Page 66 of His Best Friend's Baby

“He’s two, Agnes. His mind changes every few minutes,” she spat. She crouched in front of Ben and fought tears. “Ben, we have to go,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to!”

“Me, either, but—”

He stomped his foot. His face twisted and a full-blown tantrum gathered steam. She rubbed her forehead and wished herself a million miles from this place.

“Stay!” he shouted.

She pulled the towel from around his neck and he started to cry. She picked him up, kicking and screaming, and put him in his stroller.

“Julia! Look what you’re doing!” Agnes cried. “Look at him—”

“I see him, Agnes,” she growled.

She clipped her screaming, writhing son in, threw the diaper bag over her chest and picked up the suitcase. “I’ll be in touch,” she told Agnes and left.

She knew Agnes would be watching her, so she didn’t take the shortcut. She took the long way—even though it meant parading Ben and his tantrum through the neighborhood—hoping Agnes would never dream she’d go to Jesse.

As exits go, it was a disaster. But at least it was an exit. She’d take her points where she could get them.

JESSE SET DOWN the planer and lifted the headboard. He blew off the sawdust and shavings then eyed the line. Straight. True, as his grandfather used to say.

His blood stilled, his ears pricked as a shoe hit gravel outside the door. He could smell her even before he turned.

“Jesse?”

He faced her and saw a different woman, a woman full of anger and hurt, wearing a Petro uniform. Her eyes were watery and her skin flushed an angry deep red. Jesse glanced at Ben, who sported puffy eyes and a blotchy face.

Jesse had the sinking feeling a disaster had just landed at his feet.

“You okay?” he asked.

She told him a story about Holmes Landscaping and Agnes and messages she’d never gotten, but she knew what was really happening. He knew as she took the deep breath what she’d ask.

“Can we stay here, just for a little while?” Her sky-blue eyes tore into him.

His whole body was suffused with heat, and the pins and needles that accompany flesh asleep for too long, finally awakening.

“Sure,” he said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JULIA CAME INTO the kitchen from the bedroom where she’d spent the last half hour putting Ben down for a long-overdue nap. She still looked rigid, as if anger had fused her joints.

“Sit down before you fall down,” Jesse told her. She eased into the chair. Her hands were fisted in her lap.

It was a physical battle to keep himself from touching her.

Friends, he reminded himself. Don’t be an ass.

He put an open bottle of water in front of her, thinking she could probably use it. She drank half of it in one long swallow.

He watched her, that shift and play of her throat, and wondered what he was supposed to do. What did friends do right now? If she were Mitch—his only other friend—they’d go get drunk. Or rather, Mitch would get drunk and Jesse would sit and listen to Mitch’s bullshit until he ran out of it.

“I don’t think you realized what you agreed to when you said we could stay.” She set the water down. “We’re sort of a logistical nightmare.”

He nodded and pushed himself up to sit on the counter—the same spot where she’d sat the other day. He walked a dangerous line having her here, when every moment with her was like brushing against a live wire. And he found that the very time when he needed to be an asshole to preserve himself, he didn’t have anything left.

Go figure.

“I have to ask Amanda to babysit, but since I don’t have a car, I can’t get Ben up to her house. Would it be all right if she—”

“Yes.” He nodded and he could practically see the weight of responsibility coming off her in big chunks, her body loosening.

“Jesse,” she whispered in the manner of someone who’s been saved from going underwater. “I can’t—”

“It’s no problem,” he said. “I’m serious.”

She was going to say something else and he couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to see her so grateful for these meager things.

“I’ve got some work to do,” he told her. “You can use that bedroom and make yourself at home.” He knew it was cowardly, but he walked away from her. Headed out to the garage.

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