Fiery embarrassment burns my cheeks.
Amanda turns, cocking an eyebrow at Flint and then at me. “It’s warm in here again.”
“Goodnight, Amanda,” Flint calls from his office.
Her mouth twists into a knowing smile. “Night, Boss.”
I risk a glance at her.
“Would it be correct to assume you have other plans tonight?”
I don’t look at Flint, that would give us away, but I’m certain it’s too late to act discreet. “I don’t actually.”
“No?” She stares at me for a few seconds before glancing over her shoulder at Flint. His head is down, focused on his computer screen.
“So you want to join us?”
“Um … sure. I need to finish up a few things.”
“Fantastic. I’ll text you the address in about an hour when I find out where we’re meeting.”
“Sounds good.” I wait until I hear the front door to the building close with a sharp click before moving one inch. “The flowers are beautiful.” I take slow steps into his office.
Dark eyes track my moves as he leans back in his chair, interlacing his hands over his abdomen. “I’m glad you liked them. They’re from my greenhouse.”
My feet stop. I think my heart takes a brief pause as well. He didn’t make a phone call and spew off his credit card number. He cut each flower and arranged them in a vase—for me.
Reality is a bitch. We’re not untethered, young twenty-somethings with the world as our playground. We’re a decade past that with jobs, responsibilities, pasts, and a child who doesn’t want us to be together.
I smile—it feels painful—as I move past him to the window behind him. The last of the leaves rain down with a gust of wind. “Harry said you had a discussion about girls. He seems to be fine with you having a girlfriend as long as it’s not one of his teachers…” I turn and lean against the window ledge “…or me.”
He traces his finger over his bottom lip, eyes focused on some random point between us, as he nods slowly. “So it would seem. But he’s twelve.”
“With Asperger’s.”
“A mild case.”
“Thanks to you?”
Flint shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve researched it all. He’s so much better than he was even a few years ago. Maybe it’s what I feed him—the strict diet, the herbs, the routine I give him. Maybe it’s luck, and what little control I think I have is an illusion. Either way, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing because the good days by far outnumber the bad days, and there was a period of time I felt certain the bad days would break me.”
“You’re a wonderful dad.”
His brow draws tight as he looks at me like he wants to believe it too.
“I’m serious. I’ve seen it all. It’s not really who does it the best, it’s who survives. You’re improving his life and you’re doing it really well.”
Flint shrugs. “I owe him.”
“No more than any other parent owes their child.”
He laughs a little. “So much more. I took everything. Who takes everything from their child?”
“You’re here. You didn’t take everything.”
“It should have been me.”
“Probably.”
His head jerks up. I don’t flinch one bit in regret, even with the pain on his face.
My hands slide into the front pockets of my black pants as my eyes focus on the scuff mark curled around the toe of my right shoe. “You drank. You got behind the wheel. You crashed the car. Your wife died as a result. I don’t know the finer details, but had Karma been on her game that day, you would have died instead of your wife.”
“Please, give it to me straight.”
“I will. It’s cause and effect. Did you accidentally drink? Did you accidentally get behind the wheel of the car? This is one defense you cannot win. There’s no way to spin this. And everyone in the world including yourself can forgive you, but it doesn’t fix it. And that sucks. But you can move on and be a good person who fights the good fights. It’s extraordinarily hard to acknowledge our imperfections, especially when they cause something so devastating … but you are in fact just like everyone else. You’re human, Flint.”
*
Flint
I’m not sure when the thanks-for-the-flowers mood shifted into a humanity speech on drinking and driving, but it went from zero to one hundred in a blink. I can handle the guilt and accusations—they’re true. I know this, and I have no good defense. But something in her words feels personal, not to me, but to her.
“Who?”
Her eyes narrow. “What?”
“Did Alex lose his hands in a drunk-driving accident?”
Her head jerks back. “What? No.”
“Then who? Because that speech wasn’t just about me.”
“Hello? Are you coming?”
I swivel in my chair toward Harrison’s voice.
“I’m ready to play it.”
“Sorry. I’m coming,” Ellen says, walking past me without making eye contact.
“Wait up,” I say, shoving my foot onto the elevator to keep the doors from closing.
“What are you doing?” Harrison asks.
Ellen keeps her eyes on her feet.
“Coming to hear you play.”
“Why?”
I stand next to Harrison and nudge him. “Because you’re my son, and I want to hear you play.”
“Whatever.”
I choose to take that as code for “I love you too, Dad.”
The doors open and Harrison runs off first, I rest my hand on Ellen’s lower back. She stiffens. It pisses me off that I’ve somehow offended her, but I don’t know why. As she goes to step off, I curl my fingers under the waistband of her pants and pull her backward.
She sucks in an audible gasp as the doors close, leaving just the two of us on the elevator. “What are you doing?”
I back her up against the railing, pinning her hands behind her back. “I can’t have you going out with Amanda and her friends tonight without knowing that we’re good.”
“Harry—”
I shake my head and tug at her arms, forcing her chest out a bit more. “Not Harrison. You and I. Are we good?”
I wish I could read the unspoken emotions in her eyes, but I can’t, so I wait. Blink after blink …
“Yes,” she whispers.
My mouth crashes onto hers. I swallow her breath and her moans that carry a distinct tune. As she leans into the kiss, I step back, grin, push the open doors button, and adjust my tie.
“What happened?” As expected, Harrison is right here, waiting for us.
I step off the elevator and shrug. “Ellen had a bit of gas that she didn’t want to pass around you, so she locked me in the elevator with her, because just like you, she’s out to get me.”
Behind me I hear Ellen gasp and Harrison laugh, which is music to my ears because he doesn’t full-on belly laugh very often. But he’s a boy, and all boys find farts, burps, and all other bodily sounds quite funny. I take a seat at Ellen’s desk and pluck one of the flowers from the vase, bringing it to my nose as she shoots me a death glare, face flush with embarrassment.
As if on cue, Harrison farts and strums his guitar with a huge grin on his face.
Ellen rolls her eyes at him before killing me with another evil glare. She starts a song on her phone and Harrison joins in. All laughter fades as he plays that guitar like a seasoned guitarist in a rock band. I’m speechless.
When he’s done, there’s no gloating or waiting for a standing ovation, which he deserves. Instead, he carefully puts the guitar back in its case and slings his backpack over his shoulder, guitar case in hand. “Let’s go. I’m starving. Bye, Ellen.” He turns and walks toward the elevator.
I’m not sure I’ve blinked since he finished playing. Ellen steals the flower from my hand and bops me on the nose with it. I flinch.
“You have something so rare and spectacular right in front of you, and you are clueless what to do with it.”
I stand, tugging on the cuffs to my shirt. Ellen buttons my jacket and glances up at me, long auburn hair falling down her back.
“Are you talking about Harrison?”
Ellen grins. “He’s not bad either. Now …” She steps past me, clicking on her phone. “I have a girls’ night out to get to, where I shall discover all of your secrets, including what made you accuse me of farting.”
As she walks toward the door, I grab her wrist. She looks back at me.
“Terrible of me. But his laughter was—”
She nods. “Totally worth it.”
I follow her to the elevator. Harrison is no doubt already waiting at the door to the building, tapping his foot impatiently. She steps on, turns, and I possess her lips again before she can catch her breath. When the ding of the elevator sounds, I pull away again, leaving her unbalanced and gasping.
I wink, straightening my tie. “After you, Ms. Rodgers.”
“Jerk.” She wipes her mouth and runs her fingers through her hair before pulling back her shoulders and stepping off the elevator into the lobby.