She put her hands on her hips. Even sitting in his lap, naked, she still looked fierce. Her eyes bore into his. “Well? What the hell do you think I want?”
“Why did you say it?” he blurted. “Why now, why tonight?”
Savannah stared at him. Her lips made a tiny O. Blinking slowly, she eased away from his lap. A tear trickled down her cheek.
“Wait,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I can’t just say it back. Everything is so good right now.”
She stood from the couch, stooping to gather her clothing.
“Savannah,” he whispered, jumping from the couch. He reached out to her. “Listen to me.”
She turned on her heel and headed toward the hall. Mind reeling, he chased after her. “You asked. You wanted me to tell you what I was thinking. And now you’re just going to walk away from me?” He kept his voice low, mindful of his daughter sleeping in the other room.
She curled her fingers around the door knob.
“Come on,” he said. “Let me explain.”
Twisting the knob, she opened the door and disappeared inside, leaving him in the hall. A second later, he heard the lock click, engaged.
Max leaned his head against the door frame, defeated.
Legs tangled in sheets, his chest painted by the moonlight streaming in through the window, Max lay on his back. He stared at the ceiling, watching as the lights from passing cars streaked the chipped paint. Sighing, his chest heaved. He rolled onto his side, kicking the sheets away. They fell to the floor. He curled up, balling his pillow under his head and shoulder. Still, sleep did not come.
His stomach twisted as he replayed his last few minutes with Savannah. He had lain awake in bed, listening, for twenty minutes after she went into her room. Her door never squeaked open, and he never heard the front door. Unless she had climbed out of her window, she hadn’t left—yet.
If she left again, he mused, it was over. Whatever they had or had been building would be lost forever. He would never know.
Plucking his pillow out from under his head, he threw it across the room. He rolled onto his stomach, clamping his eyes shut. He had ruined everything. If Savannah left, he would be out more than a nanny. He would be losing the most amazing, beautiful, hilarious, pain-in-the-ass woman he had ever met. The campus at Southern was full of thousands of girls, but none of them compared to Savannah.
He turned onto his side again. Despite how much he wanted to take things slow, the thought of losing her was pure agony. Heart lurching, he realized that he could have easily said the words back to her and meant it, had he gotten out of his own way. He needed to tell her, and he needed to do it immediately.
Scooting off the bed, Max pressed the bare soles of his feet to the floor. Even through the carpet, he could feel the chill of the house. If he was going to have a family—a real family, with him, Savannah, and Chloe—he was going to need to find a better apartment. He padded toward the hall. Yawning, he reached for the door knob and pulled his door open.
The hall stretched out toward the kitchen and living room, bathed in dark shadows. The house settled around him, but no other sounds reached his ears. All he could hear was his heart beating in his chest, thudding loud enough that he swore anyone else could hear it. He crossed the hall to Savannah’s bedroom door.
Squaring his shoulders, he steeled his resolve. He needed to go in there and tell her exactly how he felt, without holding back. Then, he raised his fist to knock.
“Daddy?”
The single word made him jump at least a foot into the air. Max gasped. He whirled around, arms stretched out for balance. Staggering, he grabbed the door frame to steady himself. His heart pounded in his chest. Air whooshed in and out of his lungs as he tried to calm his system.
“Daddy,” Chloe said again. She stood in front of him, holding a blue bear that was almost as big as her. Her blue eyes were large and round. Tear tracks stained her cheeks.
He scooped her from the floor, cuddling her in his arms. “What’s the matter, baby?” he whispered. He carried her back toward her room, but she planted two tiny hands on his chest.
“Not in there,” she said, voice rising. Her lower lip trembled.
Max sighed. “Why not?” Exasperation thrummed through him. He struggled to keep his voice at the appropriate calm Daddy level.
She cupped his ear with both hands. “Monsters,” she whispered.
He pulled away, eyes narrowed. Part of him wondered if she was just messing with him. Her eyes were solemn, though, and she clutched the bear tighter. “Monsters,” he repeated.
Chloe nodded.
Wondering if he were a contestant on some sick reality show, he carried her toward the bathroom. Flipping on the light, he sat her down on the counter. He filled her cup that she used to rinse her teeth after brushing and handed it to her. “This is magic water,” he said.
She eyed him dubiously, one arm wrapped around her bear. Her fingers clutched the cup.
“It makes you so brave, even the monsters will be afraid of you.” He nodded toward the cup. “Go on. Try it.”
Chloe kicked her feet against the cabinet underneath the sink. She poured the water down the drain and tossed the cup into the sink.
“Come on, kid,” he said, rubbing his face. “Why now? Why tonight? You never have nightmares.”
She cocked her head at him. “Monsters,” she corrected. Her eyes bore into his. She was as serious as she had ever been in her nearly three years of life.
Racking his brain, he tried to remember all of the tricks he knew about banishing monsters. He couldn’t remember ever having nightmares, and his brothers had all been too old for that stuff by the time he was old enough to pay attention. He wished he still lived at home. He could just ask his mother for help. He needed to soothe Chloe himself, though, or admit that he couldn’t take care of his own family.
An old TV commercial floated to the top of his memory. Inspired, Max held his arms open to Chloe. “Let’s go check,” he said.
She hugged the bear harder. She shook her head back and forth rapidly.
“Come on,” he said gently. “Daddy will make them go away. Show me where they are.”
Springing from the counter, she leapt into his arms, nearly knocking the wind out of his chest. He carried her back into the hall and then into her bedroom. He flipped on the light and eased inside of the room.
“Careful,” Chloe whispered.
Max made a mental note to pay more attention to the cartoons that she was watching. While she was learning a bigger vocabulary, she was also watching stuff that was apparently a little too scary. Hugging her to his chest, he exaggerated checking all of the usual places: her closet, underneath her toddler bed, and inside her toy box. Satisfied, he dropped her on her bed.
She bounced on the firm mattress, leaping back into his arms. Her small limbs wrapped around him. Clinging to him, she shook her head. “Monsters,” she hissed.
Shoulders slumping, Max resisted the urge to sigh. It wasn’t her fault. He shouldn’t have wasted so much time waiting to tell Savannah how he felt in the first place. Cradling Chloe in his arms, he sat down on her new toddler bed. It creaked beneath him, but the plastic held. Hello Kitty’s face stared back at him from the headboard.
“Daddy’s right here,” he said, rocking her halfheartedly. If any of the guys he had been friends with in high school could see him, they would laugh. None of that mattered anymore, though. He was, first and foremost, Chloe’s knight in shining armor. Even if things didn’t work out with Savannah, he still had his number one girl.
Her head drooped against his shoulder. For a moment, he thought she had fallen asleep. Unable to believe his luck, he bent his neck, craning to see her face. She blinked back at him. “Daddy,” she whispered, stifling a yawn. “Can you sing me the monster song?”
Max’s eyebrows furrowed. “Monster song? Sorry, baby, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She patted his shoulder. “You can make it up!”
The words didn’t sound quite like themselves, coming from his two-year-old, but he understood her. It was as if, throughout the last two years, they had developed some sort of weird telepathy. He opened his mouth to tell her that he didn’t sing, when she straightened in his arms. Bending her elbows, splaying her fingers, she mimed playing a piano. A grin bubbled on her face. Rolling away from him, she snuggled into bed, her bear clutched to her chest.
Max eyed her. He hadn’t used his keyboard since his final music class last semester. That was when he still lived at home, when Chloe barely saw him working. She shouldn’t even remember it. It didn’t matter, though. He couldn’t just make up a melody on the spot, anyway. Songwriting took him hours of concentration—especially after being out of the game for so long. As much as he loved music, the most he could hope for was teaching other people’s songs to other people’s kids.
“Daddy, sing,” Chloe said, bringing him back to the present moment.
He wondered when his two-year-old had gotten so bossy.
“Okay,” he said, shrugging. Chloe probably wouldn’t know the difference, anyway. Using the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” he dove in.
“Stupid, stupid monster, dude,
Stop scaring Chloe and being rude.
You’re far away from your monster home,
So go away and leave Chloe alone.
Stupid, stupid monster, dude,
Stop scaring Chloe and being rude.”
He expected Chloe to make him sing it again, or to insist on sleeping in his bed with him. Instead, she repeated the song. She missed a few words, but otherwise memorized the melody and the basic lyrics.
He groaned inwardly. Some other kid’s parents would tell him that teaching his two-year-old the word “stupid” was irresponsible. He couldn’t wait to get a phone call from his mother the next time she watched Chloe—if she ever watched Chloe again. With Savannah around, he didn’t need anyone else.
Max straightened. He still needed to talk to her.
Leaning over Chloe, he tucked her in. “All better now?” he asked.
Yawning, she said, “Needs piano.” Her eyelids fluttered closed, though, and she snuggled closer to her blue bear.
“You just sing the monster song whenever they bother you, okay baby?” He backed out of the room. As he eased into the hall, he flipped off her light switch. Pulling the door closed behind him, he leaned against the wall opposite her room. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes for just a moment. He had no idea how he had just done that, but pride thrummed through him. Maybe he wasn’t a master songwriter, but he could at least soothe a little girl who was afraid of monsters. Maybe, someday, he could pursue music more. For the time being, he would be happy if he could keep Chloe smiling.
Too tired to do a monster-crushing victory dance, though, he turned to Savannah’s room instead. Her door was only a couple of steps away, but his knees buckled as he walked. He paused outside, his shoulders and chest rising as he breathed deep breaths. He wondered if he should rehearse a little more. He had no idea what time it was, but was pretty sure that anything he said to her was going to sound lame. Maybe he should wait until the morning.
He turned, nodding to himself. As he started back toward his room, though, he thought of the hurt look on her face. She was probably just as sleepless as he was. Waiting until the morning was pointless. Talking about things would ease both of their heartache. Besides, if he waited, he had no way of stopping her from walking out before he woke up. She had moved out without him even knowing before. She could do it again.
Scrubbing at his face with his hands, Max sighed. “Now or never,” he whispered to himself in the dark hallway. Fighting another yawn, he turned back to her door. Keeping his touch light, he tapped on the door with two knuckles. He swallowed hard, his heart booming in his chest. If she came out with a baseball bat, he surmised, he probably deserved it.
The seconds slid by. Max gnawed on a knuckle. His muscles coiled, adrenaline flowing through him. The moment she opened the door, he decided, he was going to kiss her. Then he was going to tell her.
The door remained closed, though. His resolve began to fade. Maybe she was sleeping. Then, as an even worse thought struck him, he gripped the door frame for support. Maybe she had left while he was tending Chloe, slipping out behind his back. Pain seared through him at the thought, a pain he had never known. It felt like burning alive while drowning. He wondered if that was what it felt like to really be in love.
His fingers gripped the door knob. Twisting the knob, he pushed the door open a crack. Then he peered inside.
Darkness greeted him. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that Savannah had installed heavy curtains on her windows. In the dark, he could make out the shapes of her belongings. Her easel sat in a corner. A plastic three-drawer cart occupied another corner. In the middle of the room, close to the floor, Savannah lay curled up on her air mattress. Wrapped in a single blanket, she slept with her hair flowing over her shoulders and down her back. She looked like an angel, Max mused, leaning against the door frame. He watched her for a few heartbeats. Then, wondering if it might be creepy to do so, he slipped away, easing the door shut behind him.
It was too late at night to tell her, but they might not be over yet.
Retreating into his bedroom, he glanced at his keyboard out of the corner of his eye. Light from the street outside shone on it through the blinds. Max stood staring at it, rubbing at his chin. He wished that he could impress Savannah with a song the way he had impressed Chloe. Someday, he would write one for her—even if it took him his whole life to get it right. That was, of course, assuming that she stuck around long enough.
That was also assuming that he ever had time to mess around with the keyboard again. He sighed. His friends from high school were lucky. It was too late for him, but they got to eat, sleep, and breathe music every day. He wondered if things would be different if someone had believed in him and urged him to pursue music the way that Chloe and Savannah believed in him. Their faith was unwavering. Even when Savannah was pissed off at him, she still made him feel confident.
He stared at the keyboard, his mind racing. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him. Maybe, when Chloe was a little older, he could move to Boston, too. A smile spread across his face. He imagined living in a slightly nicer neighborhood in the historic art district. He had been there, once, for one of Levi’s book signings. His parents had hated it, but he had itched to explore the galleries and other book shops lining the streets. Chloe had been so little, though, and the thought of wandering around with an infant in an unfamiliar area had scared the hell out of him.
She was almost three, though, and she was tough. She would probably love Boston, and there would be all kinds of activities in the community that she could participate in.
Max’s grin widened. He could totally move his family to Boston—after he finished school, of course. He just hoped that Savannah would be part of that family.