He signed Andres in for science museum day camp and headed straight to Rachel’s. She’d taken a half-day off work, which was ominous.
Or encouraging?
Hard to know. Things were fraught enough at work, and it irked him beyond what he’d have believed, how impossible it was to get a read on Rachel. Which, okay, had more to do with his own issues than her. The painful awareness that half his summer with Andres was over, the suckiness that he couldn’t chuck in all his responsibilities to spend that time hanging out with his son, the way those responsibilities chose this precise moment to ramp into high gear.
The evening before, after a video chat with Annalisa, Andres said, “I miss Mom a million times but when I’m home I miss you a million times.” And then they cried a little. And then they jumped in the pool because their faces were already wet, so it made sense. Or so Andres said, and Theo couldn’t think of any reason to disagree.
Later, he phoned his mom to check on arrangements for their visit. But mostly because—like father, like son—being emotional made him want to talk to her. Which she figured out, of course. And when he talked through the Ron and Sergei situation, she asked what he thought of selling out and moving to live closer to his son. It wasn’t the worst solution to the whole mess.
Which slammed him full force back into his uncertainty about Rachel. Here he was taking her into consideration while making major decisions, without knowing if they were on or not. Or on, but in such a casual place, to her mind, that she’d think him weird for making plans around their relationship. He was full of concepts like commitment and love and the future. As far as he knew, she wasn’t.
He was used to being low priority in his relationships. Everyone had someone else to think of first. He looked after his own self. He was a grown-ass man, so he was plenty capable. He and Annalisa never even pretended to prioritize the other once they had Andres. And of course their son would forever get top billing. Even happy as Annalisa was with Jamie, who she’d practically programmed up from a Perfect Husband Wish List, she put Andres first. Maybe when he was grown that would shift; his own parents didn’t seem to have any trouble filling their empty nest with each other. His sisters were the same with their spouses. Or Phoebe and Max were. Since Helen and Tracy’s twins were younger than Hannah, they were at the stage when taking care of each other meant letting the other take the occasional nap.
So Rachel would never sideline Hannah’s best interests. He’d be dismayed if she did. What he needed to figure out were the chances he could make it to second place with her.
Maybe it was some latent Greek son selfishness, the kind his dad and uncles worked against while Sergei dove headlong into stereotypes. Maybe it wasn’t his most shining quality. However petty, he harbored the dream of ascending the ranks with someone. Even his own son lumped Jamie up there with him. Because Jamie was around. Jamie was teaching him tennis. He and Jamie did puzzles. They had a secret handshake. It wouldn’t shock him to learn Andres also gave Jamie a ‘#1 Dad’ mug for Father’s Day.
What a fucking tangle. The looming countdown until Andres returned to Fort Worth. Ron and the future of Elixir. And whatever it was that Rachel labeled complex.
“You’re all wet.” She stood back to let him in.
“It’s raining.”
Hard to kiss him hello and suppress a chuckle at the same time. “Summer storms. Come in. You need a towel?”
He ran a palm down his face then wiped it dry on his t-shirt. Because it wasn’t already doing a fine job of clinging to his muscled torso. “No, I’m fine.”
No argument from her. Note to self: check pregnancy site for info about horniness in the first trimester. Also, send an irritated text to her friends about how they had no right to stir up all her lustful feelings towards Theo. He could well be three minutes from walking right out of her apartment and only communicating through lawyers in the future.
“Sit. Can I get you anything?”
“No. I ... you’re making me nervous.”
She moved from the side chair to the coffee table in front of him. Their knees knocked together and she put a hand on his wrist. “Sorry. I’ve got some nerves, too. And it’s really good to see you. I’ve—” she cut herself off. No confession of emotions. He might read it as manipulative after the fact. It might even be the truth. More than a few of the long lonely hours she’d spent processing the reality of her pregnancy featured rosy-tinted fantasies of a big happy blended family. So no matter how much she missed him—missed the sex, yes, but also his company, and the way his eyes were always steady and clear, and his thoughtful questions, and how he was a shelter in the storms of life—it was not fair to jump him. Or to bare her trepidatious heart.
“Nerves because of the complex thing?”
“Oh, so much so.” She wiped a presumptuous raindrop trying to sneak its way along the sharp line of his beard. “How are things with your complex situation?”
He shook his head. “Not good.”
“Shit. Sorry. Do you want to keep it to yourself? Or talk about it?” Was she putting off the inevitable? Was it wrong to offer herself up as a confidant in case he needed to put some distance between them?
He didn’t give her a chance to navigate the quandary. “It wasn’t Sergei who embezzled. It was Ron.”
“Jesus, are you serious?” Oh he looked wrecked. “You are serious. I’m so sorry. What happened? If you want to say.”
His hands wrapped around hers. “He—Ron—set Sergei up. Told him I wanted Ron to take the deposits, that I was experimenting with changing the system. He figured Sergei would be paranoid it was because of, well, you. That I was treating him as suspicious because I’d learned something about him from you. Which I think means there’s something more Ron knows about Serg that I didn’t try to find out, but....”
“Wow. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know why Sergei wouldn’t be good at his job. He’s for sure full enough of himself to be confident about it, which seems like half the challenge when you’re managing people.”
He smiled. Rueful as hell, but it was a smile. “Little more to it than that, but yeah. Anyway, Sergei bought Ron’s story, and once the place emptied out for the night, Ron made duplicate deposit slips, pocketed the cash, and counted on me being distracted by Andres and, well, you again, to not notice.”
“But you’d notice sometime. What did he think would happen then?”
Theo shook his head. “He meant to pay it back before then. His nephew has a gambling problem, and needed the cash to get a bookie off his back. There was some plan about selling his truck that hit a snag. So in came the backup plan: stealing from the company.”
“Wow. And he just told you all this? But you were talking to him about it on Friday, right? And you thought it was Sergei then.”
“He didn’t count on me talking to Sergei until he paid us back. Figured if he confessed after restitution I’d shrug it off or something.”
“That’s kind of an asshole move. Why didn’t he ask you for a loan or something instead of stealing?” She didn’t know Ron. But she knew Theo. He’d have figured out a way to help his friend out.
“His nephew’s been coming around a lot lately—begging Ron to bail him out, as it turns out—and it was getting disruptive. He’s not the quiet sort, to understate the matter. Sergei tried to corral him a few times but it didn’t work, and in the end I had to tell Ron to ban Lonnie. So he didn’t think I’d be sympathetic.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. You’re the most giving guy I know.”
Huh. Well. That ... that was nice.
Her a/c kicked on, or lingering drips of rain were sneaking under his collar. Or it was emotion giving him goose bumps.
“You are,” she said, maybe because he hadn’t managed an answer. She shifted over to sit alongside him.
“Thanks.”
“I’m not buttering you up or anything. You’re always going out of your way to be nice to people, and making things easier for everyone you know. If that weren’t who you were, we wouldn’t even have met. You were doing Sergei a favor bringing me Hannah that day. And don’t even pretend you volunteered or he asked nicely. I bet he acted like you owed it to him somehow.”
“He set up a meeting with our liquor vendor.”
“Even though he had Hannah on his schedule. Whatever. That’s him all over, but I guess I’m glad he isn’t a thief on top of everything else.”
His laugh was as hollow as uncooked penne pasta.
“Right.” She leaned into him. “I guess that’s not much comfort for you. What are you going to do? Did Ron even sell his truck?”
He shook his head. “Lonnie, that’s the nephew, he pawned some electronics and paid back about a quarter of it yesterday. And Ron had appointments with some buyers over the weekend, but I haven’t heard if any of them bought it or not. Meanwhile, I’ve got to audit everything, going back at least as far as when Lonnie first started coming around. So that’s going to be hell. But I’ll do it next month, because at this point, I just want to spend time with my son and think about what comes next.”
“I’m so sorry you’re dealing with all this.”
He shrugged, which rubbed together their shoulders, and the contact was nice. So he wrapped his arm around her and held her for a bit, which was even nicer. “You smell good.”
She laughed. “Thanks. It’s my lotion.”
“It’s you, too.” And then he bit his tongue. Not hard, but he needed the reminder that they still had to address whatever topic had her taking off work. And despite his libido’s insistence, it wasn’t like she’d missed sex so much she intended to jump him at nine on a Monday morning.
Though was any time a bad time, really? His libido thought not, and who was he to wage an internal war?
And her hand was on his thigh, and when he pressed his leg into hers, she started toying with the seam on his jeans, and she did smell so good, all clean and sharp with an undertone of warm spice, and her hair was back off her neck so it was easy and delicious to bring his lips to the tender spot below her ear, and then she drew in a deep, breast-swelling breath and he almost didn’t hear her whisper, “We’re pregnant.”