Tattoos & Teacups (26 page)

I’d love to carry him through to bed, to cross the threshold with him in my arms, but my knees, back, arms are too weak. Our clothes stay scattered around my office as we silently make our way through to my bedroom, where we collapse on the bed in a tangle of liquefied limbs.

“Chris,” I whisper.

“Mm?”

“Can you remember, back ages ago, when I asked you if you’d wear my ring?”

“Yeah.”

“This is probably a bad time to ask….”

He twists his shoulders so he can look me in the eye. “Rob, did you buy me a ring?”

I blush and shrug. “Maybe. Do you want it?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Are you sure?”

“Rob. Give me my fucking present.”

“I can’t reach it from here,” I say, secretly loving that he’s still exactly as I remember him. “You can, though. Top drawer.”

I’m silently blessing my tiny bed as he reaches for the drawer and retrieves a small suede pouch.

“Is this it?”

“Yeah.”

I prop myself up on my elbow so I can better see him as he tugs open the strings and pulls the silver ring out.

It was bought when I was Christmas shopping months ago. I was in the mall with Chloe, helping her pick things out for her brother and sister and Lu and Mike, when we passed the jewelry store. In the window was a display of men’s rings, and my eyes were immediately drawn to a selection of wide silver bands inlaid with strips of beautiful dark wood.

The contrast appealed to me, and when we were done and I’d dropped Chloe home, I went back and bought one for him. Even though he was miles and miles away. That didn’t seem to matter for some reason.

While Chris runs his thumb back and forth over the ring, I suddenly feel a spike of rejection in my stomach. It was the wrong time to do it. He feels like I was pushing him back into the relationship. It’s too soon.

“Oh, Rob,” he whispers and rolls over into my arms.

“You like it?” I dare to ask.

“It’s perfect.”

“You don’t have to wear it all the time,” I rush to explain. “I won’t be upset if you don’t want to.”

Silently, he hands me the ring. “You put it on,” he says.

And now it’s up to me. I took a guess when picking the ring size, but I was thinking of his fourth finger when I did. All I want to do is be a part of him again, so as I nudge him back onto his side, I take his right hand in mine and slide the ring onto his finger.

Then the rush of worry comes.

“Are you sure this is okay? I don’t want to be the one who ties you down….”

“You’re not tying me down,” he says, rolling the ring around on his finger with his thumb. “Why would you think that? And if you say it’s because I’m young, I might have to smack you.”

I wonder for a moment if he really will. “But you are young.”

When it comes, it’s a stinging slap to my ass. Not that I mind.

“I’ll do absolutely anything for you,” I vow. “If you want the moon, I’ll get them to gift wrap it.”

“You’re such a romantic,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Thank you. For all of it.”

“Anytime.”

And I mean it.

Chapter 16

T
HE
conversation about getting a new place together turns into consulting with a realtor much sooner than I had anticipated. Still, I want to show Chris that I’m serious about us making a life together, and the agency seem to be more than competent, so really there’s no reason for me to delay anything.

“We should take Chloe with us,” Chris says after I’ve set a date for some viewings. “I want to make sure wherever we move to, she’s happy there as well.”

“Sure. I’ll call her.”

“Hey—does she know I’m back?”

I shake my head. I’ve selfishly been keeping him to myself.

“Don’t tell her. Then it can be a surprise.”

I call Lu, just to make sure she doesn’t have plans and to see if Chloe is even at home. Apparently she has homework, but Lu is happy for us to take her out for a couple of hours.

“You know Cassie will want to come too,” I say as we drive out. “She missed you like crazy.”

“I don’t mind.”

Clearly my plan for a romantic afternoon looking at possible love nests needs to be adjusted. Still, I can’t really complain about how much Chris seems to care about my daughter and her happiness.

The house seems quiet and calm when we pull up outside, and I’m sure this is merely a front for the chaos inside. We decide to ring the bell rather than let ourselves in, and it takes a good few minutes until there’s a response.

I can hear Cassie thundering down the stairs screaming, “I’ll get it, I’ll get it!” and I look to Chris with a smirk.

The door clicks and swings open, and Cassie stands there, openmouthed for a moment. Then: “Uncle Chris!”

In a move they don’t seem to have forgotten how to execute, she jumps into Chris’s arms and he swings her around, laughing.

“Oh, I missed you, Pumpkin Pie,” he says, tickling her ribs.

“I missed you too,” she says seriously. “Are you back for good?”

“For good,” he promises.

We take a few steps inside, and I shut the front door. The noise of someone else rushing down the stairs reaches us as I do. Chloe stops much as her sister did but affects a calm nonchalance the polar opposite of Cassie’s reaction.

“Hey, Dad. Chris. You’re back.”

“I am,” he says.

“For good,” Cassie adds.

She smiles. “Good. Does Mom know you’re here?”

“I called her earlier to let her know we were coming. We’ve got an appointment this afternoon with a realtor to look at a couple of houses. Do you want to come with?”

Her eyebrows rise up to her hairline. “Are you serious? You’re moving out of the moldy apartment?”

“It’s not moldy,” I protest, stung. “But yes. We’re going to look for a new place.”

“Can I come?” Cassie asks.

I catch Chris’s eye over her head. She’s still balanced on his hip.

“If you can promise to be a very, very good girl,” he tells her.

“Pinkie promise,” she says, holding out her little finger. Chris hooks it with his own, and they shake on it.

“Come on, Cass,” Chloe says. “You need to get changed if we’re going out.”

The little girl seems to be in play clothes, a pink tracksuit, and although I don’t have a problem with it I know Lu has high standards of how her children look in public.

“Can I choose?” Cassie asks as Chris puts her down and Chloe takes hold of her hand.

“Sure. Mom’s out in the garden with Carter,” Chloe says as they head back upstairs. “I’m sure she’s dying to see you.”

I know my daughter well enough to interpret that her mom is going to want all the gossip about Chris’s return to Boston, and I’m not disappointed.

Now that Carter is older and far less breakable-looking, I’m happy to take him as Lu and Chris “catch up.” She gives him the obligatory “Don’t you dare ever hurt Rob again or I’ll kick you in the nuts” speech, and I let her, partly because I know she loves me and it’ll make her feel better.

I’ve arranged to see four houses, one not too far from where Lu lives, and fortunately that’s the first one on the list. I get Chris to call ahead and let the realtor know we’re running slightly behind schedule. In allowing Cassie to choose her own clothes, we have a three-year-old in tow wearing pink cowboy boots, green, reindeer-patterned leggings, and a T-shirt with Elmo printed on it. Never mind. I live and learn.

Jessica—the realtor—doesn’t seem to mind as I introduce the fairly ragtag bunch of people she didn’t know I was bringing with me.

“Are these your children?” she asks.

“Chloe is my daughter,” I say. “Cassie is… extended family.”

Thankfully she doesn’t push the issue. It’s far too complicated to try and explain.

The first house is slightly bigger than I expected after looking at the pictures online. It’s a new property, brand new; no one else has lived here. We follow Jessica around, nodding at all of the features she points out, but I can’t help but feel like the place is too cold. Too clinical.

When we get to the bathroom, which is just… white, everywhere… white toilet, tiles, shower, bath, floor, towel rail, the towels on the towel rail, the toilet paper… I decide that this isn’t the place for us.

“I’ll let you have a look around by yourself,” Jessica says and heads back down the stairs. The white-carpeted stairs.

“Don’t touch anything,” Chris whispers to Cassie. “You’ll get fingerprints on it.”

Chloe leads us back through to the master bedroom.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Dad,” she says slowly, turning in a circle with her arms outstretched. “But I don’t think this is the right place for you.”

“Yeah,” Chris adds. “There isn’t any mold anywhere.”

“Watch it,” I warn him. And sigh. “You’re probably right.”

“Next place?” she suggests.

The next place is better. It’s another house, slightly older but with a huge back garden and a tire swing hanging from a large tree. Chloe takes Cassie down to swing on it as Jessica gives us the lowdown.

“There’s work to be done on it,” Jessica warns us as we watch the girls from the patio deck. “There’s only electricity on the ground floor at the moment. And you’re probably going to want to redecorate most rooms.”

“A real fixer-upper,” Chris mumbles. I take his hand and squeeze.

When I finally get Cassie to come back to us, she’s panting hard.

“That,” she says, “is a very good swing.”

“Thank you,” I tell her. “These things are very important.”

Never mind the fact that the kitchen needs to be completely ripped out and reinstalled, or that there’s damp coming up through so we’d need to fit new carpets, and the bedrooms are actually on the small side. There’s a swing in a tree, so the child approves.

In reality, we’re never going to take the place, and Jessica apparently gets this vibe as we leave relatively quickly. I can’t blame her. When we spoke on the phone a few days earlier, she asked a fairly detailed list of questions as to what we were willing to look at, and places that “needed work” I’d agreed to. Just… not quite that much work.

With two houses down and both being big no’s in my book, and Chris’s too if I can read him well enough, I’m starting to feel a bit discouraged. We drive back into the city into one of the more “up-and-coming” neighborhoods, where Jessica starts to enthuse about the quality of the schools nearby.

“It’s a real family area,” she says with a sunny grin.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that we have no intentions of expanding the family or having the girls come and live with us full time.

Still.

The next house is the only one I actually seriously consider. It’s very clean, tidy, clearly currently owned by a family who have made themselves scarce. There’s a playroom, which I mentally earmark as an office, and a well weather-proofed garage where Chris could set up his drums.

The whole place could do with a good clean and possibly some redecorating, but they would be little jobs that could be done as we go along. Chris lets Cassie explore the garden again, and I tug him to one side.

“It’s the best place we’ve seen so far,” he says reasonably, and I agree. “It’s not
the
place, though.”

I sigh and pull him closer to me. “If we look for perfection, though, who’s to say we’ll ever find it?”

“Doesn’t mean we stop looking,” he says.

The sound of little feet on the floor distracts us, and Cassie comes in to what should be a dining room but is being used as storage by the current owners.

“The yard isn’t so good here, Uncle Chris,” she laments.

“Ah, well.” He scoops her up. “One more to go, eh?”

For a moment, just a tiny, little moment, I let myself fantasize that Chris and I have a child together, a house in a nice neighborhood with good schools and a backyard with a really good tire swing. When he looks at me, I get the impression he can see right inside me, down to these silly ideas that I really truly don’t want to act on, but it’s always nice to spend time in someone else’s life. Especially when it’s so easy to shrug it off again.

“Cassie, cover your eyes,” Chris says seriously.

“Why?”

“Because I’m about to kiss your Uncle Rob.”

She giggles but does as she’s told, smacking her hands over her eyes as Chris leans in and kisses me with an aching softness that liquefies my bones and sends butterflies from my stomach to my throat.

God, I love this man.

“I’ve only got one more place to show you,” Jessica says as she locks up behind us. “It’s actually only a couple of blocks over. If you don’t mind walking, you won’t lose your parking space, and we can see some of the area at the same time.”

“Sounds good,” Chris says, and we follow her up the street.

It really is a nice area. There’s a park just a few more blocks over, just a small one but somewhere to go chill out when the weather is nice. And it’s not too far from a street of nice restaurants, coffee shops, and convenience stores. And a Chinese takeout place. These are all very important points.

Cassie takes my hand as we walk, in between me and Jessica with Chris and Chloe behind us. I don’t mind too much. They’re catching up on some soap opera that I don’t watch. I’m lost in my own thoughts and don’t catch what Cassie is saying until I force myself to pay attention.