Artie beams at me and puts his hand up on the top of the cart handle. Palm up.
I place mine inside it.
“I see a lot of couples holding hands when they run errands,” he explains.
But a little part of me leaps in excitement. He could just be trying to create the right picture for the public, in case someone is watching. Or he could be looking for an excuse to hold my hand, because he has the fluttering in his chest, too.
Chapter Ten: November Third
November 3rd, 2025
Pine Ridge, New York
We have a routine. A routine, like a couple. Like a family. We talk, and we ask questions.
Sometimes it feels like I’ve suddenly walked into my own sitcom, because there aren’t any drunken arguments, no parents who fail to come home, no kids shuffled from place to place with their belongings in a trash bag, and another new school to get used to.
This is a fake relationship, so why is it so kind and sweet, and why do I find myself smiling whenever I can do anything for Imogene?
Probably because it’s a business arrangement. We have each other over a mutual barrel. She needs me for food and shelter. I need her to keep my job, my sanity, and my baby safe.
When I sit with those thoughts—and I actually have time to have thoughts now, because my brain is actually slightly more rested—I try to push them into a negative shape.Look how transactional this is, Artie. She’s nice because she has to be. Definitely unhealthy. It’s probably fake.I try to tell myself all of those things, and none of them stick—because Imogene is amazing, and because I don’t feel trapped or blackmailed by her. I feel like someone’s knight in shining armor, someone’s hero, whenever I’m around her.
I gave her a secondhand phone, all set up on my plan, and watched her hands shake when she called Libby Angelakis and asked if she wanted to come over for coffee. I watched her smileand jump in place—tiny little jumps like she was scared to show she was happy when Libby said yes.
I watched her log in to her classes and heard all her classmates cheer because she came back after a week away. Watched her flinch when she turned on the camera—and then relax and smile in disbelief when no one screamed or pointed out her unique appearance. When I think of her...
Shit. I thought Laurel had my entire heart, but somehow, Imgoene slipped right in.
“Are you sure it’s okay if I go to my second class? And the library today?” Libby asks.
“If you take your phone with you when you go out with Laurel,” I say, making coffee and making sure Imogene’s laptop is plugged in to charge for her class. “That’s the beauty of my schedule. As long as I get some time each day and night to work, I’m fine. My last project was finished ahead of schedule, thanks to you.”
“Just doing my job,” she beams at me.
Laurel, who already had a five AM feeding, makes a gurgling noise from her infant chair that rocks gently and plays white noise.
“I’ll get her,” both of us say as one.
“I’ll take care of her until my class, and then you take her until I’m done. I’ll go out this afternoon to the library and take her with me. Libby says there is a mommy-and-me story hour. Oh, and she said we should check out Chloe’s Curiosities. They have a lot of secondhand clothes and furniture. Toys and books, too.”
I nod. I spent so much literally overnight getting Laurel the basics when I found her. Crib, changing table, car seat-carrier, bottles, nipples, baby bathtub, clothes, thermometer, bibs... Thelist was enough to cause my credit card company to put me on a watchlist.
“I have money left,” Imogene says as if she can read my mind.
“You don’t have to spend it on Laurel. You need to spend it on yourself.”
Imogene shrugs and gets out bowls for instant oatmeal while I pick up Laurel and give her a million kisses on her pudgy pink cheeks. “I like it better when we act like families should. We both want this to work. We both want Laurel to have everything she needs. It’s getting colder, and she’s growing out of her newborn to three-month stuff. Libby’s little boy is already in six-to-twelve month clothes, but you’ve seen his dad. He’s part minotaur.”
Imogene goes quiet, and I take a deep breath.
“I looked up what a krampus is. I’d never heard of it.”
She gives me a sad smile. “So did I. Big, scary, shaggy monster that hurts ‘bad’ kids at Christmas. They’re part of German culture, particularly in Bavaria. Guess where my mother was from?”
“Germany?”
“Bavaria, apparently. She had a ‘fling’ when she went over for a winter visit. Came home pregnant with a baby she couldn’t get rid of, and that wouldn’t die. That’s what my stepmother said.”
