Walk on the Wilder Side by Serena Bell

29

Brody

We drop off Justin first. Rachel waits in the truck while I walk Justin up to the door.

“How’d it go?” Zoë asks, taking him from me. He fusses a little and clings to my shirt. I have to admit, it makes me feel like a superhero, even though I feel sad for Justin, too. I wish Zoë had found a way to give him a life where all the people he loves were in one place. That’s not the way it is, though.

But I can make sure Justin always knows he’s loved. I can do that.

“I want to see him more,” I tell her. “I’ll take him whenever you need me to and I can. I want him to know I’m in his life.”

Zoë nods, like she’s been expecting this. “I want to take a girls’ trip to California next month. Would you want to do four days then?”

“Email me the dates, and if I can work it around my trips or get a couple of hours of childcare from my family, I’m in.”

She beams. “Thank you. I know you don’t have to do this, but I appreciate it.”

“I’m not doing it for you.” I don’t say it angrily. Just honestly. “I’m doing it for Justin.”

“I know.”

We share a weak smile. This is probably the best place we’ll ever get to, and I’m suddenly glad we’re here.

And grateful to Rachel for helping me get here.

“Bye, little dude,” I tell Justin, who has quit being mad about my leaving and buried his face in his mom’s shirt. That was quick. Luckily, babies are resilient.

Back at the truck, I say, “thank you,” to Rachel.

“What for?”

“For making me do the right thing by Justin instead of sulking about how Zoë screwed me over. I still wish Justin were mine, but I’d rather be his fun uncle than no one in his life.”

She smiles at me. “You’re a really good fun uncle.”

I think of what she said earlier, that I would make a good father. When she said it, I let myself, for a split second, imagine a different scene. The two of us, on a boat, with a child. Our child. And then I pushed it out of my head.

I start the truck. “I’m going to take a spin by the farmer’s market and pick up a few things for dinner.”

“Can we make a stop first? By my house? There are a few things I want to grab. If you’re doing dinner, I want to be in charge of dessert.”

“Sure.”

We make a quick run by the Perez homestead, and she emerges with a plastic shopping bag from Rush to Read Books, which she tucks into the side map pocket.

I eye the bag. “You’re not going to tell me what you’re making?”

She shakes her head. “I’m just going to say that I know you’ll like it.”

“Okay.”

We stop by the farmer’s market and I grab a bottle of local wine, a six-pack of my favorite local brew, and some salad makings. Then we head back to my place.

I unload the vegetables onto the kitchen counter, pull out a stool for Rachel to sit on, and pour her a glass of wine.

She’s obviously not used to watching someone else cook, because she can’t stand to not be helping. She keeps reaching for the knife, the measuring cup, whatever I happen to be holding. “Let me do that.”

“Just sit there and look pretty,” I say, and she blushes. “All those times your mom or your grandmoms cooked for me? This is nothing.”

She smiles at that.

“They came for those long visits in the summer.”

“Months.” Her smile turns wistful. “That was after they retired. Those were my favorite times of year. But you and Connor hated it.”

“Because there were three times as many adults riding our asses and catching us doing destructive shit.”

She laughs. “Too true.”

“But your mom always seemed happier when they were here.”

She nods. “Totally. And also weirdly more frazzled.”

“And someone was always cooking. I just took all that good food for granted. Do you have those recipes?” I reach for a peeler and start shaving a cucumber.

“I definitely have a few that my mom uses, and my dad’s mom, but my abuelita never used recipes. She worked in a factory. So she’d get home after a long day and start rice in the rice cooker and throw together something for dinner. She still cooks that way. Meat, garlic, green pepper, onion, tomato sauce, and cumin, brown everything, cook for a while, and you’ve got dinner.”

“Well, whatever she did, it was fucking awesome.”

She gets a distant look on her face. “I see her a lot more now that I’m in Boston and only a few hours from her in New York.”

Right. I’d almost let myself forget that Rachel lives three thousand miles away.

“It’s been really great. I finally learned enough Spanish so the two of us can speak it together.”

“I thought you took Spanish in high school?”

She nods. “Yeah, I did, but I was never fluent. My parents didn’t speak it at home, and I gave my mom hell for that when I struggled with high school Spanish. They had their reasons—wanting me to ‘fit in’”—she air quotes it—“and wanting to make sure my English was solid. But my mom has said a few times she’d do it differently if she had it to do over again. She’s super psyched that I’m speaking it now with my grandmother—but it’s funny, my mom and I still always speak English. It’s like that’s where my relationship with her is stored in my brain.”

She reaches out a hand and tries to take a knife and a red pepper from me. “Give me that.”

I shake my head. “Answer’s still no.”

“I can’t believe you’re cooking for me!”

I think that’s the fifth time she’s said that. It’s really cute. And also makes me mad. Because how completely fucking ridiculous is it that her ex never cooked for her? The thing about Rachel is, she’s so easy to please. She’s beautiful and smart and sexy and uncomplicated and the littlest things make her light up: elk jerky and cherries, the rush of jumping into the lake, learning to cast, catching her first trout, narrating a boat trip to a six-month-old, watching me cook. It doesn’t take much to make her happy, and that asshole never even tried.

“What about your other grandparents?” I ask her.

“I see them, short visits, flights down to Miami, or weekends they come to see me and stay in a hotel. I miss the long visits.”

I don’t tell her that if she moves back to Rush Creek, she’ll get the long visits back. I haven’t spent much time recently at Connor’s parents’ house, but I know those visits still happen. But I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to talk her into moving here.

I know she wouldn’t.

It’s not in the plan… and I would never ask her to give up the plan for me.

Rachel’s manners would totally win my mom’s approval. She tries to insist I should let her set the table, but I tell her I’ve got it. When it’s time to sit, I pull out her chair for her and scooch it back in again.

She smiles up at me. “I know I’m not supposed to like that.”

“Like what?” I sit across from her.

“You pulling out my chair for me. Pushing it in. I’m supposed to be strong and self-sufficient and do it for myself. But don’t stop.”

I laugh. “You got it.”

Later tonight, I decide, I’m going to get her to say that in another context entirely. Don’t stop.

We dig in.

“Omigod this is so good!” She’s quiet for a minute. Then she says, “Can I just say, there is something about a guy who can catch and cook his own food?”

I grin. “Wait till we go camping and I catch fish in the woods with a handmade rod, roast them over an open fire, and feed you.”

She puts her hand over her heart. “Shirtless?”

I chuckle. “Super impractical with the bugs and the temp, but if it works for you, sure.”

“It would work for me.”

“I didn’t think you liked camping.” I remember from high school, her turning her nose up at it when Connor and I went.

Rachel grins. “I mean, what you described is more like erotic art than camping.”

I’m smiling so hard it hurts my face. I don’t think that has ever happened to me. “Rachel.”

“Mmm?” She has just put another giant bite of trout with black butter in her mouth, and is making a face not so different from the one she made the other day next to my motorcycle. Makes it hard to eat. Pun intended.

“I like you so damn much.”

Her gaze jumps to my face, startled. And alarmed? For a second, my heart plummets.

Then she smiles, the sweetest Rachel smile I’ve ever seen. “I like you, too, Brody Wilder,” she says. “So damn much.”