Second Time's the Charm

It was his son she was worried about.

But now wasn’t the time to tell him about it.

* * *

WITH ABRAHAM’S HELP, Jon did laundry, cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed, made an afternoon run to the store and refused to let himself dwell on where Lillie might be and with whom. He had the mac and cheese warming in the oven by the time Lillie rang their bell just after six.

“I blocked you in again,” she told him. Guest parking spots were nonexistent on their little driveway and the night before he’d had her pull in behind him. The two guys next door could back out from their assigned spots on either side of Jon’s truck, but just barely. At some point, they’d have to move their little party to her house. Maybe put a portable crib in her spare room...

Slow down, bucko.

It wasn’t just with women that Jon barreled ahead. He’d learned young that if he was going to have anything in life he had to snatch it the second the opportunity presented itself.

Foster care, juvenile detention, they were all the same in terms of too many bodies and not enough of anything to go around.

But he had a normal life now. He could afford to take his time.

He wanted to kiss Lillie hello. It had been hours since he’d tasted her lips. But he didn’t. She didn’t kiss him, either. And he wondered if there was significance in that.

She kissed Abraham, though. And gave all of her attention to the toddler as they sat at the table and shared a real, homemade family dinner. Jon might have been jealous of all the attention his son was receiving if he hadn’t been so damned grateful for it.

And turned on, too. Those hands again, lithe and long fingered and soft as they helped his son’s short fingers wrap around his fork or hold his sippy cup. As they cut the hot dog Jon had heated to go with Abe’s mac and cheese. And handed tomatoes and cucumbers to the little boy.

She’d remembered which fresh vegetables Abe would eat and which he wouldn’t.

Later, Jon did the dishes while Lillie gave Abraham his bath, at Jon’s suggestion. He wanted her to have time with Abe, to know exactly what it took to care for him at home—not just at the day care where she could do her job and walk away.

If Abraham was going to be too much for her, they needed to know now.

Besides, he’d needed a break. She’d been pointedly not engaging with him all night.

She’d said they needed to talk. All guys knew those words were the kiss of death.

He’d been rushing things. Taking her to bed two nights in a row. Not that she’d done any complaining.

“Did you have a good day?” he asked, following her into the living room and dropping down on one end of the couch as soon as Abe was asleep in his crib. If she thought he was going to give her hassles about who she’d been with that day, then she was wrong. They hadn’t agreed to any kind of commitment. She owed him nothing. But he couldn’t keep sleeping with her if she was seeing someone else.

“It was a busy day,” she said. “I spent a lot of it at the office, catching up on charting and doing some research.”

The office? “I thought... I assumed... You’d said you had a non-work-related thing.”

“Breakfast,” Lillie said. “After that, I worked all day.”

There was no reason for the heady relief that surged through him. To the contrary, he needed to be concerned that her lack of a day-long date with someone else affected him so severely.

“You said you wanted to talk.” Get straight to the point. Good or bad, that was his way.

Sitting close, but not touching, Lillie clasped her hands in her lap and studied him.

It was going to be bad. He’d been through this enough times to know. First, the state telling him his mother wasn’t coming for him. Or letting him be adopted, either. Barbara, bailing on him when he was twelve. His court-appointed advocate telling him that he was going to juvenile detention for the rest of his high school years. And then Kate...

Mustering his best rendition of an encouraging smile, he waited for the boot, betting that Lillie would give him the best one yet. She was too sweet to do otherwise.

“I’m concerned about Abraham.”

Not sure what that meant, Jon nodded and waited for her to say more. If she was about to tell him that she’d been working for Clara, after all, he’d deal with it.

If she didn’t want to take on the full-time responsibility of helping raise a two-year-old, he could understand. He’d deal with that, too.