Page 36 of Twice Shy

Chapter Twelve

Ollie still felt shaken when he climbed out of Joel’s car—a fancy electric one—outside his building. He’d not been happy driving without the kids’ car seats, but they were still in his own car, which was now with the mechanic, and it had only been a couple minutes. Joel had driven extremely carefully. And they were fine. They were all fine.

Well, he had a pounding headache and was furious with himself for causing the accident. Worse, he felt dreadful about the way he’d spoken to Rory, humiliated and ashamed by his loss of control. When he opened the back passenger-door, so Rory could slide out, Ollie snagged him in a bear hug. But nothing could erase the memory of snapping at him earlier—swearing at him. He was the worst parent. The worst, worst, worst.

“Come on,” Joel said from behind them. He was holding Luis and didn’t seem to mind the way Luis’s sticky fingers knotted into his jacket. “Show me the way.”

“You don’t need to come in,” Ollie said, standing up and holding Rory’s hand. He ran a mental inventory of the state of the apartment. “But thanks for the ride.”

Joel watched him with a steady gaze, adjusted Luis on his hip and said, “I’d like to come in, if it’s okay with you?”

Maybe this was an intervention after the way Ollie had broken down at school. Maybe he had to prove he was fit to look after the kids. Maybe he deserved to fail. “Okay,” he said, too ashamed to argue, and led the way to his door. It opened into the small downstairs entrance hall where they hung their coats, and to stairs leading up to his second-floor apartment.

Rory would usually bound up the stairs ahead of them, but he was subdued this evening. A combination of Ollie’s unforgivable behavior and still feeling unwell, Ollie supposed. The weight of his culpability sat like a stone in his chest, and he kept flashing back to the horrible words he’d said, and the way Rory’s face had crumpled.

“Come on,” he said, gripping his little hand. “Let’s get you into the bath and then into your PJs.”

Behind him, he heard Joel taking off his coat and the sound of the front door shutting. Ollie flicked lights on when he got upstairs, relieved that the living room was tidyish. With three people living in a one-bed apartment, it was necessary to put everything away once you were done with it. Including the sofa bed that Ollie hoped to be collapsing onto as soon as the kids were bathed and asleep.

He turned as Joel reached the top of the steps, still carrying Luis. Joel looked tall and out of place in Ollie’s small apartment, as if he didn’t quite fit. The lamplight made his glossy dark hair gleam and his smile looked kind. “This is cozy,” he said, which was a polite euphemism for ‘small’.

“I need to get the kids into the bath,” Ollie said. “Thanks again for the ride.”

Joel bent to set Luis on his feet, but as soon as he’d put him down Luis’s little arms went up demanding to be carried again. Joel huffed a laugh and picked him back up. “Can I help?”

“No.” As kind as Joel was, there was no way Ollie was allowing a virtual stranger to help him bathe his kids. “Thanks.”

“How about I fix us some dinner while you do that, then?”

“What?” Had he heard right?

“You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“No, but—”

“Well, unless you’d rather I leave, I’ll fix us both something to eat. And we can talk things over.”

“What things?” Ollie’s head was pounding, an ache radiating across his ribs—from the seatbelt, maybe?—and he didn’t understand why Joel thought they had anything to talk over. He couldn’t mean their non-date, could he?

“How you’ll, um, get to work…” Joel glanced at Rory, who still held Ollie’s hand, his head resting against his thigh. “And other things.”

Ollie scratched a hand through his hair, huffing out a laugh. “That’s really above and beyond your role as teacher…”

“I’m not here as a teacher.” He sounded offended. “I’m here— That is, I hope I’m here as a friend.”

“Are you?” Ollie really didn’t know after the cold shoulder he’d been given the last couple of weeks.

And it was Joel’s turn to look awkward as he shifted Luis on his hip. “That’s one of the things we could talk about, maybe?”

“Ollie?” Rory tugged on his hand. “Ollie, I feel sick.”

Sweeping him up, Ollie carried him into the bathroom and just reached the toilet in time. Poor kid. How much of that syrup had he eaten? Once it was over and Rory had stopped crying, Ollie stripped him out of his lost-property clothes while he ran a shallow bath in the tub.

Out in the living room, he could hear Joel talking to Luis. A low stream of nonsense babble, a comforting sound that seeped into him and relaxed his muscles and mind. It unlocked his self-recrimination enough that, when he helped Rory into the frothy bath, he could say, “I’m really sorry I lost my temper at school, Rory. It was bad of me. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t mean to eat too much syrup,” Rory said, his sad eyes piercing Ollie.

“I know sweetheart, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” He grabbed Rory’s sponge and started to wash him all over. “Me getting cross with you was way worse. I’m so sorry.”

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