Inside Out (24 page)

“I don't know how,” Tracey answered, barely able to choke the words out.

“That's why you have me,” Monica offered. She hugged her friend close in the same way Tracey had seen her hold her own daughter. “We'll get through this together.”

“You don't understand,” Tracey said to her finally.

“Then tell me.”

“I love him.”

Then Nathalie stirred. Monica held up a hand and went to get her. Tracey felt the edge of the bed give way and looked up to see Monica handing her her gurgling, happy baby. Nathalie grabbed a fistful of her hair, which she promptly put in her mouth. The baby smiled and it was as if Tracey's whole face crackled. She giggled back and Tracey gave her a kiss and hugged her too tight. She didn't know if it would change, but just looking at her baby took so much hurt away. That's what people really meant when they said babies were miracles.

Monica left to use the phone.

* * *

“Listen, Monica, with all due respect, this isn't your business. It isn't your place.”

“I'm not denying that, Rett,” Monica returned softly. “Still, you have to know how your behavior is affecting her.”

“But do you have any idea how her behavior has affected
me
?” Rett returned.

“I do.
Everybody
does because you make sure not to ever let anyone forget it. She never put forth the effort to be with you, we get it. She lied to you, we get it. She was on a course to keep Nathalie from you, we get it. But you're just acting childish now.”

“I don't think my maturity is any of your business.”

“We've established that none of this is my business, but—”

“Let it go, Moni. What happened, happened.”

“But you don't love her—”

“Don't you ever say that!” Rett growled with so much anger in his voice that Monica gasped on the other end. “Look, Monica. I have no problem with you. I'm asking you to stay out of this.”

Then he hung up, feeling that he was about to explode.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Rett had never stopped wanting Tracey. He felt like a fool every time he thought about it, but it was the God's honest truth. There was no getting past it. The all-consuming love for his daughter that he knew would never, ever go away, was understandable. But that feeling should not have extended to her mother. Rett had prayed for relief from this gnawing hunger for Tracey, and yet no relief had come.

His cell phone started to ring again and he glanced down at it. Karen. Or as Angie had put it, using her jackass way with words, “Tracey's stunt double.” Rett shook his head, cursing himself even more. He should answer, but he wouldn't. That woman was sexy as all get out, and boy, was she willing, but he hadn't been able to do it. In fact, this was probably going to end the same way his relationships with the last three women he'd tried to date had ended. He was going to just stop answering the phone. After a few angry or hurt messages, she would give up and move on. That was for the best.

God, last night had been, for sure, the best sex he'd ever had. Ever. Ever in life. Raw, hard, honest, passionate. Rett would relive it in fantasies when he was ninety-nine years old. Always amazing between them, this time he'd gone so long wanting her, he'd gone so long without sex—since he'd seen Tracey that day in the mall carrying his child—and it was the first time all of their emotions, ugly and good, had been bared to each other. Amazing.

And he wanted more.

More of that and more of the feeling he got when he sat next to her while she fed his baby and they sat together and talked like a family.

He wanted everything.

He could turn his car around and go back and get right back in bed with her, staying there until she begged him to be with her for good.

Monica was wrong. He loved Tracey McAlpine with everything he had in him.

Maybe time was what it took.

Garrett and Tracey didn't talk about the events of that night. Instead, they went back to the way they had been before he made love to her. Sort of. Things did change a bit. Tracey started her job as an employee relations specialist covering the southeastern region of the country, which allowed her to work from home as long as she had her handy laptop and headset. Rett had been doing well at his firm, but started putting in much longer hours. As a result, he still spent the same amount of time with the baby, but usually it was at Tracey's house, late into the night and he brought work with him. It felt—dangerously so—the way it had when they first met, only now it felt more real. Nathalie was proof every day of how real.

And Tracey could actually feel his anger starting to ebb, as was her fear, even though they didn't broach any difficult subjects.

Instead, they started taking little tests with each other. One such test was taking the baby out with the both of them. Before, they only did that when she'd had to go for either routine doctor's visits or when the baby had her series of ear infections that kept them both up for weeks.

This time, Rett made mention of the fact that he needed things for his new place. Tracey hadn't seen it yet but, but the house was all he talked about and it enhanced her embarrassment at continuing to live in her parents' pool house. When he recommended that they go shopping together, she was quite appalled. There was no reason for it… Okay, maybe no
good
reason for it, and her first instinct was to panic.

She didn't think it showed. In fact, she plastered on a bright smile and said “sure” before going to her bedroom and taking huge gulps of air as her heart pounded like a jackhammer. It was a test. She knew it. And if she wanted him to trust her, she had to pass it. Reminding herself that he was her daughter's father and they would be tied to each other
forever
helped a bit.

She pulled herself together because she had made a vow to be brave for her daughter, and for him.

They didn't show any bravado. They got out of the car and started towards the supercenter without really speaking to each other, with Tracey carrying Nathalie. Instead of holding hands like people who sleep together did, they walked at what could only be termed “a safe distance” apart from each other. On this walk that took an eternity, Rett glanced at her and she at him but without so much as a smile. In the store, an old man working the front pushed a buggy out in front of them with a warm Southern smile. Tracey smiled back but did not look at Garrett as she buckled Nathalie in. She looked everywhere but at Garrett.

They split up inside. Tracey went for the groceries. Garrett went for household goods like a new ironing board and light bulbs. They would meet in center aisles, coordinate their finds, then split up again. Once or twice, when they stood together, Rett was approached by someone—usually white—that he knew. He always introduced his baby first, then introduced Tracey as her mother. Conversations were nice, civil, but ended quickly and caused the skin on Tracey's face to heat and tighten.

Before long she was exhausted and unhappy, but she was thankful that this still hadn't been as horrible an experience as she had expected.

After she was done, Garrett ushered her and the baby to the front of the store. When they went to stand in the checkout line, he turned and was greeted by yet another person he knew.

The compact blond fellow with ruddy cheeks grinned at Garrett and exchanged a half-hug with him. He reached out to shake Tracey's hand as Garrett re-introduced them. She didn't recognize him, but she had heard of him. Kelly Banks had been one of Garrett's closest friends in high school.

That's when Tracey noticed her cute as a button baby with her arms up and hands out, making a grabbing motion and baby-talking with the most adorable little smile. That meant she wanted to be picked up, but she wasn't reaching for Tracey or her daddy. Instead, she was reaching for this guy that Tracey had never met before.

And he was reaching back with a huge, huge, hummungous grin. He picked her up and smooched her loudly over and over on the cheek until she laughed and squealed. “You are the best girl,” he cooed. “The best girl. You know I'm going to marry you in about eighteen years.”

“Stop saying that!” Rett punched him in the arm, but he was laughing, too.

And her baby was tickled pink.

The confusion must have registered on her face.

“Me and my best girlfriend used to see each other every weekend when I played football at Rett's.”

Kelly hugged her close again and pressed kisses all over her face. Tracey tried to resist the urge to take the baby from him. Not just anybody should be kissing her baby, but Garrett obviously thought this was okay. “I miss my little girlfriend.”

Garrett loved playing his latest football video game. He talked about it all the time. Tracey didn't know why she had never connected him playing the game on the weekends with his time with Nathalie. She had never thought Nathalie had been introduced to his friends or that she spent time with anyone other than him. It was stupid, naïve, but it just had never occurred to her.

Tracey was stunned. She was stunned even when they packed the bags and the baby into the car and left with promises that Rett would bring Nathalie by from time to time to see Kelly.

That evening, they chatted about Kelly. They planned a time for Tracey to see the house Rett had settled on. Then, they made love. Slowly, gently.

When he arrived, Rett felt like the fish in his cooler were swimming around in his belly. He was at Tracey's house, and her family was having a reunion.

“Where can I put this?” Rett asked Carolyn as he eased into the kitchen holding a large red and white cooler. He held on firmly even though Petey came over to relieve him of his burden.

“Are the fish cleaned already?”

“Oh!” Rett gulped. “Naw, not yet.”

“I got it,” Petey insisted and took the cooler back outside. He popped in for a moment to get a chair, a wicked-looking knife, a bowl and a bucket.

“I can clean my own fish,” Garrett insisted.

“He likes doing it,” Carolyn answered. “Listen, Petey's been with us a long time. He came from some very hard times. Let the man do his honest work and everything will be all right.”

Rett nodded.

“Um, where's… uh…”

“Tracey and the baby are outside. So's your sister.”

Rett didn't know what to do. He didn't know if he just wanted to go out back there without Carolyn to help ease his way. Was he supposed to speak to people before he saw Tracey? Was her overbearing father out there? He didn't know what to do.

“Go on, now,” Carolyn insisted. “Back by the pool.”

Rett went then, wondering why he had been invited. He wondered even more why he'd come.

He wound his way through people, saying ‘hello' and ‘excuse me,' and making a beeline for his baby. Once there, he waved at his sister, who was in the pool with at least ten kids and said hello to Moni and her husband Rico. After he kissed his baby and handed her back to Colleen, her great aunt, he led Tracey back to the guesthouse.

“What's up?” Tracey asked when they got inside.

“I don't know what I'm doing here,” he confessed.

“Me, either,” Tracey offered with a snort of laughter.

It was not lost on him that he was seeing that sunny smile and hearing that easy laugh more and more these days. More and more.

“You have a daughter here, it makes you family.”

“I bet your dad wouldn't agree with that.”

“Neither would your mom,” she quipped with an easy smile.

“Is it sex?” he blurted.

“What?”

“I don't know why I just blurted
that
out.”

“Is what sex?”

He ran a hand over his face. “Are we getting along just because of great sex?”

She crooked her head to the side and considered him. “No.”

That's all she said.

“Kiss me, babe,” he said to her, and just like that she leaned into him and did that. Every single time they kissed, he felt as if a car was revving up inside him without a muffler.

He didn't know what had changed, but something had. Something between them had turned good again, and he was damned if he knew why. Shortly after Angie moved in at Tracey's—which he had not thought was a good idea—and he had taken down the trees that day with Clay, things had just gotten…better. And, of course, there was that night she'd opened for him. Now he was at Tracey's family get-together feeling awkward but not particularly interested in leaving.

“If we don't go out and hang with my people in the next five minutes, my mother is bringing the party in here.”

Garrett kissed her again quickly, and then stepped away. “When are you moving again?” He followed Tracey out of the house.

“As soon as I find something I like and I can convince Travis and Carolyn McAlpine it makes sense for me to be independent. Why?”

“I think you should move in with me. You know, like roommates.”

She started to say something, but he stopped her. “Don't get mad. Please, don't get mad. I only ask because I remember everything you said before Nathalie came about how you didn't want to live off your parents—”

“I don't. I have a job.”

“
And
you would feel better in your own house. Our house. I want you and Nathalie to move in.”

Tracey's mouth worked but no sound came out.

“You don't have to answer now. Give it a little bit to digest.”

“But we… we aren't—”

“Tracey, I'm not asking you to marry me. I'm not asking anything to change. There are three bedrooms in this house. One for you, one for me, one for Nathalie. You're working, I'm working, we'll split bills down the middle.”

“Wha—”

“Look, Tracey, we're getting along now.”

She remained mute with her mouth open. Not a good sign.

“We both want to spend our time with Nathalie. We only just stopped arguing about that. We can obviously get along together. I know what it's like to live with you. You know what it's like to live with me.”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “I'm going back to the party.”

* * *

“You can't just ask the mother of your child, ‘Hey, you wanna be roomies, buddy?' ”

“I know. I am truly a new kind of stupid.”

“You'll get no argument from me on that, brother dear,” Angie agreed.

“Why the hell didn't I just tell her I wanted her to move in with me?”

“Why the hell didn't you just ask her to marry you?”

Garrett was appalled. He probably looked appalled.

“You know, Rett, you and Tracey are the two dumbest smart people I know. You want to marry her, don't deny it.”

“We haven't worked everything out.”

“What's left to work out? You and she and Nathalie are a
family
. Say it with me. Not like a divorced family or a broken family. Not like family on Mama's side. You operate like a
family.
‘Garrett and Tracey sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, next comes marriage…' Wait, in your case next comes baby in a baby carriage.”

Angie was fast enough to prevent him from tackling her and body slamming her on the ugly green sofa Tracey hated. She didn't say she hated it, but he could tell.