“Welcome to my brain. Strap in and keep your arms inside the ride at all times,” I said, peering into a drawer I’d pulled open with my finger.
Inside sat a photo next to a spare set of car keys and a pen. I picked up the picture. It was framed by four sloppily painted Popsicle sticks, like a kid made it. The magnet had broken off the back and sat in the drawer. It was Josh, on his hands and knees with a boy on his back riding him like a pony. I laughed and he cleared the space between us and leaned against the counter next to me.
“My nephew, Michael. Two years ago. He gave me that for my birthday.”
My smile fell the tiniest bit. “You like kids, huh?”
“Love ’em.”
He was standing just a little too close. He crossed his arms and it made his muscles push out and press into my shoulder. God, he smelled good.
That yoga instructor messed up running him off. If she would have just shut up about tofu, he might be over there instead of here.
Her loss.
“Do you want a big family?” I asked, already guessing the answer.
“Oh yeah. I loved growing up in a big family. I want at least five myself. I kind of thought I’d have kids by now, actually.”
“Why don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t get out of the military until I was twenty-two. I wasn’t ready yet. And then I was with Celeste. She never wanted kids, but she was a lot younger than me. I thought maybe she’d change her mind as she got older, you know?”
“And she didn’t.”
He shook his head. “Nope. She was fucking pissed at me for breaking things off too. That’s why I gave her everything. It wasn’t her fault. I was the one who changed the rules. I just couldn’t stay in a relationship that was a dead end like that.”
“I see.” A dead end. “And are you going to make your wife give you all these kids you want, or are you going to adopt some of them?”
“Nah, I want them the old-fashioned way.”
A disappointment I had no right feeling dropped into my stomach.
He looked at me with those deep-brown eyes. “How about you? Big family?”
I shook my head, looking away from him. “I’m an only child.”
“But do you like kids? Wanna have them?”
I handed him back his photo, hoping he couldn’t see the crack in my heart through my eyes. “Yeah. I do.”
It wasn’t a lie.
It also wasn’t ever going to happen.
NINE
Josh
She hadn’t been kidding—her futon really did suck. Hard as a rock. When we got back to Kristen’s, I changed into pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. I was standing over the brick of a bed, debating whether the couch was a better option, when she knocked on the door.
She stood in the hall in her curlers, wringing her hands, with Stuntman Mike at her feet looking up at me. I thought for a second she’d seen someone in the yard and had come to tell me.
“Josh? Can you come to my room?”
My wolfish grin broke some of the tension on her face.
“Oh, stop. There’s a spider. I need you to kill it. Please. Before it disappears and I have to burn my whole house down.”
I laughed. “Should I get my gun or…?”
She bounced nervously. “Josh, I’m serious. I hate them. Please help me.”
I pulled a few tissues from the box on my nightstand. “You know, you seem too fearless to be afraid of spiders.”
“A black widow killed my schnauzer when I was a kid. Embracing a lifelong debilitating fear of spiders is cheaper than therapy.” She stopped in the doorway of her room like there was an invisible force field, and I almost bumped into her back.
“Well? Where is it?”
She pointed to the wall on the other side of her bed. It was a decent-size spider. I could see why she was distressed.
Her room was surprisingly girly. I don’t know what I was expecting. She had tons of throw pillows and a soft-looking blanket draped off the footboard. It smelled like the perfume she’d had on the day she wore my shirt—green apples.
Stuntman Mike climbed a mahogany staircase that matched her bed frame and plopped down on the pink floral bedspread with his tongue out.
The brown spider scurried a few inches and Kristen spun and did a little jumpy thing, burying her face in my chest.