The twins were too busy following a herd of older children around to be too concerned with my reappearance, and after a few ‘hi-hi-hi-hi-hi”s and a rambling gibberish story, Aviva and Viviana hurried off to play before they got left behind. They were both covered in chicken pox from head to toe, as were most of the children, and the adults still looked pale, sweaty, shaky, and dehydrated. I felt just a teensy bit bad that I was about to go downstairs and have a drink with Jameson instead of cleaning up more barf and diapers, but it faded pretty quickly after Kara scowled at me and told me to stop wallowing in guilt.
She waited until the rest of the adults retreated to either pass out on the couches or in the other apartments before she edged closer to the door that separated us. “Okay, spill. Something is going on with you.”
“What?” I was terrible at hiding things from her, even when I really, really needed to. I didn’t want to expose the night Jameson and I spent together, not when whatever Kara said or didn’t say would no doubt convince me to limit it to only one night. And part of me really, really wanted to repeat the performance from the night before. We were going to part ways soon enough, and one more night together wasn’t going to change that. No one could blame me for enjoying another round.
Even if he turned into a bear.
I hesitated, frowning. What if he turned into a bear in the middle of sex? Did that happen? And would it be more embarrassing to ask Kara that, or Jameson?
Kara folded her arms over her chest as she studied me. “Seriously. Spill. you’re not going to stress a pregnant woman out, are you? It’s bad for my blood pressure, and God knows that’s high enough with these idiots around,” and she jerked her thumb over her shoulder at where Owen argued with another big, bearded man about whether beer was sufficient for hydration. Apparently one read monks drank it in the Middle Ages, instead of water, therefore wanted to only drink beer until the vomit comet stopped.
I suppressed a smile and cleared my throat a few times. “Well, here’s the thing.”
“Holy fucking shit, you slept with Jameson!”
I jumped up and waved my hands for her to shut up, but none of the other adults appeared to be paying attention and only Mischka overheard — and he just made a ‘oooh, that’s a naughty word’ kind of face. She held her stomach and pointed at the floor in front of her. “Sit your ass down and start talking. What happened?”
My cheeks tightened with embarrassment and a little bit with the excitement of finally getting to share some girl talk with Kara. I’d been looking forward to it for months leading up to my little trip. Phone time wasn’t good enough, not when we both had serious distractions around us all the time, and it had been so refreshing to think of sitting back, sipping some tea, and going over every last sordid detail of my love life. Or lack of love life.
“We just…” I shrugged and pretended to watch as Aviva pulled an atomic elbow off the couch into a big dude’s guts as he lay on the floor, and winced in sympathy. “We have more in common than I thought, and we had a few drinks while we were wrapping gifts, and…”
And I went into his room and propositioned him, I should have added.
Kara must have sensed it, although she didn’t immediately call me out. “Did he put the moves on you? Owen warned him to chill out and leave you alone, and after the hot tub last night, I figured he would have taken that seriously.”
“Well, he did. Take it seriously, I mean.” I cleared my throat and lowered my voice a little more, just in case they all had supersonic hearing. “Yeah, but no one warned me to stay away from him.”
She blinked, then started grinning. “Daaaaamn, girl. Okay okay okay. Are you gonna… I mean, was it just the sex?”
“Of course it was just sex,” I said under my breath. “What did you think it would be, a ring and forever? Come on. That kind of guy… Look, we had a few drinks and shared our sad background and soaked in the hot tub. I decided I wanted a little more, and went into his room.”
She grinned, then made a face and rubbed her stomach. “I guess you guys do have a lot in common. As far as both of you having shitty childhoods, anyway.”
“Are you okay?” I gestured at her stomach. “You’re not having contractions, are you?”
“Just some Braxton-Hicks,” she said. Kara braced one hand at the small of her back, the other on her stomach, and screwed up her face for a long, long moment. Then she exhaled, shaking her head. “It’s like the worst kind of constipation. But I don’t want to talk about that and the various things leaking and oozing from my body. There’ll be time for that later. I don’t want you to get hurt, babe. Jameson isn’t exactly a good bet. I mean, he’s nice and all, and he’s got that fabulous ass, but he just kind of roams around doing odd jobs and occasionally taking really dangerous assignments to places that Sasha doesn’t talk about. He reminds me of Nick. I love my brother, but I wouldn’t let him near any of my friends.”
“I know,” I said, laughing. Her brother was a hot sack of gorgeous trouble wrapped up in bad decisions and a constant supply of deadly weapons. He was an even worse decision than the twins’ father had been. I’d never even been tempted by Nick, despite the roguish grin and smooth pick-up lines; he was a project even beyond my bad judgment. “It’s not like that. I’m not looking for forever, Kara. Just Mr. Right Now. We had some fun, we might have a little more, then after Christmas I’ll head west and I’ll never see him again. It’s perfect.”
“You sure you want to head west?” Kara made another face and glanced over her shoulder at where Owen watched her, a hint of worry between his eyebrows. “I was hoping we could tempt you to stay here. You know, since I’m here and there are a lot of people who could use a nurse, and your girls would have a literal pack of children to play with at all times… Built in babysitting, right? Look at this place. The entire building is secure, filled with people who would die before they let anyone near your kids, and they turn into bears and wolves. Would you even consider it?”
I blinked, looking from her to the various adults and poxy children. “Well, I didn’t… I haven’t thought about it. I didn’t want to impose, and I don’t even know if there are jobs here, and…”
“Just think about it,” she said. Kara patted her stomach and waddled back a few steps. “Think about it. Please. I would love to have you in the same city again. Please?”
Flustered, I shrugged and looked behind her at the roving children. Aviva and Viviana definitely enjoyed having so many instant friends of different ages. I didn’t like not having a plan in place, even a questionable plan, and changing things on the fly like that… Plus that assumed that Jameson was going to stick around past Christmas, when no one had even said what his plans were. She just said that he was a rolling stone and didn’t seem to have any real plans. Was I considering staying in the city for the minute chance that he might stick around for a longer term fling?
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know, Kara. It would be cool to live in the same city again, and having a built in support network would be a nice change, but…”
“But what?” She quirked an eyebrow. “How could this possibly be worse than moving to the desert, being alone and overworked, and trying to furnish a shitty apartment with third hand furniture?”
Ouch.
She sighed and rubbed her temples just as firmly as she’d rubbed her stomach. “I’m sorry, babe. I’ll blame that bitchiness on the pregnancy hormones. We both know it’s just my personality, but give me the excuse this time.”
“Always,” I said, laughing. “You’re not wrong. It’s just a little too close to home. I’ll have to think about it. I already applied to that job and they’re waiting for me to show up, so…”
“What are they going to do if you don’t, hunt you down? Drag you out there by your hair? Come on.” Kara rolled her eyes. “I’ll send Nick out there to straighten them out, if I can find the bastard.”
“That won’t be necessary. I don’t want to be responsible for any deaths,” I said. “I’ll research some of the hospitals here, see what’s available. The schedule has to be flexible, otherwise done child care is too…”
“I have to go,” she said. She turned green and stepped back, looking more like a bullfrog than my friend. “Okay. We’ll talk later. This might… be a while.”
I waved her off and promised to bring more sports drink, although that required Jameson going out to acquire it. I paused by the window in the stairwell overlooking the backyard and the hot tub, and watched the snow fall for a long moment. Kara made the offer out of the goodness of her heart, but she didn’t take into account the kind of effort that went into setting up a home with two toddlers while working. I had a plan already, and if I changed it, I just… What would I do? I leaned my elbows on the window ledge and rested my forehead against the cold glass.
What was I really risking by staying? It wasn’t about the job or finding an apartment. Setting up a new apartment would be massively easier with Kara and her friends to help. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to take advantage of their kindness, I knew they’d help in almost any circumstance, just from knowing them a couple of days. Kara already knew the neighborhoods to avoid, so that would be a shortcut, instead of having to figure out on my own where was cheap enough to afford but still safe enough that I didn’t have to worry about being murdered in my sleep.
But if I stayed, then what? What happened with Jameson? If he blew town two days after Christmas, I had my answer. But what if he stayed around and didn’t want to see me? What if I didn’t want to see him? He was friends with Kara’s friends, so we’d cross paths. What kind of high school bullshit would we have to worry about?
I groaned and traced shapes in the frosty patch left by my breath on the glass. I had too much to worry about in my real life to go searching for trouble and drama with a man. Even one as handsome and sexy as Jameson.
Whose last name I didn’t even know. Wasn’t that something you were supposed to know about a guy before deciding to change your life to include him? I sighed and straightened, heading downstairs to where he wrapped presents and made whiskey sours. I wouldn’t stay because of Jameson; he was both a bonus and a complication, a reason to stay away. I didn’t want to worry about hurting feelings or creating an uncomfortable situation. That was why skipping town was my normal solution for everything. No one could hurt you if you left fast enough.
Fine. I’d think about Kara’s suggestion to stay in the city, and I’d definitely look up the local hospitals. Chances were most of them needed nurses, since it seemed like everyone did, but the issue was always whether I could make the schedule work for me and the girls. I wasn’t going to conclude Jameson in the calculus of whether to stay or leave. I couldn’t. There wasn’t enough there to consider him an asset or liability. He just was.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs as the sound of whistling and Christmas music reached me from the other side of the gym. The man listened to Christmas music, including sleigh bells. That went into the liability column. But maybe I needed to spend another night with him, just to make sure I knew what to put in the ‘asset’ column. Just to be sure.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing at myself. Kara would approve of testing the merchandise a second time, although I needed to clarify whether the bear side of him could also appear in the heat of the moment. I wasn’t about to sign up for that. I braced myself for seeing the Christmas vomit all over the gift room, and leaned through the open door. “All right. How much do we still have left?”