The Denver Cereal (27 page)

With his panic, his rage
grew.

Why had he even tried? How
could he ever believe she would be his partner? His wife? Who did
he think he was? He wasn’t famous! He wasn’t a star or a producer
or a model or anything but a fucked up traumatized asshole. Jerking
open the liquor cabinet, he reached for a bottle of whiskey. With
his hand on the bottle, he saw the phone number he had written on
the cabinet for moments just like these.

“
Yeah.”

“
I
need . . .”

“
Where are you?” she
asked.

“
Castle,” Mike
said.

“
We just got back. Meet us
at the workshop. We can’t deal with the photographers,” she said.
“Get going, Michael. We’re going to lunch.”

Mike sighed.

Alex Hargreaves’s voice
always meant freedom and safety. Help was on the way. He wasn’t
alone. Mike’s panic seeped from his pores. Alex would save
him.

Again.

Mike almost skipped
through the tunnels. He paced the workshop for five full minutes
before Alex Hargreaves’s Jeep CJ screeched to a stop on Detroit
Street. Alex, John Drayson, and a couple other guys piled out of
the Jeep.

“
Annie’s for lunch?” Alex
asked. She hugged him and kissed his cheek. “How’s
Jake?”

“
He’s in surgery. He
should be out in an hour or so,” Mike said. He pulled the workshop
door closed. “But he should be home in a couple days.”

“
That’s great news,” John
said.

The men greeted him with
hugs and pats on the back. Mike fell in beside them for the short
walk to Annie’s Café.

He was going to be all
right.

~~~~~~~~

“
Hi.” Jill leaned over
Jacob’s bed in the recovery room.

“
Hi. How did you get in
here?” Jacob asked.

“
I told the nurse I was
your wife.”

“
We got married? Did I
miss our wedding night too?”

Jill laughed.

“
Was I amazing?” Jacob
asked.

“
I hope so,” Jill
said.

~~~~~~~~

“
Chocolate chip?” Delphie
asked.

“
Yes! Yes! Yes! Can we
make brownies? Mommy likes brownies and I like brownies and I bet
my Jacob likes brownies and I bet my new
Auntie . . .” Katy stopped talking. Her face
scrunched up in puzzlement.

“
Valerie?”

“
Right, Valerie, likes
brownies and I can bring some to Aunt Meg’s house tonight. I go to
Aunt Meg’s house every, every, every Friday night. THIS time, I’ll
bring brownies!”

Delphie lifted Katy onto
the counter in the main kitchen of the Castle. Delphie had
retrieved Katy from school early so they could spend some time
together.

“
I thought you wanted
cookies,” Delphie said.

“
Aren’t brownies a kind of
cookie?” Katy asked. She took a sipper cup of milk from
Delphie.

Delphie nodded her head at
Katy’s logic. Moving around the kitchen, Delphie pulled all the
ingredients for brownies from the cupboards and
refrigerator.

“
Would you like to crack
the eggs?”

“
Yes! Yes! Yes!” Katy
clapped her hands and bounced on the counter. “I
never
get to really
cook. They say I’m too little but I’m FOUR. FOUR is not too little
to do anything.”

Delphie held Katy’s hand
and they cracked an egg together. Katy squealed with delight when
the liquid dropped into the bowl.

“
I wanted to ask you about
being four,” Delphie said. She gave another brown egg to Katy.
“Together?”

Katy bashed the egg
against the bowl. The egg crushed in her hand.

“
Ooh, not so hard,”
Delphie said. Using a dish towel, Delphie wiped the egg from the
girl’s hand.

“
I’m sorry!” Katy’s dark
eyes filled with tears. “Did I ruin the brownies?”

“
No, honey,” Delphie
said.

“
Oh, good.” Katy held her
hand out for another egg and Delphie laughed.

“
Yes, just like that. Tap,
tap, tap,” Delphie said. “You’re three years old.”

“
I AM NOT! I AM FOUR!”
Katy shouted. Her lip vibrated and tears dropped from her eyes.
“I’m no baby! Three-year-olds are
babies
. I’m a BIG girl.”

“
Katherine, you can only
be what you are.”

“
NO! Don’t say that! NO!
NO! NO! I’m FOUR.”

Delphie raised her
eyebrows at the little girl. While Katy worked through her tantrum,
Delphie set up the blender. She plugged it in next to
Katy.

“
Would you like to
blend?”

“
Yes.” The storm of
emotion left Katy’s face bright red. “Are you mad at
me?”

“
No, honey. I don’t
understand why four is better than three,” Delphie said.

“
It just is.”

“
Hold it steady.” With on
hand on the blender and one arm around the child, Delphie reassured
her. Katy leaned into Delphie’s warmth.

“
I had a
daddy . . .” Katy whispered.

While tears dropped from
Katy’s eyes, Delphie’s hand moved softly over Katy’s
back.

“
He didn’t love
me . . . I tried to be really, really good, but he
didn’t even like me . . . even one bit. He was
always mad . . . at me.”

Delphie turned off the
blender. Keeping her arm around the little girl, she dug in the bag
for a handful of chocolate chips. She opened her hand to the crying
girl. Katy took one chip after another until Delphie’s hand was
empty.

“
He didn’t want a stupid
baby like me. He made Mommy so sad. She cried forever.” Katy
shifted away from Delphie. She whispered, “and it was all my
fault.”

Delphie held Katy in a
tight hug.

“
I woke up in that
place . . . that hospital place? And I thought Mommy
left me too.”

“
Your Mommy will never
ever leave you.”

“
But she might if she
finds out I’m bad.”

“
Oh, honey, how are you
bad?”

“
I’m a needy, whiny,
stupid baby.” Katy’s voice was barely over a whisper.

At her statement, Delphie
heard a snort and felt movement behind her. Delphie stepped aside
to let Jill hold Katy. While Delphie finished preparing the
brownies, Jill and Katy cried and whispered back and forth. Delphie
was about to leave the kitchen when Jill stepped away from
Katy.

“
She’d like to ask you
something,” Jill said.

Katy’s hand twirled in her
hair. She whispered into Jill’s ear.

“
Ask her, Katy-baby,” Jill
said. “She won’t lie to you.”

“
Do you think I’m a needy,
whiny, stupid baby?” Katy asked.

“
I think you are a
beautiful, funny, smart girl. It’s a pleasure to know you,” Delphie
said. “But I also think you’re three years old.”

“
But do you think I’m a
needy . . .”

“
No, Katherine. You are
not a needy, whiney, stupid baby.”

Katy’s face scrunched up
as if she was thinking about something hard or
complicated.

“
Mommy says sometimes
people don’t know what they’re saying. She said my old daddy wasn’t
telling the truth when he said that about me,” Katy said. “Do you
think my Jacob wasn’t telling the truth when he said he would be my
daddy?”

Delphie laughed. The timer
rang for the brownies and she pulled the pan from the oven. She
tossed several handfuls of chocolate chips on top of the hot
brownies. Holding another handful of chips out to Katy, Delphie
said, “I’ve known your Jacob a long, long time. I’ve never known
Jacob to say something he didn’t mean.”

“
He said, ‘No matter
what.’ And we pinky swore. Does ‘No matter what’ mean that when I’m
a needy, whiney, stupid baby he will
still
be my daddy?”

“
No matter what,” Delphie
said. “I think that’s true for all of us.”

Delphie made a movement
with her hand. Valerie came into the kitchen from the sitting room
where she had been secretly listening.

“
I’ll be your auntie
forever,” Valerie said.

“
I’ll be your mommy all of
my life,” Jill said.

“
And I’ll be your
Delphie.”

Katy nodded her
head.

“
Okay, I’ll be
three.”

~~~~~~~~

He hadn’t meant to kiss
her. But she leaned in, and . . . Aden could barely
breathe. Desire pumped through him like he was fifteen again. With
effort, he stepped back. Jill said go slow, but oh my
God . . .

“
I’m sorry,” he said.
“Tomorrow is a very big day for me.
And . . .”

“
What is it?” Sandy
said.

“
I can’t have anything in
my life right now that’s not one hundred percent,” Aden
said.

He took her hand and led
her from under the bright porch light to the porch
steps.

“
What do you mean?” Sandy
asked. She sat next to him on the step.

“
There’s not one thing I’d
like more than to.. be.. with you . . . tonight.”
Aden fumbled for words. “That kiss was . . .
incredible.”

Sandy blushed. She took a
few slow breaths to slow her panic-filled heart.

“
Why don’t we go
inside?”

“
Because . . . I . . . I can’t,”
he said.

“
We don’t have to do
anything. I mean, Jill and Jacob just slept in the same bed. We
could . . .”

“
I don’t have that kind of
self-control,” Aden said. “No, Sandy. I can’t do that.”

“
Why is tomorrow such a
big day?” Sandy asked.

“
Tomorrow is the first day
I will act as the head of Lipson Construction. If I didn’t know
better, I’d say Jacob set this up to get me out there.”

“
Head of Lipson
Construction? I thought you were an assistant.”

“
I’m supposed to take over
the running of Lipson Construction in January,” Aden
said.

“
Oh,” Sandy said. Her
heart sank. He was saying she wasn’t good enough for him. “I can
see why you don’t want to . . .”

“
I want to. You have no
idea how much I want to.”

Sandy turned so she could
look at his face. Her eyes reviewed the shape of his brow, his
eyes, and the set of his mouth. There was no lie in Aden Norsen’s
face.

“
What’s going on?” Sandy
asked.

“
I’d like to date you, see
if we work — you and I — and go slow. As much as I wish I did, I
don’t have Jacob’s skill at figuring the future. I have to go one
tiny step at a time.”

“
Date?”

“
Yeah.
Date . . . exclusively. Like, I hoped you might be
my date to Valerie’s party next week,” Aden said. “And I wondered
if you were available for dinner tomorrow night.”

“
You want to date,” Sandy
said. “Me?”

“
I’m not much of a catch,”
Aden said. “I have two small kids and I work a lot. You’re young.
You should enjoy your unfettered time.”

“
Porn?
Prostitutes?”

“
I got over porn decades
ago,” Aden said. “I’ve never paid any woman for sex. Before you
ask, I’m only attracted to women.”

“
Diseases?”

“
They check us every year
at Employee Health. I’m clean. No diabetes, either.
You?”

Sandy shook her head. She
didn’t make her usual “just boy crazy” joke.

“
Other
girlfriends?”

“
Not in years,” Aden said.
“I have two small kids. I’m their only parent. And I work a
lot.”

“
Date?”

“
Exclusively.”

“
Me?”

“
Yes, Sandy.” Aden
flushed. Humiliated, he was about to get up when, for no reason at
all, he said, “Dinner tomorrow? I’ll be exhausted. It’s my long
day.”

“
Saturday is my long day
too,” Sandy said. “I’d like to see your house. Before I decide, I’d
like to see your house.”

“
I’ll make dinner. Can I
pick you up?”

“
I get off at six,” Sandy
said.

“
I’ll pick you up at
work.”

“
Great.”

Smiling and blushing, they
stood in front of each other. Aden kissed Sandy’s cheek and went to
his car. Sandy stood on the porch waving until he was out of sight.
Turning into her building, she took the stairs two at a time to her
apartment. When her black-and-white cat, Cleo, gave her a scolding,
she started laughing. She laughed as she fed Cleo and changed for
bed. Staring at the ceiling, she absolutely beamed.

Aden wanted to
date . . . her . . .
exclusively!

Where you belong