Chapter 4

Reed

Fucking chill.

I had no damn business calling anyone, let alone the guy who’d just moved into my house after I’d known him only a couple of hours, a good boy. I tried hard to regret the words that spilled out of my unthinking mouth, but after I saw the way his eyes lit up, it was hard to tell myself it was wrong. Jakob was adorable. There just wasn’t another word for it. Whether Jakob was a little remained to be seen, but my hunch had my overprotective Daddy urges in overdrive. How did one ask another grown adult if they wanted a bottle or a sippy cup with dinner? If I guessed wrong, I couldn’t even imagine the messy aftermath it would create.

While Jakob took his shower, I banged around the kitchen in a futile attempt to distract myself from the naked, slippery, very adult man singing at the top of his lungs in the bathroom directly above me. He was so loud that I could hear him clearly, and I was fairly certain he was making up the words as he went along.

Oh, hot water, you’re so funny,

Like a puddle made of honey,

Splosh, splash, so much fun,

Shower time’s number one!

After a few rounds, the singing stopped and the water turned off. I figured I had less than ten minutes to finish dinner preparation. Hopefully, Jakob was fine with leftovers. I decided on apple slices with grilled cheese and some leftover vegetable beef soup I’d made the other night. By the time Jakob made his way to the kitchen, the soup was bubbling on the stove, the sandwiches were in the pan, and I was just about finished slicing apples.

“Oh hey, you didn’t have to cook for me.”

Jakob’s shy voice sounded unsure, and I hated that for him. His brashness and infectious smile could light up a damn room, and I liked his sunny personality. I wasn’t particularly a grump, but I wasn’t joy in human form like him.

“But I wanted to cook for you because you’ve had a long day and need a little extra care.”

I flipped the grilled cheese before I added, “And I like to take care of people.”

Jakob’s eyes got a little wider as the potential meaning of my words settled in on him. “Why don’t you have a seat at the table while I get this served up.”

He’d changed out of his reindeer outfit, but the new one was just as lighthearted. His shirt had a gnome holding a wreath decorated with candy canes, and he’d paired it with matching striped lounge pants. The cuffs at his wrists and ankles had ribbed edges. It was definitely a younger style.

“What are we having?”

“Grilled cheese, sliced apples, and vegetable soup.”

I carried the bowls of soup to the table and followed up with plates of grilled cheese and sliced apples. “I wasn’t sure how you liked your grilled cheese cut, so I took a chance on triangles.”

“Oh, I love triangles. They’re my favorite.”

Jakob did an abbreviated squirmy dance in his chair. He accidentally smacked his wrapped fingers against the table and let out a loud yelp before cuddling his hand against his chest.

“You gotta be careful, love, or you’ll hurt yourself more.”

Reed, you idiot. “I’m so sorry. There’s no telling where that came from.”

“It’s okay. I know you don’t mean it, but I like it.”

Jakob picked up his spoon and tried a sip of the soup. “It’s something you’d maybe say to a friend, right? And we’re new friends.”

Jakob’s sunny smile was back, and I enjoyed its warmth.

“In that case, I won’t worry about it,”

I said with a wink.

Jakob made a valiant effort to eat with his left hand, but he must’ve been right-handed because it seemed awkward and difficult. After his second sigh of annoyance, I glanced up to see that he’d spilled his soup on the table while trying to spoon it into his mouth. After an internal chastisement not to do anything that would make Jakob uncomfortable, I ignored myself and pushed my dinner to the side. It could wait.

“Would you like some help?”

For all his sunny happiness, I could see the exhaustion around his eyes.

“I’m so sorry I’m making a mess on your table. It’s really good.”

“It’s hardly your fault since your right hand is out of commission. Will you let me help?”

“I wish you would.”

Jakob huffed and blew the curls off his forehead. “Wait, that sounded pushy, and I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Nah, it didn’t sound that way at all. Okay, let’s get some food in you before it gets cold because cold grilled cheese is…”

I paused and waited for him to fill in the blank I left him.

“Yucky!”

he shouted.

“Exactly right, love. No one likes cold grilled cheese.”

For the next few minutes, I fed Jakob small bites of his sandwich or apples and spoon-fed him sips of soup. In between his bites, I’d take one off my plate. We chatted about our favorite foods and which ones we hated. Surprisingly, our lists were similar.

While we chatted, I noticed Jakob struggled with his glass of milk. If he was a little—more wishful thinking—he might be close to regressing with the day’s stress. “Jakob, you’re pretty shaky using your left hand. I have a sippy cup. Would you like to use it?”

I held my breath when I made the offer. There were any number of perfectly acceptable reasons for me to have a sippy cup in my kitchen. And one glaring reason that wasn’t innocent at all. Jakob’s eyes flared with understanding.

“Yes, Reed, I’d very much like to use the sippy cup. Thank you.”

#

“Thanks for helping me with dinner. Next time, I’ll be less messy.”

“I was happy to help.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. The sippy cup had been a wishful-thinking purchase but hadn’t been used. Jakob was the first to use it, which made me feel some kind of way. I liked that this house held no memories of another little. Sitting across from each other on the couch in the living room while the fire roared and the rain softly fell outside was an otherworldly feel. We might be the only ones left in our corner of the world. That thought didn’t make me sad at all. Jakob had burst into my life and home, but I was hard-pressed to find any bit I wanted to change. I liked him here.

“When we were packing up your stuff, you had a Christmas list. May I look at it?”

“If you want, sure. I know it’s silly, but I’ve been curating that list for a few years.”

With his permission, I jumped off the couch to fetch his Christmas wish book and to-do list. Since going through his bag seemed a little presumptuous, I brought the whole thing back to the room.

“Okay,”

I said as I sat back down, “my usual schedule alternates. My last shift was today before starting my time off, so you picked a good day to rear-end me.”

Jakob giggled and shook his head. “There is no good day to get into a car accident, silly. Oh shoot, what about insurance? Did you get my information?”

He started to get flustered, and I didn’t like it. It was entirely too late for him to worry about this tonight.

“It’s fine. The lot where your car was towed is on your paperwork, and you might not remember, but you did give the officer your insurance information. We can deal with all of it on Monday if you’re okay with that?”

Jakob nodded and sat back against the couch. “Honestly, I’d rather not deal with it at all, but I guess I’ll have to. Adulting is not fun.”

“Well, dealing with insurance isn’t the most fun part of adulting, but there are a few benefits.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like you can choose the life you want and things you experience.”

I paused to pick up his to-do list. “And that’s why I want to look at your list with you. We can check off a few things.”

Jakob’s eyes went wide and his lips pursed in a surprised oh. “You’d do that for me?”

“I like Christmas. It’s been a while since I’ve had a reason to get excited about it. Not being in a relationship or having kids of my own, there hasn’t been motivation to put in the effort. What sort of things are on your list?”

“Oh, there are so many things. I wouldn’t ask you to do all of them because that’s too much to ask, but I’d love it if you wanted to do a couple with me.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Well, there was pick out a Christmas tree, but I’m going to have to uncheck that one since it never made it home. And decorate it with ornaments that I helped make or picked out. Umm, let’s see, there was hot chocolate with sprinkles. Oh! Oh! Have a stocking and wait for Santa Claus. Bake cookies. Wrap presents with pretty ribbons. Watch holiday movies. Sing Christmas carols and go ice skating.”

“Oh wow, that’s quite a list, but I think we can check off some of those easily. The ice skating will have to wait a while until you’re better though. You don’t want to re-injure your fingers and cause serious damage.”

Jakob didn’t argue but instead took a drink from his sippy cup. He tried to smother his yawn, but he couldn’t quite keep it hidden. “Are you ready to get some sleep?”

Jakob looked down at his phone that had been in his bag and grimaced. “It’s so early. If I go to sleep now, I’ll be wide awake at three in the morning.”

He stopped a moment and scrolled through his text messages. It looked like a good amount if his scrolling was anything to go by.

“Do you need to call them and let them know everything is all right?”

Jakob’s relationship with his parents seemed complicated. While I didn’t live on Almstead Island, like my twin and parents, we talked a few times a week, even if it was no more than a quick check-in. I took the ferry over at least once a month for Sunday dinner at my parents’ house. It was definitely not the tense relationship Jakob seemed to have with his parents.

Jakob tapped his pursed lips before answering. “I’ll text them and then turn off my phone. If I call, it will turn into a long conversation about why I need to return home and do things their way.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what do they want from you that you don’t want to do?”

“If it was up to them, I’d spend every waking minute in the lab or writing articles. They’ve always said my brain is a gift and to throw it away for foolishness isn’t fair. So everything has always been about that and nothing, and I do mean nothing, else. I don’t want my intellect to be the only thing that matters about me anymore,”

Jakob said with a shrug.

“Fair enough. If you’re not ready to sleep, how about we check something off your list?”

“Oh, yay, yay, yay!”

Jakob did the cutest butt-wiggle dance on the couch. “What can we check off?”

“How about the movie The Muppet Christmas Carol? The singing mice are my favorite. My mom loves it, and we watched it a bunch of times every Christmas when we were kids, but I haven’t watched it in forever. I’m pretty sure I have some hot chocolate and whipped cream. I don’t have a tree, but we can get some holiday vibes.”

Obviously, a kid-centric movie wasn’t the only clue about little-hood, but the joy that lit up his eyes was a dead giveaway.

“I’d like that a lot.”