Eddie
I barely say a word the whole time Finley is going on about the apartments nearby that we looked at earlier today. I’m hanging in midair—not literally—watching Sam to get an idea of what he thinks about everything. Based on the fact that she jumped right into apartments and baby gear, Fin must have given him the basics before we arrived this morning.
“Don’t we still have tons of baby stuff in storage?” Finley asks her dad.
Sam takes a bite of the pork chops he grilled for dinner and nods. “Two of everything.”
“My dad is a hoarder,” Finley explains.
Sam interrupts. “Recovering hoarder.”
“Right. Forgot. You went to all those meetings.” Fin rolls her eyes. “Anyway, a couple years ago, my grandma rented him a storage unit to pile all his old albums, baby stuff, thousands of pages of sheet music…we should go check it out before you buy anything.”
Beside me, Braden sighs. “Babies are gross.”
“Yeah?” I smile at him. “You used to be one, you know? Me too.”
He shrugs. “I don’t remember.”
“I don’t remember either,” I tell him. “But I heard it’s true.”
On my other side, Connor tugs on my sleeve and waits for me to lean down so he can whisper to me. “What are you gonna call your baby?”
“That’s a good question.”
Fin and Sam look at me, but I ask Connor if it’s okay before I say anything. When he nods, I tell them.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Braden asks, then he glances at Finley, his forehead wrinkled. “You don’t look like you have a baby in your tummy. Are you adoptioning it?”
“Adopting,” Finley corrects. “And I’m not having a baby. Eddie is…wait—” She turns bright red.
Sam laughs and then leans on one elbow. “Go on, Fin. I am so going to enjoy hearing you explain this one.”
Finley is desperately grappling for words, so I decide to rescue her. “Only girls can have babies, older girls. But all babies have a mom and a dad. No matter what. And the mom of my baby is someone I’ve known for a long time, way before I met your sister. But we don’t really get along anymore.”
Maybe that was too frank for their ears. I watch closely for any reaction.
Braden is busy drowning his pork chop in ketchup, but he manages to nod and say, “Cool. Is it a boy or a girl baby?”
“Boy,” I say. “But I don’t know what to call him.”
“Darth Vader,” Braden says. “Or Luke.”
“Or Spider-Man,” Connor offers, barely audible.
I hadn’t really thought about the fact that naming this kid something other than Edward will be ruining a four-generation tradition in my family. Will that piss my father off more than naming him Edward? Doesn’t matter. I’m not having a kid with V tacked onto his name.
I offer to help Fin with the dishes at the same time as Connor asks me to check out the puzzle he’s been working on. Finley and Sam shove me out of the kitchen. I follow Connor into the living room to see the massive five-thousand-piece puzzle of the Sydney harbor and opera house in Australia.
I sit down on the floor and study the sections he’s completed. “Wow…you must have worked really hard on this.”
Connor nods, and Braden charges into the room and adds, “He did almost the whole thing at day camp, and then Riley stomped on it. So the counselors let him take it home.”
Connor looks down at the pieces, sliding two around on the rubber mats covering the floor.
“Riley, huh?” I say. I glance at Braden.
He immediately says, “I didn’t see it, ’cause I’m in a different group since the camp people can’t tell us apart. But Riley even tolded me he did it.”
“On purpose,” Connor adds, whispering the words.
I already want to beat this Riley kid’s ass. “He sounds like a bully.”
Connor shrugs, but Braden says, “Duh.”
“I had bullies at my school too.” I dig through the box for a piece to connect. “I tried ignoring them, but that never really works. You know what does work sometimes?”
“What?” Braden says.
“Next time Riley does something that you don’t like, just ask, ‘why’d you do that?’” I tell them. “It makes them so uncomfortable. Well, not everyone. Some kids will probably be, like, because I can, or because I wanted to. But every once in a while, you’ll get to them.”
“I already know why Riley did it,” Braden says. “’Cause he’s mean and ’cause Connor doesn’t tell him to stop.”
Connor glares at his brother but doesn’t object. I put a hand on his back. “It’s okay. Riley probably isn’t easy to stop.”
Bored with the puzzle, Braden heads over to the piano and attempts to play the song from the sheet music in front of him. I help Connor with the puzzle for a few minutes, until he can’t seem to handle Braden tripping over the keys. He sits beside his brother at the piano.
“You’re doing it wrong,” he tells Braden. “Like this.”
I watch Connor play through the music perfectly. He’s really impressive for his age. Beside him, Braden is fuming. Eventually, he shoves Connor’s hands off the keys. “I know how to do it.”
But he continues to mess up with Connor trying to correct him. When Braden looks close to tears, I pick up Connor off the bench and send him back to the puzzle pieces.
“I know how it goes,” Braden says, stubborn as ever. “And besides, I can do it different if I want.”
“Definitely,” I tell him. I play through the right-hand portion of the song and ask Braden to do the left for me. It’s the part that’s giving him the most trouble. He does much better with just the left hand, but when he messes up toward the end, he bangs hard on the keys. Enough to get Sam wheeling into the room from the kitchen.
“Hey, take it easy. That piano’s older than me,” he jokes.
I still Braden’s hand. “Try saying the notes out loud. That helps me when I’m learning a new song.”
He releases a frustrated breath and then concedes to trying again, mumbling the notes out loud. When he gets through it without a mistake—left hand only—he has a huge grin on his face. I look over at Connor and see that he’s also pleased with this.
I clap him on the back. “Nice job.”
“Okay,” Sam says. “You guys better stop practicing before the neighbors accuse me of forcing you into music. Ask Fin if she’ll take you to the park.”
Both of them quickly abandon their activities and head to the doorway where Finley is now standing.
“I can take them,” I offer.
Sam shakes his head. “Let Fin do it.”
She looks as surprised as me by this. I sit up straighter and swallow. Okay, I think this is the part where he tells me what he really thinks of my current situation. While she’s helping the boys find their shoes, Finley gives me a couple glances, a question in her eyes. All I can do is sit there waiting for them to go and listening to my heart race.
When the front door finally closes behind them, I turn to Sam and lean on one elbow. The piano keys respond loudly and obviously, offended by my misuse. I jump a mile, my neck heating up. Then I carefully close the lid and resume my position.
“So…” Sam says, pivoting his chair to face me. It’s incredible how much he and his kids match—the blue eyes, light-blond hair, tanned skin from hours by the pool. “Fin told me that you might need to use me as a reference or support for your case.”
“Yeah, but I totally get it if you don’t want to be involved.” I run a hand through my hair. This is going great so far. Not. “I mean, it’s a train wreck. Or it will be—”
He lifts a hand to stop me. “First of all, I think what you’re doing is admirable. Of course I’m going to help you if you call me up and ask for parenting advice or anything really. So offering myself as your ‘support system’ is an easy decision for me.”
My mouth falls open. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect such a positive response from him. “Really? You mean it? I don’t want to need help, but I guess it’s important. For the case.” I hesitate and then add, “Plus, I probably will need help.”
“You shouldn’t hesitate to ask me,” he says with a tone that is both warm and free of judgment. However, I catch the emphasis on “me.”
I clear my throat. “I’m guessing there’s a but in here somewhere.”
“Not exactly,” he says, his gaze flitting to the front door and then back to me. “But I have to be honest—my daughter…this is not what I want for her. I’m not saying I won’t accept her choices. She’s free to do whatever she likes, and I will always support her. But this isn’t her child. She’s not a pregnant teen—no offense to you and your situation—but it doesn’t seem fair she might have to be tied down like you are.”
“I never asked her to do anything—” I protest.
“I know that, Eddie. Of course I know that. But this is Fin we’re talking about. Do you think she would ever walk away from you, now that you’re planning on raising a child on your own? She doesn’t know how not to be selfless.” He lifts his eyebrow. “My guess is you already know that about her.”
I almost tell him that I’m not taking advantage of her because of this, but I don’t think he meant it like that. I lean further on my elbow, the weight of this hitting me hard. “What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, looking as stressed as I feel. “Maybe nothing. It’s just hard for me to see her doing this again… I mean, she helped raise her brothers when she was still a kid herself. That’s not your fault, and it’s not completely mine either, but that doesn’t make it any easier to see her in the same position all over again. God, she’s not even twenty.”
“I won’t make her responsible for my kid,” I tell him, hoping he’ll believe me.
“No, you probably won’t,” he agrees. “But she will. Just watch, she’ll give up things she wants so she can play house with you. A good-looking guy who loves her brothers and wants to raise a baby on his own—might as well be crack to Fin. And this business plan—”
I straighten up again, alarmed. “What business plan?”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Did she really think I wouldn’t find out she’s trying to buy a studio in the neighborhood? The real estate agent is one of my best friends.”
“You told her you know about it, then?” I ask. This could be a good thing. He doesn’t seem angry. She’s been worried he’d be angry.
“Nah.” He waves a hand. “I’ll let her take it as far as she wants first. She definitely surprised me though. I really thought getting her to move to New York would help…” He hesitates before adding, “I thought she’d go back to dancing. She’s so talented.”
I scratch the back of my head, not sure if it’s my place to tell him that she’s been dancing. A lot. She’s takes a class nearly every night at Iris’s studio. And I can see her changing physically from all the training. She’s always stretching now too. Every time she’s sitting down or hanging out, I look over, and she’s got her legs out to the side, stomach flat on the floor. Sometimes, I can’t even watch her when she’s like that. It looks too painful.
I decide to tell Sam a small portion of Fin’s secrets.
“She showed me the studio,” I say. “I saw her dancing. She asked me to play a piece from Don Quixote for her. She’s amazing.”
“Yes, she’s incredible.” He scoops up a red ball in the way of one of his wheels and tosses it in the air. “But I’ve known since the day she refused to continue dance anywhere else but her family’s studio that loyalty would be her biggest curse.”
“I kind of like that about her. Loyalty is pretty much obsolete in my family.” I take a breath, hoping it will clear my head. It doesn’t. “That’s not all I like about her. There are so many things. I think…” Sam looks up at me, waiting. “I think I’m in love with her.”
He stares at me—not with disappointment, luckily. “I figured.”
“So yeah.” My neck heats up even more. I hadn’t planned on saying that out loud. Especially not to Finley’s dad. Before telling her. “That makes it a little difficult to…you know, tell her to get lost.”
“Yeah.” Now he looks disappointed. “I know that too.”
“But I’ll try…” I drop my gaze to the piano, tracing a finger over the cracked wood. “I owe you that much.”
He gives me this look that clearly says bullshit, then he grips my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Well, at least you’re a millionaire. She can marry rich. That was my other dream for her.”
I release a short laugh. He definitely passed on some of his odd, honest sense of humor to Finley. “Glad I could help out with that.”
Sam seems to have some resolve about his concerns. Me, on the other hand… I’m having trouble shaking them.