My eyes water with the haze billowing out of the small area. I twist the knob, turning the stove off, but a steady stream of smoke continues to rise from a blackened pan with what looks like burned and shriveled eggs. The smoke tenderloins reach up toward the ceiling as if calling for help from whatever torture he’s put them through this morning. A stack of dishes rises over the edge of the sink and there’re bits of scrambled egg squashed to the floor. I’m not sure who made breakfast—Nate or Emma.
How did all this damage happen in the few minutes it took me to turtle walk from my bedroom to the living room? How long has he been here?
The one lesson I learned since becoming a parent is that it’s easier to stay in front of the mess than to come up behind it. If you’re continuously cleaning, you’re not trying to catch up at the end of the day. With one crutch leveled against the counter, I survey the rest of the space while turning on the water in the sink.
Dried food is stuck on most of the dishes along with other unrecognizable bits that won’t make it through my cheap dishwasher. The wash cycle reminds me of my husband’s attempts in the bedroom. Whip the wand around three times, squirt liquid on everything, and then with a dying moan roll over and pass out.
With those results I’d rather do the dishes… and other things… by hand.
I mean, ex-husband.
There isn’t much room, but as the sink fills with water I drizzle soap on top. It’s possible the commercials are correct and it will help me get them clean before they go in the dishwasher.
After I get the dishes washed, my next task is getting Nate out of my apartment. We met yesterday at the hospital, if you don’t count the hour before when he hit me with his truck as a first impression, but I’ve learned very little about the former SEAL. He works for Ridge and helped my neighbor, Winnie when she had problems. That’s it. My entire knowledge base of Nathan Bellamy can be summed up in less than a paragraph.
Maybe not everything.
His eyes are the deepest shade of brown. Light and dark are swirled together, so if you’re not careful you could get lost in them for hours. But regardless of whatCosmowould say, having pretty eyes doesn’t qualify him to be in my apartment taking care of me or Emma. The water bubbles close to the edge of the sink and I shut it off before grabbing the first pan to scrub. Nate’s eyes aren’t what worry me. It’s his ability to create such a mess from a simple scrambled egg.
Dread builds as I scrub the pan. Who is this man? What if I let Winnie bring a serial killer into my life? He hit me with a truck after all. Was it not an accident? My divorce is final so Barry wouldn’t get anything extra by killing me off at this point—besides custody of Emma.
“Have you ever been to jail?” I yell the question from the kitchen, holding the pan out like a weapon. My body stiffens and I’m ready to use the stainless-steel object like a bludgeon depending on his answer.
Nate peeks his head in the small kitchen opening, and I shove the pan under the water so he doesn’t get suspicious. “No.” His expression shows he’s insulted by the question.
But you can’t ever be too safe.
“Emma is in her high chair, but what do I do now?” he asks as he eyes the large grey high chair placed at the round dining room table. Her hair wraps around her face, covering her eyes with the rest of it in her mouth.
Finished with the pan, I place it in the bottom rack of the dishwasher. “Now you give her eggs.” Truthfully, she hasn’t used the high chair in months but with me immobile, having her contained is a good idea.
“I don’t need to feed her?” Nate asks.
“Nope, she’ll just shove it right in her mouth.” And everywhere else in the surrounding area. The floor, the table, the walls, but I leave those scary facts out. Best Nate sees for himself.
“Haveyouever been to jail?” he asks while placing a plate of brown eggs in front of Emma.
Now the fun begins.
I tilt my head and roll my eyes. “Of course not.” Although, after I walked in to find my husband screwing our babysitter on our bed in the middle of the day, I came very close. To my benefit, the responding officer didn’t consider the Happy Meal box I chucked at their heads enough of a deadly weapon given the circumstances.
But I don’t plan to tell Nate that story.
“What did you do in the military?”
The first piece of egg goes flailing as Nate and I watch its flight path before it crashes against the wall. Nate’s face falls in shocked horror and he races to pick it off before it dries. “I was a SEAL. It’s special ops.” He walks back into the kitchen with the slimy egg chunk cupped in his hand and his mouth open in disgust searching for a trash can.
“That’s not an answer,” I say, when he stops talking while wiping his hands over the under-sink trash.
“Most of my work is still classified, but we went where we were needed and helped other teams finish a mission in whatever way they needed. I’ve done recon and a little undercover work.”
“Undercover work?”
Nate doesn’t answer my question. Instead he stares at Emma’s egg-covered face like she’s a bomb set to explode. Little does he realize she’s just warming up for the day. The eggs will only give her protein to keep her going. “Why is she eating her hair?”
“Because you didn’t pull it back,” I respond, turning back to my dishes. “There’s a drawer of hair ties in the bathroom.”
The room goes silent except for the happy sounds a feeding child makes as they destroy a parent’s security deposit. When I finish rinsing off the last pan, there’s a gasp and I turn fast ready to jump into mother mode. Gasps are never good.
