I took the rest of the afternoon off. Everything else was able to be put on the back burner, and the moment after Olivia had left my office, I’d written out a check for sixty grand, placed it into an envelope with her name on it for Ethan to deliver, and left out the front doors with Noah by my side.
“Where are we going?” Noah asked, slipping into the backseat of my driver’s car with the work tablet I’d given him and his toy car clutched in his hands.
“Shopping,” I grinned, ducking in behind him and shutting the car door behind me. He pouted as he shimmied up into the car seat I’d strapped him into this morning — the same one that caused me to be ten minutes later than I was expecting because I had to arrange for it last minute.
“I don’t like shopping,” he groaned, his head falling back against the little cushion as I fumbled with the straps. Have they changed since this morning? Surely they didn’t. Where the fuck does this one go?
“This will be fun shopping.”
He eyed me, his excitement lingering just beneath the surface. “Toy shopping?”
“You can absolutely get some toys,” I chuckled. I finally secured the last strap, not giving two shits about the honking car behind ours. “And anything else you want.”
His eyes went wide as saucers as I sat back in my seat and gave the go-ahead to Harry. Within seconds, we were moving. “Can I get a stuffed animal?”
I raised a single brow. “Of course.”
“What about a Lego set?”
“Yep.”
He made it so easy to tell when he was thinking hard about something. His face scrunched up, his little finger tapping against his chin as if he’d learned it from television. “What about… one of those little robots that you can play with?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “If they have it at the store, yes.”
He squealed as he kicked his legs out, the tablet dropping onto the seat between us. “You are so cool. Can I get a horse?”
I snorted. “Like a real-life horse?”
He nodded ferociously.
“Uh, I don’t think they’ll have that at the store and I don’t really have the space for a horse at my house. But if you want a horse, Noah, we can look into getting you a horse. We’d just have to stable it outside the city,” I explained, but somewhere in my words he started losing his mind, the excitement riling him up.
“Oh my GOSH. A horse. A horse!” He giggled, flopping back dramatically as if the idea alone was enough to destroy him. “You’re the best. Mom never would have got me a horse.”
Oh.
That wasn’t what I wanted him thinking about at all.
“Noah,” I gulped. I wrapped my hand around his little arm, getting his attention fully from his racing mind thinking about everything I’d buy him. “Listen to me real quick, okay?”
Wide blue eyes met mine, still poised for the next exciting thing I would say. First real parenting moment. Shit.
“I don’t want you to compare me to your mother,” I said slowly, and the excitement drained from him. “Yes, I can buy you the things you want. And I’m sure your mom would have done the same for you if she could have.”
His head tilted to the side. “Why couldn’t she? You can.”
I should have considered that this conversation was a possibility if I started openly buying him things. I wanted to chalk it up to not having the time to play every potential situation in my head before his arrival — but I knew damn well that this was just my blind spots coming back to bite me in the ass. “Your mom didn’t have as much money as I do,” I said, hating the words. “And that isn’t because she didn’t want to. It’s not a bad thing to not be able to spend as much on you as I can.”
“I don’t get it,” he pouted. “If she needed more money and you have more money, why didn’t you give her some?”
We pulled into the parking lot of the first store I’d marked down for Harry — a children’s furniture store. I still needed to cancel the orders I’d placed online, but I’d get to it after this. “Because I didn’t know she needed it,” I sighed. “I didn’t know you existed. If I had, I would have given her anything she needed. For both of you.”
His little fingers went to work on the straps, unbuckling each one. Is he supposed to know how to do that? “Why didn’t you know?” he asked.
I pursed my lips. If I had an answer to that question, I probably wouldn’t have told him regardless. But I didn’t. I had no idea why Marissa never told me about him, especially when she knew he was mine. She knew what I would have done for them despite what she’d done to me.
She knew I would have helped them however I could. She must have known.
“I wish I knew, Noah.”
————
Noah sat curled up next to me on the sofa, his tablet on silent as he played some kind of game where you had to flip burgers and assemble them for customers. The front door and back double doors were wide open for the people who carried item after item through them, hauling giant boxes up the stairs and depositing them in the room Noah had chosen for himself. Last-minute-movers disassembled the plain guest bed that had once occupied the space, while others assembled the new bits of furniture we’d picked out together.
It was barely six in the evening, and I was exhausted.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, the one he was leaning against, and on instinct he moved to let me reach for it, his eyes still locked and loaded on his game.
Olivia: I can’t accept the money.
Olivia: I’m not cashing the check.
“Who’s that?” Noah asked, not breaking eye contact with the screen for a split second. The burger he made was at least twelve layers high.
“Olivia,” I sighed. “The one who took you for ice cream earlier.”
I typed out a reply. You don’t have to. Just keep it in case you need it.
“I like her,” he chirped.
“That’s great news,” I chuckled. “She’s moving in tomorrow.”
His mouth opened in a circle as he finally broke eye contact from the game, wide eyes meeting mine. “She’s moving in here? With us?”
I nodded. Another buzz from my phone.
Olivia: I can’t do that. It’s not mine. It’s too much money.
“She’ll be watching after you when I’m at work,” I explained, trying to keep my mind in two places while I replied to her. Call it a bonus, then. For the proposal you wrote and the fantastic ideas you have.
“Wait,” Noah said. His burger toppled in the game and he set the tablet down between us, shuffling his little body to face me. “Is she going to be my new mom?”
My phone buzzed, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. I was far too taken aback by the insane question my son had just asked me. Yes, Olivia was technically my wife. Yes, I was attracted to her — of course I was. But that… now wasn’t the time, the place, the scenario to consider it. I couldn’t even let that thought wander around my head for fear that it would seat itself somewhere. “What?”
“What?” he parroted.
“She’s… she’ll be… uh, like a nanny. Do you know what a nanny is?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, she’ll be like a babysitter that lives with us,” I faltered, words escaping me from the sheer bluntness of his line of questioning.
Noah’s eyes narrowed. “So, a mom.”
“You have a mom,” I countered.
“My mom is dead. Olivia is alive. Plus! Plus, I have a friend, his name’s Olly. He’s really cool and he has this awesome scooter. It’s, like, bright blue. But he has two moms.” He held out two fingers as if it proved much of a point. “I could have two moms, maybe.”
“We really need to discuss how blasé you are about your mother passing away,” I mumbled, sinking into the sofa a little more as I unlocked my phone again.
“What does that word mean?”
“Blasé? It means… it means that your mother’s passing is a serious thing, and it’s not something to be so… relaxed about,” I sighed. “But I understand that you don’t fully understand that yet.”
His head tilted again, as if he were a puppy and I’d said something that he didn’t quite catch.
“Noah,” I said, placing my hand gently on his shoulder. “If you ever want to speak about your mom, you’re more than welcome to come to me. I want you to know that.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
I let myself drift back to the texts with Olivia as he reached for the tablet again.
Olivia: 🙁 but that means I’ll have to pay taxes on it.
I chuckled as I wrote out my reply. Then cash the damn check, princess.
