Page 14 of Carry Me Home
“How is your throat?” he asked. “Any trouble swallowing?”
I shook my head. “The water helped. I’m okay, really and truly. I don’t need a doctor. I wouldn’t sacrifice my own health just to make you feel better about choking me, I promise.”
He snorted a laugh. “That actuallydoesmake me feel better. I don’t want you to hide something like that from me. Then I can’t fix it.”
A memory flashed.I have to fix it. That was what he had said about Essie crying all those years ago. I eyed him over the rim of my glass as I took another swallow. “You’ve been an old man since the day you were born, haven’t you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He snagged his underwear from the floor.
“You don’t have to go,” I said, setting the glass on the table. “It’s barely morning. The sun’s not even up yet.”
“Staying isn’t a good idea.”
He buttoned his jeans, then leaned down to cup my face in his hand. When he tilted my head, I realized he was looking for bruises. I arched an eyebrow at him. “Anything?”
“Not yet.”
He tugged his shirt on over his head. I sighed. That was that, I guess. The end of the best fuck of my life.
He moved to the back door, which exited to a fire escape behind the bar, and paused with his hand on the knob. “You know where to find me.”
He didn’t even pretend he wanted my phone number. I tried not to let that sting. It wasn’t like I didn’t know this was a one-time hookup. Hell, Iwantedthis to be a one-time thing. Sure, for my ego’s sake, it would have been nice if he had at least been interested in something more. But I didn’t have time to date.
I smiled. “I’ll call you,” I said glibly.
His eyes searched my face, but I couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light. I hoped that meant he couldn’t read mine, either.
The house wasdark and still as I slipped off my shoes and shrugged out of my coat, wincing at every crinkle of fabric. I padded silently across the marble floor of the mudroom—the bane of their housekeeper, Maria’s, existence—and zigzagged up the stairs. Muscle memory guided my feet between the creaky spots. Dad wouldn’t be awake yet, but Mom was putting on her face right about now and she’d expect me to do the same before we all convened in the breakfast room at the appropriate time—which, according to my mother, was 8 a.m., 8:04 at the absolute latest.
Maya and I had our own place in Aspen Springs, but we spent almost as much time at my parents’ ranch because free child care was not something I could afford to pass up as a single mom, even if that generosity came with strings. I had already showered and washed off my makeup at the one-room apartment above the bar, where Brax let me crash on nights I closed, but I knew my face needed a solid fifteen minutes of effort to meet Mom’s standards. Still, I bypassed my old bedroom in favor of the room next to it with butterfly stickers all over the door.
“Hey, ladybug,” I whispered as I slipped inside.
Maya was awake, sitting cross-legged on her bed, still wearing her frog pajamas, her red curls ratted from sleep. If I had been home last night instead of getting railed by my best friend’s brother, I would have braided her hair before putting her to bed. Maya wouldn’t let anyone but me touch her hair. My throat burned, but it had nothing to do with Jack’s hand. It was straight up mom guilt. I always crashed in the upstairs apartment on nights I closed the bar, but normally that meant going straight to sleep, not getting my brains fucked out.
The guilt always hit especially hard when I had actually enjoyed myself.Ah, motherhood.
Maya turned her serious eyes to me, her gaze landing just past my cheek. “Mother,” she said as gravely as a six-year-old with a missing front tooth could, “I don’t wish to alarm you, but there are over eight thousand species of amphibians, and none of them start with X.”
I bit back a grin.I don’t wish to alarm you. Where the heck had she picked that one up? The radio, maybe, or a TV show. Or maybe she’d overheard it in a random conversation somewhere. It had been her phrase of choice for about three weeks now, andI figured we had another month at least before she moved on to something else. She didn’t always use it correctly. The last time she didn’t wish to alarm me, it was to inform me that it had started to rain.
But this time, she had it right. Eightthousandamphibians, and not a single one that started with X? Fuck my life, and fuck scientists for not predicting that one day there would be a child whose sole ambition in life was to write theUltimate Guide toAmphibians A to Z, and would therefore need an amphibian that started with X. That seemed like the sort of thing a bunch of dorks should have at leastconsidered. I was absolutely alarmed.
I sighed, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and immediately consulted the internet, even though I knew Maya wouldn’t be wrong. A short list popped up. I skipped the top two I had no chance in hell of pronouncing correctly. “Xenopus coptodon,” I said. “It’s a type of frog.”
“That’s the Latin name. Our book uses common names. X won’t be the same as the other letters if we use the Latin name,” Maya said.
“Then it will just have to be different,” I said.
I tossed my phone aside, grabbed the detangler and hairbrush from the vanity that Maya had never once sat at, and handed her the squeeze toy filled with colored oils. She hated having her hair brushed—it was the sound of it more than the feeling—but we had a routine that made it more bearable for both of us.
“Different is good,” I encouraged. “I like different.”
Her lower lip trembled, a sign of an impending meltdown. For someone who didn’t easily recognize emotions in others, she sure did have some big feelings of her own. “I don’t like surprises. I don’t like different.”
My chest tightened. Maya didn’t like different, but Mayawasdifferent. Watching her attempt to categorize herself into a neatand tidy box like she was a new species of amphibian broke my heart a little. Honestly, her autism diagnosis six months ago was a relief because at least now we had a label. Maya fuckingloveda label.
“We have three options, ladybug. There is not a magical fourth option where you discover a new amphibian and name him Xylophone. Okay?” I liberally sprayed her head with detangler and then tackled the knots, starting with the ends. “One, you can decidenotto doAmphibians A to Z. You could do butterflies or bugs or not do a book at all. Two, you can use all Latin names, if there are Latin names for all the letters.” I had my doubts. “Three, you can use common names for every letter except X, and only X will have the Latin name.”
