Marion Croslydon - Fast Forward

“Frustration was steaming out of your nostrils.”

“Yeah, the guy grates on my nerves. All lawyers do. But like he said, we’re a couple of twenty-four-year-olds without traditional jobs or a proper home. Plus, our track-record as the perfect couple pretty much sucks.” If only I could travel back in time and keep Cassie from putting Lucas up for adoption. Or if only I had gone after her before it was too late.

Cassie’s shoulders hunched even more. I stepped closer, lowering myself so that my eyes could meet hers. My free hand slid around her waist. “Please trust me, Cass. I’ll figure this out. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll even be nicer to lawyers.” Her lips tightened but the clouded thoughts seemed to dissipate from her eyes. “Believe in me, Cass. I’ll get Lucas back.”

She gave me a tiny nod. I wanted Cassie’s trust. I needed her trust.

“Let’s go. We don’t want the little one to wait and traffic looks like hell.”

I pulled Cassie toward the entrance of the underground parking lot and checked my watch. The very watch Lenor, my fiancée until two weeks ago, had given me for my birthday. I shook away the memory of the mess Cass and I had created and wallowed in over the last six years.

This was my chance—our chance—to make things right. I’d made a promise to Cass and to damn it all to hell, I’d never break it.

Cassie

Josh had spent a fortune on the tickets. Three seats on the first base line at Kauffman Stadium to watch The Royals slaughter The Seattle Mariners. I knew he wasn’t exactly rolling in cash at the moment. Still, it was all completely lost on me.

I’d spent the whole game with my eyes glued on the little boy sitting between Josh and me. I’d never been with Lucas before with the crazy possibility that he could be mine. Hopefully, we’d be able to call him our little boy. Soon.

Soon. I kept repeating the mantra in my head.

“Baseball is complicated,” Lucas concluded, after Josh tried to explain the basics of the sport while pitcher Will Smith was notching his career-best eighth strikeout. “I prefer football.” Lucas brought the straw of his apple juice back to his mouth and sipped on it again. He sounded like a mini-adult.

I saw the high-school quarterback in Josh give a war whoop. A love for football must have passed to Lucas with the rest of Josh’s DNA: the brown hair, the Coca-Cola eyes and the dimples. I had no idea where my genes had gone during the conception lottery. Though, I hadn’t heard Lucas sing yet: maybe he was the next Groban.

I chuckled and Josh cocked an eyebrow. I smiled back at him. He’d been trying so hard since we’d picked up Lucas at his foster home. I rested my hand on his little knee. He was wearing jeans, but the contact was enough for him to relax. His shoulders dropped a bit and his upper-body swayed toward me. Not by much, but I had to fight the overwhelming need to wrap my arms around him to keep him safe and close. My need for Lucas felt like hunger. I shook myself.

Josh’s fingertips brushed against my cheekbone like they often did these days. Our eyes met: It was my turn to sway. He knew how it felt. I saw it in a smile that wasn’t enough to crease his dimples.

Leaving ‘The K’ after the game was awkward. Entertaining a five-year-old, or rather getting him out of his funk, had become mission impossible. Or maybe we were just crap at it.

Josh knelt in front of Lucas to level his eyes at him. “What about we get a souvenir?”

We stood in front of the gift shop. Lucas gave a tight nod of approval so we went inside. The boys went around admiring stuff boys loved. I just stood still and watched them. They settled for a child-sized baseball bat and a ball with the Royals’ logo.

I caught a glimpse of Josh’s credit card receipt and swallowed hard. He gave me a sheepish smile. “It feels like bribery.”

“Let me help you with the money. Today must have—“

“—Don’t.” He gently grabbed my elbow and forced me to stop and face him. We both checked that Lucas hadn’t moved too far away. He was standing in front of a life-size poster of his hero of the day, Will Smith. “You don’t owe me anything, Cass. The little I have is ours.” He stole another glance at Lucas and his head tilted forward in that stubborn way of his. “One day…soon, I’ll have more. Neither of you will be in need of anything. I swear to God. I’ll make you both safe and happy, and I’ll work hard to keep it that way. Always.”

Some guys tattooed the name of their lovers on their chests. Others wrote poetry or songs. But this was Josh’s way of showing that he loved me, that he loved our child. Even as high-school seniors when I told him I was pregnant, Josh hadn’t bailed on me.

But back then, it’d meant giving up on his future. On a better life. Back then, I’d been the one to bail.

I went on my tip-toes and rested my hands flat on his chest. My lips brushed his. They tasted of the apple juice he’d shared with Lucas. We both breathed each other in.

“My daddy and mommy kissed each other a lot.”

We jumped apart. A gulf opened up between us in a split second and we stood staring at our shoes. Just like when Gran had surprised us making out in the backyard of the farm at sixteen.

Lucas was staring at me like a teacher telling off a naughty kid. “Of course they did,” I said. “They loved each other.”

He processed the info while the crowd kept hurrying around us. “Do you love each other?”

“Very much,” Josh answered straight back.

Not so long ago, I’d have bet Josh hated my guts so it was sweet to hear him say these words out loud. More people weaved around us in the crowded store, but we stood still, hanging on to whatever it was Lucas was going to say next. It was easy to see the engine of his brain whirring.

And then he simply shrugged. “I want to go back to Mrs. Sorenson. I’m tired.”

Josh and I looked at each other. I felt my mouth drooping like a sad emoticon. Josh gave me a slight shake of the head and said under his breath, “Give him time.” Then louder and to Lucas: “Of course you’re tired. It’s been a big day. But if you find your energy again, we can play ball at home if you like.”

We stood on either side of Lucas, both of us looking down at his clammed-up face. He ignored our hands hanging by our sides, waiting to be held.

“That’s not my home. My home is where I lived with my mommy and my daddy.”

The drive back to the Sorenson’s was a variation on the same theme. Josh and I trying to get Lucas to talk, and Lucas nodding or mumbling a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and little else. Not exactly the stuff a ‘happy-family-day-out’ was made of. But we weren’t a family. Yet. Family was much more than sharing a slice of DNA.

Lucas walked ahead of us up the driveway that led to his foster home. A woman stood on the porch. A cute brunette in her mid-thirties. As I walked toward her, I noticed how sweet her plump face looked. She didn’t acknowledge Josh and me. Her attention was focused on Lucas.

“Andrea!”

“Hey sweetie pie!” The woman knelt in front of him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He didn’t resist. When she stood again, she held forward a small basket filled with the yummiest-looking muffins I’d seen in a long while. The aroma drifted toward me. A mix of chocolate and cinnamon that brought me back to Gran’s kitchen. “Sharon told me how much you liked them last time, so I thought I’d bake you some more.”

I could only see Lucas’s back, but I heard his excitement. “Did you make the ones with the toffee inside?”

“Of course I did. Here, have the basket. You can bring it back to me when you’re finished.”

She didn’t have to say it twice. Lucas grabbed the basket. “Thanks, Andrea.”

I couldn’t bake to save my life.

He turned back towards us and his smile pinched at my heart. The dimples sparkled on his cheeks. “I’m going to take them inside. Is it okay to share with Cassie and Josh? They’re my friends.”

Her smile was sincere, but I didn’t miss the tiny wobble in her voice. “Of course you can.”

Lucas disappeared inside. I don’t cope with silence well, so I blurted out the next words. “Nice to meet you Andrea. This is Josh MacBride and I’m—“

“—Cassandra MacBride,” Josh cut me off before I could use my maiden name like I’d always done. But sharing his name made me suddenly feel respectable. He came and stood next to me. “We took Lucas to a Royals’ game. We are—“

“I know who you are.” Yep, definitely a strain in her answer. She added, maybe realizing she had just flirted with rudeness, “I’m Andrea Loretti. We live next door.” She pointed toward the perfectly-kept little house with the immaculate lawn and picket fence I’d noticed during my previous visits.

Josh’s gaze settled on the neighbor’s house. When he spoke again, he didn’t sound the same, but more like the Josh I’d seen back in Oxford, all formal and worldly. “Lucas seems to know you well.”

“Yes, I visit from time to time. My husband travels a lot for his job. It’s nice to have a little friend or two in the neighborhood.”

I recognized the loneliness in her answer. I’d sounded just like Mrs. Loretti for the past six years.

“I see,” Josh simply said.

I started towards the door, because I missed my boy already. “See you around. Thanks for being so lovely to Lucas.”

She nodded at me, then at Josh and made her way across the lawn straight back to her front yard. Josh didn’t move. He watched the woman walk into her house, his head tilted forward, jaw locked.

“Come on, Champ. We promised Mrs. Sorenson we’d be gone by five. We only have twenty minutes left with Lucas.”

I didn’t intend to waste one second of it.

Josh joined me on the doorstep without saying a word.

“What’s up?” I asked. I didn’t want his change of mood to affect Lucas’ state-of-mind. It was already shaky enough. “Do you know that woman from somewhere else?”

Josh frowned as if I’d just asked the weirdest question. “What? No. I just met her, like you.”

“Then what’s up?” I repeated.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his side. I felt his warmth. He kissed my temple. “Nothing, Cass. Don’t worry.”

We stepped inside the Sorensons’ house.

I wasn’t worried.

Josh

“It’s so lovely to have you around. At least I have an excuse to savor some of this Grappa.”

Mr. Guidi sat on one of the chairs on the deck in his back garden. I’d grilled some burgers for dinner and the three of us enjoyed the cooler temperature of the evening.

I’d drained my Grappa—a lemony aperitif from Italy—in one go and could still taste its syrupy flavor. “Mr. Guidi, we’re the ones who should be grateful. I hope us staying here hasn’t been too much trouble. We must’ve interrupted your routine.”

The man waved off my comment. “Routines are meant to be shaken up from time to time. And this is a very good reason, which is nice.” His voice trailed off.

The last time his routine had been messed with was back in May when his only daughter died in a car crash. Jenna was Lucas’ adoptive mother. A cloud settled around us and the old man stared blindly at the light yellow liquid in his glass.

“Jenna brought this bottle from Italy. The three of them went last year.” He took a slow sip from it and the air around us became heavier. “I told them the boy was too young to remember, but Jenna didn’t want to hear anything about it. She kept saying Lucas had to get to know where the Guidis came from.” He gave a faint chuckle and I noticed the light shaking of his hand. “I’m glad now that they went. It was their first, and last, real vacation as a family.”

Six years ago I’d have known what to say, but I’d become so closed-up over the years that my mouth stayed stupidly—frustratingly—shut. Cassie made her way over to Mr. Guidi. She knelt at his feet and slid her hand in his.

“Alfredo,” she murmured, “Alfredo.” He shook his head as if he were lost in another world. “I want to promise you something. When Lucas comes and lives with us, we’ll make sure he knows everything about his Italian heritage. Do you remember what Jenna cooked when I came over for Lucas’ fourth birthday?”

A broad smile broke across Mr. Guidi’s wrinkled face. “Penne Arrabiata. She got the recipe from her mom. And it had been passed down to my wife Anna from her mother.”