Zoey And The Nice Guy (Big Girl Panties #1) (6 page)

“Honey, what happened?” he asked, approaching her.

She backed up a step. “Why don’t you wipe that ridiculous expression of concern of your big, stupid face and leave me the fuck alone? No one wants you here, Kellen, just leave!”

He snapped. “God dammit, Zoey, what is your problem? I’m trying to be nice to you.”

“Go to hell!”

“You really are demon-spawn, aren’t you? Know what? You go to hell because that’s sure as fuck where you came from. I’m glad they throw darts at your face.”

She stopped shrieking at him. “What? Who throws darts at my face?”

He swallowed and shrugged. “Just some guys at some bar.”

“Jayce’s bar?”

He shrugged again.
 

“Jayce lets them throw darts at my face?”

He decided that the sky looked awfully interesting at that moment.

She huffed. “Anyway. That was my mom.”

She had his attention again. He didn’t know anything about her relationship with her mom.

“Apparently she’s coming for Christmas.”

“And…that’s a bad thing?” he asked.

She glared at him, and he thought, for a moment, that she was going to shut him down again. But then she softened. “Yeah. It’s a bad thing. I had these plans to give Sophie and Matthew this precious little Christmas. We were going to get a tree today while Addy took Maya to the courthouse, and I thought on Christmas morning maybe you could dress up as Santa.”

Something tightened in his chest. “You were going to ask me to be part of your Christmas?”

“Yeah,” she said. She leaned forward and patted his stomach. “You’re halfway there. All you need’s the suit.”

He looked down at his perfectly flat belly. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing but solid abs, there, see?” He lifted his sweater just enough to show her.

She bit her bottom lip and arched a brow at him. “So there is. My mistake. Yum, Kellen.”

He felt his face go suddenly hot. Even in that moment he recognized the need for caution. This fire was extremely volatile and wildly unpredictable.
 

“Anyway,” she went on, as though she hadn’t just rocked his moment, “if my mom comes, I don’t know how I’ll be able to give them that Christmas.”

“Why not?”

She leaned down and picked up her decimated phone. Then she sat on her porch step. Her breath formed little clouds in front of her. “I know in my head that my mom isn’t a good person. I know she’s selfish and that she’ll hurt me, but for some reason, whenever I see her, I just want to throw my arms around her and beg her to love me. It’s just the most pathetic thing. Basically, I hate myself when she’s around.”

Kellen sat next to her but not too close. The thread of trust being offered him was extremely fragile. “I didn’t know you and she weren’t close.”

“As soon as I was old enough to start staying by myself, she started taking off. She’d have these phases of just acting like this really good mom. She’d bake cookies and get us matching Easter dresses. Other times, she’d find a boyfriend and disappear for days at a time.”

Kellen watched her hands fidgeting with her broken phone. He desperately wanted to hold them. “That why you think nice people are fake?”

“Oh, God, don’t psychoanalyze me, Kellen. Nice people
are
fake. I’d rather you just tell me to my face that you think I’m a bitch than to tip-toe around me out of fear.”

“It’s not always fear. Sometimes, I just don’t want to upset you.”

“Worse, then, because you think I’m too crazy to be trusted with the truth.”

He smiled down at his hands. “Well, if it’s honesty you want….”

She sat up straight and shoved him. “I’m not crazy. I just have a short fuse.”

He laughed. “Playing fast and loose with semantics, aren’t we?”

“You’re an ass.”

He glanced at her face and was relieved to see humor there. “Let me ask you this; do you think I’m an ass all the time, or is that just for this moment?”

“Just for this moment.”

“Then why tell me? If you know that in the next moment you might think I’m a pretty cool guy, why not wait for the bad moment to pass and avoid hurting my feelings?”

“Because it’s too much work.”

He laughed again. “All right. Well, I don’t mind doing the work. That’s what being nice is. It’s about empathy.”

She snapped her phone in half and then stopped fidgeting with it. Broken shards of glass and plastic were on the verge of falling in her lap.

“So…you want your mom to love you? Nothing wrong with that.”

“You don’t think it’s pathetic? I do. I’m twenty-four years old. I’ve been on my own completely since I was sixteen. I think I’m fairly well adjusted.”

He barked a laugh and immediately regretted it. He stared wide-eyed at her, not sure what she would do. She studied him for a moment before smiling and lifting her middle finger to him.
 

“I’ve got a job, and a home, and no debt outside a mortgage. That’s more than a lot of people my age can say.”

“You’re right,” he replied. “You’re doing fine, Zoey.”

She nodded, satisfied. “So, with all of that, why do I still crave her love? I’m secure. I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone.” She blew out a wistful breath. “Anyway, I told her she had to stay in a hotel. So, maybe that will help.”

She dug the toe of her shoe into the winter-dead grass at the base of the steps. After a few seconds, he realized she wasn’t talking. Or yelling. Or pushing him away. He moved a little closer—a very little. He put his hand on the step behind her. Still she didn’t push him away. He tried to think of something nice to say to her, when it suddenly sank in that she didn’t like his nice talk. She’d only ever responded positively when he yelled at her. What the hell was he supposed to do with that information?

“She can’t be half the crazy bitch that you are,” he said. “Maybe Christmas won’t be so bad.”

She laughed and shoved him with her shoulder. “You sure know how to make a girl blush.” At that, she stood up, smacked him upside the head, and went inside. He decided to take it as a compliment.

Later that morning, Zoey found herself alone with two traumatized children in a Christmas tree lot. “Um. That one’s cool,” she said, pointing to a six foot tall pine.

Matthew shrugged noncommittally. Sophie clung to his side.
 

“You know, you guys get to pick. Whichever one you want. Did you see that monster over there?” The Douglas fir she pointed out was well over six feet tall. She wondered if it would even fit in her house once she got it on the stand.

The kids didn’t answer. Matthew took Sophie’s hand and meandered around the lot. He stopped in front of a scrawny, little Spruce. “It’s a Charlie Brown tree,” Sophie whispered to her brother. Then she looked at Zoey. “Nobody will buy it because it’s so skinny. Can we get it?”

“You want a skinny tree? No problem. Do you like it, Matthew?”

“Sophie picks the tree,” he said decisively.

“All righty, then.”
 

Zoey had told Kellen she was taking his truck and he could use her car for the day. He hadn’t argued.
 

She found a guy to load the tree in the back of Kellen’s truck.
 

She paid the tree guy and then helped the kids in. She liked driving the truck. It seemed out of character for Kellen, whom she’d never considered as outdoorsy or particularly macho.

There was a bag of trail mix in the cup holder and a pair of sunglasses on the visor. She put her hands on the wheel where his hands had been and wore his sunglasses.

“Hey, do I look like Uncle Kellen?” she asked the kids.

They laughed at her, which felt good. She had a hard time getting a smile out of them, normally.

“I’m Uncle Kellen, and I smile all the time,” she said, in her best Kellen voice. “And I only say nice things and everybody loves me.”

The kids laughed even more.
 

“Now you kids behave, or I might have to give you a stern talking to.”

They were in gales and she found herself laughing, too. Kellen really was too precious. She wasn’t sure what had changed. Maybe it was the way he’d taken care of Maya yesterday. Or the way he stood for himself when Zoey tried to push him away. Whatever it was, she decided she didn’t mind having him around so much.
 

They went home. Maya and Addy were still at the courthouse. Kellen had gone to meet with his parents and explain the situation. So, she was on her own to wrestle the tree out of the truck. She laid it across her porch and found her stand in the garage. She screwed the stand onto the trunk of the tree and then stood it up. It was barely as tall as her and had lost about half its needles in the process of getting it home. The kids were grinning when she brought it inside, so she guessed it had done its job.
 

She sat it in the corner of her living room, at the end of the sofa. “You guys wanna decorate it?”

“Mom usually makes cookies and plays Christmas music.”

She sighed. “Cookies. Hmm. I’ve never made cookies. Is it hard?”

They shrugged, looking wide-eyed and adorable.
 

“Maybe we’ll go to the store and get the ingredients, and then your mom can help us when we get back.”

“She should probably rest,” Matthew said.

Zoey got a little twinge in the vicinity of her heart. “She should. But maybe she can tell us how to do it and we can make them while she rests on the sofa. Would that work?”

They both nodded. So they piled back into the truck and headed to the grocery store. Zoey didn’t know what they needed or how much, so she just bought whatever the kids said. She was pretty sure they ended up with way more candy than was strictly necessary when making cookies.

They went home, again, and this time, Maya and Addy were there. Addy was settling Maya into her recliner. She was still so stiff and sore. Damon deserved to die.

The kids followed Zoey in, carrying bags of groceries. She couldn’t believe how helpful they were.
 

“Hey, babies,” Maya said.
 

The kids put the groceries in the kitchen and went to her, but stood back.
 

“Come here, Sophie,” she said. “If you sit on my left leg like this, I’ll be just fine.”

Sophie carefully climbed onto her mother’s lap and leaned against her.

“Matthew, I’ve got a spot right here.” She patted the chair. There was a thin strip of space between her and the arm.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t hurt me. I’m tough as nails. Besides, I need to snuggle with my babies.”

He put his knee on the chair and wedged in next to her, keeping the jostling to a minimum. She didn’t even wince as she put her arm around him and brought him to her side.
 

Zoey bit her lip. Maya’s fingers gently stroked the cheeks of her two, little cherubs. Zoey blinked, trying to trace in her mind the journey that this woman had taken from the girl she used to hang out with in the gym after school. She’d gone from playing truth-or-dare at their slumber parties to breastfeeding a baby in her prom dress.
 

Zoey remembered that prom night.

Maya had dropped out of school to live with Damon and raise her baby, and Zoey had graduated early, but Addy was kind enough to ask them to be her dates to senior prom. Zoey and Addy drove in Addy’s Camaro to Damon and Maya’s apartment. Only a week before they’d taken Maya shopping for a dress. Now they would get to see her wearing it.

Maya opened the door to their knock. She smiled and hugged them. “I can’t believe you’re taking me to prom! This is so amazing.”

She was in a shimmery, blue halter dress. Zoey whistled at her. “You look so hot. Your breasts are amazing.”

“God, Zoey, boundaries,” Addy grumbled.

“I know,” Maya answered. “I love breastfeeding. I’ll be sad when they go back to their normal size. Damon’s even mentioned I should get a boob job. Come on in.”

Zoey’s mood faltered as she followed her friend inside. It didn’t seem a very kind thing for a husband to suggest to his wife.
 

“Wow,” came a male voice off to the right. “You girls look fantastic.” Kellen was in the kitchen holding his nephew in one arm and wiping down the counter with his free hand. Maya went to him and took the baby. She sat in her rocking chair in the living room and unclasped her halter top, baring her breasts. Zoey glanced at Kellen. He was smiling adoringly at Maya, not at all ogling her breasts. Zoey wondered if maybe he was gay.

She and Addy took seats on the sofa. Zoey’s tension rose when Kellen sat in a chair next to her. He smiled at her. “How’s school?” he asked.

She glared at him and then rolled her eyes.

“School’s going well,” Addy said. “How’s college?”

“It’s cool. I wish I’d done what Zoey did and gotten dual credits and taken CLEP tests. She’s eighteen and already a junior in college. I think that’s just amazing, Zoey. A real accomplishment.”

“Whatever,” Zoey muttered.

“No, really. I truly admire you. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard.”

“Jesus, what do you want?”

He blinked and sat back, his smile fading to a frown. “I don’t want anything. I just thought—“

“I don’t really care what you think.” Zoey turned to Maya. The baby was sucking away, making little grunts and snorts. “He’s really hungry, isn’t he?”
 

Maya smiled. “Always.”

“She tried to nurse him in church,” Kellen said with laughter in his voice. “She thought she could do it with a blanket there in service and no one would know. But he smacked and snorted like a pig routing around for food. Everyone was turning around looking for the source of the noise.”

Maya giggled.

Zoey wished Kellen would just vanish. She kept her shoulder turned to him and pretended he wasn’t there. “How long will you breastfeed?”

“Not much longer, I think. He’s already doing bottles half the time. Which is why I can go to prom tonight. Mattie loves being fed by his uncle Kellen.”