Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
15
Chapter Fifteen
Riley
“That’s not how you…no…no…don’t do that. It needs to be at…,” says immature male #1.
“It’s never going to hold…no it isn’t, and you’ll end up falling…,” replies immature male #2.
The next day, I’m back not five minutes from a morning run when I hear this coming from the back of the house. I walk around, to the far side, and find Eli and Jordan ready to throw down.
“Do that again and I’m going to punch you…”
“I fucking dare you.”
They’re rolling around on the ground again.
“You tried to steal my wife!” Eli yells.
“She wasn’t your wife then!” Jordan growls.
This isn’t a crumb. This is a lot more than a crumb. This is an entire damn loaf.
I march over to the garden hose in the corner and spray them. “What is going on here?” They stop wrestling and look up at me, water dripping off both their faces. “Hi, remember me”––I wave––“the responsible adult in the house?”
Jordan looks aggravated while Eli ignores me all together. They get up and Eli returns to inspecting the lumber and plywood a lumber yard had to have delivered when I was out.
“Anybody see a two-year-old lying around?” I say, angry at both of them.
“In the play pen under the porch.” Jordan indicates, his expression shuttered. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the baby playing with a stuffed doll and breathe a sigh of relief. She doesn’t look to have seen the fight. Thankfully, she’s under the wraparound porch canopy, safe from the wind and sun, and two grown men who are still fighting over her dead mother.
I want to cry.
“What are you guys doing with all this wood?” I ask, hiding my despair in small talk.
“Treehouse,” Eli announces while he drags a post across the lawn to an ancient oak tree that splits halfway up the trunk. Mind you, he does it in a red terrycloth robe. The robe flaps in the wind, exposing his gigantic package covered only by threadbare boxers.
I glance at Jordan who is either too embarrassed to look at me or lost in thought about the dead love of his life.
“Are you guys always like this?”
His lips purse and he shrugs. “Not so much when Lainey was around.”
The two of us watch Eli struggle to drag the second beam over by himself. Once done, he marches over to us. “I understand this is your area of expertise,” he says to me all businesslike.
“It is.”
“I need to build a treehouse for amazing Maisie.”
I try to choose my words carefully. From what I’ve gathered since we arrived five days ago, Eli has always been rather eccentric, a mad genius of sorts. I just don’t know how much grief has turned him more mad than genius.
“She’s two years old, Eli.”
“For when she gets older.” He looks off, brow wrinkled in deep thought. “Laine and I had one when we were kids. I want Mais to have one too.”
I walk over to the oak tree which is at least a hundred years old, it’s branches mangled, heavy and hanging low. The weight would have to be offset so that the branches wouldn’t grow through and around and take the entire structure down.
“I’ll come up with a rough plan and we can start tomorrow.”
Eli bear hugs me, picks me up and swings me around.
“Okay, that’s enough gratitude,” Jordan grumbles.
I laugh, Eli puts me back on my feet, and Jordan claims me instantly. Wrapping his arm around my shoulders, he plants a kiss on my neck. It’s the first time he’s been openly affectionate with me in public.
I love this man. I love him utterly and completely even if he is still in love with someone else. And I’m keeping a big secret from him. It’s not right. It’s really wrong in fact. It feels increasingly as if I’m holding onto a ticking time bomb with both hands that’s about to blow up in my face. I have to come clean about Tommy if I want a future with Jordan.
How, though? How do I tell him my life is falling apart without losing him in the process?
For the next two days, we work tirelessly building amazing Maisie’s castle––as Eli named it. Jordan, not accustomed to physical labor, is sound asleep every night by ten p.m. Our nightly activities have been seriously curtailed and he’s not happy about it.
I crack open a book I found in the library, one of Eli’s fantasy novels, while the man of my dreams talks in his sleep.
“…too much…wrong…” I run my fingers through his hair and he whimpers, presses into it. Even asleep he welcomes my touch.
I’m so far gone I can’t imagine my life without him in it. But our days here are numbered––it’s only a matter of time before Eli finds a nanny for Maisie––and I don’t know what going home will do to us. It also hasn’t escaped me that he hasn’t said anything about love. He hasn’t made any declaration. Then again, neither have I.