Page 5 of One More Heartbeat
The woman’s and the girl’s heads snap up, surprise rounding their eyes. The toddler whimpers. Probably because she’s damn cold.
Kellan’s Trailblazer door slams shut. At the noise, the toddler releasesa shriek and presses herself farther into the woman’s side, as if trying to hide or stay warm. She’s clutching a stuffed animal to her body, its black-and-white shape pinned under her arm.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I tell them. “I thought you heard me pull up to the house. Is there something I can help you with?”
The woman closes the book and pushes to her feet, the toddler cradled against her body. The little girl buries her face into the woman’s chest and keeps it there.
“Is she okay?” I take inventory of the woman’s features, but nothing about her is familiar. She’s not a neighbor. Door-to-door canvassers don’t usually bring small children with them when they knock on doors, especially not when it’s raining heavily. And they don’t usually wait for people to come home, nor do they read on the homeowner’s porch.
The woman’s gaze darts to something over my shoulder, possibly Kellan. She shifts on her feet, as if she’d rather be anywhere but here, her attention returning to me.
“She’s your…” She adjusts the girl a little higher on her waist, her eyes never leaving me, her skin a little paler than before. “She’s your daughter.”
I stare at the pair for a fraction of a second, positive I’ve misheard her, the heavy rain drowning out her words.
Like I thought I’d misheard Maxwell when he’d told me about the movie deal?
Anger flares in me. Why would someone think it’s okay to accuse me of being a father—and think I won’t call bullshit on their lie? This ismyhouse. Is she some hyper fan who found out where I live and is trying to infiltrate my life? “She’s absolutely, definitely,notmine.”
2
ZARA
I shifton the couch in the empty staff room, trying to get comfortable. On the wall is a poster of New Orleans at night that showcases one of my favorite places. I was there five months ago for my grandmother’s funeral. Five months and the grief from losing Mimi hasn’t dimmed.
I rub the achy spot in the back of my neck and then the one in my shoulder. The pain started in my neck five years ago and hasn’t gotten better. “Lord, I’m only thirty-five,” I mutter. Just how long will it take to heal from whatever I’d done to it?
I pick up the bottle of ibuprofen from the coffee table and swallow a capsule with a glass of water. Initially, I hadn’t needed the medication on a regular basis. But after the pain in my body increased five months ago, my physician told me to start taking the medication again until things got better.
She figured it might be an overuse injury, the result of my job. I’m careful while working in the kitchen and when lifting heavy things, but even then, I must have pulled a muscle or something.
My knees twinge in agreement, the ache in them also flaring up lately, but not enough to keep me fromdoing the job I love.
I hide the ibuprofen in my desk drawer and return to the couch to do the payroll paperwork.
As I hit submit, the staff-room door opens, and Keshia walks in. The Keshia I saw twenty minutes ago, after the lunch rush was over, is not the same one taking her break. The Keshia from twenty minutes ago was smiling and joking with a customer. Now she looks like someone’s kidnapped her puppy. If she had a puppy.
“What happened?” I ask as her friend and not as her boss.
She sinks into an armchair and removes her scarf, her box braids tied up in a top-knot bun. Gold flower earrings dangle against her bronze skin. “Tyler and I were supposed to get together tonight. Just the two of us. But he canceled a few minutes ago, claiming something came up and he’s not gonna make it.”
“Claiming? You don’t sound like you believe him.”
She lets out a sigh, like a bicycle tire with a rapid leak. “I would if his buddies hadn’t been laughing and joking in the background. He probably bailed on me to hang out with them.” I didn’t think the curve of her mouth could deflate any lower. I was wrong.
What she’s saying doesn’t surprise me. If Tyler were listed on Yelp as boyfriend material, he would barely scrape by with a 2.5-star rating. This isn’t the first time he’s pulled this crap with Keshia. Nothing I say will change anything, so I zip my mouth and let her rant.
“I love him, but I wish he was more attentive, you know?”
I nod. “I do.”
“It drives me nuts that he would rather be with his friends than with me. It’s not like I’m some controlling girlfriend who never lets them hang out together.”
I nod once more. She has a point. Keshia is sweet and kind and considerate. She’s also an incredible singer and cake decorator. Tyler is lucky to have a wonderful, talented girlfriend like her. Too bad he’s not smart enough to appreciate it.
“What you need is a boyfriend like Joseph.”My boyfriend.The words slip out easily, but there’s something frail about them, like dry crumbs falling on the floor.
Keshia stares at me for a beat, then bursts out laughing. “You mean boring?”
