Chapter 21

twenty-one

DEE

I think I just agreed to go on a date with Russ.

His whole face lights up, those furry eyebrows rising high on his forehead. His lips pull back from his white fangs as he smiles.

“You would?” he asks, radiant. “Do you want to get dinner with me?”

“Tonight?” I ask. “Don’t you have work?”

He waves a hand. “Dr. Owens owes me a favor.” His face grows more serious. “Dee, after today, after seeing our cub up on that screen... I want to be a part of your life in any way I can, now, during, and after. In whatever capacity you can handle.”

His words are so honest and freely-given that I’m not sure I deserve them.

“Russ,” I begin.

“Before you come up with reasons to say ‘no,’ just know there aren’t any expectations from me. All I want is your company. ”

He may not have expectations, but that doesn’t mean I don’t. If we’re alone together anywhere along the way, I know what both our bodies will want.

Gently, Russ drops a hand on my shoulder. “I’m happy just being near you,” he says. “That’s all. Nothing more, okay?”

I don’t tell him, but what if I want more? Instead, I agree to a time and place, and then Russ gives me a ride back to my car. He plays nineties rock that makes me notice the speckle of gray appearing on his muzzle fur, and I think how utterly, drop-dead handsome he is.

A sweet guy with a good job, who’s amazing in bed, and even has lovely marks of maturity like that... I’m a goner.

Dinner goes by in a flash of light. We have Italian food, which is, apparently, Russ’s favorite, at a restaurant in Dunsville, where he actually lives. It’s a majority monster city, where all the chairs are sized for guests much larger than I am.

“Oops,” says Russ. “I guess I should have asked for a high chair.”

I snort into my water, and it jumps out of the cup. We both laugh, and that’s how the rest of our meal goes: laughing, joking, talking a little about our childhoods. My parents liked to go out a lot and see their friends, which meant most of the time I cooked my own meals, which eventually became me eating cereal for dinner every day.

“So that’s why you’re all about cereal,” he says, and sometimes I forget how he watched me through my window for weeks .

“It’s just easier,” I say defensively.

He holds up both hands. “I’m not much of a cook myself.”

“So who’s going to feed the kid?” I say, half-joking. But Russ’s face turns serious.

“I have cooking classes lined up, for when she’s weaned. I want to make my own baby food.”

I blink. He has a whole plan already.

“How are you going to, you know...” I gesture vaguely at my boobs. “Feed her?”

For a moment, his eyes search mine, and then he nods his head and looks away. “I have a professional booked,” he says, stabbing the remnants of his spaghetti with a fork.

He’s got that figured out, too.

“This must have cost you a lot of money,” I say quietly. And the part I don’t say out loud: it must also mean the world to him to have a baby of his own.

“Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it can sure get us close,” he says with a wry smile. His bright amber eyes rise back up to mine. “I’ve been saving for a long time, and this will probably finish cleaning me out. But it’s more than worth it.”

Wow. Having a family means this much to him.

When dinner’s over, I find I don’t want to leave because I’ve been having such a good time. Russ had a childhood somewhat like mine, where he spent more time taking care of himself than his parents did. He watched out for his little brother, too, and didn’t get to be a young boy for as long as maybe he should have.

But he doesn’t resent it. He wants to give his own child a different kind of life, and that’s part of what drives him.

It’s fucking hot.

I choose to be better than my base instincts, though, and when we’ve paid the check, I go back out to my car. Russ nods in understanding.

“Can we do this again soon?” he asks, playing absently with his fob.

“Sure.”

“Lunch, before I go to work tomorrow?”

Tomorrow? So soon?

Ugh, that sounds great. Too great. I could see him again in less than twenty-four hours?

“I understand if you want more time than that,” he says, like he can read right off my soul.

“No, that’s fine.” Fuck it. Like Liesel said, I should do what I want, not what I feel like I’m supposed to do. And what I want is to see Russ again as soon as possible. “I can meet tomorrow.”

“Great. I’ll see you then.”

He grins like a little kid as he gets into his car and drives away.

RUSS

I’m probably pushing her too hard, but I can’t help myself. Every moment I’m near her is like walking out into the sun on a dark, cold day.

The following afternoon I pick Dee up at her house, and invite Boomer along to have lunch at my place. I know it’s a rather personal thing to ask for at this stage, but she agrees anyway.

Dee bolts upright in the car as we approach the gate. “Wait. This is where you live? ”

I nod as I enter a code on the gate and it opens. “I wanted to cook for you myself. I actually can do it, they’re just not... kid-friendly recipes.”

Dee quirks an eyebrow at me as we drive in. She peers out the window.

“Dude,” she says. “You desperately need to mow your lawn.”

I sigh and open the garage door. “I know. It’s been low on my list.”

She gets a look in her eye like she could see herself getting behind a lawn mower. “Do you like yard work?” I ask.

“If I had a yard, I would.” She mimics snipping. “I’ve always wanted to be that guy who trims hedges into cool shapes. You have lots of hedges.”

“Trim all the cool shapes you want,” I tell her. “The HOA complains enough already, what’s one more thing?”

She gets a giddy look on her face like she might just take me up on my offer. I hope she does. She has a knack for plants, just like she has a knack for nurturing everything in her life.

Once inside the house, I drop my keys by the front door and usher Dee in behind me.

“Bathroom?” she asks immediately, and I wonder how long she’s been holding out.

“Down there, on the right,” I say, pointing to the hall. She nods and jogs away like the need has become pretty urgent.

While she’s gone, I set out some orange juice and iced tea, then get started on the salad. I sear quartered figs, then pull out the stovetop grill to cook some chicken breast I marinated overnight just for this. When Dee comes back, she seats herself at the kitchen island so she can watch me cook.

I do my best to put on a good show. I want her to see that I can handle things, that she wouldn’t be stuck cooking and cleaning if she took me up on my offer. If only she knew how much cleaning I’d done last night just to get this place presentable.

“You have a nice house,” she says offhandedly while she eats. She studies the open living room next to the kitchen, where we’re sitting at the small dining table by the front windows. “Doctor money, huh?”

In the middle of a laugh, I choke on my food. She throws me a worried look and gets up like she might try to give me the Heimlich maneuver, but I wave her off and swallow down the lettuce stuck in my throat.

“Man, sorry, that was a dick thing to say.” Dee rubs the back of her head. “Since you’re basically paying my salary.”

I thump my chest, shaking my head. “No, no. You’re right. It’s the only reason I could even consider DreamTogether.” I slug back some water. “And I don’t mind that it goes to you. To my cub.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that last part, because her eyes darken a little, and she looks away at an abstract, green painting on the wall. Then she takes another bite of her food, and hums with pleasure.

“Yeah, okay, I see what you mean by not kid friendly,” she says, speaking around her chicken. “This is fucking delicious, though.”

I swell with pride, knowing I could present her with a salad in a way she actually enjoys.

“Will you eat this instead of cereal?” I ask.

“Any day you want.”

But she looks even more thoughtful now, her brows drawn together tight, as she finishes her meal. I wonder where she’s gone in her mind, because so far, I thought things were going well .

“Do you want to see?” I ask her as she drinks the last drop of her tea, then sighs and pats her belly.

“See what?” Dee asks.

“The nursery.”

Her eyes grow round, and then a look crosses her face I can’t quite read. Did I make a mistake by asking?

“Sure,” she says suddenly, standing. “Show me.”

I get to my feet and lead her up the stairs, to the second floor. Here there’s a railing that overlooks the big open floor plan downstairs.

“Don’t worry,” I say when she peers over the side. “I got a special fence to put across it, so she can’t slip through.”

I hear Dee exhale, and smile to myself as I lead her down the hall, away from my bedroom.

I bought a place with four rooms, I’m still not sure why. One is my home office, which I use rarely. One is the nursery, and one is a guest room that also never gets any traffic.

Then there’s the master bedroom that maybe someday, I’ll get to show her, too.

Take it slow, at her speed, I tell myself.

I open the first door on the left, and step aside to let Dee through. But the moment she’s inside, she gasps and freezes in the doorway.

I started decorating the nursery before DreamTogether had even accepted me, just out of hope. Once I was on the books, though, I went wild picking out everything I wanted for it. The wallpaper is a cream-yellow with playful, swirling designs, perfect for baby eyes searching out new shapes. I hung a mobile over the crib, which I painted white myself with yellow accents. The changing table matches, and baskets of stuffed animals hang from the ceiling in the corners. There’s a reading nook with gossamer curtains, where I imagined myself sitting with my cub in my lap, teaching them how to sound out words in a picture book.

Suddenly, I hear Dee crying, and my head jerks towards her in alarm. I can’t see her face from where I’m standing behind her.

“Dee?” I ask, running a hand down her back. “Are you?—”

“It’s so cute,” she whimpers, wiping her face. “Do you have any idea how... how sweet and wonderful this is? And you’re all prepared to do it by yourself.”

“That was the plan,” I say hesitantly. Before you , I want to add.

She just nods, still crying. “Fucking hormones,” she grumbles, wiping more tears away.

“We can leave, if you want.” I walk back out into the hall, but Dee shakes her head. She turns around to face me and her eyes are red, her cheeks stained with tracks of pink. All I want to do is hold her until those tears stop.

“Look,” she says, rather brusquely. “I’m not going to promise you I’m going to be anyone’s mom. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

I can completely understand this. It’s not what she signed up to do.

“I don’t expect you to promise anything,” I say.

“Shush.” She waves a hand at me, still wiping snot from her nose. “But I should say that I find you... insanely, wonderfully, blissfully hot. Like every smoke alarm in this house is going off.”

I tilt my head, because I don’t hear anything, but then realize she’s making a joke.

She still likes me.

“Thank you,” is all I can think of to say, and she smiles warmly. Then she takes a step closer, and another one, and now that she’s in my bubble and her smell is so delightfully close, all I want is to touch her.

So, boldly, I do. I let my hand come to a rest on her waist, and Dee gives a small nod of approval.

I think now I know what she was trying to say. She wants me, but she’s not ready for more. She’s not ready for the future I’m picturing, with the two of us working together to raise our cub.

But as long as I can have her in any capacity, I am more than happy.