Completing the Pass (16 page)

“Nice drawing.”

“Ah!” Carri rocked back in shock, then nearly rolled down the crumbling driveway's incline when something stopped her from behind. She looked upside down and found Josh's face looking down at her. “Asshole. What the hell was that for?”

“I've been standing here for five minutes. I thought you knew and were making me wait.”

“I wouldn't do that.” She righted herself, setting the sketch pad and pencil to the side, considering the house once more. “Okay, yeah, I would. But I didn't hear you.”

“I can tell.” Josh sat beside her and picked up the pad. “It's not perfect, but it's easy to see what you want. Is this how it starts for you?”

“Usually. Location is paramount, followed by good bones. Everything else is superficial.”

“Hmm.” He just kept looking at it, then the house it was roughly modeled after, then her. “It's not something I could understand, but you seem to love it.”

“I do. I sort of fell into it by accident, but now that I'm in it, I love it. Hunting the bargains, picking the comps, negotiating the price, figuring out what work to do and what to skip . . . Sorry.” She flushed a little and reached for the pad. “I could go on for a while. I'm like a commercial for HGTV that can't be muted.”

He handed back the pad without mockery. “You love what you do. That's pretty rare anymore. Don't apologize. I like hearing you talk.”

It sounded so sincere. But Josh could easily have ulterior motives. “Why are you over here? I didn't hear you drive up.”

“I walked. Visiting my mom. And you.” He nudged her shoulder with his. “Why does that surprise you?”

“Why does what surprise me?” She made a show of flipping her sketch pad back to the front, not meeting his eyes.

“That I came over to see you. Your mouth dropped open like a bass heading for bait. We've been together twice now. It wasn't enough for me. I thought I made that clear.”

Turning, she watched his eyes change as they focused on her own. Watched the pupils dilate a little as he leaned forward. “It's not . . . I don't know.”

“Come home with me. Just for a bit.”

“Dinner,” she started to protest.

“Dinner will wait. Come home with me.”

“You need an ego kick?” she asked, rocking away from him a bit. “Need someone to poke holes in your God complex?”

“Maybe I just want you.” When she said nothing, he chuckled and tapped her chin. “Close the mouth, bass. Let's walk back to my mom's and get in my car. I'm taking you over to my place.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” Carri whispered two hours later, rubbing a hand over Josh's still-racing heart.

He was in too good a mood, too fine a head space for conversation. But the idea of her imparting a real secret, trusting him . . . “Yeah.”

“Sometimes, I hate spending time with my dad.”

He lifted one hand, though it nearly killed him to, and began to massage her scalp through her short, feathery hair.

“You're not saying anything,” she pointed out after a moment, still not looking at him in the darkening room. “You're judging me.”

He stayed silent. He sensed she needed to work through it on her own.

With a huff, Carri shook her head against his chest. Her short hair tickled his skin. “Of course you're judging me.
I'm
judging me. I mean, who the hell says that about their own father, when he's sick? I know he can't help it. I know the dementia's not his fault. And I know, deep down, my dad's still in there, somewhere. But spending time with a guy who looks like him but doesn't always act like him . . . it's almost worse than if he was already gone. Is that terrible?” She half-sat up suddenly on her elbow, so that his arm flung against the headboard with a crack. “Am I a monster for wishing I could just run away from it all?”

“No.” Cupping her face, he strained up and kissed her to keep her from talking over him. “No, you're not a monster. You're going through the normal emotions anyone would go through when their father was facing what yours is. I think if you'd accepted it with a smile and never had a moment of weakness, it wouldn't be real. Humans struggle with stuff. We don't always feel consistently about things. We waiver. We debate. We tug. Sometimes we never reach a conclusion.”

“It makes me feel horrible,” she admitted.

“What your family is going through . . . it's daunting. I can't quite imagine it. My dad was, well, you know. He left. That was his choice, and he's a bastard for it.”

The color of frustration and anger and embarrassment bled from Carri's face. “Oh, God, Josh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . . I mean, I know you love my dad like he's your own but . . .”

“But he's not my dad. Because your dad stayed, and my dad didn't. Your dad chose you and your mom, every day, and my dad chose . . . God knows what, but it wasn't us. I don't resent you, Carri.” Not anymore. As a child, hell yeah, he had. But he was an adult now. And more mature than that.

Most of the time.

“I can listen to you have a rough day with your dad and not play the
Why aren't you grateful?
game with you. You're facing a shitty situation. It's fine to not be strong one hundred percent of the time. I'd worry about you if you were.”

“I love him.” Her voice wobbled, and he reached for her, then. “There are other days when I see him again, and I don't even want to blink, or leave the room to go to the bathroom because I want to wring out every second of those good times with him. I'm terrified that they're going to stop coming. That he'll be gone. This swing between loving him and hating the situation . . . it hurts.”

His thumb caressed her cheek in silent support.

“It's exhausting. I don't even know how my mom is coping the way she is. I love him, and he's just . . . not there. It's like talking to a hologram half the time. It looks like him, it walks like him, but he doesn't remember, doesn't know, doesn't understand like my dad. Hollow.”

“Baby.” He pulled her back down against him and kissed the top of her head. “It's okay to hate the disease. It doesn't mean you hate him.”

“I feel so guilty,” she said, her voice cracking.

“It's okay,” he whispered, and the dam burst. With a hiccup, Carri cried against his chest.

“Oh, baby.” Knowing she just had to let it out, let the feelings she'd bottled up for so long loose before they poisoned her spirit, Josh waited while she cried and wailed and clenched her fists in the sheets. While her body tightened and bowed and arched against him, while her back twisted with bone-deep sobs. Sobs that she cried for herself, and for her father who couldn't understand enough to cry for himself.

***

Carri sniffled, then turned her face to the side and started to get up. Josh held her back, as if he didn't want to let her go quite yet.

“Josh.”

“Not yet,” he murmured into the top of her hair.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“To hide?” he asked softly. “Because I think the worst is over.”

Maybe a little, but . . . “No, because I need to use the bathroom.”

He looked skeptically at her but must have seen the fact that she wasn't hiding. “Hurry back.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and let her up.

Carri scooted to the bathroom naked and closed the door behind her. Then she merely gripped the countertop and stared down, unseeing, at the sink.

Her heart . . . God, her heart. He did things like that—holding her while she wept so hard snot ran over his chest—and whispered things that made her feel like not such a monster, made her feel like maybe there wasn't this abyss of hopelessness . . .

He clearly was a worthy foe where the heart was concerned. But this wasn't about the heart. This was about mutual needs.

Right? Wasn't it?

Carri looked up in the mirror, then grimaced. Wow, so that's what a crying jag would do to your eyes . . . Ew. She flushed the toilet to give credence to her escape excuse and splashed some cold water on her eyes. When that did almost nothing to alleviate the puffy redness, she sighed. Nothing to be done.

When she opened the door, Josh wasn't in bed. Or in the bedroom, period. In fact, he'd closed the bedroom door, for some odd reason. Gathering her clothes, she listened intently, then heard a cabinet in the kitchen open and close. Bingo. The post-sex munchies must have hit. She could get behind that. Post-sex, post-crying Carri was starving.

Carri dressed quickly, still buttoning her shirt as she walked out of the bedroom.

“Carri, hi.”

Her head snapped up to see Josh's mother standing behind the kitchen counter, watching her with a smile.

“Uh . . . Gail. Hi.” Carri turned to face the wall and finish buttoning her shirt. Thank God she'd actually put her bra on. “What are you . . . Are you visiting? Does Josh know you're here? Where is he?”

“Oh, I had Josh go downstairs to bring up the casseroles I baked him. I like to bring by a few small frozen dishes at the start of each season. Moms, we just can't quit mothering our babies.” Gail laughed lightly, seemingly unfazed by Carri's undressed appearance in her son's apartment. “He put up quite the fight to go out to my car, though. Now I see why.”

Right. Well.

“Uh, I was having a rough day,” she said over her shoulder.
Work, top button, damn you, work!
“He just helped me, you know, work through it.”

“I'm sure he did.” Smiling as if there was nothing odd about talking to Carri with her back turned, Gail pulled something out of a plastic sack and put it in an open cabinet. “Will you be staying with Josh for dinner? If so, I could make you kids something to eat before I leave. I brought him some noodles, I could do homemade mac and cheese. I seem to remember you enjoying that as a kid.”

Carri's neck burned with embarrassment as she turned to face her mother's best friend. “No, I need to get . . . home. Help Mom, you know.”

“I'll give you a lift, then, so Josh doesn't have to—”

“I'll take her, Mom.” Josh walked in through the ajar door and set five loaf-sized aluminum pans on the counter. “Thanks for the offer.” He kissed her cheek and took the plastic sack from her. “I can take it from here.”

Gail gave them both a sunny grin. “I'm sure you can.” With a pat on his cheek, she said, “I'll see myself out. You two kids have fun! And be safe!”

“I'll walk you down,” Josh added quickly. He followed his mother to the door, then turned around and gave Carri an apologetic look.

What the hell just happened?
she mouthed at him, still feeling shell shocked from the experience.

Hell if I know,
was his reply, then he followed his mother out the door.

***

Josh wondered if Carri was actually spooked by his mother's appearance in his apartment, or if her silence was an indication of something more serious. “I'm sorry again about my mom. She has a key for emergencies but a lot of times she'll just come in and stock my fridge when I'm not around, or even if I am. It's never really been an issue before.”

“I'm not upset. Embarrassed,” Carri admitted, hooking some hair behind her ear and staring straight out the window. “But it's fine. Whatever. It's just . . .”

When she sighed heavily, Josh prodded, “Just what?”

“It's just the moms are so intent on us. Like,
us
.” She motioned between them. “Together.”

Josh thought about that for a second. “So?”

“So, it's weird. It's awkward. It's like it was decided before we could speak for ourselves. An arranged marriage or whatever. Your mom's not as bad about it. My mom is . . . Maeve.”

“Maeve's formidable,” Josh agreed. “I'll give you that. But your mom doesn't decide your life.”

“Feels like it, with this whole debacle of being here while they figure out the insurance issue. I'm glad to get the time with my dad, but Jess is getting antsy holding down the fort, and I have investment property I should be looking at myself, with my own eyes . . . I'm in limbo.”

“You're torn. It happens.” He reached for her hand, and she easily slid hers inside his grasp without looking. As he pulled up to a red light, he glanced down at their laced fingers. Without hesitation, she'd accepted the physical support. They'd spent hours together in his bed, learning each other's bodies in the only way they hadn't been familiar with each other yet. They knew each other's life stories. And there was nobody else he'd wanted to come home to after two games on the road besides her.

From the way he saw it, they
were
together. He wanted to keep it that way. But all this
the moms
talk told him now wasn't the time to push it.

As Josh pulled into the driveway of Carri's parents' house, she gathered her sketchbook. “I'll walk you up.”

“No,” she started to protest, but he'd already turned off the car and gotten out of the vehicle. He heard her sigh from inside just before he closed his door. When he jogged around front and opened hers, she glared at him before stepping out. “You know my mom's probably watching.”

“Fine.” He started to reach for her hand, but she clutched the sketch pad harder. So instead, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed a little. “I'm walking you to the door. I'm not getting down on one knee. Or, actually . . .”

He paused, looked at her confused face, then bent down on one knee.

“Oh, my God,” she said on a quick intake of breath. “What the hell are you doing?”

Her voice had risen several octaves in panic. Josh chuckled, then retied his shoe. When he popped back up, her expression still hadn't changed. “Loose shoelace.”

“I. Hate. You,” she said through clenched teeth. Then she knocked him on the side of the head with her sketch pad and stomped toward the front door. Laughing, he watched her fumble with her keys until she could get the door open.

As she shut the door with a snap and without a backwards glance, his eyes caught the slight fluttering of curtains at the bay windows of her parents' bedroom. He gave Maeve a wave, and headed back to his car, feeling pretty damn pleased with himself.

***

Carri hung her purse up by the coat rack and slid her shoes off, hoping she could sneak into her room without—

“Carrington!”

Damn. Carri cringed, then straightened her shoulders and walked toward her parents' bedroom. “Hey, Mom. Where's Dad?”

“Asleep on the sofa.” Maeve sat on the edge of her bed and patted the comforter beside her. “Sit down. Let's do girl chat.”

Girl chat
, Carri knew, was just her mother's not even remotely veiled attempt at ferreting out information about her daughter's life in order to manipulate and pull the strings. “What about?” she asked cautiously, perching on the very last sliver of mattress, ready to take flight at the first sign of conflict.

“I wanted to talk to you about the day after tomorrow. I was thinking you could take your father to this class they're holding downtown, at the Santa Fe Ballet Academy.”

Carri blinked. That was so not where she thought Maeve was going with this conversation. “You want me to take Dad to a ballet class?”

“It's a class and case study rolled into one. Gail showed me the information.” Her mother's eyes were steely with determination. “There are studies showing the movement and coordination can slow the effects of . . . of dementia.” Maeve hesitated only long enough for Carri to notice. But her mother soldiered on. “I can't take him, can't work my schedule around it. But—”

“I'll do it,” Carri said instantly. “Yeah, of course. Does he know?”

“He knows. Uh, I might have told him you wanted to do a father-daughter ballet class, though.” Her mother rolled her lips in and gave a shameful performance on looking guilty. “I wasn't sure he would go otherwise.”

Carri sighed, but nodded. “We'll try it out.”

“Thank you.” Her mother wrapped her arm around Carri's back and rubbed gently. They both listened to the clock on the wall tick, and to the faint rumble of Herb's snoring across the ranch home.

This was nice, actually. No pushing, no guilt trips, just quiet companionship. This is how Carri envisioned most mother-daughter duos spent time as adults.