“Heath?” Mallory’s voice wavered with her uneven footsteps. “Heath, this is my son, Corbin.”
I stared at them, in absolute, unabashed awe.
He had her mouth, the easy smile that curled her upper lip just a little too high and revealed her pink gums. But he was all gums. He had her coloring, too. Fair and redheaded with a hint of blond waving through his fine baby curls like highlights of gold.
But the eyes belonged to someone else. It startled me, almost, to know that looking into this boy’s eyes was to glimpse into his father’s.
They braved a cautious step forward.
“Heath.” Mallory extended her hand. “Corbin.” She patted her son on his round stomach. “Corbin, Heath.”
I gulped back my nerves and said, “Hi.”
She grasped Corbin’s hand and lifted it up, gesturing a wave. “Hello.”
I took them in. I didn’t know this child at all, but something burrowed sharply in my chest. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, or if a name existed to define it. Maybe it was gratitude. Gratitude that Dylan gave Mallory such a perfect little person. Whatever it was, it was a sensation I knew I wouldn’t quickly forget, and I hoped Mallory would give me the chance to let this feeling grow even deeper.
It was a gift I was well aware I needed to earn: the right to join into their life.
“Would you like to hold him?”
Hold him, raise him, either one.
“Of course.” A false confidence accompanied my exuberant response. The last time I’d held a baby was at one of Kayla’s friend’s coed baby showers. I’d had no idea why baby showers for couples existed. Very rarely were the men even remotely interested in the corny games, boxes and boxes of newborn diapers, and spit up that occurred during them. This couple had waited until after their baby was born to celebrate. I figured it was because they weren’t finding out the gender until she delivered, and a shower would be more successful gift-wise once everyone knew if they were buying for a boy or a girl.
Holding that particular baby didn’t go well. She’d had a blowout, whatever that meant, and for the remaining two hours of the party, I’d sported a mustard seed-looking stain in the shape of an owl on the thigh of my jeans. I didn’t figure I was the baby type.
Until Corbin reached for me.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Mallory said, stepping closer to hand him off. “He doesn’t have stranger anxiety yet. You’ll be fine.”
Babies were funny things. I could not think of any other creature on earth that you could hold which would give such an overwhelming feeling of peace, just by taking it into your arms. Maybe a puppy. Puppies loved unconditionally and were equally as cute, and slobbery, too. But for the first time in my life, I thought seriously about what it would be like to be a father. Mallory had said Corbin wore her heart, and as his beat, pressed up against my chest, I could feel hers there, too. It was remarkable.
“He likes you.”
“You think?”
I didn’t want to delude myself into believing it meant anything when she stepped closer, her body sandwiching Corbin between us. “I definitely think so.” She wrapped her arms around us both. “Absolutely.”
A date with a baby made for a casual evening. Rather than a meal that required cloth napkins and waiters in penguin suits, we’d headed down the road to Harvey’s BBQ, where the tablecloths were checkered, and wet wipes provided. Watching Mallory annihilate half a rack of ribs was just about the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. And when I thought she was ready to throw in the towel, she’d snag another piece, devour it with ease, and toss it on the pile of discarded bones like she was a carnivorous animal.
“You got a little something.” She motioned toward my cheek as we were finishing our dinner.
“Oh, yeah?” I teased. “Well, you got a whole lot of something all over.” My hand made an all-encompassing, sweeping movement across her face.
Ripping the packet with her teeth, she unfolded the wet wipe and pulled it over her mouth, dragging the contents of about a bottle’s worth of barbecue sauce with it. “There really is no attractive way to eat this, is there?”
“I disagree completely,” I said but didn’t add anything more.
I was informed that eight months was the age when solid meats were introduced into babies’ diets, so Corbin even got to join in on the meal. About halfway through, though, his eyes drooped and his head lolled, fighting back sleep that came in waves.
“It’s past his bedtime.” Mallory pointed a half-eaten rib toward her son, who was now slumped low in his highchair, eyes shut. “Actually, it was over an hour ago.”
“We should get him home then.” The restaurant hummed with chatter and I scanned the room for our waiter. I flicked a finger at him to indicate the check and he nodded and scurried off to retrieve it. “You should’ve told me.”
“I wasn’t ready to leave.”
“Leave me? Or the ribs? You seemed to really enjoy the ribs.”
She popped her thumb into her mouth and sucked it clean and I swear the room shot up to about a thousand degrees. I could not have her doing things like that, especially not with her baby right there. My entire body responded not so innocently to that one purely innocent gesture.
“I enjoyed both equally.”
I shrugged, coy in my movements. Flirting with Mallory was an easy rhythm. “You are more than welcome to keep enjoying me.”
“Heath McBride! Are you inviting yourself back to my place?”
“Not if you invite me first.”
When the waiter came by, I signed the check, but I didn’t look up to hear Mallory’s answer, worried that maybe I’d taken things a step too far.
“Would you like to come home with me, Heath? I can’t promise anything more exciting than giving the baby a bath and possibly finishing the half-eaten box of truffles I’ve had since Easter, but you’re welcome to join us if that sounds like fun.”
I snatched the diaper bag from the empty seat next and slung it over my shoulder. “That sounds perfect, actually. Let’s go.”
Corbin’s bedtime routine didn’t take long but the poor little dude could hardly keep his eyes open during it. If it were up to me, I would’ve placed him in his crib fully clothed and worried about the bath and the outfit change in the morning since we literally had to wake him in order to put him back to sleep. But there was a pattern here and Mallory insisted that babies did best when they kept a consistent and predictable schedule. You learned something new every day and tonight had been my crash course in toddler rearing. But I also knew there was so much more to learn, and I was eager for that opportunity.
I was currently waiting in the family room while Mallory sang her son goodnight. Her voice was that of an angel as it trilled out of the monitor on the fireplace mantel, and I closed my eyes to listen. I’d traveled a little while in college and as a result had visited two of the wonders of the world, but it felt like this should count as a new one. Mallory’s voice was something to marvel at. I’d become so lost in the notes, that when she suddenly appeared behind me, I snapped from my reverie with a jolt.
“Sorry,” she said, always an apology readied. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Where’d you learn to sing like that?” When we’d been together, it wasn’t something I knew about, this musical talent of hers.
“I took a few voice lessons down at the church right after Dylan died. Someone had said it was good to keep busy, especially in the beginning. I also registered for a belly dancing class, but I promise you, I’m not nearly as skilled at that.”
“Oh, I think I should be the judge of that.” Playfully, I reached my fingers out to graze her stomach and Mallory’s eyes shot open. “I’m sorry.”
She took a prolonged breath and let her air back out with her words, those coming in a rush. “No, it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting that. That’s all.”
Confusion was a challenging emotion. Ironically, there was room for hope where it was involved. If things had been black and white, then I’d know exactly what next move to make, good or bad. But the fact that moments of uncertainty passed between us like some current or charge, that gave me something to cling to. This wasn’t a complete rejection, but it wasn’t an invitation, either.
“Mallory? What are we doing?”
Relief crossed over her features. “Honestly? I have no clue.” She swept her hair back from her face to tuck it behind her ear. I’d done that so many times when we were together, and my fingers begged to do it again. I jammed them into my pockets to keep them from making a fool of me or acting out on their own accord. Those damn things had a mind of their own.
Mallory continued, “All I know is one moment we’re together, the next you’re gone and I never hear from you again. And it’s like you took all of those feelings with you, and now you’re back—now they’re back—and I don’t know what to do with it all.”
“You never heard from me? What about all of the phone calls? The e-mails?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I never heard from you, Heath. You abandoned me in the hospital and left me to question everything I knew to be true about us. It was horrible. I thought we had the lasting kind of love, and yet you moved away without a real goodbye. You broke my heart.”
She was right. I’d never given her the appropriate goodbye she was due, but that opportunity was never there. Mom and Dad didn’t leave their jobs on the best or most amicable of terms, so showing up at their former place of employment was off-limits. They’d decided that for me. I’d tried calling, knowing that a goodbye over the phone was just as pathetic as avoiding one altogether, but Mallory never picked up, never had the chance to hear my voice on the other end of the line or offer me an opportunity to speak my peace.
Now was my time.
“I called you every day for two weeks, Mallory. Every single day. At what point does sincerity turn into stalking?”
“Stalking?” She laughed the words. “That never stopped you. If I remember correctly, that’s how this whole thing started.”
I doubted she meant it, but hearing her refer to us as “this”—as something present and still ongoing—made my stomach drop. My mouth went dry, my face burning with heat. “I never would’ve left you if I’d had a choice in it, Mallory. I never stopped thinking about you. Wondering about you.” Loving you.
“That was twelve, long years ago.”
“Yet it feels like yesterday. At least to me, it does. Everything reminds me of how it used to be.”
Her gaze fell away, dropped to the floor. With my finger, I hooked her chin and angled it up slowly, bringing her eyes to mine. God, she was gorgeous, even in her frustration.
“Me too,” she whispered, and then my whole world shifted on its axis when she asked, “Will you remind me what it’s like to kiss you?”
Up was down and down was up and the earth spun just a few extra rotations. I couldn’t keep myself grounded in the moment. I floated, completely untethered.
Did she want me to describe it like I had back then? When we were pajama-clad teenagers all hot and bothered under the covers. Or did she want me to show her? To remind her lips what the pressure of mine felt like when they met.
“Kiss me?” Her voice was the sweetest sound.
But her mouth had always been the sweetest taste.
My throat caught with a swallow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Had there been an earthquake at that moment, I wouldn’t have felt it. My body pulsed. My stomach rolled. My breath wavered. It was all tremors of emotion, the need for her that built over a decade of time.
Mallory tilted her head a fraction and grinned. “What are you waiting for?”
And that was it. I was done waiting.
