7. Tate

My street is bustling, almost as busy as the freeway. I wonder if the traffic is part of the problem for Dylan’s sleep regression. It’s loud on my street. Always.

I swipe my fob and the gate to my complex slides open. I see Tara, my neighbor who works for some silly celebrity website, getting out of her Porsche a few stalls over. We’ve been flirting for the last two months since she moved in, but I haven’t made an official move. Yet. There was a yet there, but now… well hooking up is the last thing on my To Do list.

“Hi Tara,” I say with a wave and she parts her perfectly painted lips in a broad smile.

“Mr. Hockey!” she calls back. “Coming home from a game or a night out with a lucky lady?”

“Game. We lost,” I admit and frown.

”You”ll get ”em next time,” she replies easily. Typical response from someone who doesn”t get that hockey players don”t shrug off losses, ever. ”Wanna go for a drink at the wine bar down the road? I always go there after a bad day, and mine wasn”t great. They”re open until one and have an amazing selection of Spanish reds.”

Now, if this was happening two weeks ago, I”d say yes without hesitation. We”d get warm and fuzzy on wine, and I”d kiss her. She”d let me. And then I”d give her my number and walk away. Because I don”t fuck drunk women. It”s my only rule. I need sober consent. I call it the Mallory Rule now because I broke it with her and that was a huge mistake. Mallory never blamed what happened between us on the booze, but I did. I hate feeling like she only let me touch her because she was drunk.

So I would wait until Tara was sober again to make a real move, but the scene would be set and flirt-texting would happen next, while on my road trip, and then next time I was home I would invite her over and…

“You okay?” Tara’s voice interrupts me. “I’m trying not to take you zoning out personally.”

“Crap! Sorry!” I give her a sheepish smile. “I had a really shitty game. Also, I have house guests right now and just… a lot going on.”

“That friend of yours and her kid still with you?” Tara asks and her blue eyes sparkle mischievously as she makes air quotes around the word ‘friend’.

“She is a friend,” I reply, not addressing Dylan”s existence at all because it”s definitely none of her business. ”And yes, they”re staying a while and I”m cool with it. But I just… We”ve been put on lockdown for the upcoming playoffs. Curfews and all that stuff. I should head to bed.”

“So, like, do they not allow you any fun?” Tara asks, still smiling, now devilishly. She leans a little closer and whispers, “Do they really ban extracurricular activities?”

She’s an attractive girl, but right now, in my current state of mind, I observe that fact passively. Because it doesn’t matter to me right now. Attractive girls who are down for casual sex are not on my bingo card anymore. For now, anyway.

“Not technically.” I give her a quick smile and then jerk my thumb toward my place. “Gotta go.”

“Right. Your friend and her baby.” I just nod. “Okay well, if when your houseguests leave and you need company while on your team lockdown… I’m three doors down.”

“Noted,” I reply and give her a wave as I turn to follow the short path to my unit. Hers is down the footpath on the other side of the entrance to the building, but she doesn’t turn that way. She watches me walk all the way up my porch steps. Now I know what it feels like to be a woman walking by a construction site.

I try not to notice as I unlock the storm door. It’s a hot night so Mallory had the big door open and just the storm door locked, which means she probably heard some of my exchange with Tara I realize as I step inside. Kicking off my dress shoes, I drop my keys on the console table and shrug out of my jacket as I walk into the living room. Mallory is sitting on one of my couches, arms crossed over a plain yellow T-shirt. Her long blonde hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her face makeup-less.

I stare at her and she stares at me and for some reason, even though I have a lot to discuss with her, I can’t even find the courage to say hello. It’s the way she’s looking at me. Mallory has a def con five resting bitch face right now. It”s classic, old-school Mallory. She”s quiet with her words but not with her expressions. I remember the first time I saw this type of look on her. We were at a high school party, one of my teammates was talking shit about a girl he just broke up with. Really disrespectful stuff and Mallory overheard and glared at him just like this. She never spoke but the dude saw her face and shut the fuck up.

Now, she gets up, also without a word, and walks away. I watch her as she climbs the stairs and doesn”t even realize I”m fixated on her perky ass as it jiggles with every step in the boy short pajama bottoms she’s wearing until my dick starts to twitch and grow in the front of my suit pants. Mallory Echolls is a smoke show. Who hates me. But my dick doesn’t care about the semantics.

I pull off pieces of my suit while I make a BLT for a bedtime snack. There’s no sound from upstairs. Mallory must have gone straight to bed. Or she’s quietly making a voodoo doll with my name on it.

I sit at the dining room table and quietly eat my sandwich in nothing but my underwear. I don’t even feel weird about it because I’m too grumpy and exhausted to care and I’d bet money, from that look on her face, that she would rather eat glass than be in the same room with me right now. And honestly, even if she did come down, whatever.

I finish my sandwich and my glass of water and leave the dishes on the table. I can’t be bothered to clean anything. I grab my suit and carry it upstairs, stopping at the small cart in the dining room to grab a bottle of tequila and take a swig, hoping it will loosen the knot of tension between my shoulders. I’m a foot from the door to my room when the guest room door opens and Mallory steps into the hall. She stops abruptly and stares at me. It doesn’t start as a classic Mal RBF, it actually starts with a soft, slightly shocked look because I’m just in my underwear, which is very snug.

“Jesus, Tate,” she huffs and covers her eyes. “You forget I’m here?”

”No,” I reply and shoot my balled-up suit from one hand to the other. ”I just thought you were asleep.”

Her fingers split a little in front of her eyes, but she doesn’t look at me. She’s looking past me. “Are you alone?”

I blink. “What? Yeah. Of course. Who the fuck else would be here?”

“The pretty woman you were talking to outside.”

So she did hear me with Tara. Is she… jealous? I tilt my head and try to wrap my head around that, and why the thought turns me on. “Tara is a neighbor. Nothing else.”

“Whatever.” Mallory keeps her hand over her eyes, fingers still split, as she turns with her back to the guest room door and motions with her other hand for me to pass. “Please feel free to take yourself to bed.”

I start to walk by her but I’m annoyed and, as anyone in my family will tell you, I love to push buttons when I’m pissed off. So as I pass, I slow down when I’m right in front of her. I step closer, so I walk sideways by her, making sure my bare chest brushes around her front. She drops her hand to give me that RBF again but her cheeks are flaming red, so I shoot her a cocky smirk and as our eyes lock I slide by even slower. Now I can feel her nipples harden through the thin fabric of her loose t-shirt and blood surges downward, and my plan instantly backfires.

I might be getting under her skin but she is also getting under mine. And it”s making me hard. Quickly. I take the final step needed to slide by her and move my crumpled suit to cover my boxer briefs, even though I have my back to her now as I walk into my room. I”m figuring out how to close the door without looking like I”m covering a boner. But I hear a hard click look over my shoulder and realize Mallory closed the door for me.

Well, this is going well, I think to myself. I throw my crumpled suit in the bin in my open closet that’s marked ‘Dry’. My cleaning lady also takes everything in that bin to the dry cleaners for me and picks it up too. She also does all my laundry but I doubt she’ll be happy about adding Dylan’s laundry to the pile when Mallory leaves and I have to handle this on my own. Right now Mallory is doing her laundry and Dylan’s. I guess I can ask the next nanny to do his laundry?

Shit. I don”t like the idea of a next nanny. I don”t like the idea of anyone with my son except Mallory. I know shit about child-rearing, but I watch her and it reminds me of my mom. She”s been amazing with him. Patient and sweet and she smiles at him like he hung the moon.

And she makes my dick hard.

Okay well, I have business to take care of, I guess. I can’t remember the last time I whacked off. I have an urge, I find a willing partner. That’s my life and I’m proud of it. It’s always mutual, and above board. If there was no Dylan or Mallory, I’d be at the bar with Tara. Or I’d call one of my three regulars—Christine, Allie, or Grace. But I can’t do that for multiple, obvious reasons. The unobvious reason is that I would be thinking of Mallory the whole time. And I don’t do that. I don’t use a woman if I’ve got another one on my mind. I’ve never had to because no woman has stuck in my brain like Mallory is right now. So I flip off all the lights except the one on my bedside table, peel out of my underwear, and drop back on my bed. I open the drawer in the nightstand and pull out the small bottle of lube I keep in there since I tried anal with Grace a few months ago.

I squirt some onto the tip of my cock. I groan when my palm slips over the tip and down the shaft. My eyes roll back in my head and I let my mind wander. It doesn’t go very far. Just right back to the memory of Mallory’s perky ass in her pajama shorts swinging its way up the stairs earlier. I think I cupped her ass that night we fooled around, but I can’t really remember. All I remember is how wet she was when I put my hands in her underwear and how tight she was when I slipped my fingers inside her. And the way her eyes flared with excitement when I put my fingers in my mouth…

“Fuck!”

My eyes fly open and I catch the back end of Mallory as she darts from the room. I bolt up off the bed, grabbing my underwear and holding it in front of my rapidly deflating cock. “Mallory!”

I hiss out her name in a stage whisper because I have the common sense not to scream and wake Dylan, but inside, I am not just screaming but roaring with rage. And humiliation. I grab a pair of sweats out of the open closet and yank them on. I march across the hall and fling open the door to the guest room.

Mallory is standing between the side of the queen-sized bed and the open bathroom door. Our eyes connect and she spins and darts for the bathroom. She’s fast but I’m faster and manage to get there before she can close the door in my face. I push my way inside and close it behind me so she can’t escape. “What the hell?” I hiss at her. “Are you unfamiliar with the concept of knocking?”

“Are you unfamiliar with the concept of cleaning up after yourself?” she snaps. She turned around when I pushed my way inside so she’s facing the shower, not me. “I went downstairs to make tea and found your dirty dishes. I’m here for Dylan not to be your maid.”

“Then don’t touch the fucking dishes,” I snap back and step closer to her. “You barged into my room to tell me that? Look, it’s my house and if I want to clean up in the morning, after a shitty game, I’ll do that. If you get up before me, then just ignore them. I’ll deal with it. I’m dealing with every fucking thing.”

”Are you pissed off you couldn”t fuck your neighbor?” Mallory asks and finally turns to face me. Her resting bitch face has been elevated to animated bitch face. Eyes narrowed, jaw tense, shoulders up. She”s like a feral cornered cat. And I”m like a pissed-off lion. ”You haven”t fucked a random person in a week. You must be frustrated. You want to bring your neighbor home, do it. I”m not here to cramp your style.”

Is she fucking serious right now? “I didn’t ask for your permission to fuck anyone and I don’t intend to ask. I will do what I want to do when I think it’s appropriate. I’m not so driven by my dick, Mallory, that I can’t go five days without a warm, wet place to stick it.”

She folds her arms over her chest and glares. I glare back. She arches one eyebrow. Oh right. I was jerking off. “I didn’t say I could go without release. I said I didn’t need someone else to do it. Sorry if you’re like some kind of sexual camel and you can store up your desires for months or whatever. I enjoy sex. That doesn’t make me an asshole or a deviant, Mal. But I can also take care of my own business if I have to. You should try it sometime. Maybe you’ll stop being so fucking?—”

I stop. I’m crossing every line. All the lines. I’m being cruel and saying shit that isn’t even how I feel because I’m humiliated. The fury on her face is fading fast. Her eyes are a little wetter than when I walked in here. She unfolds her arms and bites her bottom lip for a second. “I was angry and didn’t think. I should have knocked.”

I take a deep breath and run a hand through my hair on the exhale, forcing myself to get my anger and ego in check. “I’m embarrassed. I’m sorry. But yeah, you really need to knock.”

She gives me the faintest nod and then moves her hazel eyes to the floor. Her top teeth finally release her bottom lip. “I might stop being what? A frigid bitch? An uptight cow? A bitchy friend? What?”

“No. I don’t know…” I sigh again. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t mean it.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say…” I pause. I really don’t want to confess this. “I was going to say maybe you would stop being so fucking angry all the time if you made yourself come every now and then.”

I hear her take a short, sharp breath at that but I don’t dare look at her. I turn toward the door. “I’m sorry. It was mean and childish and I don’t mean it. Just… let’s go to sleep. I’ll apologize again in the morning, I promise.”

”I can”t exactly play with myself when I have a tiny roommate who pops his head out of his sleeping pod whenever he wants,” she says, stopping me in my tracks as I reach for the door handle. ”I know exactly how to get myself off when I have the opportunity, Tate. Trust me. I know what I”m doing. It was my ex who didn”t, remember?”

Oh yeah. I remember. I slowly turn back to face her. The tears that threatened to fall from her eyes are gone. Her shoulders are back and she looks defiant. Her cheeks are pink but not from anger anymore. She’s embarrassed but she isn’t backing down. “I tried relieving my own stress in the shower but…” She lifts the hem of her shirt, one hand holding the fabric close to her breasts, and turns and shows me the vicious-looking faded purple marks across her ribs. ”This still throbs a lot and moving my arms and stuff… for too long doesn”t feel great.”

“Oh.” That’s the best I can come up with because my brain is melting faster than ice in August. Am I really having a conversation about the logistics of masturbating with my ex-friend and son’s nanny?

She moves to drop the hem of her shirt but I cross the room in a flash and grab it before it can fall. I take a closer look at the bruises, even trace my fingertips over the marks. “You should probably have a follow-up with a doctor. Make sure everything is setting right.”

“I don’t have health insurance here anymore Tate,” she whispers. “But it’s fine. I’ll figure that all out when I get back to Silver Bay. I think I can be put back on my parents if I live at home for a while. I’m under twenty-five.”

“But I need you here for a while longer,” I say, and I let the shirt drop but keep my fingers against her tender flesh under it. Her eyelashes flutter. “I’ll get you in with the team doctor. It’ll be free. Or else I’ll absorb the cost.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask,” I reply. “I need to know you’re okay.”

She doesn’t say anything. My fingertips move, sliding slowly up her rib cage. She shudders but doesn’t reach to stop me or move my hand away.

“Mallory?” I keep my eyes on her face and she finally looks back at me. “If you need some release… I’m right next door. And I know how to do it.”

She blinks. My fingers ghost the underside of her bare breast. I glance down to see her hard nipples against the thin fabric and then catch her eye again. “I would scratch your itch and you can scratch mine.”

My mouth is close to hers. So close. And I want to kiss her so bad I feel the urge in every nerve-ending in my entire body. It’s a pulse. A beat like my heart, only stronger.

“What were you thinking about… while you fucked your hand?”

Mallory’s crass words ratchet up the desire in my veins. “You.”

She tips her head up and presses her mouth to mine. She grabs my shoulders, pulling me closer until her back is pressed to the wall and her front is flush with mine. And when she parts her lips and slips her tongue into my mouth my hand cups her perfect left tit and my fingers pinch that rock hard nipple. She moans into my mouth and I kiss the sound away.

And then Dylan wails.

We jump apart like someone drops a bucket of ice water on us. Mallory pushes past me and flings open the door to the bedroom. I count to ten and think of baseball to get my dick to deflate again. After the ten count, I’m ready to head out there.

Mallory is standing at the foot of the bed, rocking Dylan in her arms. He is screaming like he’s been lit on fire. I stand there feeling useless. “I’d offer to take him but he just screams louder when I’m holding him,” I mutter.

“He’ll get over that,” she promises. “Can you heat up some milk on the stove? Not too hot, just lukewarm. Put it in his bottle?”

I nod and head downstairs. When I return almost fifteen minutes later his wailing has dulled to gentle sobs. His face is beet red and his eyes heavy with exhaustion. I hand her the bottle but she shakes her head. “Sit.”

I sit on the edge of her bed, near the headboard. She gently shifts Dylan in her arms, cooing sweet words to him as she does, and then she places him in my arms. He blinks up at me, stunned, and then his face starts to twist up like he’s prepping to release one hell of a scream. “Give him the milk.”

I softly shove the bottle toward him and both his fat hands grab it and he pulls it to his mouth. A few sips and his whole body relaxes in my lap. He wiggles a little, snuggling himself into the crook of my arm as I sit up against the headboard. He makes a few little almost-cry sounds but he settles. I stare at him in awe. My son.

Mallory walks around the bed and crawls up beside me. She sits there watching silently over my shoulder for a few minutes and then she slides down and lies on the bed next to me. I give her a quick smile and she returns it with a sleepy one.

I turn back to study Dylan. I think this is the first tranquil moment we’ve shared. He stares up at me with eyes that I swear he stole from my mom and wet cheeks and that dimple, like mine and my dad’s, in his chin and the stubborn clench of his jaw, that reminds me of my sister. “You gotta work with me, Dylan. I promise I’ll take care of you if you let me. Just relax and give me a chance lil bear. I’ve never been a daddy before but I’ll do my best for you.”

He keeps sucking on his bottle, eyes getting heavy, and I hope he gives my words some consideration before he drops back off into sleep. I run a hand over his hair and just stare at him. I made this. This perfect little person. Without even knowing or trying. It scares the hell out of me, but I’m also so fucking amazed. And in love. I love this kid. How? Fucked if I know but I do.

”I love him,” I tell Mallory. I look over for her reaction, but her eyes are closed her mouth is slightly open and she”s drooling on the pillow beside me.

Dylan’s eyes close before he can finish the milk, so I gently take it from his pudgy hands and put it on the night table. I sit there with him asleep, propped up on my lap, cradled in my arm for about half an hour. Then, when I’m sure he’s sleeping well, I walk over and carefully lay him out in his sleeping pod. I cover him with a loose blanket and take his giraffe stuffie and place it near his left arm.

He doesn’t blink or stir so I leave him and walk over to Mallory. She’s also out cold. I walk to her closet and pull down a velour throw blanket with the Quake crest on it. They always give us random merch. I unfold it and lay it on top of Mallory because she fell asleep on top of the covers and I don’t want her to wake up cold.

I force myself to walk out of the room and close the door behind me. As much as I want to pick up where we left off, the moment has passed. Maybe it’s the universe stepping in and saving me from making a complicated situation even worse. After all, Mallory is only here for Dylan. She’s said it time and time again. And I can’t give her the end-game she wants. I’m not ready for that.

So I go back to my room, drop into bed, and force myself into a restless, unsatisfied sleep.