4: Raw

 

 

“Why did Morales drop you off at work?”

The sound of Baxter’s voice startled me into nearly falling off the box of potatoes I’d been perched on to rest for a few minutes. I caught myself just barely and eyed him. “What, no thank you for running off your horrid wife?”

“I was going to get to that,” he defended. “I was concerned something had happened.”

The corner of my mouth tugged up. His worry used to be more annoying and oppressive than helpful, but now that I better understood where it came from I didn’t mind so much. “It’s nothing. Gordy just needed my help with something.”

“Help with what?” His voice had taken on a slight edge, no doubt his deal with Gordy flashing into his mind.

“Calm down. He needed a cupcake consultant. I’m in zero danger and one hundred percent not involved.” I left out the insinuation Gordy had made that he might call on me again. Baxter had other things on his mind and didn’t need to bother himself with babysitting me.

“Cupcake consultant?” Baxter asked.

I waved off his question. “I’ll explain later. What’s up with Megan? Mrs. Osgood took her keys away? How’d she manage that?”

“When Megan showed up unannounced, again, Mrs. Osgood told her she’d changed all the locks because of your shenanigans. When Megan handed over her keys, Mrs. Osgood handed her a letter banning her from the property and promising to call the police for trespassing the next time she showed up.”

Deciding I owed my landlord a batch of cookies for standing up to the Wicked Witch of the West, I nodded appreciatively but still had questions. “How’d you two end up at Saul’s?”

“I made it home right about the time Mrs. Osgood was handing over the letter. She demanded I get Megan out of the building if I didn’t want to get kicked out, and then Megan demanded we meet here to discuss the key situation.” He sighed and scrubbed at his eyes. “Thank you for getting rid of her.”

I chuckled. “Well, what are friends for if not being an excuse for your landlord to kick your wife out and for nearly choking said wife to death by way of massive quantities of white pepper.”

“Ex-wife,” Baxter grumbled. “Soon.”

“When is she due?”

Not that I wanted to throw her a baby shower or anything. The judge who had the misfortune of overseeing the circus that was their divorce had already ordered that as soon as the baby was born there would be a paternity test done. He’d tried to get it done already through a non-invasive DNA test, but Megan had rustled up some idiot doctor willing to say the test was too emotionally traumatizing for her to handle while pregnant.

“She’s due December twenty-eighth.”

Less than two weeks. While it annoyed me to no end that Megan looked as good as she did at nine months pregnant, I was nearly as anxious for the little twerp to arrive as Baxter was. Not that it was the baby’s fault it was being used as a weapon, but it was still hard not to automatically dislike it.

Baxter leaned heavily against the large dishwashing sink. “You know what’s messed up about all of this?”

“Everything,” I said with a shrug. Gwen waved a ticket at me before clipping it to the order carousel, but I ignored it for the moment. Baxter needed my attention more than some random customer needed their burger fix.

Shaking his head, Baxter said, “Part of me is disappointed the baby isn’t mine.”

“Really?” I asked, trying to hide the surprise in my voice. I didn’t do a very good job.

He shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly. “Not that I wanted to attempt shared custody or co-parenting with Megan but…the first time she told me she was pregnant, for that half a minute I actually believed the baby was mine, I was kind of…glad. ”

It was the first time Baxter had ever shared such personal feelings about the two children his wife had carried. The first had ended in an early miscarriage, and Baxter was ninety-nine percent sure the child hadn’t been his. The second he knew without a doubt did not share his DNA because he’d been sleeping on my sister’s horribly uncomfortable couch while the child was conceived elsewhere. I’d listened to him vent and rant multiple times over the past several months, but I’d never heard him express something so…raw.

Getting up from the potato box, I crossed the kitchen and slid my arms around his waist to give him a hug. He responded in kind immediately. “I’m so sorry, Baxter. Sorry she cheated on you. Sorry she’s having someone else’s baby. Sorry she’s using the baby to hurt you every chance she gets. I’m sorry…sorry she…”

I didn’t know how to phrase my last sorry. Sorry your wife valued an apartment over your relationship and took her spite to the level of getting pregnant by someone else just to use it against you? Sorry she was evil incarnate? Sorry she was going to be responsible for another human life?

Looking up at him, I suddenly knew what to say. “I’m sorry she’s going to raise that baby instead of you. She’s a selfish bitch and you would have been a great father.”

I’d seen Baxter angry, frustrated, scared—which looked a lot like angry, and on very rare occasions, playful and seductive. What I’d never before seen him was…tearful. I was stunned by the moisture that pooled in his eyes, too stunned to react to him pressing his lips to my sweaty forehead.

“Hey, Sweet Thing, I was…”

I jumped at the sound of Puck’s voice, but Baxter’s arms around my middle didn’t loosen even a smidge. Not until I placed a hand on his chest and gently pushed against him. Only then did he sigh and let his arms slide free of me.

Reluctantly, he stepped back. “I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for dinner. Mine and Megan’s.” He stepped away from the sink and nodded in Puck’s direction on his way out. I watched him go, not sure what I felt in that moment.

“Uh…,” Puck said, “sorry to interrupt?” To his credit, there was only a little jealousy hiding behind his confusion.

Reaching for his hand, I nodded toward the grill where I really needed to get back to work. “Do you have time to keep me company for a while?”

He smiled and took my hand. “I’m not working tonight. This visit is purely me needing to see you…and me needing to give you the low down on this weekend.”

I tugged him over to the grill and scanned the order Gwen had dropped off. While I got started on it, Puck waited patiently for an explanation. We’d had the conversation more than once about what Baxter meant to me and why asking me not to hang around with him despite being in a relationship with Puck would not go over well. What had started out as me needing a major distraction after finding out Baxter was married had turned into something more with Puck. Just not as more as he wanted.

“Megan is due soon, which means the divorce will be final,” I said, “and she’s pulling out all the stops to ruin things for Baxter. Tonight she tried to target me in order to punish him.”

Puck snorted. “How’d that go for her?”

Grinning as I flipped several patties and started putting the buns together, I said, “I kept my promise to Saul that no cops were needed.”

Chuckling, Puck appreciated my spunk, but I could tell he was still bothered by the scene he’d walked in on. “You know I’m trying to understand the relationship the two of you have but…I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that I don’t show up to see you and find him with his arms around you, kissing your forehead.”

“It’s not,” I said, my shoulders dropping. “He’s just really having a hard time, with the baby especially.”

“But it’s not his.”

“But it should have been,” I said.

Puck frowned, but not in frustration this time. “Yeah, that does suck.”

Yeah, it really did. When I first met Baxter, I never in a million years would have pictured him anywhere near a child, let alone being upset over losing one he’d never actually had. Then I saw him with our neighbor’s baby, the careful and comforting way he’d held little Elliot, and I glimpsed the softer side of him he rarely allowed anyone to see. I set the order up on the window for Gwen, wishing people weren’t so cruel to each other.

“What’s going to happen after their divorce is final?” Puck asked.

Surprised by the question, I shrugged. “Hopefully Megan will move on and neither of us will ever see her again.”

“No,” Puck said, “between you and me.”

For a second, I didn’t know what he meant. Then I did. Sighing, I walked over to him and leaned against him for a full-body hug. “I’ve told you before that I have no idea what will happen between us in the long run, but if you think I’m planning to kick you to the curb the second Baxter is officially single, you’re wrong. I’m happy with you, Puck. I’m with you because I want you in my life, not because you’re a placeholder.”

He toyed with my hair, not meeting my gaze. “He wants you.”

“He wants to survive a bitter divorce and get his life under control again.”

“Who says that doesn’t mean he wants to put his life back together with you?”

I snorted. “I’m not exactly known for my stabilizing effect.”

That teased a tiny smile from him, but it faded quickly. “I don’t like being uncertain about our relationship.”

“With or without Baxter, I can’t give you certainty,” I said seriously. “Neither of us knows where we’ll be in a few years, or what we’ll want from each other or life at that point. We live two very different lifestyles. Maybe a traveling rock star can work with an early morning baker. Maybe not. It’s too far in the future to know. I can’t give you a fixed plan, Puck, but I can give you right now.”

I expected him to be at least a little put out by my sort-of rebuff and stark honesty. Instead, he pushed away from the counter with a sexy smile on his lips and pulled me against him. “You think about in a few years or how we might make our different lifestyles work together?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” I said, not sure how to respond to his pleasure.

If he noticed the wariness in my voice, he ignored it. “My mom has an itinerary for this weekend, laid out hour by hour. I’ll email it to you. She’s included you in everything, but she knows you work two jobs and live in the nuttiest apartment building known to man, so if you can’t make something she’ll understand. She’s just excited to meet you.”

My stomach twisted uncomfortably. It was a small blessing that his parents’ gift to each other that year was a holiday cruise to the Mediterranean. It meant they weren’t going to be visiting their kids during the actual holidays and I wouldn’t have to wade through one of my least favorite times of the year being smothered and pretending to enjoy it. It did, however, mean I had to find a way to survive the weekend with them.

“I…will do my best,” I said, already dreading their arrival.

Puck laughed. “It’ll be fun. Promise.”

His promise of fun sounded a lot like my promises to be careful. I was saved from commenting when my phone buzzed. Needing a distraction, I pulled it out and unlocked the screen. My hopes for a nice weekend dipped even more at the sight of a text from Gordy.

Police station. First thing in the morning. Bring answers. And breakfast.