Never to Love (12 page)

Turning toward the woman who was now desperate to get away from me, I silently begged her to play along. Colton didn’t know Juli, but I trusted her a hell of a lot more than whoever was currently watching him.

The longer my eyes pleaded, the wider hers became. I knew she would probably be pissed at me after it was over, but I had to do what I thought was best for my kid.

“Girlfriend,” I corrected incorrectly. Based on the way Nash had spoken, it seemed important to him, and maybe also the social worker, that we were in at least some sort of relationship. Misleading them into thinking we were married would be ridiculous since that would easily be discovered due to the lack of a paper trail. Based on the green tint her face had taken on, I also knew for a fact Juli would either bolt or vomit if I hadn’t spoken up. As it stood, the odds were seventy-thirty. “Sounds good. May I see him for a minute first?”

“Right this way.”

Nash led us to a room I imagined was similar to a child psychiatrist’s office. I had a feeling before all was said and done, I’d find out whether or not I was right. With as hard as I’d had to tug on her arm, I worried Juli would fall off of her shoes. Luckily, she’d made it without breaking an ankle.

As soon as I stepped into the room, Colton jetted toward me and captured my legs in a death grip. “Can we have a moment alone, please?” I asked the woman who had to be knocking on retirement’s door.

“I’ll be right outside,” she said, directing her words to Colton.

When the social worker stepped out, I let go of Juli’s hand, and she immediately tried to follow the older woman. “Where do you think you’re going?” I asked quietly, grabbing her hand again, this time threading our fingers together.

“You asked for privacy,” she whispered as if it were obvious.

“From her, not you.” Just like when I took Colton to the arcade, I realized I’d have to keep a firm grip on Juli to keep her from wandering off. The near panic on her face and stiffness of her spine almost made me want to let her leave, but I needed her. To watch my kid, that is. That was the only reason.

“Hey, buddy.” Colton was forced to loosen his grip as I knelt in front of him.

“I wasn’t scared, Daddy.” The quiver in his voice gave away his lie, but I let him have his pride.

“It’s okay to be afraid. I’m just glad you’re all right.” I turned my head to look up at Juli, making sure my son followed my eyes. Not knowing who could hear, I turned back to Colton, leaned in close, and whispered, “This is Juli. She’s a very good friend of mine. Is it okay if she stays with you while I go talk to the detective?”

“Will she stay until you get back?”

Turning back toward Juli, I raised one pleading brow in question. Between that and Colton’s lost puppy eyes, she caved.

“Yes, I’ll stay until your dad comes to take you home. I’m sure he’ll hurry,” she said, looking at me in a way that let me know it wasn’t optional, “so you don’t have to stay up any later past your bedtime than necessary.”

Squeezing her hand in gratitude as I stood, I placed a kiss on the top of Colton’s head and another on her temple, before assuring both of them I’d be back as soon as I possibly could.

As I followed Nash toward the bullpen, I glanced over my shoulder to take one last look at Juli and Colton. Juli was ghostly white and the look of impending vomit hadn’t dissipated. Colton had wrapped himself around her much-shorter legs just as he had mine a few minutes earlier. He wasn’t a shy kid, but seeing his tight embrace told me he was completely comfortable with her. It was probably safe to say the feeling wasn’t mutual.

Juli

Standing in a police station with a boy who was the spitting image of my “boyfriend” wrapped around my lower body was the most surreal experience of my life.

The bitch from social services eyed me from the hallway, so I channeled my inner Marina and did my best to fake my way through the dizziness and sweaty palms.

“How’re you doing, Colton?” I asked, awkwardly patting his blond head. Remembering my predicament, I pulled my hand away and wiped them both on my skirt.

“Fine,” he whispered. When his darting gaze landed on mine, I could see in his sky-blue eyes just how not-fine he was. Much more not-fine than I was at the moment.

Even though I wasn’t comfortable with children, I wasn’t a monster, so I tried my best to comfort the kid. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I know your dad is going to make sure you’re all right.” Carefully, I peeled his arms from around my hips and led him to the loveseat across from the door.

“I know. He’s the best dad ever.” His smile tugged my lips into a small one of my own. It didn’t fit quite right on my face, but it wasn’t unpleasant. “What time is it?”

After pulling out my phone and lighting the screen, I replied, “A little after ten.”

His wide eyes jerked up to meet mine. “I was supposed to take my bedtime medicine at nine.”

“What kind of medicine?” Colton didn’t seem sick, but what did I know.

“Mom says sometimes my stomach hurts in the middle of the night. It’s supposed to help.”

“Does it?”

“Does it what?”

“You said it’s
supposed
to help. Does it help?”

Along with a single shoulder shrug, he said, “Mom says I probably don’t wake up enough to remember when it hurts.”

Mom
sure had a lot to say, but it seemed reasonable enough; people don’t remember sleepwalking or night terrors. “Do you know the name of the medicine?”

Shaking his head, he said, “It’s supposed to taste like oranges, but it doesn’t.”

“Is it liquid?”

“No, I chew it.”

“Does your mom get it from the pharmacy or the regular store?”

“I’m eight, not dumb. It’s not a prescription.”

“Sorry. I don’t spend much time with kids.” Much… Any… Same difference. “So, your mom gives you an over-the-counter, chewable, fake-orange tasting medicine for stomach aches.” Luckily, thanks to my mom’s new cooking jag and a job that sometimes led to weird eating habits, I had a good idea of what he needed.

Digging through my clutch, I found a roll of antacids and popped two into my palm.

“Does this look right?” I asked, showing him both the wrapper and the tablets.

“Yes! You’re the best!”

Before handing them over, I looked at the label to make sure they were safe for kids. After reading it was for adults and children twelve years and older, I was hesitant to give them to him. Just to be safe, I only gave him one.

While he chewed, I went to the water cooler in the far corner of the room and got him a drink to rinse the chalkiness out of his mouth. After taking a sip, he said, “Yours taste better than Mom’s.”

Checking the roll, I verified they were all orange. Based on his two-hundred-dollar shoes, I doubted his mom bought anything generic, but stranger things had happened. Like me kind of bonding over heartburn with the kid of the guy I was fucking.

“Are you my dad’s girlfriend?” Colton’s blunt question caught me off guard.

Unsure who was listening, I didn’t want to risk contradicting Thomas with so much at stake, so I decided to go with, “Yeah, something like that.”

“Do you live with him?”

That question was disconcerting, although I didn’t know anything about their custody and visitation arrangements. “How long has it been since you were at your dad’s house?”

“Um… It was before my birthday.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“May second.”

“That was several months ago. Do you spend time with your dad other places?”

“Yeah. We hang out most Tuesday nights. I’m supposed to stay with him every other weekend, but Mom said he’s been too busy.”

How could this kid act like Thomas had hung the moon when he’d been skipping out on his visitation? Thomas’s actions since he received the call from Detective Nash didn’t seem to jive with those of a deadbeat dad, but once again, what did I know.

“Well, to answer your question, no, I don’t live with your dad. But it looks like you’ll get to have a sleepover with him tonight.”

“Will you sleepover, too?” he asked during a yawn while surreptitiously cuddling up to me. Why would a boy his age be so tactile with someone he had known all of twenty minutes? Yes, Thomas had vouched for me, but that didn’t explain the hug or his sleepy head resting against my chest after he’d wiggled his way under my arm.

“What do you say, Juli? Want to come to the slumber party?” Thomas’s mini-doppelganger stirred at the sound of his father’s voice.

“Please, Juli?” I had no idea how or when I’d become susceptible to puppy dog eyes, but I was in desperate need of a booster shot.

“Just for a little bit. I have to work tomorrow, so I shouldn’t stay out too late.”

Things had been slow, which meant I was working about forty hours a week instead of the usual sixty or more. However, this time, I actually had a lot to do.

I didn’t have a traditional nine-to-five schedule, but my agency was having a stupid all-hands meeting at ten, after which I had a string of stupid conference calls.

In addition to all of that, earlier in the day, Google Alerts sent me a link to a post on a small entertainment blog speculating about the status of my clients’ personal relationship. A few hours later, four more relatively small sites had posted, as well.

The buzz was benign, and the main outlets hadn’t reached out for comment yet, but it was coming. I wasn’t the only one with alerts watching for keywords such as “Marinate” and “split” in the same story. The big boys would be looking for corroboration before risking my wrath.

Since nothing was actually wrong with their relationship and the fire was contained for the moment, I didn’t need to issue an official statement. What I did need was to get my friends to go on a date so they could be seen being their stupidly happy selves in public.

Unfortunately, arranging for the two of them to do something normal together in public with the intention of being spotted was something that had to be intricately choreographed. The most difficult part was ensuring the right people would be around to get photographic evidence without inciting a riot.

If I were to call the editor of a highly respected entertainment magazine to give them a scoop, which she wouldn’t tell a soul about in hopes of an exclusive story, somehow every man, woman, and child with a camera would surround Marina and Tate before they exited the car.

My friends’ safety was always my top priority. It was a wonder the Secret Service hadn’t tried to recruit me.

“Do you have everything?” Thomas’s question to his son brought me out of my exhausting thoughts.

“Do you want me to take you back to the hotel so you can pick up your car?” I asked, trying to formulate a plan to get out of going to Thomas’s place.

“Would you mind going straight to the house? The hotel is in the opposite direction, so it would take longer to get a certain someone into bed,” he said and gave me a flirty wink.

There was no way in hell I was getting anywhere near his bed. The kid wasn’t quite as horrible as I’d feared, but his presence killed any chance I had of getting off.

“Sure. Does he need a car seat?” I asked as we made our way toward the exit.

“I’m eight, not a baby.” Thomas laughed at his son’s sleepy outrage.

“Got it. Not stupid and not a baby.”

After piling in my car, Thomas fiddled with the GPS and soon the digitized voice quietly told me it would take twenty-nine minutes to reach our destination.

Glancing at the in-dash screen, I was somewhat relieved to see the green pin at the end of the route wasn’t all that far out of my way.

“Your hair is really red,” Colton said as soon as I put the car in drive. “It’s almost as red as the Little Mermaid’s.”

“It’s not
that
red,” I scoffed.

“Sophie says she has red hair, but it’s orange. How come yours isn’t orange like hers? And why don’t you have lots of freckles like she does?”

“Who’s Sophie?”

“His girlfriend,” Thomas said in an even tone. “I’ve tried to tell him he needs to keep his options open, but he won’t listen.”

“Daaaaad,” Colton admonished through clenched teeth and thin lips.

“Are you even old enough to have a girlfriend?” Surely not.

The kid rolled his eyes when he saw me looking at him in the rearview mirror. “I’m not a baby, remember?”

My attempt to distract him didn’t work, because without missing a beat, he was back to questioning the validity of my hair color and freckle-free complexion. “Is it a wig?”

That right there was a prime example of why I wasn’t fond of children. Incessant talking, nosey questions, and an endless supply of energy they can tap into at will. He must have siphoned his current boost from my already dwindling reserves.

“Can you keep a secret?” Making eye contact in the mirror, I saw him nod. “You can’t tell anyone.” Since when was I silly? Must be the extreme fatigue.

“I promise.”

From the passenger seat, Thomas looked over at me with both a little bit of humor and too much interest in his expression.

“You know how you got your blond hair from your dad?” I asked.

“My mom, too.”

Hearing about his mom was starting to get on my nerves. “Well, I get my red hair from a woman named Martele.”

“Is she your mom?”

“No, she’s a master stylist at a salon a few miles from my house.”

Thomas laughed as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. The stress of the evening must have been catching up with him, guiding him down the path toward hysteria.

Not wanting to be nearby in case the laughter turned to uncomfortable man-sobs, I decided once we reached Thomas’s house, I’d unload my human cargo and then speed away into the night.

“I don’t get it,” came from the back seat, which of course, Thomas also found fucking hilarious.

“My hair isn’t really red. I get it colored.”

“What color is it really?”

“I forget.”

“No, you don’t.”

Thomas calmed down and was now also curious. “What
is
your natural hair color?” The man grinned, probably realizing he’d never seen any evidence.