Tasty Mango by JJ Knight
Donovan
My life consists of airports, cars, and conference rooms.
I’m accustomed to the grind, traveling from one continent to the next, ushered into one boardroom after another.
But lately, it’s been getting to me.
I’m not sure if it’s seeing Havannah’s birth, or going to Grace’s fifth birthday party, or if it’s simply time. But this life that many would envy has gotten old.
Today I’m spending my time in a chilly gray meeting room trying to maintain a calm demeanor while the founder of a failing company rails at me for buying out the majority of shares.
Never mind that, had I not done that, he would’ve been in liquidation in less than a year.
Everyone always wants someone to blame when things go wrong. When the day finally ends, I shove it from my mind as a porter unlocks the door to my suite, and a bellboy pushes a rolling cart with my bags inside.
I’ve brought more luggage than usual because this stretch of travel will last so long. Max Pickle’s wedding is in four days. We’ve scheduled meetings leading up to it, although tomorrow should be the last one. I’ve been asked to attend the rehearsal dinner, as well as a low-key beer tasting, and I aim to enjoy a small break in the madness to take in some scenery.
As I often do when I arrive at a new location, I take a quick shot of myself with the view through the open windows behind me and send it to Havannah. Even though I haven’t seen her in a month and a half, she’s become part of my routine.
I’ve begun to figure out her schedule as well. She usually texts me during the baby’s morning nap, and she responds again around two a.m. Colorado time when the baby wakes up for a night feeding.
She’s settling in and claims she’s getting enough sleep. I don’t know much about babies or their schedules, but it’s interesting to watch how her sporadic responses have become more measured and regular. I assume that means all is well.
She has sent many pictures of the baby, but only a few of herself. I tend to picture her as I remember her the night we went out to dinner, and how she looked right after the baby was born. I have, of course, that first glowing image of her and the newborn, the one I took and sent her when we were alone that day.
I often take it out and look at it. Her hair is pushed back where I smoothed it with my own hand. She is at peace, the calm that can only come after a great storm.
She’s ethereally beautiful.
It’s impossible, though. Our timing could not have been worse.
The buzz of her reply arrives while I’m getting ready the next morning. It’s her usual middle-of-the-night feeding, but the time difference makes it a normal hour for me.
It’s quiet in the apartment with Mags gone. She should be landing in France in about a few hours. Not jealous at all.
I swiftly finish shaving so I can write back before my car arrives to take me to today’s meeting. I wish you could come. It’s going to be a great party.
The baby must be quiet, as she responds quickly. Me too. But I can’t leave Rebel. The flight is too long. Everyone on the plane would want to kill me.
My hand stills as I adjust my tie in the mirror. The phone sits on the bathroom counter, Havannah’s message staring up at me like a dare.
An idea starts to form. So I ask her the question on my mind. Is it the commercial aspect of the flight that’s the problem? Can the baby fly otherwise?
The row of dots precedes her reply. He could fly. You just have to nurse or bottle-feed them through takeoff so their ears can pop from the pressure. He’s kind of little to be around all those germs, though.
So it is the commercial nature of the flight that’s knocked her out. My heart beats faster as I conjure a plan.
Are the delis relying on you being there?
I can almost hear her laugh in the reply. Oh, heck no. Rebel is way too hard. Grandmama is taking care of all that. Until I decide I’m ready to get a nanny, I’m stuck.
I drum my fingers on the bathroom counter. Could this work? Or would Rebel be too hard for this, too?
A second message pops up. My car is ready downstairs. I snatch up my phone and pull my suit jacket off a hanger as I pass through the living room of the suite.
But even as the driver takes me across town to the office building, my mind keeps turning. Is there a way to get Havannah here?
What will it take?
* * *
I have no idea what’s about to happen.
I sit in the limo for a full five minutes on the street in front of Havannah’s apartment complex before I work up the nerve to tell her I’m here.
This driver is more professional than the last, keeping his face forward and asking no questions about why we’re parked on a random street.
I try to remind myself that I have flown all the way from Europe to Boulder, Colorado, just for a chance at a yes. But if she says no, if I have misjudged her completely, it will be fine. We can go back to the low-key texting relationship we had before.
But I have to try.
Courtesy would normally dictate you tell a lady you’re coming. But this is no ordinary request. If I asked her over the phone, a woman like Havannah would say no. She’d be practical.
I want her to be impractical.
So I took the wild risk of flying here. I need to be right in front of her when I put in my request.
I scroll to the end of our conversation. My last text from her arrived while we were flying.
It’s a selfie this time, Havannah dressed and carrying Rebel in a sling. She’s wearing her Tasty Mango shirt. I can tell from the logo next to Rebel’s head.
She told me she was stopping by the deli for a while. With the picture are the words I doubt we make it thirty minutes. But I’m going!
That was four hours ago, and the deli closed about half an hour before I touched down.
Havannah should be home. Fate has smiled on me—I’m not catching her in a position where she will be completely upset to see me. She’s been out in the world, gotten dressed. I know that some days, even a shower is a luxury.
I text her.
Look at that kid already representing your brand!
The three dots appear immediately. This is good.
Her words pop on screen. We made it almost two hours before I had to come home and feed him. It was a great day.
I wonder if it’s about to get even better, or if she’ll be upset.
I step out of the limo and close the door, leaning against its gleaming black side. Then I put through a voice call.
She doesn’t pick up right away, and suddenly I worry she’s having to scramble to get to it. Maybe she’s changing the baby. Or feeding him.
But I’m committed, so I wait. The call rolls over to her voicemail. What do I do now? What do I say?
I have no time to think. I just talk.
“Havannah. It’s Donovan. I wanted to put through a quick call to congratulate you on getting back to the deli.”
Okay. That was good.
“But I can text you,” I add.
Right as I’m about to hang up, another call beeps in. She’s returning the call in the middle of my voicemail.
I hang up and switch to the new call. “Havannah!”
“Donovan! You’re calling. You’re going to have to turn in your Millennial card!”
I laugh. “I do a lot of phone calls for work. It’s natural to me.”
“I only talk to Grandmama on the phone.” She laughs, and the sound is like music.
“Well, I have a proposition for you. It’s not an indecent proposal. I promise. But it might sound like one.”
“Now you have my attention.”
“Can you see Maplewood Street from your apartment?”
“What?”
“Maplewood Street. It’s in front of your apartment complex. Can you see the street from where you are?”
“Sure, if I go to Magnolia’s room.” Her voice has a suspicious note in it.
“Well, go to Magnolia’s room!”
There’s silence for a moment, then some rustling, then a sharp inhale. “Is that your limo?”
“A rental, but yes, it’s mine.”
“Is that you?”
I look up at all the windows I can see on my side. I have no idea where her apartment might be. I’ve never been there, as she met me by the street for our one and only date. But then I see movement, and Havannah leans out the window and waves.
“Is that really you?” she yells, forgetting the phone. I have to pull it away from my ear.
I kill the call and hold out my arms. “In the flesh!” I shout.
“Well, come up! I’m in 208. Go straight down the pathway, then turn left two staircases down.”
I follow the directions. The apartment complex is a lot like the one where I lived in college, tan brick with faded brown siding. Metal and concrete staircases lead to doors with gold numbers and twenty layers of paint.
I knock on the door, and she opens it, looking exactly like her picture from a few hours ago. Her long golden hair flows down her back.
She’s perfect.
“You’re here,” she says, sounding breathless.
“Pretty crazy, right?”
She backs into the apartment to let me in.
A floral sofa dominates the room, the arm piled high with white cloths. There’s a baby swing in the corner, slowly undulating back and forth. Rebel is inside, asleep.
“We should whisper,” I say.
“Let’s go to another room,” she says.
I follow her down a short hall to a bedroom. It’s messy, the bedspread rumpled. A small bassinet sits at the foot of it. The dresser is strewn with colorful bits of baby items. Cardboard boxes of diapers fill the corner.
“I’m not even going to make an excuse about the mess,” she says. “I’m doing good to keep us both bathed and fed.” She sits on the edge of her bed.
I lean against the doorframe. “Don’t sell yourself short. I’m not sure I could keep a small human alive, much less take him to work.”
She smiles, her eyes on me, and that electric charge I felt when I first met her two months ago zips through me as if no time has passed.
“So, I thought you were in France,” she says. “I don’t understand why you’re here.”
It’s do-or-die time.
“I have a proposition for you.”
“Right.” She tilts her head, her expression wary. “You mentioned an indecent proposal.”
“Come to the wedding.”
Her eyes go wide. “How? Everyone’s already gone. I could never get a flight. And there’s Rebel. The plane would be full of people.”
“I brought my own plane. It’ll just be us.” I long to reach out and hold her hand or make some small gesture, but I’m not sure where we stand. We have, after all, had only one date. I’ve never even kissed her.
“There will only be the pilot and two crew members. The flight attendant is the mother of three. We’ll have help.”
Havannah runs her hands over the bedspread, smoothing out wrinkles. “This seems sudden.”
“There’s a place for you. You’ll stay with your family.”
“I can’t bring Rebel to the wedding. He might make a fuss. He’s so little.”
I anticipated this. “Dell and Arianna are bringing an au pair from her daycare business to come with them. I checked with her. The woman is happy to watch Grace and Rebel during the ceremony. She and the kids will be on-site at the castle for the entire ceremony and reception.”
“You thought of everything.”
Even as she says it, she stares at the floral pattern on her bedspread.
So it’s a no. I’m not going to push.
“I understand it’s too much. I thought I would take a shot.”
When she finally lifts her eyes to me, I say, “I knew I didn’t have a chance at all if I texted you. I wanted to make a real go at it by flying here to ask you in person.”
I never took Havannah to be shy, but the way her gaze returns to the floor makes me wonder if I have misjudged her. Maybe it’s her new role as a mother that’s made her cautious.
I’ve overstepped. “I apologize for putting you in this awkward position,” I say. “I’ll head out.”
I take a backward step through her doorway, but she holds up a hand.
“No, wait. Maybe you’re good at snap decisions, but I’m not. Especially now. I have so many things to factor in.”
So there’s hope. “Is there any concern I can alleviate?”
“I guess I won’t worry too much about the baby. The flight will be like a bedroom in the air for him, as long as I help him through the takeoff.”
I chuckle. “A bedroom in the air. That’s quite a picture.”
She tilts her head with the warning look, and that’s the Havannah I remember.
“That’s a great segue into the next part of this conversation,” she says. “What are we doing here? You’re a world traveler who owns a jet. I’m a single mom barely keeping her head above water. What’s in it for you?”
I close the distance and sit next to her on the bed. When her hand is in mine, that electric thrill returns. It’s rare for me to feel it, even with the actresses and heiresses and power players I often find myself out on the town with.
But I say none of that. I run my thumb along the inside of her palm. “It’s simple, really. Your family is in France. It’s going to be an amazing wedding, and I have the ability to get you there.”
“So it’s all honorable.” Her tone tells me she doesn’t buy it. Damn, I like her.
“Oh, certainly not. But I don’t meet a woman like you very often. I’m looking to mitigate the obstacles to be near you. And this wedding is a significant carrot.”
“A carrot.”
“You want to go, right? You said yourself you were devastated to miss out.”
“But a carrot. Like I’m a horse.” She jerks her hand out of mine.
“No! Not a horse. I needed a way to draw you out.”
“Like the stable. I’m a broodmare you find more challenging than the society girls you normally run with.”
“It’s not that.”
Her ire is rising, her face and chest bright with color. I love it even more.
I draw upon everything I know about managing difficult circumstances. I’m not out of my depth here. At least, I don’t think so.
“I knew it would take a lot to get you to come. Rebel is your top priority. I admire you for that. But I want to be your knight in shining armor. I want to take the princess to the ball. Baby and all.”
Her chin drops out of its defiant jut. “I see. Why this princess? There are real ones to be had where you’re headed.”
This is it. My last shot. “Because I look forward to our text messages. Even when I’m in the most intense meetings, I find my thoughts drifting to you. I have to fight the urge to check my phone when I know you’re up with the baby. I’ve put his feeding schedule in my phone so I know when I might catch you.” I tug my phone from my pocket and light up the screen.
She reads it aloud. “‘Five a.m. feeding. Seven, nap, about an hour. Second feeding midday, another nap around two, but she sleeps, too. Feeding around five, then nine. Don’t bother her until she texts at two a.m.’” She looks up. “You do know it.”
“You’ve only settled in the last two weeks. But that’s how I knew this could work. The flight might mess him up, but if we keep him on the schedule he’s used to, he’ll be sleeping during the ceremony.”
When I look up after putting the phone away, her eyes are misted with tears.
“How can you know so much about me when we’ve only met a few times?” She seems incredulous.
“Because everything about you is worth knowing,” I say.
We’re close, the mattress tilting us toward each other. It’s not how I pictured kissing her for the first time. Normally I make it memorable. A quiet balcony at an elite restaurant. A snowy walk. A frenzy on the plush seats of a limo.
But when my lips meet hers, surrounded by laundry, diaper boxes, and scattered clothes, it isn’t any less perfect.
It’s the kiss of let’s try. Of I want this. I’m ready.
Her mouth is warm and inviting. She tastes of stolen chocolate and smells like fruity shampoo and baby powder. My hand slides beneath her hair to the back of her neck. She leans into me, a small groan in her throat.
Her lips part and the kiss goes deeper, honeyed, desperate. I draw her close, her body pressed to mine. We kiss like teenagers, like star-crossed lovers, like a long-parted couple reunited at last.
It’s impossible. I barely know her. But I feel it.
When we gasp apart, her hair is mussed, her lips pink, her eyes bright.
“All right,” she says. “I’ll come with you.”
I squeeze her hand. “Good. Let’s pack.”