks, and boxes of who knew what splattered the floor. My bathroom things, all my makeup, my shoes, everything took up the entire dining area, and a thick layer of dust, blanketed everything. I turned in a circle, shaking my hair with my fingers. A failed attempt to calm down.
“Jesus, Gabriella. When the hell did you get so goddamn beautiful?”
“What?” I questioned with an instant sense of gratification.
“You’re fucking gorgeous. Why didn’t I see that before?”
I couldn’t help it. I cracked like an uncooked egg, the smile a dead giveaway. “Because you’re an idiot, and I’m not trying to be beautiful. I’m trying to be pissed off at you. What the hell are you doing, Paxton?”
“I told you this was happening.”
“I didn’t think you meant tomorrow, Saturday,” I said while I tried to remember the conversation. Did he say tomorrow? “You can’t just pack all my stuff and throw it out like this. We don’t have time for this.”
“Yes we do. You didn’t want me to get dust all over your stuff, did you?”
I couldn’t even think straight yet. Everything in sight was dusty. “I have to get coffee.”
Paxton stopped me when I tried to sidestep him and the mess he had made. On the wrong Saturday! “There’s plenty of time, Gabriella. I’ll help you move your stuff up to our room tonight, and we’ll go shopping for Vander tomorrow.”
Our room, that’s the only thing I heard. “You can’t just do this. I never even said I wanted any of this.”
“Vander? You don’t want Van?”
“Of course I do, but you don’t know that is even going to happen. I never even said I would sleep in the same bed with you. Paxton, no. You’re going too fast.”
“Too fast? I’m doing this for you, Gabriella. I’m trying like fuck to make things right with you.”
“Paxton, you haven’t even given me time to process the whole Lane thing. Would you have ever told me had I not found out?”
Paxton shook his head in disbelief. “Why do you have to ruin it, Gabriella?”
“Ruin it? Hmm, okay. I’m just going to go get coffee before this turns into something nasty. I’ve already got a bad taste in my mouth.”
“I don’t get it. Last night you were fine, sitting on my face and fucking my brains out. You didn’t seem to have a problem with that last night. What the fuck, Gabriella? What the fuck do you want me to do?”
“Watch your mouth for one thing,” I said with a glare, ducking around him in search of the girls. I looked up to him, placing my fists on my hips. “Look, I know this is an adjustment for you, too, but you gotta see things from my side. Jesus Paxton, you guys used me like some slut you picked up from a bar.”
“No, from a beach. I did think you were a slut. You never said no, Gabriella. Not once did you say no.”
“I was scared, Pax.”
“You say that like you remember it.”
“No, I say it like I feel it. You treated me like trash.”
Paxton moaned while the back of his head banged off the wall in frustration. Like he had anything to be frustrated about. I was the one he treated like a slut. “I treated you like that because you let me, because the fear in your eyes ignited every fire in me, and you asked for it.”
That pissed me off. “I asked for it. Oh, okay, well, since I asked for it.”
“Fuck this, Gabriella. I’m trying to show you how much you’re igniting the fire in me now. Can’t that be enough?”
My eyes narrowed on him while I contemplated his words. “You mean because you were getting bored with me before? What happens when you get bored the next time? Maybe I’ll get my memory back and that’ll keep you entertained for a little while?”
Paxton didn’t say another word. The veins in his neck didn’t pop out like they normally did, but I did see his fingers twitching. I wasn’t scared though. I’d felt them around my throat enough to know it was only a threat. He wouldn’t hurt me. He didn’t even speak. He grumbled some sort of incoherent language under his breath and walked away.
“Hey,” I called after him.
Paxton turned to me without a word. I think that was one of those times where the rule about not saying anything if you didn’t have anything nice to say was applied.
“I didn’t sit on your face last night.”
“You do listen,” he admitted, winked at me, and walked away.
I scratched my head, staring after him, and then groaned. My first stop had to be coffee. Just looking at the mess Paxton made gave me anxiety.
The first part of my mor
ning was spent in Paxton’s room. Our room. I moved his things from both walk-ins to one. What else was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like any of it was mine if we quit anyway. Paxton wouldn’t give me a pair of shoes, let alone an entire wardrobe.
Sliding the last box from the shelf of my new closet, I dropped it when Paxton spoke.
“Wow, just move right on in,” he teased in playful voice, Rowan and Phi right behind him.
I started to scold him for scaring the hell out of me when I knelt to pick up the box, but stopped, frozen in my tracks. I shifted my gaze back to his somber face and to the girls. Both of them held onto the middle bar in the closet and did backflips.
“You went after it?” I questioned while sliding the golden envelope from the box. I knew it was the one from the cottage without a doubt.
“I didn’t open it yet,” he assured me.
“What is it?” Phi wanted to know.
I turned to them and frowned, pulling their dirty little hands from the empty bar. “What are you doing? Stop that. You’re filthy. Look at the handprints all over the wall. Go wash-up.”
“What is it though, Mom?” Phi questioned again.
I swatted her butt and told her it was adult stuff, and she walked away, following Rowan out with her dislike of adult stuff.
“When did you get this, Pax?”
“The same day you told me about it.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I swear I didn’t look. I had all intentions of it, but I stopped myself. We’ll look together.”
“Now?”
“No, I have to get through this thing with Van first. You hid it there, not me.”
“What does that mean? You’re afraid if you look now, you’ll stop. You won’t want Vander?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“You’re afraid you won’t want me?”
“Gabriella, this is a lot of shit. You’re not the only victim here.”
“Now I’m a victim?” I questioned while calling him out on his own words. He’d just insisted that I stop playing the victim the night before.
“Give it to me. I’ll put it in the office until we’re ready for that.”
I stood with the copper colored envelope, crisp and new. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been there long. “I want to see what’s in it.”
Paxton crossed his arms and leaned into the doorjamb. “I’m not going to tell you no, if that’s what you’re waiting on, Gabriella.”
My eyes shifted from his back to the hidden secret as a soft sigh echoed throughout the empty closest. Our eyes locked when I stepped toward him and shoved it into his chest. “You have no idea how hard this is. I know all the things I am learning are the truth, but I can’t remember them. I hid that there. I know I did, but I have no clue what’s in it. With the way things are, it could be anything.”
Paxton held my hand over his chest and spoke in a calm collective tone. “That’s why we’re not going to open another can right now. We have enough open. Vander. That’s it today. Getting ready for him. That’s all we’re focusing on. Let’s take the girls out for pizza and tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“About Van. Let’s tell them why Daddy demolished your room today.”
“No, let’s not. What if it doesn’t happen, Pax? What if you’re doing all of this for nothing? They don’t just hand kids over to people they don’t know. I’m sure it doesn’t work like that.”
“It’s going to happen, Gabriella. Stop looking for things to fight against. There is absolutely no reason why they wouldn’t take a little boy out of the system to be with his family. You’re looking for problems.”
“I’m afraid to believe that, Paxton.”
“Believe it, baby. He’s going to be living here sooner rather than later.”
“How soon?”
Paxton shrugged both his shoulders and kissed my nose. “We’ll find out Monday. Come on. I want your opinion on the window seat.”
“Since when do you want my opinion?”
“Since I’m trying to make you happy.”
I smiled a little on that note. It was kind of hard not to. He was sort of cute in an asshole kind of way. “You hear all that laughter and water going on in your bathroom? That’s your mess.”
“Okay, I’ll go grab my two little messes and you clean up their mess. Love that idea. Come see what I’ve done.”
I stood on the tips of my toes, bringing my lips closer to his. “You’re a sneaky bastard, you know that? Very manipulative.”
“My specialty,” Paxton admitted with a grin. His tongue traced my bottom lip and slipped inside, once again, causing that sparkly feeling, right in the middle of my chest.
I kissed him back, leaning into his chest, expecting his body to hold me. It did, and I was hooked—again. I bit into his poisonous bullshit, hook, line, and sinker.
Giggling little girls separated our lips, and I pulled away, keeping my lips on his. “Stupid little fish.”
Paxton looked down at me with an instant frown when I stepped around him. “What? Why am I a stupid little fish? I don’t get it.”
I ushered the girls out of our bedroom, smiling at him over my shoulder. “I’m the stupid little fish.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“Forget it, Pax.”
“I have a fish. I got it from the animal bus,” Ophelia reminded us. That look over my shoulder was meant to be nasty. I missed that because I went to jail.
All in all the day turned out to be pretty okay. Other than Paxton’s quick window demolition, things went pretty smooth. The place he had used for the past five years didn’t have the window he wanted in the size that he wanted in stock. It wouldn’t be there until Tuesday. It wasn’t really a big deal though. At least the state people could see it was in the process. He just had to nail plywood in its place, and to my surprise, he wasn’t even a jerk about it. He was happy and playful the entire night.
Even after we had finished for the day, cleaned up, and were on our way to dinner, Paxton was playful, happy and in a good mood. He made it hard to be anything but that with him.
“I think we should get mommy a mini-Van,” he joked.
I frowned toward him, laughing at the hidden joke, and the girls, agreeing with the minivan.
“I’m not driving a minivan,” I assured him with warm fuzzy feeling. I was sort of in love with the moment, yet cautious. Trusting Paxton was hard for me. The man who drove his family out for pizza wasn’t the same man I’d left the hospital with. But…he was still there, and I knew this.
“I like to have a blue one, Mom. Hey, look, there’s a horse in there,” Ophelia called when we passed a truck pulling a trailer with a black horse, and just like that, the minivan was forgotten. Crazy kid.
Of course Rowan couldn’t just let it go with that. “That’s not a horse, it’s a pony, right, Dad?”
“It was a horse.”
“No it wasn’t. Horses are bigger.”
“Nuh-uh, Rowan. It just didn’t grow all the way up yet. It’s little like you.”
“I’m older than you.”
“But you’re not bigger.”
Paxton and I exchanged a glance right before he stopped the silly argument.
“Let’s go eat chicken,” he said through the rearview mirror.
I laughed when they simultaneously, yelled no.
“Chuckie Cheese,” they both agreed.
Paxton turned right, heading to Maria’s, his favorite pizza.
“Oh no, I said pizza, not Chuckie Cheese. I hate that place.”
“Well, we want to play there,” Phi whined.
I stared out the window, half listening after a sudden premonition, déjà vu. Like I’d already lived this scene in my life once. Only I was in the backseat. I was the one arguing.
“Gabby said we was bastards cause we don’t have a daddy. I’m not a bastard. Tell her I’m not one of those,” I complained from the backseat.
“Yes, yo
u are. We both are. We don’t have a daddy.”
A truck squealed its tires behind us, blowing his horn when my mom whipped the car to the side of the road.
“You’re not bastards. You have a daddy.”
I blinked my eyes, trying to focus on Paxton.
“Hello?”
“Huh?”
“Where’d you go?”
“I—I’m not sure. I have a dad.”
“Um. Okay.”
Paxton derailed that one when the girls asked who my dad was. He talked about school instead, asking Rowan what she thought about skipping the first grade.
“I’m going to skip kindergarten, too,” Ophelia decided.
Again my attention ceased to be held on my family and the feud between my bickering little girls. Paxton explained to Phi how fun kindergarten was, and she changed her mind right quick. I stared at the guardrail, trying to get it back, the daze I needed more of.
I forgot all about it once we were seated at Chuckie Cheese, once again, falling for my man. Paxton was such a good guy. The kind of man women drooled over, the kind of daddy every wife wanted, the kind of lover that curled your toes. I smiled at him across the table, thinking about my silly observation, head shaking back and forth.
“What?” He instantly questioned.
I looked down to my cheese pizza, twirling cheese around my fork. “Nothing, it was just a fantasy.”
“What’s a fantasy?” Phi asked as she bit into her third slice of pizza.
Paxton looked over to Phi, and then right back to me. “Jesus, didn’t you feed that girl today?”
“I know, right?” I replied to Paxton and answered Phi’s question, staring right at him. “It’s make believe. A fantasy is something that isn’t real.”
Paxton narrowed his eyes on me, contemplating what I’d said. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t the truth. He knew it, too. There was no argument about him being able to shed his sheep’s clothes in the snap of a finger. I’d seen it many times over the past few months. One minute he was a soft and gentle like a sheep, and the next the wolf that ate the poor little lamb. Chewed up and spit out in the blink of an eye.