The Offer (17 page)

“Yes,” he
says, looking far more excited than he should. “You go into the
bathroom over there and sit on the toilet, pretending to read a
magazine. When someone comes into the bathroom, you yell at them to
get out and that you need your bloody privacy.”

“What?” I
exclaim, looking to where he’s pointing. “It’s a fake bathroom. I’m
not doing that.”

“You don’t
even have to pull down your pants,” he says, almost giggling. “The
person will be in such shock they won’t even notice.”

“Ew, no,” I
tell him, ripping out of his grasp and walking away.

“You really
are no fun,” he says, coming up after me.

I stop,
whirling around and point my finger in his face. A wave of anger
swarms up from my chest. “You know, you said that to me once and
it’s stuck in my head ever since. I am fun, I’m just not stupid. I
know how to have fun, but I’m also not a whore. I —”

He
raises his palms at me, eyes wide. “Whoa, easy. That is most
definitely not what I was saying. You’re not a whore and you’re
certainly not stupid, okay? It was just a joke. I poke fun at you,
you poke fun at me. See…there’s fun
there
.”

My breathing
is heavy but I take in a deep inhale and gain the rhythm back. I
don’t know why I overreacted like that.

“
Hey,”
he says gently, putting his fingers at the bottom of my chin and
tilting my head up so I have to meet his eyes. The last time he
looked at me like this was on the wedding night. Fragments of
feelings come wafting back and it feels like I’m there and in the
fluorescent glow of IKEA all at the same time. “I can be
insensitive sometimes, I know this. It’s nothing personal. You are
fun.” I try to look away but he holds my face in place. “You
are
fun, Nicola. You’re fun to be
around, whether you think so or not. And I think you might be the
cutest thing I’ve ever seen, picking out the tiniest, cheapest
little shitpiece couches for your apartment. If that’s not called
fun, I don’t know what is.”

Now he’s being
too nice, the compliments making me uneasy. He seems to believe
them too much. “I think I like it better when you’re a jerk.”

“All right,”
he says. “I can work with that too. You know what your real problem
is, sweetheart?”

“What?” I ask,
wanting to know and scared of the answer.

“You’re
totally underfucked,” he says, his voice dropping a register. He
leans in closer. “And I’m the one who can tip the scales in the
other direction.”

I blink,
swallow hard. I don’t have a comeback for that because I know it’s
true. I just don’t want him to know it’s true.

I give him a
wry look, trying to shrug his innuendo off. “There you go thinking
so highly of yourself. Can’t you keep your ego in check?”

He shakes his
head slightly, his eyes focused so intently on mine. “I have ego
for a reason. And one of these days, you’ll find out just why that
is.”

Heat flushes
me from my core to my scalp. I look away and he drops his fingers
from my face. I feel entirely breathless, almost shaky, like I’d
been trapped in some kind of hypnotic force field in the middle of
Swedish furnishings.

“In your
dreams,” I tell him but it comes out as nothing more than a
squeak.

He just smiles
at that.

“Sorry,” I
mumble, trying to change the subject. “About overacting. I’ve
obviously got some issues there.”

“Don’t we
all?” he asks. He grabs my hand and leads me along the hall. “Let’s
go rescue your daughter from the cootie pit.”

He
doesn’t let go until we get there.

The rest of
the IKEA outing is pretty uneventful and by that I mean all the
sexual innuendo stops, thankfully, once we get Ava. Not that what
Bram was spouting off could possibly be called innuendo. There was
nothing indirect about it.

By the time we
get back to my apartment, I feel all twisted up in knots. I think I
need a moment to be alone with my thoughts, to gather my strength
and my wits. As much fun as I had today, it challenged me. Bram
challenged me. And it feels like the more I hang around my handsome
neighbor, the more my resolve will dissolve.

But what a way
to go.

“Well,” I say
to him after he’s brought the heavy boxes of couch inside and once
again I make a point not to ogle him while he lifts and lowers,
like some impossibly rugged cave man. “Thank you so much for taking
us there.”

“Anything for
my two favorite girls,” he says, looking at Ava. She giggles and
then as if she’s struck by a case of the bashfuls, she runs off
into her room. “And I mean it,” he adds, eyes on me now. “Are you
sure you don’t need help with your crappy couches?”

“I’m sure,” I
tell him.

He nods. “All
right then. Holler if you need anything.” He gives me a flash of a
smile before he leaves the apartment. He closes the door behind him
but I don’t breathe until I hear him shut the door to his
place.

I collapse
down on the couch and I’m suddenly sad to be getting rid of it and
swapping in the new cheap ones. This couch is comfortable, it’s
soft, it’s like a warm hug. Sure it’s falling apart at the literal
seams but it’s been with me this whole time, there while my life
became unhinged and I fell off track. I bought it from
Anthropologie online and I remember Phil was so mad when it showed
up at our apartment one day. He said our place was pushing him out,
it was becoming too girly. That should have been a sign then. Maybe
it wasn’t the furnishings that were pushing him out, maybe it was
me.

I don’t want
to let go of the couch. I want it to stay. I want to say, right
here, where it’s safe.

“Mommy,” Ava
says in her singsong voice, climbing onto the couch beside me.

“What is it,
angel?”

“Is Bram my
father?”

I nearly
choke. “What? Your father, no. Honey. No. Phil is your father.”

She
shakes her head. “But I don’t remember Phil. I have never
seen
Phil
.” She says
his name like it tastes bad. “I see Bram. Bram
should
be my father.”

Something in
my heart cracks at that. “That’s not exactly how it works.”

“Why not?
Doesn’t he like us?”

Oh, Jesus. I
smooth her hair back off her face. “I think he does like us. Maybe
you can ask Santa for him this year,” I add as a joke, just trying
to get her to stop talking about it.

She smiles.
“Okay, I will do that. How many months until Christmas?”

Shit.
Obviously the joke is lost on her. I know I’m putting off the
inevitable but now I feel like it’s going to turn into one horrible
Hallmark movie come Christmas time. I wince at the sugariness.

I hear low
bass come from next door and Bram has put on some of his 90’s
British trip hop again. I can almost see him as a teen in Scotland,
doing ecstasy and going to underground clubs. I bet he had short
spiky hair and wore a beaded necklace and Adidas sports jerseys. I
think I’ll ask him what he was like back then.

No
, I tell
myself.
Get
him out of your damn head. Now.

And so I
listen to myself because I rarely steer myself wrong. I pick up my
phone and I text Steph.

I know it’s
Sunday, but I need a girls’ night BAD. And not to the Lion.

She’s
instantly responding.
Done. I’ll tell Kayla. We’ll get you good and
drunk. Who is looking after Ava?

Good
question.

I’ll find
someone.

I then call my
mother and when she can’t do it because she’s cleaning a house
early tomorrow, I call Lisa. She’s got a dinner and can’t do it
either.

Well,
shit. I guess having two people on call for babysitting really
isn’t enough, especially not on short notice. Maybe I’ll have to
forget about letting my hair down after all, which is too bad
because the more I imagine myself dancing without a care and
drinking my face off, the more I’m beginning to crave it. I need
it,
need
it.

I can’t find anyone
, I text Steph.

What about Bram?
Is her quick answer.

What
about
Bram? I
immediately want to dismiss it. First of all, the night is supposed
to be an escape from Bram and if he takes care of Ava, I’m going to
be worrying about her and, by default, thinking about him all
night. I also don’t know if I’d trust him with taking care of a
child, especially mine, especially a diabetic one.

I also don’t
want to ask him for another favor. So there’s that.

I don’t think so
, I text Steph.
I’ll find someone else
. Even though we both know there is no one else. I
mean, I guess there’s Linden, but he’d be even worse than Bram in
the irresponsible department.

I lean back on
the couch and start going through my phone contacts while Ava plays
with her dolls on the floor. I consider Penny, James’s girlfriend,
and am just about to Facebook message her when I hear Bram say,
“Nicola?” from out in the hall.

Great. I put
down the phone and go to the door, opening it. He’s on the other
side with eager eyes.

“Yes?” I ask
mildly.

“I just heard
from Steph,” he says. “I’d be happy to watch Ava tonight.”

Steph? That
bitch!

“She called
you?” I ask incredulously. I immediately run over to my phone, all
ready to send her messages with expletives and shouty caps.

“She did,” he
says, leaning against the doorframe. “She said you’d never ask
yourself but that you wanted a girls’ night out and couldn’t find a
sitter. So, here I am.”

I don’t know
what to say. But Ava says it for me.

“Bram!” she
yells as if he wasn’t just here ten minutes ago. She runs around
the couch and right over to him, throwing her arms around his leg.
It’s so cute I want to vomit. And remembering what she had said
earlier about Bram, I think I might just do that.

“Did Santa
bring you?” she asks.

Oh, God
, I
think.
Please stop there.

“Okay!” I say
quickly. And loudly. Both Ava and Bram jump a little. “Okay, that
would be great Bram, if you don’t mind,” I lower my voice. “I know
it’s asking a lot. There’s just a few things I want to go over with
you, about her, uh, situation.”

“Diabetes!”
Ava yells, running back and forth between us, knowing what I’m
trying to skirt around. “The special disease!”

“That’s the
positive attitude,” Bram comments to her. He smiles at me. “Show me
the ropes, mum.”

I eye him in
askance. “If you keep calling me mum, it’s going to get weird.”

“Right.” He
nods. “Don’t want that mistake to happen while I’m shagging you
sideways.”

I gasp and
place my hands over Ava’s ears until she laughs and squirms away.
“Language,” I admonish him.

“The dirtier
the better,” he says, loving it. “All she knows is we’re talking
about carpets. Speaking of carpets…” His eyes drift down to my
jeans.

“Bram,” I say
sternly. “If you want to help, shut up and come here.”

I take him
into the kitchen where I keep the insulin and supplies in a special
kit. “I need you to really pay attention. This is serious. Got
it?”

He says he
does but he’s still got a bit of that smirk going on.

“Have you even
taken care of a child before?”

His smirk
disappears. “Of course I have.”

“Oh
really?”

He frowns at
me, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I’m not as incompetent as you
think.” There’s an edge to his voice that catches me off guard.
It’s the same kind of vibe I got when I asked about his stupid
socks.

“I hope you’re
right,” I say breezily, trying to ignore the sudden change in him.
But while I have his rapt, albeit tense, attention I go over the
basics with him. “This is the blood glucose monitor.”

“The spindle!”
Ava cries out, running over and watching us eagerly. “That’s the
spindle where Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger.”

“
Is that
so?” Bram asks and it seems like he’s calming down a bit. Sheesh. I
think I like the jokester a lot better. When Bram McGregor gets
serious, he gets
serious
.

“It’s just a
tiny pin prick on her finger.” I hold the device and slide in the
test strip, turning it on. I then take Ava’s hand and prick her
fingertip quickly and gently with it. She shakes her hand after
like it hurts. It probably does but she’s so used to it now and
she’s smiling at Bram like a big girl.

“
Then,”
I go on, showing him, “we look at the results. It says its 170,
which is about right for her right now. The only time you’ll have
to do it will be before she goes to bed. Then it should be around
100 – 180.” I take out the test strip and put it in the garbage.
“Then you get rid of the strip.”

“And what
happens if it’s not in that range?”

“You adjust
her diet,” I tell him. “But that’s nothing for you to worry about.
It’s just an ongoing thing really, making adjustments. I do the
test about six times a day, some times more. She gets insulin
injections three times a day, in the morning, the afternoon and
then before she goes to bed. I just gave her one in the bathroom at
IKEA but tonight before I go, I’ll give her the last one and show
you, just in case.” Suddenly I realize I’m out of breath and I’m
grasping at my heart.

Bram puts his
hand on the side of my cheek, peering at me intently. The feel of
his hot skin is steadying, even though I’m starting to have a minor
panic attack. “It’s okay,” he says in a soothing tone. “I’ll be
fine.”