On the Steamy Side (35 page)

She knew that. Nothing but the sight of Tucker al in one piece was going to make either of them feel better. And as much as Devon burned to be out there scouring the city for any trace of his ex, Connor was very clear about the fact that the best thing they could do would be to sit tight.

So Lilah talked. To distract him, and herself, from the grinding misery of waiting for news.

“That’s the Southerner’s answer to any calamity,” she continued. “Casserole. Preferably the kind that freezes beautifully and can be reheated later when the afflicted family gets around to it.”

“Yeah. That doesn’t really happen in New York.”

“Have you even met your neighbors?”

“Only passed them in the elevator, the mail room. You know.” Lilah didn’t know; it sounded insane to her, not knowing your neighbors’ names, or where their kids went to school, or anything. But she made a noncommittal sound and kept stroking Devon’s hair.

They were silent for long moments where, Lilah was sure, Devon’s thoughts drifted to Tucker just as inevitably as hers did.

He proved it a minute later by saying, “I’m so fucking scared right now, Lilah Jane.”

“I know. Me, too.” She swallowed hard. “You know, I was coming back. I was halfway out the door when Grant called. For Tucker, because I didn’t want him to think I didn’t care enough about him to stick it out.”

Devon closed his eyes. “I didn’t know it was possible to care this much about another person.”

“Then why weren’t you prepared to fight to keep him with you? How could you even contemplate letting him walk out of your life when this is what it feels like?” She wanted so badly to understand.

“I do want him here,” Devon said, his voice fierce with longing. “Not just so I know he’s safe and not off somewhere getting in a car with his drunk-ass mother—” he choked and stopped talking for a second.

Lilah tangled her fingers in his hair and held on tight, working to regulate her breathing.

When he found his voice again, it was halting and rough, as if every word were difficult to form. “But before—God, was it only yesterday?—before, when we had that fight, I thought . . . I don’t know. That letting you both go would be the right thing. Because Tucker deserves better than me. You both do.

There’s something wrong with me, Lilah. I mean, my parents were wonderful with Connor; they just didn’t know what to do with me. I’m not like them. Never was.”

“What are you like, then?” Lilah kept her voice soft, kept her hands moving. They were approaching the heart of Devon’s swirling pool of strange self-hatred. What would she find there?

“I’m . . . driven, I guess. To succeed. You know, I didn’t get into the restaurant business because I was so great at it—I chose it because I was good enough at it that I knew I could make money, enough to get out of New Jersey. That’s all I wanted.”

Such an innocent, childish wish, to be rich and famous. Was it still all he wanted?

“And once you made it to New York, once you landed four stars from The New York Times and your own TV show, what was supposed to happen then?”

“I don’t know. I never really planned that far ahead.”

The phone rang, startling them both. Devon lunged for it.

His face as he listened to whoever was on the other end gave Lilah heart palpitations.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, send them up, please.”

He set the phone down carefully.

“What is it?” Lilah cried.

“There’s somebody down in the lobby to see me.”

“Huh. Maybe there’s a New York casserole tradition you don’t know about.” Devon was shaking slightly; Lilah could see it as he got up from the couch and moved to open the front door. He didn’t wait for a knock or a ring at the doorbell, he just opened the door wide and stood staring out into the hall, waiting for the elevator doors to open.

Afraid to hope, Lilah joined him.

When the chime sounded to announce the arrival of the elevator, Devon braced himself against the doorjamb. The doors shushed open, and Lilah heard a high voice shout, “Dad!” Then a short, dark-haired form streaked across the hall and barreled into Devon.

Tucker.

Lilah’s knees almost buckled at the wave of relief.

There was a sound from down the hall, and she looked up to see a thin, blonde woman step slowly from the elevator. The woman’s face was lined with strain, almost haggard, and the look in her eyes when they fell on Devon and Tucker was full of enough regret to make Lilah’s heart go out to her.

Lilah walked forward, hand out, face expressionless. “Heather Sorensen, right?” The woman started. “Yes. I’m sorry. You must be Lolly. Tucker told me all about you.”

“Has he been with you the whole time?” Lilah asked.

“Yeah. I mean, he called the rehab facility and asked me to come get him from a diner in Times Square where they let him use the phone . . . so I did. But as soon as I had him, all he did was talk about Devon. He wanted to come back almost as soon as he left, I think, but he got lost. So here we are.” Dull pain throbbed through Heather’s voice during her brief recital of the facts, but Lilah wasn’t quite ready to pull out her hankie and dab the woman’s tears away.

“How did you get out of rehab?” she demanded. “I thought it was court-ordered, not the kind of thing you could check yourself out of.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Heather said. “But Tucker called. His voice on the phone . . . he wasn’t happy.” She shrugged. “What could I do? I’m not perfect, I know that. I’ve done stupid things, taken stupid chances—I probably don’t deserve to call myself his mom. But if I’d gotten that call and refused to listen to my son—I couldn’t do that.”

You could’ve called to let us know he was okay, Lilah wanted to say. But somehow, despite the frantic panic of the past few hours, Lilah couldn’t bring herself to beat up on this sad, struggling woman.

Heather was like a cornfield after a storm, beaten and bent almost to the ground, but not quite broken.

“You’re not as bad a mother as you seem to think,” Lilah said gently. “Tucker loves you very much.” Heather looked past her to where her son was stil clinging to his father. Devon had lifted him up against his chest and lowered his head to Tucker’s ear. Lilah couldn’t hear them, but she could imagine the words Devon was saying. Her heart swelled. Devon’s arms were strong around Tucker’s back, their dark heads close together.

She glanced at Heather in time to see the woman lower her eyes. “I love him, too,” she said, her voice thready. “But he needs to be with his dad right now. He’s smart enough to know that. And so am I.” When Devon could breathe through the crushing weight of joy he’d pulled up to his chest along with his son’s slight, squirming form, he gasped out, “Don’t ever do that to me again. I’m serious. This dad stuff is new to me, but I’m telling you now, I can’t take it.” Tucker had called him “Dad” when he ran out of the elevator, Devon thought. It was the first time he’d ever done that.

“You said it was only temporary,” Tucker said, plaintive, but with an edge of stubbornness. “I heard when you were talking to Lolly, down the stairs. You said it wasn’t real, we weren’t a real family, and we couldn’t be happy.”

Ah, God. “You heard all that, huh?” Devon said around the crack in his heart. “And that’s why you left.” Tucker became very interested in the collar of Devon’s shirt, his thin, artist’s fingers coming up to twist and pull at the seam. “I thought maybe . . . it was because of me. And maybe if I left, Lolly would come back and you could be happy. If I wasn’t there.”

God, please don’t let me start sobbing like a baby right now.

“Look at me.” It took a second, but the kid raised wary blue eyes to meet Devon’s. “I was wrong to say those things. Not just because they made Lilah very unhappy—I was the one who made her leave, Tuck, not you—but because they weren’t true. They were the opposite of true.” Devon took a deep breath and threw himself off the cliff.

“The truth is, Tuck, I can’t be happy if you’re not here.”

Tucker ducked his head again, but this time it was to hide a goofy grin. “Really? ’Cuz I wished I didn’t leave. I walked for a long time, and then when I wanted to come back, none of the streets sounded right and I didn’t know where I was and I didn’t know your phone number. So I called Mom at the place where the cop lady said she’d be, and she came and got me.” Devon finally became aware of the world beyond his son. Christ, there was Heather, right there. She looked tired and sad, and older then he remembered. Well, of course she was. It had been years since he’d seen her—and evidently, they’d been hard years.

He didn’t know what he’d thought he’d feel when confronted with the person who brought Tucker back to him. It was complicated, too, by the fact that in some ways, Heather was the person who’d taken Tucker away . . . except Devon couldn’t fool himself about that. He’d started this whole nightmare in motion himself by letting his son think he wasn’t wanted.

Still, he’d imagined some anger, some uncontrollable need to lash out at the cause of the worst few hours of his life. But when he looked at Heather, all he felt was gratitude.

Their eyes connected. He wondered if she was thinking about the same thing he was, the heady whirlwind of their relationship. For all the screaming matches and fights and bad feelings and broken promises, something good had come out of it.

“Thank you,” Devon said. He hardly recognized his own voice, it sounded so sincere. “For bringing Tucker here today. For giving me temporary custody in the first place. I swear, I’ll do a better job of taking care of him from now on.”

He heard the click of her throat as she swallowed. “Yeah, you will,” she said, breath hitching. “Because I can’t right now. In fact, I need to get back.”

“No!” Tucker wiggled hard enough that Devon nearly dropped him. Which seemed to be what the kid was after, actually, because he pushed on Devon’s shoulder and kicked his legs until his feet touched the ground. Reluctant as his arms were to open up and let Tucker go, Devon found himself unable to begrudge Heather the bittersweet joy of her good-bye hug from Tucker.

Who was not happy at this new turn of events. “Why?” he yelled. “Why can’t we all just stay together?

There’s plenty of room here, you could stay, Mom. Dad and Lolly don’t mind, right?” Devon’s mind went blank, but luckily Lilah was there, jumping in with, “Oh, sugar pop, of course your daddy doesn’t mind. But your momma has somewhere she needs to be. Just for a little while, yet.”

“I’m sorry,” Heather said, burying her face in Tucker’s hair. “I’m so sorry, kiddo. But I’ll work hard, I promise, so I can come back to you soon. And when I do,” she glanced up at Devon, “your dad and I will have a long talk about the best way to go forward. So you can have us both, and we can share our time with you. Because you deserve two parents who love you very much.” Her words unlocked something inside Devon.

Love. That’s what Tucker deserved. And Devon could absolutely give him that. Was helpless to do anything else, really, as terrifying as that thought was now that he’d had proof of just how painful love could be.

Love was the ultimate act of courage, he understood now. Because you had to go into it knowing it could be snatched away by forces beyond your control. And if that happened, you’d be a shell of a person, a shadow of yourself, and nothing would ever be any good again.

But it didn’t have to be that way. Sometimes love could last. And in the meantime, it was worth it.

Tucker cried and clung to his mother a little, which made Devon want to hit something, but he managed to thank Heather again before she left, and promised to testify if anyone questioned her temporary defection from rehab.

Then Heather thanked Devon, and it was looking like it might turn into a whole endless round of mutual indebtedness and appreciation until Lilah stopped the cycle by gently pointing out how late it was and suggesting it might be time to put Tucker to bed.

Which was easier said than done. The kid was extremely wound up, despite his obvious exhaustion, and he was already missing his mom.

Thank God for Lilah, was all Devon could think. There was something soothing about her, a calming effect like sunlight through trees or the sound of waves, and eventually it settled Tucker down enough that he nodded off with Lilah on one side, and Devon on the other.

Devon sat on the edge of his son’s bed, reflecting on how utterly satisfying it was, on a very primal level, to have both Tucker and Lilah with him, under his roof—sort of, communal apartment roof, really, but still—and safe.

That was the main thing. Everyone he loved was in one room, safe and sound.

Wait.

What?

Lilah smoothed the hair back from Tucker’s pink, sleeping face and smiled across his still body, curled under the covers. Devon couldn’t even smile back, he was so shocked.

Christ. He’d known Lilah was important to him, but love? He’d just gotten used to the idea of loving his son. Just gotten over the near-hysteria-inducing idea that his happiness depended on the well-being of another person.

That wasn’t the most natural of ideas for Devon to wrap his brain around. It certainly wasn’t the way he’d lived his life up till now.

But then, how happy had he been, really? All the parties, the women, the money, the fame, the magazine articles and interviews and reviews and the TV show—above all, that damn TV show—what had any of it done for him? He’d spent most of his free time downtown at Chapel, drowning his loneliness, his sheer boredom, in bourbon and meaningless fucks.

Now—he wanted to believe he had a chance to be happy, for real, finally, but he didn’t want to fool himself. Despite how content he’d be to let the world stop turning and trap them all in this moment, everything was still up in the air.

He must’ve sighed loudly or something, because Lilah put her finger to her lips and tilted her head in invitation before tiptoeing from the room.

Devon waited until she was gone, then leaned over and pressed a very light, definitely-too-light-to-wake-him-up kiss to Tucker’s forehead. Standing up and staring down at the sleeping boy, Devon loved him so much it felt like his heart had been scraped raw and dunked in salted water.