Coexisting
For nearly a week, I didn’t show my face at 3CG or even speak to a single Hanson—not even Avery. She was busy with her job at the museum, though, so it wasn’t as though we spoke constantly under any circumstances. In any case, I didn’t want to bring her into my drama again. I had gotten a paycheck in the mail signed by Taylor for the few days work I had done, and that was the closest I’d come to communicating with any member of the Hanson family.
Zac hadn’t even tried to text or call me, and I didn’t know what to make of that. I supposed his wife had tightened the reins again. Or perhaps he was taking me seriously and giving me the space I needed. I didn’t know, since there was no communication happening at all. As much as I wanted answers from him, I knew better than to ever expect answers; talking to him wouldn’t have made a difference at all.
Without the emotional rollercoaster of going to 3CG, my days were boring and tedious. I went to work with Layla in tow, came home, cooked, cleaned and did it all again the next day. Other than Layla and the people I interacted with at work, I was really a hermit. If I hadn’t known that talking to babies was good for their development, I would have felt insane for jabbering about music to her as I fed her mashed zucchini and carrots. Sliced pieces of the same sizzled away on the stove for my own dinner, and things were altogether quite peaceful… until my phone began to ring.
I lunged across the counter to grab it; my phone rang so rarely that any time it did, I assumed it was an emergency of some sort. Taylor’s name lit up the screen, and I had no clue what he could possibly want from me. Was something wrong with Zac? My stomach dropped, but I knew I was making myself worried for probably no reason. I would never know if I didn’t just answer the call.
“Hello?” I spoke into the phone after sliding my finger across the screen to answer it.
“Hey, are you busy?”
The hint of nervousness in his voice didn’t make me feel any better. “Well, it’s dinner time. Other than trying not to die of starvation, no. Why? You do realize I don’t work for you any more, right?”
“I refuse to accept that that is the case, actually. You’re just taking some unpaid leave right now,” Taylor replied.
“I’m not coming back to the office, Taylor. You were there. You saw what happened. Even if he hadn’t done anything yet, he obviously planned to. Why else would he have kept my working there a secret from Kate?”
“Because he knew she would freak out about it?” Taylor suggested. “Even if nothing was happening—which I don’t believe, by the way—there’s no way she would have accepted the two of you working together. You’re already tied together by the kid, but if there’s some distant between you, she can pretend there’s a chance he’s still hers.”
“Isn’t he?” I asked. “I mean, they are still married. I’m nothing to him.”
“You’re the mother of his child and the only woman I’ve seen him feel enough for to actually consider leaving Kate for good.”
I leaned heavily against the counter. He wasn’t going to ever leave her, was he? But Taylor knew him better than I did, and if Taylor thought he was…
“Look, I’m not asking you to come back. I’m begging, actually. We need all hands on deck, and you need to be with Zac. I mean… around him. Near him. Not—well, I wouldn’t complain about that either, but I’d prefer if you weren’t doing it behind his wife’s back.”
“As long as she’s his wife, anything we do no matter how innocent, is apparently going to have to be behind her back. And that’s why I can’t work there.”
Taylor sighed. “I hate that you have a point. But look, I’m doing this radio thing with Tinted Windows next week and we could use another tech. You know music, and I know you, so I’m asking you to help out. Zac won’t be there and it will be pretty easy. Just a few hours of work.”
“You had me at ‘Zac won’t be there,’” I replied, causing Taylor to chuckle softly.
“Alright,” he said. “But fair warning—this is just the first step. I’m going to wear you down and get you back to the office.”
“It almost feels like you’re trying to play matchmaker here,” I replied.
“Maybe I am,” he said. “And maybe I’m not. Maybe we’re just really understaffed. Whatever you need to tell yourself to make it okay to come back.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going to go before my dinner is burnt to a crisp. We’ll talk about this radio thing some other time.”
“Alright, see you later.”
I was really beginning to hate how it seemed every Hanson man knew my resolve wouldn’t last all that long.
I stirred my quinoa and stir fry veggies angrily, hating that I had gotten myself into this situation. After so long, a year and a half, I should have been used to it. I should have just accepted that my life was forever going to be a mess because there were Hansons in it. And since my daughter was part Hanson, there was no way I would ever get that family out of my life.
Once my dinner was done cooking, I settled Layla into her playpen, then filled up a plate for myself. I piled it high, but I didn’t care. Who did I have to impress? I didn’t care if I looked like a pig or put on weight. I had just sat down on the couch with my plate when someone began to knock on the door. It seemed I wasn’t going to get a moment of peace that evening. I had only a few guesses as to who it might be at my door, and a sinking suspicion that it was the one of those I wanted to see the least. A quick look through the peephole revealed my guess to be correct, and I groaned before opening the door. But what point was there in resisting him? He was too stubborn for that.
“Yes?”
“Can I come in?” Zac asked.
“I’m sure you’re capable of it,” I shot back. “Why should I let you?”
“Look, I didn’t come here to start a fight or anything,” he said. “It’s just that Kate’s out of town, and I had to fend for myself for dinner, but somehow I ended up in your neighborhood instead of finding some restaurant. So, I’m here, and I figured I would pop by and see Layla. That’s all. It’s just a friendly visit.”
“Just like hiring me was so friendly that you had to hide it from your wife.”
“You can at least admit that she wouldn’t have wanted you to work there if she had known,” he said.
“Does she own the label? Is it really up to her?” I asked.
Zac sighed and ran a hand through his hair. I knew he didn’t have a good answer for that. Even the truth didn’t really cut it. Not wanting to argue more in the hallway, I stepped back and motioned for him to come into the room.
“Since you were looking for dinner, and I can’t cook only enough for one, you might as well help yourself. It’s stir fry.”
“Sounds good,” he said, stepping right into the kitchen like he owned the place and plucking a plate from my dish drainer.
I sat back down on the couch with my own dinner, hoping that I could just feed Zac, let him play with Layla and send him home. If he spent any more time than that in my apartment, it would only complicate things more. Things with him had already proven that they would never stop getting more and more complicated than I ever thought possible.
Moments later, Zac sat down on the couch next to me, a plate in one hand and a soda in the other. He propped his feet up on the coffee table and made himself perfectly at home. I wanted to hate him for it. But even though there would always be a strange edge to our interactions, it didn’t feel wrong to have him here. I had loved the few days we spent together when I was pregnant and then again just after Layla was born. I knew they wouldn’t last, but we had been able to pretend. A part of me wanted that back. It wouldn’t be enough, but maybe for the moment.
“So, what are your plans for the evening?” Zac asked between bites.
“Eat. Watch some TV. Go to bed. Get up and do it all over again. I’m only working a late shift tomorrow, so at least I can sleep in.”
Zac nodded. “What are we watching, then?”
“I’m watching Nashville,” I replied. “I don’t know what you’re watching.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that show. Is it good?”
I sat my plate down and turned to face Zac. “Seriously, why are you here? What are you trying to accomplish?”
“I just wanted to see you,” he replied, a simple honesty in his voice that I really wanted to believe.
“Me?” I asked. “Or Layla?”
“You. Both of you,” he replied. “I don’t know. What difference does it make?”
“If you just wanted to see her, then you’re still trying to say this is just a friendship between us. And I’m not saying it’s more or even that I want it to be more, but you know how it seems at times. You know that you had to lie to your wife over it, so you’re at least feeling some guilt over this friendship. But if you really just wanted to see her… honestly and truly, then I guess perhaps there is nothing between us. If you wanted to see me, though…”
“I did,” he said, cutting off the sentence that I didn’t have an ending for anyway. “I do want to see you. You, Colby. And I don’t know what this is between us. Because you’re right… I guess I did feel guilty. And I didn’t know why, other than the fact that, well, I knew she wouldn’t approve. If that’s just because of our history or because of our present… I don’t know. But I was lonely and I wanted to see you. It’s as simple as that.”
“You know it’s never going to be simple,” I replied, my anger toward him fading and being replaced with resignation.
“I know,” he said, nodding. “But for right now, can we just eat dinner, watch TV and enjoy each other’s company?”
“I suppose that’s not outside the realm of possibility,” I replied.
The conversation died then and we both ate our dinner in silence. It wasn’t a horribly awkward silence, though. I think I was just too tired of fighting with him to care or notice if it was. It had taken so long and been so hard to get to the point where we could work and coexist together, and I hated that his wife’s suspicion ruined any chance of that peace continuing. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than what we’d had in the past.
Once dinner was done and we’d rinsed off the dishes, Zac lifted Layla up out of her playpen and sat her in his lap on the couch. He gave me a big smile as he brushed his fingers through her hair. “How’s our girl been? Is she walking yet?”
“She’s getting very, very close,” I replied. “And then she gets seriously pissed when she can’t do it. She’s stubborn, though, so she’ll get it soon.”
“Stubborn, hmm?” Zac asked, his grin growing even more. “I wonder where she gets that from.”
“I’d say she didn’t stand a chance of not being stubborn with the two of us for parents,” I replied.
“I’d say you’re right,” he said, then patted the spot next to him. “Come on. Isn’t it time for your show? I wanna see what this thing is all about.”
I sat down next to him, but not too close. I couldn’t help noticing that Zac inched closer to me, though. With one arm, he secured Layla’s spot in his lap, and the other rested on the back of the couch behind me. Again, I couldn’t help feeling that it should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it felt like exactly where we should have been, but it was pretty close.
The three of us watched the show in comfortable silence. I was so engrossed in it that I didn’t notice that my companions had fallen sleep. During the final commercial break, I stood up to get myself a glass of water, and Layla gurgled a little at the disturbance. Although I don’t think he woke up at all, Zac’s hand curled tightly, protectively around her, and my heart melted. I knew right then that I couldn’t make him leave.
Once the show was over, I took my time getting ready for bed, hoping that Zac or Layla would wake up in the process. Neither of them did. Carefully, I pried Layla from his arms. She sighed and fell back to sleep almost immediately, her head resting on my shoulder. Zac sank further down into the couch, his brow furrowing a bit. The similarity between the two of them was so obvious that it was almost heartbreaking in a strange way.
With a heavy sigh, I carried Layla into my room and settled her into her crib. I grabbed an extra blanket from my closet and carried it back to the living room, where I placed it over Zac. There were enough pillows on the couch already that I figured he was comfortable enough. A part of me wanted to wake him up and kick him out, but my heart won out, and I just walked away, back to my own bed.