Page 40 of I'll Carry You

“I do. You’re thinking I’m being an idiot. That I shouldn’t let my baby out of my sight with a man I hardly know.” Jen returned to her station. She’d played that argument over and over and over in her head ever since that day Colby disappeared. And as much as she’d felt judged harshly over the past three years for being the “single mother,” not a soul had said a bad wordabouther—to her knowledge—regarding that night. In fact, since then, she’d felt as though everyone had been a little more attentive to Colby’s location. So she’d hoped that those extra eyes would be on Colby now as a virtual stranger led him to the bookstore.

“No, I wasn’t thinking that, Jen, but clearly, that’s where your head went.” Travis had followed Jen to her station and tilted his head. “I was thinking how nice it is to see you finally trusting people again.”

She cringed and gave him a one-eyed squint. “Have I gotten that bad?”

Travis simply nodded slowly.

“Ugh—it’s the worst. Speaking of which, my anxiety is going into hyperdrive. Can you call Annie and ask her if Colby got there safely? Jason took him to story hour.”

Travis laughed and pulled his phone out. Less than a minute later, Travis flashed a picture of Colby and Jason sitting on the braided rainbow rug in the children’s area of the bookstore. “From Annie. See? You can calm down. Go back to that progress I thought you were making.”

Despite Travis’s teasing, it set her heart at ease to see Annie’s picture. And made her heart throb. “I really like Jason. But he’s not in town for long, and then I’ll probably never see him again. And he probably doesn’t feel the same way. We talked about spending a night together and not getting into a long-term thing. But I have this weird gut feeling about him. He seems like someone I can trust, and Colby was strangely very comfortable with him.”

Spilling her heart out to Travis was easy. Like Lindsay, he’d been there to pick her up off the floor a thousand times before. Sometimes literally. One time in her late teens, Travis had been forced to go into the ladies’ bathroom at The Bench and carry her out because she was too drunk to stand. Then he’d taken her to Lindsay’s house to spend the night so Jen’s parents wouldn’t kill her for underage drinking.

“He’s spent the morning hanging out with your three-year-old, Jen. Trust me when I tell you he likes you.”

“Then you don’t think I’m being stupid?” Jen held her breath, hoping. Her instincts kept screaming at her to slow down, to be more cautious, but maybe if Travis thought it was all right for her to jump into this without overthinking it, she’d feel more validated.

Travis winced. “It’s not stupid. It’s . . .” He released a slow sigh. “I don’t want you to get hurt. And you don’t know much about this guy, right?”

Her heart fell. She’d hoped he wouldn’t say this. “You think he just wants to sleep with me?”

“He definitely wants to sleep with you. He wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t.” Travis’s eyes were warm. “But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that I’d hate to see you finally open up to and trust someone only to have it set you back in the long run. There’s a middle ground between being too cautious and running off an airplane with a backpack instead of a parachute.”

Jen finished feeding the starter and then put it away. She reached for a pastry bag to fill éclairs. “So what do I do? It’s not like I can ask him to stick around. Should I talk about where this is going before I let things go any further?”

“Not unless you want to scare him away permanently.” Travis chuckled. “I was thinking maybe an actual date. You said you all stayed in Yardley’s for what—ten minutes?”

“Yeah, but we had pizza together last night.”

“With Colby. Watching cartoons.” Travis gave her a sympathetic look. “But you need a date. One where you can get lucky if it goes well.”

“First, I can’t ask my parents to watch Colby for a date and tell them I might not come back that night, so they should just keep him all night. They’d be pissed.”

“Then don’t plan on staying the night. That’s not what this thing you’re having with this guy is, anyway. Wrap up dinner early, go back to his place, and then go home. And if it helps, I’ll watch Colby.”

That was true. Her mind didn’t need to go to a long night together. She gave him a grateful look. “But doesn’t that make me a horrible mother? Colby spends enough time away from me as it is. For me to be pawning him off on you so I can get laid...that makes me a shitty mother.”

Travis slipped his arm around her shoulder. “It just makes you a person. You’re not shipping him off for a month or even a week to a boarding school either. It’s one evening. One date. Give yourself permission for a quick fling. You have to take care of yourself, too. Otherwise, you can’t be the best mother anyway. No one can run on an empty tank of gas.”

Travis looked back toward the kitchen doors. “I should go back out there. But I’m serious. Get that date and get to know the guy a little. Just tell me when. I’ll clear whatever I have planned for you.”

As Travis went back into the front, Jen snipped the end off a pastry bag. She set it over a cup, folded the edges over the side, and filled it with pastry cream. Getting lost in work was the peaceful part. She didn’t eat too many desserts these days—she’d had more than her fill of pastries and cakes—but she still enjoyed the creation process.

Thoughts of Jason and Colby crowded in, though. The idea of having the date Travis had suggested was exhilarating, actually. She had to stop trying to think of the long term.

Give yourself permission for a quick fling.

They’d also lost the spontaneity and mystery of Saturday night. How would Jason react if she asked him out on a date? It seemed to break whatever fragile rules he had for women. Did he take the women he hooked up with on dates? Or was it more like he’d implied at Yardley’s: finding someone at a bar? If it was the latter, the idea of a date might repel him.

The start of lunch hour left her little time to worry about it, though. She shifted her efforts over to helping the cooks, plating meals, and packing to-go containers as the orders came in. She barely could wave as Jason snuck back in to let her know he and Colby had returned and were grabbing a table.

When the rush died down, she left the kitchen for a few minutes to go check on Colby. He and Jason were seated at a booth in the corner. She hung back for a moment near the doors.

Except for the color of their hair, Colby and Jason looked like they could be father and son. They wore similar expressions: self-satisfied smirks, their laughter twinkling in their sharp blue, intelligent eyes as they laughed about something. Even with him only being three, Jen could tell Colby was smart. He had a way of understanding things that shocked her sometimes.

The moment made her heart melt as Jason said something to Colby, then stole a piece of a brownie from his plate.

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