Page 15 of First-Time Caller
Maya screams and I immediately throw my cereal box at the intruder. He bats it away with his hand.
“What the hell, Lucie?” the intruder shouts, rubbing at his wrist where the box made contact. “I paint with this hand!”
“What the hell, Lucie?” I throw another box at him. “What the hell,Grayson!” He kicked his way into my kitchen, and he’s yelling about how I’m behaving? He’s lucky I didn’t lob the ceramic fruit bowl at his head. I press my hand to my chest while Maya wilts into her seat like a flower, deep-breathing with her forehead against the table. “You kicked in mydoor. This isn’tLaw & Order!”
The father of my child steps into the kitchen and closes the door behind him without looking away, a thunderous expression on his face. Broad shoulders, warm eyes. A faded green shirt that saysEAT BERTHA’S MUSSELSfrom the seafood shack down the street he’s obsessed with. He looks almost exactly the same as he did when we were sixteen and stupid. Right down to the paint splattered across his forearms, a smudge on the collar of his shirt.
He must have stopped halfway through his session to stomp over here.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” he asks, both of his eyebrows rising high on his forehead. Grayson’s and Maya’s hair falls in exactly the same way. Furious, ferocious curls that can’t be tamed no matter the amount of hair product used. When Maya was born, she looked like Mowgli fromThe Jungle Book. She hasn’t exactly grown out of it. Neither has Grayson.
“No. I have nothing to tell you.” I huff out a breath, trying to get my heart rate to calm down. He keeps staring at me, and I raise both of my eyebrows right back. “What about you? Anything to say? Maybe,Sorry for putting a dent in your back door?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, I don’t think I’m going to apologize for that.”
“What is it, then? Just wanted to give me a heart attack this morning?” He remains silent. I don’t understand the entrance, but Gray has always enjoyed a touch of drama. I think it’s the artist in him. His husband, Mateo, says it’s his desperate need to heal his inner child. Whatever it is, I don’t have the patience for it this morning. He moved out of this house and into the one next door almost a decade ago, but I swear to god, he acts like it’s an extension of his own home.
“Are you ready to take Maya?” I gesture toward her limp form, still slumped in her chair. “She was just putting her shoes on. You can go pick those up, by the way, since you’re the one who ricocheted them across the room.”
Gray doesn’t move to retrieve her shoes. I have no idea why he’s in my kitchen, ten minutes early, looking like a bat straight out of hell. “Do you need to borrow my ketchup again?” I ask slowly. “I told you to take the whole bottle.”
He shakes his head, still watching me with that wary, weird look. “No, I don’t need the ketchup.” He props both of his hands on his hips. “What I need are some answers.”
“About what?”
“You.”
“Me?” I point to my chest. He nods.
“What about me?”
He drags his palm over his face with a slight shake of his head. It’s the same look he gives a blank canvas when he has no idea what he wants to do with it. Frustrated. Dumbstruck. I’m inspiring him to new levels of speechlessness today. With a sigh, he kicks out the seat next to me and collapses into it, his hand overlapping mine on the handle of my mug. I try to pull away, but he just holds on tighter.
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
I yank my hand away and bring my mug to my chest. “I talk to you every day of my life, Grayson. You’re freaking me out.”
Anxiety curls in my gut. The last time he stormed over like this, Mateo had sliced his hand open with a pair of garden shears. I glance over his shoulder and out the back window. The gate that connects our yards is wide open, squeaking back and forth on rusty hinges. “Is Teo okay?”
“Mateo is fine. He’s also upset with you, but he’s fine.”
“Why is he upset with me?”
“Oh shit,” Maya whispers. She’s still sitting with her forehead pressed to the table, her hands clutching the edge.
“Language,” Grayson and I both half-heartedly correct her. Maya slowly props herself up across from us, her face pinched. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so damn confused. The kitchen is a mess. One of Maya’s shoes is wedged under the oven. There’s cereal scattered across the floor like sad, processed confetti, and Grayson is staring at me like I stole his cookies and crushed all his dreams.
Maya’s eyes dart to Grayson and hold.
“Dad,” she starts. “It’s not a big deal.”
“I’ll talk to you in a second, tiny Machiavelli.” His eyes narrow and his jaw tightens. “I can’t believe you did this without me,” he mutters under his breath.
“Oh shit,” I whisper.
Because there’s only one thing Grayson would be this pissed about. The man hates not being included, and if he knows Maya hosted an emotional intervention without him, the very thing he’s been trying to do for years, then that can only mean—
He knows. I don’t know how he knows, but he knows.
