An Innocent Thanksgiving (Holiday Heat Book 2) Page 12

  Maggie gave into my kissing, looping her arms around my neck, and fuck, it was so domestic and easy it made something settle inside of my chest. I felt greedy, wanting this every morning, just one day of it not enough—no taste of Maggie was enough. I needed all of her.

  “I’ll never get breakfast at this rate,” Maggie warned me as I planted kiss after kiss on her full, lush mouth. She was laughing as she said it, though, so I figured she wasn’t truly upset.

  I pulled away nonetheless and let her eat. It was lighthearted, relaxed, even though neither of us spoke much. The comfortable silence was something I hadn’t even known that I needed until I had it. The ability to just sit with someone and be quiet with them… how had I gone so long thinking that wasn’t something that I needed in a partner? It was soothing.

  Afterwards, Maggie asked if I could give her a tour of the house. She sounded shy, asking for it, like she felt a bit ashamed. I didn’t know why she would. Secretly, I was beyond pleased. If she really liked the house, maybe I could persuade her to move in with me, her and Fern. I didn’t say as much just yet, of course. I had to be careful. Maggie was still cautious and I didn’t want to push too far, overwhelm her the way that I first had coming here. If I backed off and let her get comfortable, hopefully she would accept it when I wanted us to take further steps in our relationship.

  I showed her the living room, the room I was thinking of being my studio, the spare room that I was thinking of in my head as Fern’s playroom but that I told Maggie was the guest room, and then the backyard.

  When we got to the one bedroom that I had begun painting… my heart was thudding so loudly in my chest I was sure that Maggie could hear it, even standing a bit away from me the way she was as she took in the work I had started. The colors were spreading over one wall and around the corner to another wall, now, starting to take over the room properly.

  “I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it abstract or not,” I told her. “I’m kind of just… seeing where it goes.”

  I hadn’t done that in ages. Usually when I did art, I started out with a specific idea in mind and worked off that concept. Here I was going off of pure emotion, whatever I felt in the moment.

  Maggie stared at the colors looking a bit awestruck. “I think it’s lovely.”

  I knew it was a risk, but I wanted to tell her. “I was thinking this would be Fern’s room. That it would be a kind of mural for her, when you moved in.”

  A whole parade of emotions marched across Maggie’s face. I wasn’t even sure what they all meant, if I could even begin to parcel them, and then before I could start to try, they were all gone, carefully covered up by a calm face that showed nothing.

  “I need to get home,” she said. “I’ve got work to do today.”

  “Right.” It wasn’t… awkward, exactly. It was more like a weight had settled back down on us, a weight that I had been happy to forget or ignore. I didn’t think that weight should be there in the first place, anyway.

  “When can I see you again?” I asked as we pulled up in front of her duplex. I wanted to follow her into the house, I wanted to spend all day with her and Fern, I wanted… so many things that it felt like they were cramming up in my chest, creating a pile-up on the highway of my heart.

  “I’m not sure,” Maggie replied. She sounded calm, not upset, but not… not as placid as she wanted to, either. “You know that—being a mom, it doesn’t really leave a lot of room for dating.”

  Was that what she thought we were doing? Dating was far too casual of a thing to describe what we were doing. “I’m glad, because I’m not interested in dating.”

  This was much more serious than dating. Dating was where you got to know the person, where you saw if your personalities could mesh, and then after a while if you continued to really enjoy the person you moved up to ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ or whatever you wanted to call your official significant other. But we were well past that, at least in my mind. I didn’t want casual, I knew that I wanted to be in Maggie and Fern’s life, and I knew that I wanted forever.

  Maggie looked startled, her eyes going wide, and I realized what that must’ve sounded like. “I don’t see what we’re doing as dating,” I explained. “Think of it more like an audition. I’m trying out for the part of your life partner, and Fern’s father.”

  Maggie flushed, blinking a few times like she thought I might disappear from her view if she took her eyes off of me for too long. “That’s… um. I need some time to think about all of this.”

  That was entirely fair, if you asked me. I nodded. “I won’t rush you. I just wanted you to understand why I’m here. This isn’t a casual thing. I want to commit.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” Maggie said. She sounded contemplative, nervous, and relieved all at the same time. I myself wasn’t even sure what I was feeling.

  She got out of the car and headed inside the house without looking back.

  I told myself that it was fine. She needed time. I hoped that I hadn’t rushed things, but I felt—after the way we, or rather after I, had ended things last time, I felt it was important that I was up front and honest about my intentions here. I didn’t want Maggie to have a second of doubt about how serious I was. And I was willing to wait and take things at a slower pace, but I was also impatient. I was ready to start a life together, the three of us, and I wasn’t interested in waiting.

  20

  Maggie

  I managed to avoid thinking about Cal for three days.

  On Friday, I was packing for Fern and me because we were heading back to Cincinnati for the weekend. One of Mom’s friends was having a big Christmas party, the same way she did every year, and just like every other year, Fern and I had been invited. I didn’t really have a social life so even though most of the people at the party would be my parents’ friends, or their grown-up kids that I didn’t know very well, I figured it was always good for me to go. Fern could actually come to, and she always had fun with all the adults fawning over her, the huge table of treats, and the other grandkids that came to play.

  Besides, since thanks to Cal I was staying away from my parents all the time, I figured visiting when I could and letting them see Fern was the least that I could do.

  Speaking of Cal, I was completely at a loss.

  Hopefully getting out of town would clear my head a bit, because for the past few days it had felt like I was drowning, only not in the panicking kind of way that I should’ve felt. It was more like I’d been smacked in the face with a dozen roses.

  That analogy didn’t even make sense, but then, none of this did.

  Back when I’d been younger, I had been in love with Cal. Call it puppy love, call it ridiculous, call it whatever you wanted, but my feelings had been genuine. I had been completely enamored with him. And that had been back when he hadn’t been giving me his full attention, when I was just his best friend’s daughter, the person he would chat with when he came over for dinner because, well, that was the polite thing to do.

  Now that I was actually getting his full attention I had no clue what to do with myself. He was charming, thoughtful, artistic, everything that I had always known he was only now I was seeing it up close instead of from a distance and I knew there was only so long that I could resist. There was no way that I could really survive the full frontal attack that was Cal giving me all of his attention and personality. And what was I supposed to do with that? My heart was screaming yes, yes, yes, but my brain was still terribly unsure. Could I really risk my daughter, and my safe little bubble, for Cal?

  I was muttering to myself about it like a madwoman all while I packed and loaded the car. There wasn’t a whole lot that we needed for the weekend, really. My parents had us over enough that most of the sort of things I needed, especially for Fern, were already at their house. But Fern needed a lot to keep her entertained on the long car drive, and she couldn’t sleep without at least some of her army of stuffed animals, so that took up a lot of room.

/>   “Mama!” I turned to find Fern trying to drag a bag towards the car. “Lemme help!”

  Ugh, my daughter was the best kid in the world. I knew that all parents thought that, of course, but there wasn’t anything anyone could do to change my mind about it. I loved her to distraction.

  “Thank you baby, but let me get that, okay?” I started to walk towards her, when another voice said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

  It was Cal, walking over from across the street. He picked the bag up from Fern and brought it over. “Where are you guys headed?”

  “To Grandma and Grandpa’s!” Fern said. “For a party!”

  “Sounds like fun.” Cal loaded the bag into the car. “I love parties.”

  I couldn’t help but smile a bit to myself, remembering all the gallery openings that Cal had done while I was growing up and how he would always go out to parties. My dad was a lot quieter and more introverted than Cal, and he was always jokingly making fun of Cal for dragging him out places. When I’d been daydreaming about being with Cal, I had imagined Cal dragging me along instead of my dad, showing me off as his date.

  “You can come!” Fern announced, sounding overjoyed just at the prospect. “You’ll have fun too! They have so many cookies and we do a big sing!”

  “Ah…” I hated to ruin my daughter’s plans and dreams, but… “You can’t just invite someone along to someone else’s party without permission.”

  “Please?” Fern begged, pouting and drawing the word out, stretching it like a rubber band.

  I shook my head. To my surprise, Cal said, “Your mom’s right, Fern. It’s not our party, it’s someone else’s, so they get to choose who can come or not.”

  Fern still looked unhappy, but she let Cal settle her into the car. I explained to Cal about the party once Fern was distracted. “I wish you’d told me you were going away,” Cal said. He didn’t sound angry, just disappointed, and I felt like an asshole for trying to sneak away.

  It wasn’t any of Cal’s business what my schedule was, but he had told me flat-out that he wanted to audition to be in our lives, and that he was going to be around, and I should’ve taken that into consideration. “I could…” This was probably a stupid idea but I was going this far, so why not? “I could use a driver, if you’re interested in the job. That way I can work on my laptop in the car and I won’t lose a whole day of work.”

  Cal grinned. “I’d be glad to lend a hand.”

  “Do you need to go home first and pack or anything?”

  Cal shook his head. “No, I’ve still got plenty of clothes and toiletries at my house in Cincinnati. If you guys are ready, then so am I.”

  “Do you want Cal to come with us to Cincinnati?” I asked Fern, peering into the car.

  “Yes!” Fern sounded excited—she got even more excited when Cal proceeded to sing along to the radio while he was driving.

  I guess that settled it. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Fern to get tired of Cal, but so far, that hadn’t happened. Cal hadn’t gotten tired of her, either. I knew I should stay on my guard, but the more time they spent together, the harder that was.

  Cal’s singing was… better than I had expected. He got silly with it and made up words to the pop songs on the radio that he obviously didn’t know, but there were also times where he would sing quietly, almost under his breath, while Fern napped in the back. It made it hard for me to concentrate on my work, but like hell was I telling him to stop.

  “It’s after Thanksgiving!” Fern announced, once she had woken up from her nap. “So we sing Christmas now?”

  I had told her, when she’d started singing Christmas carols the moment that Halloween was over, that Christmas songs weren’t to be sung until after Thanksgiving. And, well, she was right, it was after Thanksgiving.

  Cal grinned at her in the rearview mirror. “We sure can, what do you want to start with?”

  Fern immediately launched into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Cal joined in, adding little comments that made her laugh.

  “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” Fern sang, “had a very shiny nose!”

  “Like an apple!” Cal interjected.

  Fern giggled.

  I smiled down at my laptop. Having Cal there was definitely better than just going it alone, trying to drive and take care of Fern while worrying about missing out on an afternoon of work, worrying about what I was going to tell people when we got there because someone always inevitably asked me about dating.

  Of course, people would still ask me that, but right now it didn’t feel like a pressing question, like impending doom, it just felt like something to deal with later, some distant issue to handle another day.

  The whole mood in the car felt joyous. Cal and Fern, giggling and laughing together. My daughter and the man I had feelings for, the man I’d imagined as my life partner.

  It was hard not to imagine this being normal.

  21

  Cal

  The drive up with Maggie and Fern was nice—no, more than nice. I had a lot of fun in the car with Fern. I hadn’t ever really thought of myself as the paternal type, or the type to really do well with kids. I wasn’t sure if anyone would think of me that way, at least in the conventional sense. But Fern was a person, and I was good with people, and she was nothing short of delightful.

  I didn’t expect to see them for the rest of the weekend, but I didn’t care. I could hang out at my house and take care of business. I’d left a lot of my things in that house and I could always find some artistic thing to do with my surprise. Perhaps do a little painting or sketch for Fern? Nothing too big but something she could hang up in her room? I wanted her and Maggie to move in with me but until then it would be nice to know there was a piece of me in her room and to gift her something—a little thing to make up for all the things I hadn’t been able to gift her for the first few years.

  First, though, I had to actually clean my house. I hadn’t hired a maid service for it since I wasn’t sure yet what my schedule would be like, what with Maggie and Fern, so there was a bit of dust in my place. I got to work, and had just finished scrubbing the kitchen when my phone rang.

  “Hello?” I answered, not looking at the caller ID.

  “…hey, Cal?”

  It was Maggie.

  The last thing I’d expected was to hear from her this weekend, except a text or two to arrange when we’d be driving back to Nashville together. I tried to smother the balloon of joy shooting up in me and only halfway succeeded. “Hey, Maggie, what’s up?”

  She sounded more… not upbeat, exactly, but not the way she had before, where her tone had been determined and in a way that told me it wasn’t going to go in my favor. In fact she sounded almost hesitant. “I convinced my parents to take Fern to the party without me, I was hoping that we could—that you could come over? And we could talk? I’m alone and I figured—this would be a good time.”

  “Of course.” I kept my voice soothing. Maggie had a lot to think about. So did I. I’d just discovered that I had a daughter I didn’t know about, and I was realizing quickly just how far gone for Maggie I was, more far gone than I ever would’ve guessed if you’d asked me about it just a few months ago. But Maggie—Maggie had more to lose in this than I did. Her head must’ve been spinning. And she was younger, I had to remember that. Not just in an ‘this will never work’ way but in a ‘be mindful of her experiences’ kind of way.

  “I’ll head right on over,” I assured her.

  “Thanks.” I could hear her grateful smile through the phone. I could picture it in my mind, so clearly. Already I was able to imagine her with a painful clarity, and it made my heart race.

  It had never been like this with my wife, back in the day. We had sort of fallen together, casually, almost, and we had gotten married because that had felt like it was what we were supposed to do. I hadn’t ever really thought that the fierce, sudden dive into love was really for me. That was what I had my art for after all, wasn’t
it? I fell madly in love with every city I traveled to, I fell madly in love with every artistic idea that I latched onto—maybe falling crazily in love with a person wasn’t in the cards.

  Now, though…

  Pulling up in front of the Simpson house, I took a few steadying breaths. I had taken more care in my outfit than I normally would, and triple-checked my hair. Even if this was just to sit down and talk, I wanted… I wanted to impress her. I’d never had to actually really work to impress a woman before. Usually I just walked in and smiled and the women fell at my feet. But not Maggie

  Even back five years ago when she had wanted us to be together… she had never swooned, exactly. She’d never just fallen at my feet. If only I’d appreciated her when I’d had the chance—appreciated how ready she was to give us a chance, how hopeful and optimistic she was.

  Now I was having to pay for that and do the work to earn her back. I just hoped it was enough. That I was enough.

  I got out of the car and walked up to the door. It opened before I even nocked and I realized that Maggie must’ve been waiting for me, watching. It reassured me somewhat to know that she was just as nervous as I was. We would figure this out together, I told myself. I knew I hadn’t been reunited with her for long but I was already certain about my feelings—even if she might not be ready for me to say them to her out loud.

  I was in love with her. And I was head over heels for Fern, too. I wanted a life with them, and I wasn’t ready to settle for anything less.

  Maggie let me in. “Hi.” Her voice was soft, shy. “Why don’t you… do you need anything to drink? Water or soda, or…” She didn’t suggest alcohol, which I felt was a smart choice. We needed to be fully sober for this discussion, no matter how it went.

  “I’m good,” I assured her. She was clearly so nervous, and I wanted to just pull her into my arms and comfort her… but I wasn’t sure how that would be met. Maggie had something she wanted to say. I couldn’t distract her from that or make it seem like I thought she was a child who needed coddling.