Always the Last to Know(85)

“He’s horrible. I’m sorry for all you endure.” She grinned. I liked her so much.

“We do need to go, Sadie,” Noah said.

I kissed the baby’s head—oh! The soft spot! So dear!—and handed him back to Mickey. “I’ll call you.”

“You better. Bye, Noah! Marcus, wave bye to Daddy!” She held up his fat fist and jiggled it.

Noah leaned in and kissed his child. “I love you,” he said, and my ovaries frothed again. “See you tomorrow, sweetheart.”

Which brought us to my current horndog state, sitting in Noah’s truck, his tools and some walnut planks in the back, the smell of wood and coffee the best foreplay I could think of. “I brought pastries from Sweetie Pies,” I said. “Want something?”

“Sure.”

I handed him a chocolate croissant and watched as he ate it, his jaw moving hypnotically. Would it be inappropriate to brush the crumbs out of his lap?

“Who’s watching your dog today?” he asked.

“What? Nothing! Oh. My nieces.” I took a calming breath and chose a cheese and raspberry Danish to get my mind off Noah’s lap.

“How are they?”

“They’re good. Brianna got her period and is officially a horrible adolescent, and Sloane is a little behind in school, but they’re awesome.”

He smiled, and I had to look out the window to avoid wrapping myself around him like an octopus.

When we got to the brownstone, all was chaos, as it tended to be with Janice. Movers were bringing in furniture, painters were finishing up, and she pounced on me, despite the fact that I was carrying the huge wonkin’ vagina flower painting wrapped in brown paper.

“Let me see it! Let’s get it inside. Up those stairs, second door on the right.”

Noah followed with his toolbox.

“You must be Noah, thank you for coming, you’re an angel, you really are, I hope you’re good enough to do this right because I don’t really have a choice right now. Unwrap the painting, Sadie, let’s have a look!”

I glanced at Noah with a smile. Hopefully Janice hadn’t offended him with her run-on sentences and half praise. He smiled back.

Unwrapping the painting carefully, I leaned it against the bed. “What do you think?”

“Oh, Sadie! It’s beautiful! You signed it, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Look how it matches the comforter!”

I suppressed a sigh. This was my bread and butter, after all.

The painting was a close-up of lilies, that most vaginal of all flowers, and sweet peas (labia), and I was rather proud of it. The lesbian couple could go to town under that painting. Unlike the “swirly” or “scribbly” paintings I often did, this one had taken more work and time. Sure, it was an O’Keeffe knockoff, but it was beautiful, and not just an imitation. Oil this time, with more texture and detail than the great Georgia. Her style with a tiny bit of my own.

“It’s really pretty, Sadie,” Noah said, staring at the painting, his head tilted the slightest bit. “Very . . . detailed.” Then his dark eyes cut to me with a slight smile, and I felt my skin prickle with a blush. There was a bed right behind me. Just sayin’.

“Okay, hang it up, and Noah? It’s Noah, right? Let’s get you started on the window seat. You got the pictures I sent you, right? Can you match that? Did you bring wood?”

Yes, Noah, did you bring wood? God. I was ridiculous.

I hung the painting, chatted with the movers, wandered through the brownstone. What a lucky couple! I’d always been a Manhattanite, Brooklyn being too hip for me, but damn. The building was a block off Prospect Park on a street with fully leafed-out maples. All the windows were open, and the sun shone through the stained glass window on the landing, making it appear that Noah worked in a church.

He did look like an angel. Or maybe Joseph, Jesus’s dad. The carpenter dad, not the God dad. Or with that black, unruly hair, scruffy beard and olive skin, maybe Jesus himself.

“Stop looking at me,” he said without looking at me.

“Need a helper?” I asked.

“Sure. Sit there and don’t touch or do anything.” He cut me a look, and I felt it in my stomach. He had a black elastic on his wrist and, in a practiced movement I remembered well, pulled his hair back into a short ponytail to keep it out of his eyes as he worked. A few curls escaped.

Heathcliff hair. Jon Snow hair. Darcy hair. Damn you, Noah, I thought. You’ve only gotten better. Watching him work, his movements sure and confident, it hit me again that my wild boy was a man. A father, and who could be a better father than Noah?

“How’s your dad?” he asked, picking up on paternal vibes.

“He’s doing well,” I said. “He’s trying to talk, and write. I mean, he held a pen the other day, but he didn’t write anything. Still, he held it the right way. Mom said he said ‘horse’ the other day. And maybe ‘dog.’ He definitely responds to Pepper.”

“Good. He likes Marcus, too.”

“Everyone loves that baby.”

No response. He ran his hand over the walnut panel, which he’d already varnished. Lucky panel. “Pass me the hollow ground planer blade.”

“I heard the words, but they mean nothing to me.”