Breathe Me In (16 page)

I was wearing a sweatshirt too. Despite having been in Maine for over a month, I was still the proud owner of only two t-shirts, one pair of jeans, one pair of leggings, and a sweatshirt. Chloe insisted I borrow her clothes, but I felt weird doing that. She and Ethan were doing enough for me. More than enough. I could never really repay them for their complete acceptance of me and Asher and the roof over our heads. Sure, I wanted to buy more clothes, but I couldn’t afford it and I figured my biggest priority needed to be outfitting Asher and me in winter gear. It was damn cold in Maine and while I’d gotten Asher a coat, he was going to need boots and a snowsuit.

“You don’t worry about a whole lot, do you?” I asked. I envied that about him. He was a calm man.

“I worry about you.” He leaned over and kissed me. “Punk.”

Yeah. I was definitely falling for Kane. Big time. So much so that I was willing to brave the family dinner even though I was pretty sure I’d rather crawl into a small hole with rats instead.

When we went into the house it was warm and it smelled like roasted chicken. Or heaven. Whatever you wanted to call it. Holy crap. That was how a house should smell. I could hear voices and laughter and pots banging from a room towards the back of the house, presumably the kitchen. “Should I take my shoes off?” I asked Kane in a whisper, stepping ridiculously close to him. I was tempted to chew on his sweatshirt string myself.

“Why are you whispering?” he asked, in an exaggerated whisper.

“Because I don’t want your family to know I’m here,” I said honestly.

He laughed. “You don’t have to take your shoes off unless you want to. Here, take the baby. You’ll feel more comfortable.” He passed Asher over to me and I took him gratefully.

“Kane, is that you?” a woman’s voice called from the kitchen.

“No, it’s Big Foot.” He rolled his eyes and gestured for me to come with him and I followed, biting my lip.

“Good Lord, it is Big Foot,” his mother said we walked into the kitchen. “Don’t you ever shave anymore?” She reached out and gave him a hug.

Then she turned and gave me a big smile. “Welcome, Anya, it’s so nice to meet you!” And she hugged me too.

Thank God I was holding Asher because I was not used to random women hugging me, so when I awkwardly one-armed embraced her back, I could laugh it off and not have it seem totally weird. Just slightly weird. “Hi, Mrs. Dermott.” Then I wondered if it was way rude to call her Mrs. Dermott when her husband took off. Was she even a Dermott still? I would have ditched that motherfucker’s name myself.

But she didn’t give any reaction. “Oh, call me Kelly.” Then she touched the top of Asher’s head. “Who is this little guy? He’s so precious.”

“This is Asher.” I turned so she could see his face. He blinked up at Kane’s mother calmly. I really did have the most chill baby ever. I was so damn lucky. “Wave,” I encouraged him, raising my own hand and doing just that. He gave an open hand flap to Kane’s mother.

“Oh, you’re so smart!” she cooed, waving right back enthusiastically.

Kane’s mother was shorter than him but taller than me, and slender. For some reason I’d pictured her as heavy, with a mom bob, but she had a short, stylish haircut and it was an ashy blonde. I didn’t really see Kane in her features. But when his sisters came forward, I could see that they looked more like his mother. They all said hello in a blur of “K” names and decorative scarves and long, straight hair. I couldn’t have told anyone three minutes later with one was which. Except for the youngest, Faith, who was twelve or thirteen and still in that awkward phase, with braces and acne. And you know, a name that didn’t start with K.

One of Kane’s sisters took Asher and whisked him off into the living room and set him on the carpet. The other three sisters followed and my son was surrounded by smiling and attentive females.

“This is a family that likes babies,” Kelly told me. “Obviously, since I had six myself.”

Even with Kane’s brother absent, it still seemed like a lot of people in one house. I found it appealing and overwhelming all at once. “I’m just wondering what kind of a flirt is about to be created. Look at him grinning for all he’s worth for them.”

Kane, who was poking around, lifting off the lids of pots and turning the oven light on to peer in, said, “Maybe if he starts now he’ll have a little more game than me. I never did learn to charm the ladies.”

Tempted to kick him in the back of his jeans, I resisted the urge in front of his mother. “So what, I just rolled over?”

“I bought you lunch. You felt obligated.” He stood back up and turned to his mother. “And that is the story of our relationship. She’s stuck with me and doesn’t know how to get out of it.”

“Because I have such a difficult time speaking my mind,” I said wryly.

That made Kane laugh. “I’ve always thought that about you.”

Kane’s mother shooed him away when he lifted another pot lid. “Stop it,” she said. “You’re letting all the heat out. We’re eating in twenty minutes.” Then she smiled at me. “I hope you know how to cook, because this boy likes to eat.”

I definitely had noticed that about him. His stomach trumped everything but sex. I couldn’t exactly tell her that though. “Actually, I, uh, don’t know how to cook. I never learned.”

She didn’t look at me like I was a loser from Bad Girlfriend Town so I was grateful for that.

“I can cook for myself,” Kane pointed out.

“You can’t cook anymore than I can,” I said, incredulous. “You order pizza like twice a week.”

“Oh, Lord,” was Kelly’s opinion.

“Maybe we should take cooking classes together,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

Because I had so much money to throw around and he had a fully stocked kitchen? Please. Between the two of us, we had exactly one pot to pee in. None to use for cooking. “I’ll call up Martha Stewart and see if she can squeeze us in.”

Kelly laughed. “I’m sure she’ll make time. Can I get you a drink, Anya?”

“Oh, I don’t really drink alcohol anymore.”

She looked at me blankly. “I meant a soda or a water or iced tea.”

Right. I could feel my cheeks burn. “I’m fine right now, thank you.” Embarrassed, I looked toward the living room to check on Asher. I caught Kane’s eye and saw the sympathy there.

His hand reached out for me, but I shifted out of his reach. I didn’t need him feeling bad for me. That only made me feel worse.

“Girls,” Kelly called out. “Someone needs to pry themselves away from the baby and help me with dinner.”

My embarrassment grew. I should have offered to help Kane’s mother. That should have been the first thing I’d done. “I can help you. I don’t know much about cooking, but I can follow orders really well.”

Kane let out a bark of laughter. “Uh huh.”

I glared at him. Great. Now he was implying to his mother I was defiant and difficult. Lovely first impression I was making.

His mother just handed me a pot holder. “Can you take the chicken out of the oven while I toss the salad? Kane, mash the potatoes for me. Put those arms you spent so many hours flexing in the mirror to good use.”

That made me giggle. The image of a teenage Kane checking his pose.

It was his turn to look embarrassed. “I never did that.”

His mother rolled her eyes.

Asher let out a squeal of excitement and I turned to see one of the girls was tossing him up in the air gently. He was kicking his fat legs and waving his arms. “Careful, he might drop a drool line on your face,” I told her. “We’re in the drool phase.”

She laughed and I bent over to pull the chicken out of the oven as requested. I felt weird. Off my game. Out of my element. Vulnerable. It was like being young and being thrust into a new foster home. It was scary, figuring out the dynamics of a new household. So many ways to screw up. That’s how I felt now. I could ruin this. Me and Kane. I didn’t want to ruin it.

But it seemed that everything I touched was ruined at some point or another.

It made me feel bleak.

A glance over at Kane showed he was aggressively pounding a utensil of some kind into the potatoes. He smiled at me.

I tried to smile back but couldn’t quite manage it.

Because it had suddenly occurred to me that I was in love with Kane. Truly, genuinely in love with him. I hadn’t expected that. I wanted to welcome it. But it scared me. Because the minute he knew, the minute he could hurt me. Hell, it already hurt, because loving him meant I wanted to do everything perfectly right, and I knew that I couldn’t.

Anya Strange didn’t belong in a suburban kitchen and Kane had to know that.

I could tell by the look on Anya’s face that she was withdrawing. I couldn’t always predict when she would do that, but I always knew when it started. First she got quiet. Then her face got pensive. Then step three would be her lashing out at me. It might be a dig, or an attempt to flee, or an aggressive demand for sex, but it was always her way of pushing at me when she got scared. I didn’t know how to fix that, how to make it easier for her, and all I could do was ride out each wave.

But it made me angry and it made me sad for her. Though the last thing on the planet Anya wanted was any kind of sympathy. A whiff of that and moody Anya went straight to attacking Anya. I had been sitting back, letting her be her, and figuring that if I was consistent, reliable, she would eventually figure out I wasn’t going anywhere. That she couldn’t scare me off. That I wasn’t going to cut and run if she wasn’t perfect. I knew that she didn’t have any experience with Sunday family dinners, or cooking large meals, or interacting with a hostess. It didn’t make her rude. It just meant she had no experience and I understood that.

Never in a million years would I tell her that I had prepared my mother for that to be the reality, that Anya had good intentions, but wasn’t going to feel totally at ease. My mother wasn’t upset. If anything, it had made her more inclined to like her, because she was horrified to hear that Anya had been abandoned. For a woman who loved kids, my mom saw that as a totally unforgivable crime.

In my opinion, everything was going fine, but Anya was clearly settling down into that dark place where she criticized herself, and as I mashed the potatoes harder, I wished I knew what the hell to do about it. There were no answers in the butter and milk. For a second, I wondered if my attraction to Anya was that she was the underdog. That I craved the need to feel useful. That was why I’d become a cop, right? That was what my teenage years had been about- being useful to my mother. Did I define my worth that way? The idea that I just wanted to be some sort of savior for Anya freaked me the fuck out. That wasn’t good. Or normal. Or healthy. I didn’t think.

So when she was looking at me with sad and angry eyes, I found myself totally unable to reassure her.

Maybe she was right. Maybe Sunday dinner with my family was a mistake. Maybe I was trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.

Three hours later I walked her and Asher to her apartment door, exhausted from the mental strain of making small talk and worrying that she was uncomfortable. Nothing bad had happened. But I didn’t think anything good had either.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I said as she unlocked the apartment door. “I’m glad my family got to meet you.”

“I don’t know how impressive I was,” she said, turning back to me, Asher on her hip. Her eyes looked troubled, the skin under them bruised.

I hadn’t realized how tired she looked until right then and I brushed my thumb over her cheek. “They liked you. Don’t worry. Please.”

“I’m not sure I’m cut out for this, Kane. It’s all so… domestic. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me and be a housewife. Just date me. Do dating things. That’s all.” Then because I was uncomfortable with my own feelings, I made a bad joke. “I can take you to a crack house if that will make you feel more at home.”

The second the words left my mouth I regretted them. She looked like I had slapped her.

“Eff you,” she said, her voice tight with fury.

Jesus, I was a jackass. “I’m sorry. It was a joke. A bad one. I’m sorry.” I reached for her but she shifted out of the way.

“I’m trying,” she said, and her voice was heartfelt. “I’m trying to do this. But it can’t be all me. You have to step up a little too.”

That was news to me. “What exactly am I not doing? I’m bending over backwards to make you comfortable. I’ve never once asked you to put your role as a mother on the backburner. I respect how hard you’ve worked. I’m not asking you to change who you are.” I glanced around. “Do we have to do this in the hallway?”

“No, we don’t have to do this in the hallway.” Her shoulders were slumped and she looked small. Cold. “This would be easier if we were all in. If we lived together. Then we’d have to make it work.”

What the fuck? That was not what I was expecting her to say, at all.

Suddenly I remembered what Ethan had told me. That I couldn’t casually date Anya, it wouldn’t work. And I remembered how her relationship with Sam had gone from zero to ninety in one day. Her childhood had made her insecure, made her feel like she had to have a clear indication of where she stood with something almost immediately. She needed to know that I was committed to her.

But fuck, that was a lot to ask. How did I know this was going to work? I wasn’t even sure if I was in love with her. You couldn’t ask someone to know how you genuinely felt before those emotions had time to gel, before you got to truly and deeply know someone. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t risk inviting her into my life to that extent and then have it fail. It wasn’t fair to her and it wasn’t fair to me, and most importantly of all, it wasn’t fair to Asher.

“It doesn’t work that way,” I told her. “Ask all those divorced couples. We’re just going to have to communicate and work through shit as it comes up, okay?”

She nodded, her lips pursed.

I kissed the top of her head. I knew she wasn’t happy with me, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot I could do about it. This was a fucking process and that’s all there was to it. I expected her to be less than thrilled with me.