Until Now (12 page)

I nodded like I could relate and motioned toward the hallway. “Can I…?

“Sure.”

She stepped in front of me and led the way. As I walked through the house, more vivid images flashed through my mind, these ones much less pleasant than the naughty one from before. Me at eleven, all alone, eating Pop Tarts for dinner and watching TV on the old-fashioned second-hand set that never showed a clear picture. Me at fourteen, smoking cigarettes in the tiny bathroom and listening to the incessant drip of the faucets. Me at sixteen, bringing a boy home to an empty house and hoping he wouldn’t notice the subtle odor of mildew that never went away. Me, banging out the front door, smiling as the wind hit my face because it meant that soon I’d be somewhere that wasn’t here.

But now
here
was drastically different.

In the hallway, Kathleen paused between the two bedroom doors. “Which one was yours?”

I pointed to the door on the left and she pushed it open, revealing a fully-decorated nursery. “This…” I said, my gaze bouncing from the freshly-painted light blue walls to the brand new carpet to the beautiful wooden crib, all made up with train-themed bedding. “This is adorable.”

“Thanks.” Kathleen rubbed her stomach bulge again. “He’s not due until the end of July, but I like to be prepared.”

I moved over to the window and brushed aside the train-pattered curtain. “Does he have a name yet?” I asked Kathleen as I ran my fingers along the window frame, searching.

“Jackson.”

Finally, I found what I’d been looking for, a sequence of rough scratches in the wood. Twelve letters, tiny and faded but easily noticeable if you knew where to look.

ROBIN WAS HERE
.

I ran my finger over the words, remembering the day I put them there, using the pointy tip of the drafting compass from my geometry set. I was twelve years old and eager to leave my mark.

“Jackson,” I said, turning around to smile at her. “I bet he’s going to love his new room.”

When I got back outside five minutes later, Taylor was there waiting for me, minus Leo this time. “See any ghosts?” she asked when I joined her on the sidewalk.

“No,” I told her. My best friend, who’d been the only good thing about living in that house. “Just a lot of memories.”

“Now that’s more like it,” Nicole said when she opened the door and saw my outfit—dark skinny jeans, a fitted t-shirt, and flats. “I don’t know who you were trying to impress with all the skirts and fancy shoes.”

I laughed and stepped inside the house, which was warm and fragrant as usual. I’d become a regular fixture at the Monahans’ Sunday dinners. This was my fourth consecutive one, and with each visit, I felt more and more at ease. But it was easy to feel comfortable here; everyone was kind and welcoming, making me feel less like a charity case stray and more like an unofficial extended member of the family. A girl could get used to that.

Once again, most of the family was assembled in the kitchen, either helping Jane with what smelled like a full turkey dinner, or seated around the oval-shaped kitchen table, talking loudly. Unlike the first time I’d walked in on them like this, no one batted an eye at my appearance. Jane took a break from peeling potatoes and came over to hug me hello. She smelled appetizingly like onions and gravy.

“Oh dear,” she said when I proffered this week’s hostess gift—a container of homemade fudge brownies that Lynn had baked yesterday on her day off. “Ryan’s going to love you. He has a real soft spot for chocolate.”

I already knew this about him. Only a true chocolate-lover would keep a stash of Snickers bars at his workplace in the event of a sudden sugar craving.

Mason appeared then and tugged on his grandmother’s shirt. “Where’s Daddy?” he asked.

“At the store,” she replied automatically, like they had this exchange several times a day. “He’ll be here soon. While you’re waiting, why don’t you go in the living room with Isaac and play with the new Legos that Papa bought for you?”

He narrowed his eyes slightly as he thought it over, which made him resemble Ryan even more. Finally, he arrived at a decision and grabbed a hold of my hand. “I want you to play with me,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Okay,” I said, resisting the urge to tousle those curls of his. “I love Legos.”

He brought me to the living room, where his cousin Isaac was already kneeling at the coffee table, Lego blocks in every size and color splayed in front of him on its surface. They were the bigger, non-choking-hazard kind. Mason kneeled down beside him while I perched on the couch opposite them.

“I’m making a castle,” Isaac informed us. He was about five, red-haired and green-eyed like his mother Maggie. “You guys can build the bridge.”

Mason and I agreed and got to work. I wasn’t sure what kind of castle had a yellow, blue, and green drawbridge, but options were limited and neither of us minded the unusual color scheme. Until now, I’d had no idea how much I’d missed lounging around like this, playing companionably with toys and laughing at the random, amusing comments of small children. Being around Mason and Isaac made me long for the twins, but in a way, it also helped to ease the ache. Part of the reason I kept coming back here was for the much-needed kid-fix.

Well, that and the food.

“What’s going on in here?”

The three of us glanced up to see Ryan standing in the entrance to the living room, arms folded over his chest as he surveyed the castle development.

“Hi, Daddy,” Mason said offhandedly as he secured a white block next to the blue one I’d just put down. “We’re making a castle.”

“With a bridge,” I added, gesturing to the multi-colored monstrosity that now ran the entire length of the coffee table.

“Ah. I see.” His smile warmed me. The vibe between us felt a lot friendlier since our cozy afternoon together at the bookstore last weekend.

“You can make the horses,” said Isaac, the apparent leader of this project.

“The horses,” Ryan repeated, sitting next to me on the couch and picking through the pile of blocks. “This should be interesting.”

I busted out laughing at his first attempt, which looked more like a misshapen robot than a horse. His second effort wasn’t much better.

“I’d like to see you do any better,” he said, leaning across me to collect more Legos. As his knee grazed mine, I had a sudden flash of the naughty image of him that had popped into my head the other day when I was walking the dog with Taylor.
Quit it
, I admonished myself.
There are children present
.

To distract myself from further impure thoughts, I took a short break from bridge construction to try my hand at the horses. Which, I had to admit, were almost impossible to fashion out of large blocks.

“See?” Ryan said when I placed my finished creation on the table. It had turned out almost as indecipherable as his. “Not so easy, is it?”

I nudged him with my elbow. “Mine’s horsier than yours.”

“I’ve never seen a green horse.”

“He’s sick,” I said, shaking my head regrettably at it. “Ate some bad hay.”

He laughed, a rich, joyous sound that made something inside me unravel. Mason looked up, surprised, like he wasn’t accustomed to hearing such sounds from his father.

“Dinner’s ready, you guys.” Jane appeared in the doorway, eyes crinkling at the sight of Ryan and I seated close together on the couch, laughing. Her expression reminded me of my old cat Tabitha when she brought home a dead mouse and left it on the doorstep for me as a gift.

Ryan stood up and held out a hand to Mason, who took it and then extended his small, free hand to me. My heart, still raw and sensitive, swelled to the point of pain as I seized Mason’s hand, wrapping my fingers firmly around his. Jane’s smile almost blinded the entire table when we walked into the dining room like this, the three of us linked together like a cute little family. Nicole, who was also facing us, looked more like she wanted to gag. And when I came to my senses a few seconds later, I kind of wanted to gag too. What the hell was wrong with me? The idyllic family atmosphere must have scrambled my brain.

As usual, Jane shepherded Ryan into the chair next to mine, a tactic he seemed to accept more easily now that we’d started to relax with each other. This week, Maggie the lawyer was on my other side, and I made it a point to direct most of my attention to her.

“Any news on your brother and sister?” she asked once dinner was underway. Jane had indeed cooked a turkey, along with all the usual trimmings. It almost felt like Thanksgiving, only with a hint of summer wafting through the open windows instead of the nip of impending winter.

“They’re still at their grandparents’ house,” I said, spearing a slice of turkey with my fork. “My stepfather says they’ve adjusted fine, but since his parents won’t let me speak to them myself I’ll have to take his word for it.”

“And your mother?”

I told her about the latest phone call and the secret boyfriend’s vacation home in Florida, all the while acutely aware that Ryan was on my other side, probably listening to every word. Oh well, I thought. Let him. Broadcasting my mess of a life would surely squash any romantic inclinations he may have had toward me.

“And our house sold a few days ago,” I continued, taking a sip of water. I never drank alcohol here; I just didn’t feel the urge. “I’ve been staying with my friend’s parents, but that’s just temporary. I plan to get my own apartment before school starts up again.” I didn’t mention that in order for me to afford it, I’d have to have at least one roommate splitting the rent. I also didn’t mention that I’d spent the first half of last week applying for student loans and bursaries to cover next year’s tuition and all the other costs my job wouldn’t quite cover. No one wanted to listen to someone else’s money woes.

“Well, good for you, standing on your own two feet and moving on,” Maggie said, nodding at me. “I admire that in a person.”

Something else I didn’t mention? All the pot I’d smoked with Abby last night in her apartment while we binge-watched
Supernatural
on Netflix. I wasn’t moving on at all. I was static, caught in an endless loop of impulsive decisions and flawed self-control. I never just strayed off track a little bit…I veered off entirely and then became hopelessly lost.

After dinner, I insisted on helping clean up, even though according to Jane and her family, guests shouldn’t have to lift a finger except to eat. But I figured it was the least I could do after all the hospitality they’d shown me. Nicole pitched in too, which I’d been told was a rare event, and the two of us cleared the table. It was a slow process, seeing as I was painfully full.

We found Ryan already in the kitchen, scraping plates and then rinsing them for the dishwasher. Wordlessly, I went over to help him while Nicole plopped down at the kitchen table and pulled out her phone.

“Carrying that bowl out here must’ve winded her,” Ryan told me, nodding toward his sister. “She’s not used to so much manual labor.”

“I have enough energy to beat the shit out of you,” Nicole said without looking up from her phone.

“Nicole,” Jane admonished as she placed leftover rolls into a Ziploc bag.

“He started it.”

I laughed. They sounded like Lila and Drake, aside from the cursing.

Jane opened the fridge and stuffed several containers of leftovers onto the already-full shelves. “Oh, look,” she said, closing the door and plucking a rectangular piece of paper off the top of the fridge. “I almost forgot about this gift certificate to Masino Ristorante. Graham and I got it for an anniversary gift last year and then promptly forgot about it.” She peered at it closer. “Oh no, it expires at the end of the month! Next Saturday is the last day to use it.”

Garrett entered the kitchen then with another stack of dishes. “So go out next weekend and use it,” he said, obviously having overheard.

Jane frowned. “You know your father can’t eat a lot of buttery, cheesy pasta. It’s bad for his cholesterol.” She held the certificate out to him. “You and Maggie take it.”

“We’ll be out of town next weekend, remember? And there’s no time during the week to go.”

“Give it to Alicia and Kenji,” Ryan suggested, starting on the new heap of dishes. I’d taken over the scraping.

“Nah,” Jane said, moving back to the counter for the next batch of leftovers. “They don’t like leaving the baby, even for a few hours. She still nurses a lot, you know.”

“Give it to me and my non-existent girlfriend,” Nicole said. Everyone ignored her, so she went back to playing with her phone.

Something about this seemed fishy to me. I’d seen Graham toss back quite a few high cholesterol foods during my dinners here, and Ellie was definitely old enough to be left with a sitter for an evening, even with her demanding nursing schedule. What was Steamroller Jane up to now?

“Hey!” she exclaimed, turning to look at Ryan and me.
Ah ha
, I thought.
Here we go
. “Why don’t you two use it? It’d be a shame to let a hundred-dollar gift certificate go to waste.”

Nicole laughed and put away her phone. “Good job, Mom. Way to be subtle.”

Jane continued to ignore her and beamed at us. “Masino Ristorante is wonderful. Have you ever been there, Robin?”

Considering a single meal at Masino would probably cost about half of what I made in a week at the gym, I could safely say that no, I hadn’t.

“Ryan, you’re always done at the bookstore by six on Saturdays,” she pressed on. “I’ll keep Mason for a few extra hours, no problem. When was the last time you went out and did something fun?”

Ryan shot her the same flat-eyed glare he’d given her during my first dinner here, when she’d forced him into the chair beside mine. Garrett smirked and left the room while Nicole broke up laughing.

“Mom,” Ryan said, loading a glass into the dishwasher with a loud clink. “You can’t just put people on the spot like that. I’m sure Robin already has plans for Saturday night.”

I must have been caught up in the pick-on-Ryan vibe in the room, because I grinned and said, “No, I don’t.”

Jane’s cheeks flushed with happiness. “So it’s settled then,” she said, thrusting the gift certificate into Ryan’s wet hands. “I’ll make a reservation for you guys.”

Ryan looked at me, his expression loaded with apology. I smiled and gave him a carefree shrug, even as the significance of what just transpired hit me with a jolt. Even as I realized that I’d just roped myself into doing something that I’d always been categorically against. My endless loop of impulsive decisions and flawed self-control had clearly sped up and reeled into overdrive.

Somehow, despite my firm opposition on the matter, I’d just agreed to a date with a hot single dad.