Never Have I Ever(83)

15




Oliver had finished his bedtime nurse session. He was asleep on his back in between Davis and me, limp as a sweet little rag. Davis had his big hand on Oliver’s full belly, spanning it. I needed to take the baby to his crib and get some sleep. Spending tomorrow on a tiny boat with Roux was bound to be stressful, and I’d have a brand-new diver in my care. I didn’t move him, though. Not yet.

I needed to talk to Davis about what I’d seen, and with Oliver here he would stay calmer. I had to do this. One way or another, Luca would be out of Maddy’s life come Monday, but a lot could happen in a weekend. I’d left the kids unsupervised for less than an hour. Davis needed to know how important it was that we keep eyes on them.

I touched Davis’s arm, and he looked up from his son. My steady gaze let him know this was serious.

“We have to talk about Mads and Luca. There’s been a shift. They’re more than friends now.”

Something male and primal woke up right behind his eyes, immediate and inadvertent. “They’re going together?”

“I’m not sure kids call it that these days.” I was, in fact, absolutely certain that they didn’t. He was already tense, though. I was gentle with him. “They got a little bit physical with each other down in the basement.”

“How physical?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “Do you mean he kissed her and I need to pretend I think that’s sweet or he got handsy and I’m probably going to have to go to prison?”

I smiled, mostly to reassure him. “How much detail do you want?”

I hoped not a lot. Every minute I spent with my husband, relaxed and regular, was already a silent lie. I didn’t want to say bald-faced untruths about his daughter out loud in our own bed. But I would if he pushed me. Roux had taught me that. There was no way I was going to tell him the details of what I’d seen. It would raise too many questions about Roux and Luca. He wouldn’t want them around Maddy or me, and I didn’t have a choice in that matter.

He shook his head, emphatic. “No details. Just on a scale of one to pregnant, how worried am I?”

I leaned over Oliver to kiss him.

“Everyone had their clothes on. But not everyone’s hands were in the G-rated zone.” That was close enough to truth to count.

“Okay.” Some of the tension went out of his body, and I knew that what he was imagining bore almost no relation to what I’d seen.

“They’ve started down a road, though, and we know where it ends,” I told him. “Don’t let them sneak downstairs, or anyplace, alone. Things can escalate fast at their age.”

“I remember,” Davis said ruefully.

I did, too. I’d survived my own sophomore year by stealing desperate, drinking looks at Tig. His narrow hips in low-slung jeans. The light turning the edges of his curls to burnished brass. Then he’d kissed me. His mouth on mine had cut through clouds of pot, a thousand gulps of wine, waking my body to its own possibilities.

I shouldn’t be thinking of that. Not at all, but especially not here, in bed beside my husband. The baby we’d made in this same bed was splayed out, so relaxed he was practically a liquid. But a text from “Restoration Garage” had landed in my phone while we’d been pool diving. Nothing serious. Just six words.

You still listen to the Pixies?



A silly question, and yet I felt flushed and a little trembly when I read it, as if I were fifteen again. As if it were a note scribbled on lined paper, folded three times, and passed up a row of desks to me.

I’d known better than to answer Tig, but I’d answered anyway. We’d texted back and forth the whole time I was making dinner. Nothing deep. Music and nostalgia. I told myself it didn’t mean a thing.

Now, this close to my husband, I recognized that for the hollow lie it was. It had meant something. If I were back at Tig’s right now, just the two of us, I’d be no more safe than Maddy was with Luca. The difference was, I knew better, and I had no loving father, no hovering Monster, to stop me. I had to stop myself.

Davis said, “That’s the worst part. I’ve been a sixteen-year-old male, so I know exactly what that kid is thinking. It makes me want to break his arms. A little bit.”

“Poor old Duddy,” I said, invoking one of Maddy’s pet names for him. He smiled. “She’s a good kid. Let’s not overthink this. We keep an eye on them and make sure they stay busy. They’ll be diving all day tomorrow, and no one ever got knocked up in a wet suit.”

He nodded, but his forehead was still creased.

I wished I could tell him that in three days it wouldn’t matter. Davis and I might have bigger problems then, as he tried to process all the lies I’d told him recently, not to mention all the lies I’d lived in his presence, every day, for years. Either that or I’d break and give Lolly Shipley’s rightful money to Roux. I wasn’t sure how I would live with myself if I chose that route, but at least then Luca’s wandering hands would be in the Maldives. He’d be drinking virgin daiquiris and not being extradited right beside his mother. I wasn’t sure what my face did when I thought these things, but it didn’t matter. Davis was looking down at Oliver again, talking softly to his son.

“Thank you for being a baby. You have a single teaspoon of testosterone right now, and we appreciate it.” I put my hand on Oliver’s chest, grateful, too. Davis looked back up at me. “Do you think he’s pressuring her? I read about those bracelets. The ones that tell boys what a girl will do, and the boys act like they’re entitled to it. Does Maddy have those?”