Rob unlocked his door and staggered through to the kitchen, laden with cheap cloth grocery bags. Hoisting the bags to the countertop and disentangling his hands, he paused and rubbed his eyes, which felt like they’d been crusted with sand.
Today had felt about a year long. And now he had Mia arriving to drop Hugo off in about ten minutes. His temples throbbed with the headache that had threatened all day. Well. Might as well put away the groceries, since the bottle of painkillers he had purchased was in those bags somewhere.
Christ, being an adult sucked sometimes.
He was just tossing back a glass of water and two tablets when he heard his front door open and canine toenails in the foyer.
“Daddy?”
“In the kitchen, honey.” Rob put the glass down and wadded up all but one of the cloth grocery bags, stuffing them into the remaining one. Mia arrived with Hugo hard on her heels and walked straight into Rob. He wrapped his arms around his daughter and she groaned.
“I’m so sorry, Dad. But I’m at the end of my rope.”
That makes two of us, he thought. But what he said was, “I got you, kiddo. Don’t worry.”
Hugo took that moment to try to stuff his nose between their legs, to participate in their hug any way he could. Mia stepped back and dropped to the kitchen floor, wrapping her arms around Hugo’s neck. The dog whined and his haunches thumped to the floor.
“It’s okay, boy. Your granddad is going to take really good care of you.” Mia’s voice was choked. Great. She was trying not to cry.
Rob reached down and awkwardly patted his daughter’s shoulder. “Maybe you should stay here tonight.”
Mia pulled her face out of Hugo’s fur and sniffed, scrubbing at her eyes with her hands. “No, but thanks. I have too much to do. As it is, I have to get the rest of his stuff out of the car and get back to packing.”
“I told you I’d come get him,” Rob said, tamping down his rising irritation.
She shook her head. “No. It’s the least I can do when you’re taking him for me.”
“Well, then. Let’s get his stuff.” Rob straightened and pulled Mia to her feet. They went to her car and Rob wrestled the dog’s crate out while Mia took two bags of paraphernalia out of the little hatchback. “What are you going to do with your car? I imagine having one in New York isn’t a great idea.”
“Mackenzie—remember her from high school?—needs one to get to her new job, so she’s going to buy it from me.”
For some reason, this detail made everything seem far more real. Even more real than having Hugo in his house full time. After all, he was used to that, more or less. But Mia was selling her car. The shiny little stripped-down box she had been so proud of being able to afford the down payment and monthly nut on. It had been such a milestone. And she was letting it go. His chest felt tight and uncomfortable.
“Let’s get this stuff inside.” Rob cleared his throat and hefted the folded-up crate, heading for his house. Mia’s car door thumped closed behind him and her footsteps sounded. He was acutely aware of this moment. The last time she would drop Hugo off. Maybe ever.
He set up the crate in his bedroom as usual and Mia laid out the dog’s fleecy blanket inside, her shoulders hunched, her motions abrupt. Rob’s throat tightened. He knew there was nothing he could do to make this any easier for her, but oh, he wanted to. He wanted to have millions of dollars. To be able to buy her an apartment in Manhattan where she could keep Hugo. For her to have anything else she wanted.
But even if he had been a millionaire, he would have had to let her go, to grow up. To be her own person. His jaw clenched.
“So that’s it. All his stuff is here.” Mia’s voice caught and her eyes squeezed shut. “I have to go. If I draw this out, I’ll fall apart.”
“Understood, honey.” He pulled her in for another quick hug before she drew away, bending to press a kiss to Hugo’s head and nearly running from the house.
Rob and Hugo looked at each other.
“Well. Looks like it’s just you and me, boy.”
To put the cap on Kari’s epically shitty day, Rob hadn’t texted like he said he would.
At the last stoplight before she turned onto her street, she grabbed her phone, opened the messaging app, and double-checked. Nope. No texts from anyone today. And since she had only given him her number, she couldn’t text him. She should have gotten his number.
Well, she had expected to get it when he texted her. Like he said he would.
Pulling up in front of her house, she saw Rob’s car. So, he was home. Great. She had read an article a while back about people who “ghosted” on the people they dated. Just up and disappeared without a word. Was she getting ghosted from next door when she might see him any time? Less a ghosting and more of a haunting.
Kari turned off the car and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. She felt like a teenager again. Not in the energetic, youthful, “I have my whole life ahead of me” way, but in the uncertain, angsty, “why didn’t he call?” way.
She took a deep breath, held it for a count of five, then let it go in an explosive whoosh. Time to be an adult again, no matter how adolescent she was feeling. She sat up, grabbed her bag off of the passenger’s seat and got out of the car, keeping her eyes fixed on her own front door, resisting the urge to twist her neck and peer at Rob’s house. She was going to be a goddamn adult if it goddamn well killed her.
She slammed the door behind her. Okay, maybe she was failing a little on the being an adult mission. But it wasn’t like there was anyone on the other side. If a door slammed and nobody was there to hear it, was it really a juvenile thing to do?
Yes, she told herself sternly. Yes, it was. Knock it off. You had a shitty day. Plenty of people have shitty days and don’t manage to turn into absolute brats. Get over yourself.
Well. That was quite the pep talk. Kari set her bag down on the coffee table and went to her bedroom to change out of her work clothes. Maybe she should eat something and draw. That might make her feel better.
Or drawing might make her think about Rob.
Kari forced herself to slide a drawer shut with care, not slamming it. Okay, so no drawing. She could sit and knit. Maybe watch something on TV. But definitely not home renovation shows or anything Disney. She got a glass of water from the kitchen, not allowing herself to look out the back window which gave her a view of some of his yard, and went back to the living room to sit, picking up the sock she had been working on before faucets and painting and great sex with the impossible man next door seemed to take up all her spare time. She turned on the television and found an old show she’d seen before. Something known and soothing. After a few minutes of knitting and watching, her tight shoulders eased a bit.
Her doorbell ringing sent them straight back up towards her ears. She set the knitting down, turned off the television, and went to answer, peering through the peephole first.
Rob. Opening the door, she leaned against the frame. And then she saw the dog. “What’s going on?” she asked, her gaze lifting to his face. He looked as tired as she felt.
“Hugo was getting stressed over Mia’s packing, so he’s come to live with me a little early.”
The dog sat and regarded Kari, head tilting one way and then the other like he was trying to figure something out. Kari, unused to dogs, felt unnerved. “How do you know when a dog is stressed?”
“He wasn’t eating well, shedding too much, wandering around and whining all the time.”
Kari looked at the dog again. She guessed he did look thinner than when she’d seen him before.
Rob went on. “Anyway, I had a completely shitty day and only just realized I forgot to text you. So Hugo and I were wondering if you wanted to go for a walk with us.”
Some small, petty, irrational part of Kari’s brain wanted to hang on to her grievance. He’d had a shitty day? Well, so had she. She wouldn’t have forgotten to text, though. As she’d proved today, she was good old reliable Kari. She was sick of being reliable. She wanted to be taken care of for once, rather than always having to take care of everyone else. And she’d hoped maybe Rob would take care of her just a little bit tonight.
Instead, he was taking care of a dog.
She sighed. She wasn’t being fair. He was also taking care of his kid. And this was one of the things she liked so much about him, the fact that he was such a good dad. She couldn’t have it both ways.
“I wondered why you hadn’t texted,” she said, not yet answering about the walk.
“Yeah, well. Looks like I might have to fire someone. Maybe a couple of someones. And then Mia called and needed bailing out with Hugo and when she dropped him off, she was really upset. I hate seeing her like that.”
Kari bit her lip, guilt surging through her. “I’m sorry. I had a shitty day too. Though not on the scale of yours.”
“It’s not a competition. Come for a walk with us. Let’s blow the shitty cobwebs out of the rest of our evening.”
Kari clung for one last second to her resentment, then let it go in an exhausted rush. “Okay.” She grabbed her phone, a key, and her sneakers, then sat on her front step to put on her shoes after locking up. Rob held out a hand to help her get to her feet.
“Why do you have to fire anyone?” she asked.
Rob rubbed his cheek as they started to move toward the sidewalk. “I got a call before I went into my staff meeting: one of our very senior people—the number two person in the whole company—was getting blown off by my help desk. They were closing out her service tickets without solving her problems.”
Kari shot him a sideways glance. “That’s a firing offense? Rank has its privileges, I guess. Someone wrongs you and off with his head.”
“It’s more than that. Anna—our CFO—has been the target of some nasty harassment in the past. Have you heard of Gamergate?”
“I think I read something about it a while ago.”
“Yeah, well, the movement against women in gaming didn’t end there. The threats against Anna were so vile and frightening that she actually moved. And when my help desk manager investigated the issue of Anna being blown off, she found out that the guy who had been doing it may be a member of the group. She discovered he’d been participating in some online chats using his work computer during business hours. And these so-called people are the worst.”
“How so?”
“They’ve fooled SWAT teams into going to the homes of people they target, saying there’s a hostage situation involved. Law enforcement shows up with guns drawn. More than one person has been killed this way.”
Kari looked a little green at that. In fact, she looked downright weary. The skin under her eyes looked papery and her cheeks were pale. Rob felt awful. She’d said she had a shitty day too and all he’d done was talk about his own stuff. And he hadn’t texted her like he said he would.
His worst expectations about himself were all too true. He was a crappy romantic partner.
Well, he could either wallow or try to do better.
“So how was your day shitty?” he asked.
Kari shrugged. “It wasn’t any different from any other day, really. Just some stuff kind of crashing down on me.”
“Specifics?” Rob paused at the edge of the neighborhood park and let Hugo sniff a signpost. The dog lifted his leg.
“Just…there’s a bunch of things I do at work. None of them are really related to my job in any direct way, but there’s nobody else to do it. So, mostly I do. Today was our quarterly coffee social. I get people to volunteer to make things for it, I get it set up, I clean up after. Today the assistant to the President asked another colleague to help out—she didn’t ask me if I needed or wanted help, but that’s another issue.”
“Why don’t you talk to someone about getting all this stuff reallocated to other people?”
She clipped her lips together for a moment, thinking. “Maybe I will. But the point is, it suddenly struck me that everyone who participates in this thing—actively participates, I’m not talking about just showing up, eating, and leaving—is a woman. And on the rare occasion when a man does participate, people practically throw a parade in his honor because he made a cake. Or, more likely, the guy’s wife made a cake and he heroically carried it in on the correct day. Or even worse, he bought something from Safeway and didn’t even bother to pop the top off. And it just made me so damn mad.”
A wave of defensiveness surged through Rob. Hadn’t he been there for Mia her entire life? “Come on. Not every guy is that bad.”
Kari stopped and folded her arms. “I don’t even know what to do with that statement.”
“I mean, some guys step up.” Rob gestured at Hugo, who was looking from him to Kari and back. “For crying out loud, I’m taking responsibility for a life because my daughter can’t.”
“Are you really making this about you?”
“Well, you made it about my entire gender. Aren’t I included?”
“It’s a really interesting leap you’re making there. I was talking about every guy in my office and you jumped to every guy on the planet.” She stopped and he did the same. “But yeah, maybe it is about your entire gender. How many times did someone praise you for the weeks you had Mia?” She clutched her hands under her chin. “Oh, you’re doing it all on your own?”
The unfairness of the statement galled him. “Well, I was doing it all on my own.”
“And how often do you think her mother got the same sort of praise for doing the exact same thing?”
Rob swallowed. His jaw worked. “Since Liz and I were only minimally civil to each other after the split, I can’t say I know. We didn’t have a relationship where we exactly shared stuff.”
“Well, I can tell you that she probably got none. In fact, she probably got hit with, Oh, how can you bear to be away from your baby every other week? The same thing you got cheers for, she got guilt.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to rein in his temper. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve never even met Liz.” And you don’t have kids he kept himself from saying.
“Actually, I do know what I’m talking about. I’ve been a woman. I’ve talked to a lot of women. This is how the world works. Either women nurture or we’re evil. Nurturing is expected of us. It’s the baseline expectation. But when guys nurture, they’re heroes.”
“I don’t know why I’m the bad guy all of a sudden.” There. He was reasonable. Rational. There was no reason for her to attack him this way.
Kari’s hands slapped against her thighs, an abrupt, violent gesture that made Hugo startle and look at her. “You were the one who made a statement about the guys in my office all about you. But if you want to cast yourself as some sort of victim, I’m going to go home. See you around.”
Kari’s heart hammered so hard it felt like it was trying to escape from her chest. She was lightheaded with fury. Her veneer of calm was closer to cracking than it had been for years. Her stride grew longer and faster until her arms were pumping and her breath rasped in her throat, practically running back to her house.
Reaching her front door, she unlocked it with a shaking hand. Dammit. This time, instead of slamming the door, she closed it carefully, shot the deadbolt, and leaned her forehead against the cool painted surface, her breath returning to normal, her hot anger replaced by freezing disappointment. She pushed away from the door, straightened her spine, and swallowed hard. Time to return to real life. Rob had been wonderful. And then…he’d just been a guy. Another guy.
Dammit again. She had thought he was different.
Apparently not.
The sound of her doorbell nearly made her jump out of her skin. Her hand slammed to her sternum and she breathed deeply to try to settle her pounding heart. She peered through the peephole and her mouth twisted.
“What do you want?” she yelled through the door.
A long pause. “I want to talk.” Rob’s raised voice sounded barely controlled.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Kari, this is ridiculous. Please open the door.”
“We have talked. You hurt my feelings. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Silence. Maybe he’d gone away. Kari looked through the peephole again. Nope, still there, hands on his hips, face averted from the door as if he was trying to gather himself. While she watched, he turned back, scrubbing his hands across his face. Kari tensed, not sure what she was expecting or dreading. An apology? A goodbye? She wanted both. And neither.
“Kari. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. Now please, can I come in?” His words were slow and deliberate. But there was no trace of sarcasm, no lack of sincerity.
Kari bit her lip. He would decide now would be the right time to become reasonable. Dammit. Her hand came up, almost of its own accord, turned the deadbolt, and opened the door.
“May I come in?” His careful politeness, Hugo sitting obediently at his side, twisted something inside of her. She nodded, not trusting her voice, and stepped back from the door. He followed her inside, the dog at his heels.
“Can I get you something?” she asked automatically.
“No.” He bit out the single syllable.
Okay, not so careful and polite as all that, then. Just careful.
She hovered near an armchair, wondering if she should sit, offer him a seat. Or if this was going to be a short goodbye.
Rob rubbed his hand across his mouth. The dog looked up at him. Kari didn’t know much about dogs, but this one seemed worried. He had eyebrow-like markings in his furry face, increasing the effect.
“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings,” Rob said.
“You already said that.”
He held out a hand, as if containing his own patience and reassuring her at the same time. “I wasn’t sure what you could hear through the door. So I’m making sure.”
Kari nodded.
He went on. “Can you tell me where it all went wrong? It seemed like we were just sharing our shitty days and then…I was the bad guy.”
“No, you were sharing your shitty day but when I tried to share mine you weren’t listening to me. I was talking about a specific thing and you made it universal so that it applied to you and got all defensive. I wasn’t talking about you, Rob. And I wasn’t talking about something that applies to all men. But it happens often enough that it’s a recognizable—and shitty—pattern. You reminding me that not everyone behaves this way isn’t news and it doesn’t help anything. I still had a shitty day because of it.” It felt so clear to her and having to spell it out felt so exasperating that she nearly growled.
Rob blinked and rolled his lips into his mouth. The dog whined. “It’s okay, Hugo.” He gave the dog’s head a distracted pat, then looked at Kari. “So. Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know.”
His hand flew up, a frustrated wing, slamming back down on his thigh. The dog flinched but Rob didn’t notice this time. “Neither do I. I’ve always been crap at this, at relationships. Maybe I should just back off. Maybe this was a mistake.”
Kari’s gut twisted. “So that’s it? Just quit?”
Rob shrugged. “I hurt you. I hated hurting you.”
“And you think quitting won’t hurt me?”
“I don’t know. You were pretty mad.”
“Yeah. People get mad. People get hurt. And if people…” She swallowed, then forced the next words out. “Care about something, they work at it. Even if they’re crappy at it at first. If they think the relationship is worth it.”
“You think I don’t care? Like you’re not worth it?”
“If you’re not willing to work at it, it seems that way. No relationship is smooth sailing all the time. And not just romantic ones.” Which was a cliche, of course. Great. Why didn’t she just say something like relationships are work and be done with it? Was she going to have to do all the work here, too?
“It’s not that I’m not willing to work, it’s that I think I’m not good at it at all and am going to end up hurting you even more.”
Kari suppressed a scream. “Do you have any idea how weak that sounds?”