Page 75 of Engulfing Emma

“Of course,” she says, ruffling his hair.

“How’s the tooth coming in, buddy? Did you sleep well last night?”

Leo forks some eggs into his mouth and says, “Toof.”

That tooth has been coming in for what seems like weeks. It’s a big one. He often wakes up at night. Sometimes when I’m up with him, I look out the window. Occasionally someone is looking back.

Tonight, Emma and I are supposed to go to a rooftop party that’s fifty floors up.It’s not a date, she says in my head.It’s an exercise. Funny, however, that after all ourexercises, we end up in bed. I’m not sure how I feel about that now, knowing she’s been dating someone else.

Thinking about her going to dinner with another man makes my skin crawl. Thinking about her doing what we do together in bed makes me insane. So I try not to. Except that I spent the better part of last night doing just that.

I gaze lovingly at Leo. “You want to go to Central Park today? Denver said he’d meet us there with Joey.”

He claps his hands. He knows exactly who Joey is. Sometimes it amazes me they get along so well. Most toddlers play side-by-side but not necessarily together. Leo and Joey are different. They playwitheach other. Even more surprising, theyshare.

“We’ll leave after I get a shower.” I spoon some eggs onto a plate for Bonnie and place them in front of her. Then I give Leo and Bonnie a kiss on the head before going up to get ready.

~ ~ ~

“You’re acting strange,” Emma says in the cab on our way to the cocktail party.

If I’ve had any minor victories when it comes to Emma, it’s that she now rides with me to our destinations.

“I’m just tired,” I tell her. “Leo’s been teething.”

“Oh, I remember that. Evelyn would keep me up for hours, even when I put that nasty gel on her gums.”

“Leo hates that stuff. I think it makes him cry harder than the actual tooth breaking through. The baby Tylenol helps, but it takes a while to kick in.”

“Do you think you’ll have more kids?” she asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe, if the right woman came along.” Guilt immediately consumes me given the company I’m with. “I mean not that you aren’t … But we aren’t … well, you know what I mean.”

She smiles sadly. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“What about you? Do you want more kids?”

“I don’t know. I was so young when I had Evelyn, I feel like we kind of grew up together. I suppose it would be different having a child in my twenties or thirties. Evelyn wants a sibling. She’s even hinted lately about being okay with having a stepfather someday.”

I have to bite my tongue. Evie and I get along great, but could she want me as more than her friend? In all honesty, I can’t imagine a finer girl to have as a stepchild. Then again, with her mom dating other men, the odds of that happening are getting slimmer by the day.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Emma asks. “You seem off tonight.”

“I’m the one who should be asking you that. We’re about to go up fifty stories.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” she says.

The cab pulls up to the building, and I swipe my debit card before getting out. “It’s my goal to get you to the top of the Empire State Building before the end of the month.”

“Ha! Good luck with that. There’s not enough chardonnay in New York City to make that happen.”

“There’s really not that much difference between fifty floors and one hundred.”

“You mean, if the building collapses, we’re still toast.”

I shoot her a scolding look.

“Sorry,” she says. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the dead.”

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