He shrugs, reaching out to smooth a hand down Jett’s back. “Why not? I’m not asking to hand wash your panties, Beck. I’m gonna take some dishes to the sink, throw some trash away, and maybe fold some blankets.”
His eyes move between mine, studying me as he waits for an answer. This is what teamwork is–sharing the tasks and not being made to feel bad about it. Only, he isn’t my partner. This is a date.
“No, please, this is a date. You can’t.” I hoist Jett higher on my hip. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll have him changed and bathed, then you can keep me company while I feed him.”
I expect an argument; I expect him to be insistent on doing it his way. Because that’s what Dustin would have done. Instead, he smiles, pushes a stack of magazines on a sweatshirt over on the couch and flops down. “Okay, I’ll be here.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later,I’m chasing a scooting Jett down the hallway into the living room, the ends of my hair now wet again from bathing the baby.
Beau twists on the couch, the edges of something in his hands as he looks back at me.
When he sees my arms are empty, he tosses the item aside and slides off the couch, swooping up Jett as he comes around the corner.
“I was reading your pottery periodical,” he says before I can ask, and then without direction, he holds Jett in his arms as he trails me to the kitchen. I strain the pasta, dodging the steam as I respond.
“Periodical, huh? Are you sure you listen to Drake and not a gramophone?”
“I wasn’t sure if it is a magazine because there aren’t a lot of pictures and most of it is articles. So calling it a magazine felt wrong.”
I pour sauce into the pan and add the meat that had been cooling in a separate pan. Giving it a stir, I wipe my hands on the towel hanging from the oven door handle.
“It’s kind of both. I mean, it still has advertisements but it is mostly informational.”
“It was cool,” he hedges, Jett’s head tipping forward to Beau’s shoulder. Like it is the most natural thing, Beau’s large hand comes down on the back of Jett’s head, soothing him as he begins to sway.
Over six feet of muscle and nice hair, tanned skin, and a pearly grin is standing in my kitchen, rocking and swaying with my baby.
I almost can’t believe how quickly things have happened.
“I want to see the studio. Do you have kilns?” he asks, his voice dropping to a baby-sleep-approved volume.
Impressed, I head down the hall, and he follows. I sink into my nursing chair as he passes me a tired Jett.
“If he’s kinda sleeping, do you still feed him?” Beau asks, smoothing a linen swaddling blanket over Jett’s legs as I position him across my lap. When he was just a baby, I had to use a special nursing pillow between him and my lap. Now he’s so big that half the time he just grabs my nipple and pops it in his own mouth.
Beau takes a seat across from me, just like yesterday.
“Yeah, think of it like… topping off,” I reply with a smile, then I remember that Beau drives a Tesla. “Wait, you don’t have to do that since you have an electric car. But you get the reference.”
He nods, and my eyes magnetize to his broad chest, parts of his bare skin visible from the way his shirt pulls tight as he leans back into the small chair. Those buttons are working hard.
“I still top off. Just… with electricity not gas.”
Jett latches the moment my boob is out, and my focus returns to Beau. He’s watching Jett, but again, his expression is tender, almost melodic, as if this moment is bringing him something that nothing else does. He blinks a few times, leaning forward to drop his elbows to his knees. I think he’s going to say something, but instead, he just watches.
A moment passes, and I say, “oh yeah, how’s that work?” I feel a bit sad that he didn’t segue into feelings or give me a peek into his psyche, but I guess that was a lot to expect after a single complicated (yet adoring) look.
“When I’m nearly fully charged, I’ll still plug it in at home because it only adds five kilowatts of energy per hour, so by the time I wake up for work in the morning, it’s added sixty miles, and I’m close to being topped off.”
I nod. “That makes sense,” I remember what Goldie said when I told her Beau drives a Tesla. I shared the information as more evidence that Beau does not fit the bill of a stereotypical twenty-something. Working as a mechanic but owning a very eco-friendly new car. He doesn’t seem impulsive either. But Goldie took that information in the annoying way that she sometimes can–as gossip.
“Oh, that’s a pretty pricey car for a mechanic,” she’d said, and though I know it doesn’t sound like a great comment, she really did just mean it as gossip as opposed to being destructive of his career choice.
“Again,” I’d told her, “his finances are not my business.” I had to tell her that once before when she commented on the cost of him callingWheel Get Youto see me so often.
But now I guess since we are just sitting in almost silence—nothing but Jett’s swallows and grunts in the air–I find myself wondering, just a little.