Page 12 of Wrong Number Text

My ladder has a pool for every damn thing. “Get out, Jenkins.”

“You still coming by Saturday?”

“It’s a little weird that you guys are having a co-ed baby shower after your kid is already born.”

“Get with the times, Cap. And bring a gift for my wife to open.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get out before I make you write these reports for me.”

When the alarm sounds an hour later, I realize I’m not going to be able to “get laid” tonight. It’s a big fire and it isn’t until morning that I have a chance to text Dixie.

Leo: Good morning, baby. Sorry I missed our date. Bad fire. How are you?

She doesn’t answer. I eat something. Take a shower. Get a nap in. Still nothing. I go for a run, and when I come back, she’s left me a voicemail:

“Leo, I’m kind of glad you didn’t pick up. When you didn’t call last night, I worried. All night. I’ve been pretty out of it at work today. But it gave me a lot of time to think. I don’t think I can do this anymore. Whatever this is. I was so glad to see your message this morning and know you were okay. But what if you weren’t? What if I never heard what happened to you?

“What we are is each other’s dirty secret, but I can’t be that anymore. I hope you understand. I want a family. I’ll never be able to date anyone else if I have you in my life. And you wouldn’t look twice at me if we met in a bar for real. I have to be realistic. I hope you haven’t already ruined me for other men, but I have to at least try. Please stay safe and know I’ll always care and always be grateful for what we had.”

Her voice breaks at the end and the phone slips out of my hand.

She just broke up with me. I don’t know what to do with that. It’s not supposed to hurt. We were both playing roles, weren’t we?

I can’t blame her. She’s still young enough to find a man her age and have all those babies she wants so bad.

But damn if that doesn’t make me want to punch a wall.

It was just a phone thing. It wasn’t real. I never touched her. Never tasted her skin.

But the ache near my heart tells me something else. The heart I didn’t think was involved.

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I ALMOST SKIP THE BABYshower on Saturday. I’m shit for company. Everyone has been staying out of my way at work. But Merrily, Jenkins’s wife, called me directly to remind me to come today. I’m probably the only single person going to this damn thing.

Co-ed fucking baby shower.

I enter through the kitchen like I usually do. I figure it will give me extra time before I have to pretend to be happy in a roomful of people if I go in the back door and have a beer in the kitchen. Maybe I can offer to help with something.

I helped them move into this house. I helped Jenkins remodel this kitchen. I was the first person he told when his wife peed on a stick, and I’m a godparent, though I’ve been assured it’s a courtesy title and not a “please raise our kid if something happens to us” thing. I need to stop being such an ass about my breakup and be happy for them. They have a family now. And they are my family.

I rub my chest. That phantom ache hasn’t gone anywhere since the voicemail on Monday.

The kitchen isn’t empty, but it’s still quiet.

“Cap! You came!” Merrily says, handing the baby to a brunette woman and coming to meet me at the door. “I told Jim you’d be here. I had $25 in the pool.”

I hug her. “Not you, too.”

I hear the baby squeak, and it draws my attention across the kitchen. Seeing the woman holding the baby makes me think of Dixie. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with the primitive desire to see my woman holding my baby. Why now?

All these years of feeling neutral and now I want a different life? A family of my own?

Maybe I should call Dixie. Maybe letting go is the wrong choice.

Merrily tells us she needs to grab a diaper in the next room. I wander over to see the baby. She looks less like a little old man than she did in the hospital. The woman is doing that little bouncy thing you see parents do. She looks really pretty. Prettier than the baby, but you’re probably not supposed to say that about babies.

For the first time since I “met” Dixie, I feel attracted to another woman. She’s not the kind of beauty that people buy magazines for, but there’s a special ...grace about her. She looks good with a baby in her arms. It feels like cheating to even notice her, but now I can’t stop. She smells like oranges.

My heart picks up, and I’m hyperaware of everything around me. The ticking of the kitchen clock, the little gurgles from baby Emma, the freckles across the bridge of the brunette’s nose.

Merrily pops back in. “Okay, I’m going to change the baby, and you two are going to stop hiding in my kitchen. Heaven save me from introverts. Oh, God. I didn’t even introduce you. Cap, this is my cousin, Dixie. She’s the godmother and the one who is actually guardian if something happens to us. Dix, this is Jim’s boss. But he’s part of the family. He’s the one who promises to threaten potential boyfriends of Emma’s for you if you end up taking care of her.”

Shock sucker-punches me in the gut. That’s a coincidence, right? I mean she can’t be my Dixie. Life doesn’t work that way. But how many women are named Dixie? I never met one before a month ago.

I look at this Dixie more closely, searching for clues. My mouth goes dry and my hands ache to touch this woman, this stranger, just to see. Would I know if I touched her? Would my body recognize her? Fuck. I think it already does. I take a deep breath, trying to slow down my racing heart. I wait for her to hand the baby to Merrily before I put my hand out. “Hello, Dixie.”

She blinks. I think she recognizes my voice. Her breath catches when I take her hand in mine to shake.

“You don’t have to call me Cap unless you get a job at the fire hall. Feel free to call me Leo.”

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