“Of course.”
She sighed and
pulled Mackenzie against her, needing comfort. “But I really want to try. To
get back to where we were before. I've missed you so much for the last three
months. And I want us to be friends and...and partners again. Is that going to
be enough for you?”
She held her
breath. Prayed that he'd say yes.
If she lost him
again, it would have to be for good.
After a long
moment, he lifted his eyes to her face. “Yes. It’s not what I want, but it's
enough.”
“So tell me again why the
asshole gets to eat dinner with us.”
Erin glanced around
the kitchen, automatically checking to make sure Mackenzie wasn’t in earshot of
Liz’s language, even though she knew that her daughter was in the nursery with
Stella, who had kindly offered to stay while Erin prepared for her dinner
party.
She rolled her
eyes as she smashed a clove of garlic with the flat of her knife, the way they
did on all of the cable cooking shows. “Liz.”
“I’m serious,” her
sister insisted, rinsing off the lettuce. “He’s treated you like crap for three
months, and now suddenly he’s our honored guest?”
Erin smashed
another clove of garlic, this time with a little more force. “He’s not an
honored guest. I just invited him over tonight, since I was having you and Dad
over anyway. He’s Mackenzie’s father, and I thought it was a good way to ease
him back into spending time with us.”
Liz sneered as
she turned off the water in the sink, where she’d been washing the lettuce. “And
the fact that he had cut both you and his daughter out of his life—and intended
to do so forever—is meaningless now?”
Erin groaned a
little. She’d been expecting this inquisition ever since she’d announced that Seth
was once more back in the picture. She just wished it wasn’t happening so soon
before he was scheduled to arrive at her apartment this evening. “It’s not
meaningless. Obviously, we still have to work through a lot of things. But he’s
sorry. He wants to start over again. So do I.”
“How wonderfully
convenient for him,” Liz muttered sarcastically, as she patted the lettuce dry
almost viciously. “He gets to drop you and start up again according to his
whim, and you go out of your way to make it easy for him.”
“What am I
supposed to do?” Erin demanded, turning around to look at her sister with a
piece of garlic peel in her hand. “Say forget it? That I’ll never forgive him? Or
make him beg just to see his daughter? Yes, it’s going to take a while to get
back to where we were—that’s just unavoidable—but I’m not going to make him
jump through a series of hoops out of spite. He’s sorry. I believe him. His
heart was broken, and I’m not guiltless in this scenario myself.”
Liz blinked for
a moment, as if surprised by Erin’s vehemence, but then she curled up her lip. “Hmph.
Compared to the way Seth has been acting, you
are
guiltless. What should
you have done? Swooned away in ecstasy just because he finally decided to
mumble out a few of his feelings in the hospital?” Before Erin could object to
this, Liz continued, “I get that he was hurt and maybe he needed a little time.
A week or two of distance would have been natural. But three months? And the
determination—which he was fully prepared to go through with—that he would no
longer be a father to his own daughter? Nothing you did compares to that.”
Erin really
didn’t want to deal with all of this now. It brought up too many emotions, and
this week she’d finally been able to return to a somewhat even emotional keel. “Liz,
this isn’t about evening the score. We both made mistakes. Who cares which ones
were worse? He’s Mackenzie’s father.”
“Bastard.”
“Liz,” Erin
chided, starting to work on the onion.
Liz just
grumbled under her breath.
“You can
complain all you want,” Erin said calmly, her eyes watering slightly from the
onion. “Seth is back in the picture now, and that’s not going to change.”
“All right
then. You can be mature and reasonable and act like a grown-up. That doesn’t
mean
I
have to be. Someone has to make Seth suffer a little.”
“Liz,” Erin
murmured, an edge of warning in her voice. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Me? What ideas
could I possibly have?”
Erin put down
her knife and went over to stand directly in front of her sister. Wished Liz
wasn’t taller than her, since it made it harder to look very intimidating. “Seriously.
You have to behave yourself tonight. You’ll make things awkward for everyone if
you’re rude to Seth, and this is my daughter’s family we’re talking about. I
want to start out on the right foot this evening.”
“I’ll be good,”
Liz intoned, but a spark of mischief was still visible in her eyes. “I’ll be
the model of respectability and civility.”
“
Promise
me. Promise me that you’ll be nice to Seth.”
Liz let out a
disgruntled sigh. “Fine. I’ll be nice. But only so that I don’t upset you. The
lettuce is done. What should I do now?”
Erin glanced
around her messy kitchen distractedly. She had about four dishes going at once,
and she was never good at organizing her culinary preparation. “Um, maybe you
could get some water on the stove for the pasta.”
While Liz dug
around in a bottom cabinet for the right pot, Erin turned on an eye of her
stove for the saucepan she’d just placed there.
As Liz heaved
herself to her feet with the big pasta pot, she eyed Erin’s lower half
speculatively. “New jeans?”
“Yeah.”
“They look good.
Decided to dress up tonight, did you?”
Something about
her knowing look made Erin feel absurdly defensive. “I’m not dressed up. I’m
wearing jeans. Same as you.”
“My jeans are
so old they’re fraying, and there’s a paint stain on my ass. Your jeans are
obviously sexy jeans.”
Erin willed
down the self-consciousness. So she was wearing new jeans. And they happened to
look good on her. Nothing remotely unusual about that.
“They are
not
sexy jeans. They’re normal jeans. They just don’t happen to fit better than what
I’ve been wearing lately.”
Liz’s eyes
moved once again up and down Erin’s body. She shook her head. “Those jeans are
dark, fitted, and shape your ass in a very obvious way. I know sexy jeans when
I see them.”
“They are not
sexy jeans.” Then something Liz said registered. She glanced behind her, trying
to peer down at her back side. “Does my butt really look okay in them?”
“Your butt
looks fantastic. And so does the rest of you. I notice you’re wearing a titty
top too.”
After glancing
around to make sure Mackenzie still wasn’t within earshot, Erin hissed, “I am
not
wearing a titty top. It’s a normal shirt.” She wore a red, stretchy, V-neck top
that she’d bought a couple of days ago when she’d bought the jeans.
“Well, for a
normal shirt, it certainly does wonders for your tits.”
“Dad is coming
over,” Erin insisted in a harsh whisper, as if she might somehow be overheard. She
crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m hardly trying to show off my boobs.”
“Dad is not
the only man who’s coming over tonight.”
“Uh! What the...First
you were telling me that I should be slamming the door in Seth’s face because
he’s an asshole, and now you’re telling me I’m trying to attract him?”
“Are you?”
“No,” Erin
exclaimed, stirring her pasta sauce with more vigor than was entirely
necessary. “I put on something decent, since I wasn’t going to have people over
for dinner wearing sweats and an extra-large t-shirt. But this is no different
than what I would have worn for anyone else.”
“All right,” Liz
replied, putting her hands up, as if in defense. “I believe you.”
Erin relaxed
again and concentrated on her cooking. She wasn’t a great cook under the best
of circumstances, and who knew what would happen when she combined cooking with
distractions like these?
“So you aren’t
secretly in love with him?”
Erin dropped
the spoon. “Liz!” she roared, whirling around to glare in outraged frustration.
Liz was wearing
an eminently innocent expression. “What? I was just asking.”
“I am not in
love with Seth. Why is that so hard to understand?”
“Well, forgive
me for being skeptical. You guys have a definite connection. And now you have a
child together. He’s handsome, successful, smarter than anyone has the right to
be...why shouldn’t you be in love with him?”
“Are you
trying to make me lose it on purpose? Do you fall in love with every handsome,
smart, successful man you meet?”
Liz thought for
a moment. “Well, honestly, I don’t meet very many. But seriously. It just seems
to me that—momentarily disregarding his assholery—you two might make a pretty
good match.”
“Is that
enough? Love isn’t just an equation, based on the sum of the right parts.”
“Ah!” Liz
breathed, as if enlightened. “I see. So you guys have no chemistry. The sex
sucked, huh? What? Is he one of those dedicated thrusters, who, as soon as he
gets it in there, just closes his eyes and thrusts like mad? As if endless
repetition is enough to do it for us.”
“No! He thrusts
just fine!” Only after she’d said the words did she realize she’d said them too
loudly.
Fortunately,
before she could say anything else, there was a knock on the door. Because of Mackenzie’s
schedule, they were having an early dinner. “Get that, will you?” Erin asked. “It’s
probably Dad. And, when Seth comes, you’d better be nice. And absolutely no
discussion of thrusting of any kind.”
Liz went to get
the door, and Erin opened the refrigerator. Stared for a minute or two, because
she was unsettled and couldn’t remember what she’d needed to get.
Tomatoes. That’s
what she’d needed. She bent over to reach into the crisper drawer.
“Good evening,”
a warm, male voice said from behind her.
Erin jerked up
in surprise, uncomfortably aware that her ass was in the air and highly
visible. Unfortunately, she tried to straighten up so quickly that she bumped
her head on one of the shelves.
Muttering under
her breath and rubbing her now sore head, she turned around to see Seth. He was
dressed casually in khakis and a black t-shirt.
He hid a smile.
“Sorry if I startled you.”
“She’s all
hassled, trying to get dinner ready,” Liz volunteered cheerfully from behind
him. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault that you snuck up on her.”
Erin narrowed
her eyes and shot Liz an annoyed look. “I’m not hassled. I’m glad you could
come.”
When she saw Seth
glancing around the kitchen, Erin realized what he was looking for. “Mackenzie’s
in the nursery with Stella. You can go see her if you want.”
“I could help
in here, if you’d rather.”
Erin shook her
head. Having Seth hovering over her would make her even more nervous. “No need.
Dinner’s almost ready. You can go say hi to Mackenzie and meet Stella.”
“Sounds good.” Before
he left the kitchen, however, he gave Erin a lingering once-over. Something
warmer ignited in his eyes. “The jeans look good.”
Erin blushed
painfully, hotly, so obviously it was impossible to hide. “Thanks.” Cursing her
fair complexion, she pretended she needed something from a lower cupboard so
she could squat down and hide her blazing face from Seth’s eyes.
She could hear Liz
laughing outside the kitchen.
Erin scowled
into the cupboard—her annoyance directed inward. What the hell was wrong with
her? She hadn’t been this easily embarrassed in years.
And she never
should have worn these jeans.
***
Despite the rocky start and its
potential for blowing up before her eyes, the evening actually turned out
pretty well.
Seth went back
to the nursery and introduced himself to Stella. In the meantime, Erin got the
table set, and her father arrived.
When Seth came
back into the living room, carrying Mackenzie—whom Erin had dressed up for
tonight in a pretty green dress with little bunnies embroidered on the
collar—he stood in silence, as if he weren’t quite sure what to do.
Erin had been
hoping her dad would pick up some of the slack, but he was much quieter than
normal, giving Seth a slightly suspicious stare. Liz sat in a chair with her
hands folded primly on her lap, her lips tightly closed, and an amused sparkle
in her eyes—obviously enjoying the awkwardness.
So Erin tried
to make conversation with Seth from the kitchen—asking him innocuous questions
about his week—until finally she got so annoyed with Liz that she demanded her
sister come help her get dinner on the table.
When Erin
carried out the salad bowl, she saw with relief that Seth had started a
conversation with her dad about the furniture he’d fixed up for the nursery. While
her dad didn’t exactly warm up, at least he consented to talk.
They sat down
to dinner, and things started to improve. Seth was clearly making an effort to
be social and agreeable, and Liz deigned to join in the conversation
eventually—only occasionally shooting Seth a dirty look or two. When Mackenzie
started to get fussy, her father took her out of the carrier and held her,
cooing to her in a low voice and eventually getting her to giggle.
Erin was just
silently congratulating herself on the dinner going off so smoothly, when Liz
said snidely, “Had you been around in the last three months, you would have
known.”
The room
suddenly fell into uncomfortable, thick silence.
Erin had zoned
out and missed what prompted her sister’s remark, but she sucked in a harsh
breath and gave Liz a hard kick under the table.
“Ow,” Liz said,
shooting Erin an indignant look. “That hurt.”
“Good,” Erin
muttered, realizing that there was no use in trying to play this one off. “I
told you not to—”