“What does all of that mean?” I asked.
“It means I have to go into the office and see if I can figure out what the hell Rob was thinking. Did you know he downsized the comforter division to the point that I could quite literally go back to sewing them in my dorm room and make more profit?”
“Fuck,” I mouthed, very aware that Madison was done with her banana and watching our interaction like a ping-pong match.
“My thoughts exactly.” Bree shoved another sugary bite into her mouth, chewing as though it had wronged her.
“Relax. I’m sure he had a plan.”
“Yeah. But I’m assuming it wasn’t dying and leaving me with a company I don’t even recognize anymore.” Her voice hitched, but she quickly covered it with a cough before turning to her daughter. “Hey, baby. You want to go to the office with Mommy for a few hours?”
“Why don’t you leave the kids with me? I don’t have anything going on today.” I didn’t add that I was hoping the noise and mayhem might distract me from reality for a while.
Bree laughed and stood up, sliding the tray off the highchair before unbuckling Madison. “Thanks, but it’s fine. She can play with Asher while I make calls. Besides, don’t you have an interview this afternoon?”
“It’s not an interview. The job’s mine—I just needed to fill out the new-hire paperwork.” After over a decade, I was going back to the same dueling piano job I’d hated in my twenties. But much like then, I was desperate and needed a way to pay the bills.
My agent had a few leads on selling the songs from Solstice in the ’92, though it would take time before I got paid. Bree had been generous to let Luna and me stay with her for the last month, but it was high time we found our own place.
The insurance company was rebuilding the house Jessica and I had shared; however, there was absolutely no chance in hell I was moving back there. If I was lucky, I could sell it and use any profit I made after paying off the mortgage to put a down payment on something small. Until then, I needed a steady source of income to show a future landlord.
I had zero clue what I was going to do with Luna on the nights I had to work. Daycares didn’t exactly operate at three a.m. But much like I was doing with the rest of my life…I’d figure it out as I went.
Somehow.
There was no other choice.
I handed Bree a wet rag to clean Madison’s face and hands. “Come on. I’ve been keeping them all week while you take calls upstairs.”
“Yeah, but I was upstairs. And this time, I would be…at the office.”
“Which is ten minutes away.”
She laughed again.
I did my best to not be offended—but let’s be real, that shit stung. “Look, you know as well as I do, if Madison doesn’t get her morning nap, you won’t be making any phone calls that don’t involve a baby screaming in the background. Plus, I heard that someone who shall not be named gave Asher sugar for breakfast. How much work do you think you’re going to get done with him doing parkour off the desk?”
She slanted her head. “Did you plan this?”
“No. But I would have if I’d thought of it in advance. Come on. Let me keep the kids for the day. You can put Madison down for her nap before you go. I’ll put Luna down too. Then Asher and I will run laps around the living room for two hours.” I snapped a few times when I thought of a way to sweeten the deal. “While practicing his multiplication tables.”
I was greeted by another Bree Winters specialty glare, but thankfully, this one held slightly less heat than when she’d seen the syrup. “He’s five, Eason. He doesn’t know multiplication.”
“Well, not yet anyway. You’d be surprised how much math there is in music. There’s all those twos and fours and threes and sixes. Sometimes a wild eight here and there.” I moved around Bree and picked up Madison. As usual, she whined and reached for her mother, but it was nothing a little Superman spin couldn’t fix.
Madison giggled and I’ll be damned if it didn’t stretch a rare smile across Bree’s face too.
“Traitor,” she whispered to her daughter. Just as quickly as it had appeared, her flicker of happiness faded. “I don’t know, Eason. Nothing against you, it’s just, after everything…”
Knife.
Heart.
Twist.
But I just kept on grinning. It was less awkward that way.
Our whole I’ll hate you, you hate me, but we do it together agreement hadn’t come into play often over the last month. And the truth was, I didn’t ever actually hate Bree.
I hated myself. For not being able to save Jessica or Rob. For not knowing about the gas leak. And a myriad of other things that factored into us being in the house that horrible night.
Clearly, my grin didn’t hide everything though.
“I mean, it’s not that I don’t trust you,” she rushed out. “I do. It’s just… I have a hard time leaving them with anyone.”
“No. I get it. No explanation needed.” I gave Madison’s belly a tickle—anything to avoid Bree’s gaze.
She rested her hand on my forearm. “I appreciate the offer though.”
“Yeah. Of course.” I forced a smile. “Anytime.”
Bree extended her arms and Madison all but leapt to her, leaving me standing there empty-handed and wondering how I’d managed to both embarrass myself and shatter whatever progress we’d made toward comfortably coexisting.
“Hey, uh, I’m going to take Luna out and get her changed. Looks like she used that banana I gave her as a hair gel instead of breakfast.” I squeezed past Bree, careful not to touch her, and scooped Luna out of the activity saucer.
“Eason…” Bree trailed off, cleared her throat, and then smiled. She wasn’t as good at faking it as I was, so it was closer to a grimace. “Thanks again. For everything. Except the syrup.”
I jerked my chin and winked. “What syrup?”
Without giving her the time to respond, I pulled the back door open and slid through it, my baby girl babbling the entire way.
BREE
“You sure I can’t get you anything else?” Rob’s secretary, Jillian, asked, cleaning up the remnants of snack wrappers and juice boxes she’d magically produced from her Mary Poppins desk drawer. I guessed being a sixty-five-year-old grandmother to nine meant you learned a few tricks about being prepared.
I held the phone between my ear and my shoulder, offered her a tight smile, and lied, “No, I think we’re good. Thank you.”
Truthfully, I was drowning. Just setting foot in Rob’s office had been a herculean task. He should have been there. Sitting behind the huge mahogany desk, welcoming us in with a smile—or, if it had been me without the kids, a mischievous glint in his dark-brown eyes.
Without him, the massive corner office filled with bookshelves and a six-person sitting area was too empty. I’d told myself this was just a quick stop. I’d grab what I needed, take the rest home, and work on it at night when the kids went to sleep. Though actually locating the things I needed in his messy cabinets was something different altogether. For as clean and tidy as Rob had been in virtually every other facet of his life, his filing system made my eyes twitch.