Bankers' Hours (26 page)

We dried each other off and then spooned under the covers. Falling asleep in his arms was the most comforting experience in the world.

Chapter 11: Housekeeping, Parenting, And Facing My Number One Biggest Fear

WE HAD
toast and eggs before work. Tristan sat at my tiny table and sipped his coffee as I grinned at him, poking my eggs with my fork.

“Listen, tonight we need to sleep at my house. It’s Claire’s weekend, and Teresa usually drops her off at eight.”

“Okay,” I said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is. My place isn’t as nice as here. It’s bigger, but it’s not as nice. I think it’s something we need to talk about soon; I own my house and you rent. The logical thing to do is for you to move in with me.”

I knew it was inevitable, but I hadn’t thought it through. “Yeah, I guess. Or we could buy a place together?” I lifted both eyebrows and gave him my forlorn expression.

He grinned. He seemed to think everything I did or said was amusing. “Maybe, but if we sold my house and bought a different one, that would still take time. Logically, you should move in while we look for a house.” He took the last bite of his eggs and waited.

I slumped in my chair and glanced around my house. “I just painted the kitchen,” I complained.

“I can tell. Look, how about I let you do whatever you want to my place? Even if we sell it, it will still need a fresh coat of paint and some remodeling. If you do all that, who knows? Maybe you’ll like it and we can stay.”

“You’re hoping I want to stay.”

“I grew up in that house, Grant. My dad bought it when I was five. I have a lot of memories there—but if you still hate it after you redecorate, I’m willing to move. Like I said, you’re the only one I’m willing to change my life for.” Tristan downed his last sip of coffee and took his dishes to my sink. He rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. I hated to tell him I never used it because I didn’t dirty enough dishes.

I got up, took my dishes into the kitchen, and set them on the counter, then slipped my arms around his waist and leaned my head on his shoulder. He was always saying things that made me feel so special. “If you’re willing to sell the house if I hate it, then I’m willing to help clean it out and repaint it. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have, but I’ll try.”

Tristan rubbed my back. “What if I paid you for your time?”

I scrunched up the side of my face and pulled back far enough to give him my weird, what-are-you-talking-about look. “Paid me?”

“Yeah, hear me out. If I had someone else do it, I’d have to pay them. If you cut back your hours a little to make time to paint and stuff, then I’d be willing to pay you.”

“It seems weird. We’re married.”

“True. But are you going to continue to work full time?”

“I guess.”

“Then work for me for a few weeks to get the place spruced up. I know you hate being there.”

“Hate is a strong word.” Still, I had to admit he wasn’t far off. The grime made me squirm when I was in there, especially after that first night. In the dark it wasn’t so bad, but in the light of day I could see dust buildup and clutter everywhere. I had focused hard on Tristan and his lovely bare chest just to keep from screaming at him about the mess he had obviously never purged from 1939. I consented. “I’ll do it. I’ll clean your house. Although I might get professional cleaners to finish up and detail it after my part is done.”

Tristan kissed my forehead. “Deal.”

I added, “A clean house may also look good to a judge.”

“You’re amazing.” He winked. “Now I gotta run. I’ll be at work until probably seven thirty. I need to finish this transmission job and go through my mail from this week.” He left me in the kitchen and sat down to put his shoes on. In no time, he kissed me good-bye and was out the door.

“This is married life, I guess,” I mumbled to my tiny house. He was right. I rented, and this place was great for one person but not for a family. I had to accept that changes were coming.

I GOT
off work at five and headed to Tristan’s in order to make us dinner. I stopped by the shop to let him know where I’d be, and ended up talking to Wes for twenty minutes. He was a nice guy. Before cooking, I had to clean off the counter. I put on my big boy panties, stepped into his kitchen, and found a ball of old bloody bandages wadded up behind the sugar bowl. I threw up in my mouth as I tossed them in the trash. I put on rubber gloves after that, not knowing what else lurked in his kitchen.

I found a dead mouse in the first cabinet I opened, dried and shriveled like a mummy in an Egyptian exhibit. It wasn’t in a trap, just lying next to some juice glasses with its eyes sunken in. Discarding its little body was another near-vomit moment for me.

I could not bring myself to use any of those dishes, even if I sanitized them. I couldn’t. Not when I’d found dead mice resting in peace next to them. I found an empty cardboard box in the living room—because all hoarders have piles of empty cardboard boxes lying around—and stacked his dishes and glasses in them. Once all the cabinets were empty, I filled a bucket with hot water and grabbed a stepladder from the bathroom—an odd place to keep those—and started washing every nook and cranny. Under the dust and dirt, I found very fine mahogany cabinets. After the second time I washed them, because once was not enough, I considered how nice new dishes would look in them. Tristan could even replace several of the doors with glass fronts to show our dishes off.

I sighed and took in my vision. Maybe, just maybe, Tristan’s place had potential.

I opened the refrigerator to find beer and pancakes. Not exactly the dinner of champions, and when confronted with a bottle of mustard and several dead flies lined up along the bottom, I opted to clean out the fridge before even attempting to make a list of items to buy at the store.

By the time Tristan left work and walked home, I was too tired to cook and we ordered pizza. Much to my delight, Tristan liked Hawaiian pizza just like me.

When 9:00 p.m. rolled around and Claire hadn’t been dropped off, Tristan had to call Teresa. She told him she’d forgotten what time it was and would bring Claire by in the morning. He told me he didn’t believe it for a second but hadn’t fussed at her because at least she wasn’t being belligerent about bringing Claire in the morning. I only hoped she wouldn’t come in for coffee.

TRISTAN ASSURED
me the sheets were clean, even though he’d confessed at my house he only changed them once a month. They smelled clean, so I believed him. When sunlight streamed through his dingy bedroom windows, I knew it wouldn’t be long before his daughter would arrive and my new life as a stepdad would start. Would she respect me? Would she acknowledge me as a dad? What did stepdads do differently than regular dads?

I heard the floor creak but thought nothing of it until someone—Claire—pounced on the bed and crushed the two of us under her squealing body. “Daddy!”

Tristan only grunted, locking his arm across my chest as if he knew I’d try to flee.

“Oh my God!” Claire exclaimed, the bed still moving up and down as she bounced. At least she’d moved off of us and onto the side of the bed. “You’re married and you’re sleeping together. Oh my God—you’re married! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!” She kept bouncing to punctuate her exclamations, and I felt like our bed was on a ship rocking at sea.

I murmured to Tristan, “Please let me move. I promise not to bolt from the bed and lock myself in the bathroom.”

He chuckled but released me. I rolled onto my back as he did the same, and I looked at my new daughter. Claire was on her knees beside Tristan, bouncing like a little child on Christmas morning, her smile taking over her face. “Hi, Claire,” I said lamely, pulling the sheet up to cover my chest. She didn’t need to see my body.

“Hi, Claire?” she asked, sounding irritated with my greeting. “Hi, Claire! Grant, I’m your daughter now. How great is that?” She bounced some more. “You can call me whatever you want—Daughter, Sweetheart, Honey, Princess—you know, whatever.”

“How about ‘Annoyingly Perky Child Who’s Going to Make Me Vomit if She Keeps Bouncing on the Bed Like a Four-Year-Old’?” I said, completely serious.

She giggled but stopped bouncing. “Okay, but what can I call you? I call my dad ‘Dad,’ or ‘Daddy.’ I can’t call you the same thing.”

“You can call me Grant.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “No. Everyone else calls you that. How about ‘Papa’?”

I lifted my eyebrow. “That makes me sound really old.”

“True,” she said, still thinking. I thought she’d fuss or get mad with my directness, but she took it all in stride. “Maybe ‘Dad’ works fine. I’ll think about it.” She eyed both of us. “So what’s on the agenda for today?”

Tristan answered, even though his eyes were still closed and he seemed seconds from drifting back to sleep. “Claire likes a list of things we’re going to do. We normally hit the gym at nine and then go for brunch at Baugher’s Restaurant.”

I told him, “Then that’s what you should do. I really want to clean some more. This place is gross, and if I’m going to live here for any length of time, I need order and cleanliness.”

Tristan chuckled and leaned over to kiss my jaw. “I love you,” he said, smiling.

My breath caught in my chest as I widened my eyes at him. He’d said it. Here. Casually, like they were words he used in every conversation.

He turned to Claire. “Claire, can you give us a moment? Maybe make me some coffee before we head to the gym?”

“Okay,” she agreed enthusiastically, hopping off the bed and dashing out the door. She returned one second later, leaping back onto the bed and diving into my arms. She hugged me and then bounded back out the door, exclaiming, “I’m so happy!”

Tristan turned back to me and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It slipped out. I’ve been trying not to overdo it, but with Claire here I was too relaxed and it slipped out. I’m sorry.”

“You love me,” I said in my shocked state. My brain was frozen, looping those words over and over in my head. Tristan had said he loved me in front of his daughter. He’d said it in the jewelry store too, and I’d believed him, but something about saying it in front of his daughter made my insides feel squidgy, like Silly Putty or Play-Doh.

He hunkered down next to me, pulled the sheet back to rub my bare chest, and reiterated, “I love you. I can tell it makes you uncomfortable to hear it. It seems too soon to say, but I do. I knew when I first laid eyes on you I was doomed. I knew when you spilled your drink into my lap I was smitten. But when you jumped into my battle with Teresa and blurted we were getting married, Grant, I knew I’d lost my heart.”

“You love me?” I asked again, not fully comprehending how he knew.

“Yes. It’s the same feeling I get when I see Claire.”

I pulled back and glared, which tipped him off about how odd that sounded.

“Hear me out. When I see Claire, I feel happy—genuinely happy—from my head to my feet. My whole body tingles, knowing I get to spend a couple of days with her, listening to her talk and hearing her laugh. I miss her during the week, but I’ve always worked so much that I told myself if she’d been here, I wouldn’t have seen her anyway. Then I met you, and that tingling feeling happened every time I saw you. I’m happy hearing you laugh and listening to you talk. I was even happy when you fussed about the dead mouse in my cabinet.”

He chuckled, and so did I. Only I had tears in my eyes, and my chuckle dislodged them so they rolled down my cheeks.

Tristan continued, “My niece, my sister’s kid, once described the feeling as ‘family tingles.’ It’s a sensation you only get with family, because you love them deep in your bones, and no matter what, you can’t bear the separation for long. When I met you, you felt like family.”

I was full-on crying then. I pushed myself into his chest and held him so tight I thought my arms would fall off when I let go. He held me and rubbed my back—he was always rubbing my back—and after a few minutes, I found my voice enough to respond. “I’ve never felt like that,” I squeaked.

“It’s okay. I don’t expect you to say it back right away. I want it to be real, Grant. Don’t say it until you feel it in your bones. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“The kitchen looks great, but where are all the coffee mugs?” I heard Claire ask from the doorway.

“They’re in the boxes by the wall. Take three out, and wash them before you use them. Grant’s going to pick out new dishes this week.”

“Okay.”

I sniffled and leaned away. “I am?” I wiped my eyes and looked at him.

“I assumed so, since you chucked all mine.”

He wasn’t even angry about it. I gave him a half smile. “I guess I am.”

TRISTAN GOT
dressed, and soon the two of them were out the door on their way to the gym. My plan was to pick a spot and clean it to the best of my ability while I had a quiet house. I called my mom first and filled her in on our brief ceremony. She seemed to understand but said she’d appreciate dinner sometime soon in order to meet the guy who’d swept me off my feet. After I told her I’d call Monday, I plugged my phone into the charger and turned on Pandora. The
Glee
cast mix got me pumped for anything, even cleaning what could have been described as an indoor junkyard. The muffler under the coffee table had to go! I put on sweatpants and my Journey T-shirt and got to work.

FOUR AND
a half hours later, Tristan and Claire came home. I was in the middle of singing the Warblers’ rendition of “Hey, Soul Sister” when I spun around and spotted them in the doorway. Tristan had a huge smile on his face, and Claire was covering her mouth with her hand. I stopped singing two seconds before my body stopped wiggling as I locked eyes with them.

“You are too adorable for words,” he commented with a smirk.

I thought Claire would comment on my moves, possibly make fun of me, but she didn’t. Instead, she went immediately to the living room. “Oh, wow!” Claire exclaimed. “Look at what Grant’s done to the living room, Dad. You can see the television console.” Her sound of wonder made me feel really good.