Sex, Not Love(92)

I caught Garrett studying our interaction from my peripheral vision. “I stopped by to talk to Natalia. Sorry if I woke you, honey.”

She waved me off. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

I used the opportunity to push for what I’d come for. “Is Nat sleeping? Would you mind telling her I’m here?”

She furrowed her brows. “Nat’s not here. Didn’t Dad tell you? She’s staying at her mom’s this week.”

I looked at Garrett as I responded to Izzy. “No, he didn’t mention that.”

Izzy was a smart kid. She picked up on what was going on. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head at her father before looking to me. “Dad wanted to spend time with me, but Nat didn’t want to interrupt my school routine.” Her gaze shifted to her father. “My father offered to sleep on the couch. But Nat didn’t want him under the same roof as her because he would try to play games.”

“Isabella,” her father warned.

“What?” she said. “It’s the truth.”

I smiled. Love this kid. “Thanks, Izzy. I’ll see you soon.”

She grinned. “You will?”

I winked. “If I have anything to do with it, I will.”



***



I’d been sitting on the stoop since dark.

I’d watched the dark blue night sky give way to yellow and orange as the sun rose. It had been years since I’d taken the time to watch a sunrise or sunset. This is living—not fucking my way through California waiting for a twitch in my finger to show up. I’d decided over the last three hours that if I was lucky enough to get to have Natalia in my life, I wanted to get up an hour earlier each day so I had sixty minutes more to spend with her.

At almost eight o’clock, I heard the door unlock behind me. I stood from the second step down where I’d been waiting and turned to find Bella. She took one look at me and glanced back over her shoulder, pulling the door closed behind her.

“My daughter is in pain.”

I looked down. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Is there another woman?”

“No, ma’am. There is no other woman.”

She pondered that for a moment.

“Do you love my daughter?”

“I do.”

“Are you here to make things right with her?”

“It’s complicated, Bella. I’m not gonna lie to you. But I hope things will turn out okay.”

She stared at me for a moment. “You know how Italian mothers make meatballs from scratch?”

I furrowed my brow. “I think so.”

“You take the meat and put it in a metal grinder.” She used her hands to demonstrate a crank going around.

“Okay…”

Bella pulled her purse onto her shoulder and straightened her spine. “That’s what I’m gonna do to your balls if you hurt my baby again.” Then she kissed both of my cheeks and walked down the steps, leaving me standing there on the stoop.

She yelled over her shoulder as she hit the sidewalk. “Door is open. She’s in the kitchen. No hanky-panky on my couch. I just got new plastic put on.”

I chuckled to myself as I watched her walk off. Then I took a deep breath and let myself into the house.

Natalia yelled from the kitchen. “What did you forget this time?”

She had her back to me as she poured a cup of coffee with one hand and held her phone with the other, reading something.

I waited until she set the pot down so I wouldn’t startle her and spoke softly. “Hey.”

She jumped and whipped around to face me. Blinking rapidly, as if she thought she might be imagining me standing there, she clutched her cell phone to her chest.

I took one hesitant step closer. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Hunter? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Your mother let me in. I came to talk to you.”

The initial excitement in her face disappeared as a mask slid over it. She pulled at the tie of her robe to cinch it tighter.

“That’s funny. I contacted you a few weeks ago, and you didn’t want to talk then. You couldn’t even bother to respond to my text. Didn’t have much to say at the christening either.”

I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked down at my feet. “I saw your ex on TV going into your building.”

I’d been up for twenty-four hours with nothing to do but think about what I was going to say to her, but the look on her face told me that apparently that was the wrong thing to open with. She was pissed.

Her hands flew to her hips “So you thought my ex was visiting me and what… I was fucking him?”

Her tone told me yes was not the way to respond to that question, even if it was the accurate answer. “I needed to talk to you.”