Page 19 of A Return For Ren
Then he told himself he spent too much of his life planning it out and it still all splattered in his face without warning.
6
Talk About Us
“Long time no see,” Zara said on Thursday. She was standing on the front porch of Ren’s rental, Max nowhere to be found, but she could hear the TV going and recognized the cartoon playing.
“Come in,” he said. “I thought I’d order pizza if you’re good with that.”
“I’m not here for the food but the conversation.”
“I figured as much.”
She moved in past him. She knew it was a rental so no reason to judge how it looked. But what she saw was a playpen in view of the TV, toys in one corner as if he picked them up and tried to neatly put them out of reach. There was a pile of diapers on an end table with a container of wipes too.
The place had more touches of Max in it than Ren.
The child was well cared for and came first. But she’d seen that herself this week.
First when Max was dropped off and Ren didn’t want to let his son out of his sight.
Then the confusion when Max wanted to go back to her last night when Ren picked him up. Not to mention Ren’s comment on not wanting his son to think he was abandoned.
There were a lot of questions in her head. Not all regarding her history with Ren either. She supposed it would be interesting to find out exactly what answers she might get.
“Hey, Max,” she said, moving closer to see him sitting inside the playpen and fussing with a toy. He looked up and grinned at her, a little bit of drool coming out of his mouth. His arms went up and she turned to look at Ren. “May I?”
“You don’t need to ask,” he said. “He knows you.”
She leaned down to pick Max up. He was a hefty baby, solid on top of it. “I’m curious to see what Daddy really feeds you. You’re kind of a tank.”
“I’ve been told I was too,” he said. “You know what he eats.”
She grinned. “I do. He’s got a healthy appetite.”
“Speaking of food. Mushroom and sausage, right?”
She wasn’t sure how she felt that he remembered that. “That works.”
She picked up a toy of Max’s and handed it over to him to hold, then sat down on the floor with him next to her.
“I keep him in the playpen when I can’t watch him every second,” he said once the order was placed. “I never thought how hard it would be to do this by myself. I’ve got things to take care of and he’s too big now to keep glued in front of me.”
Talk about adorable. “You carried him around in a sack on you while you did things in the house?”
A slight blush filled his face. “It’s complicated.”
“Lots of things in life are. But he’s not crawling. He is on the floor all day with the other kids.”
“Within a little gate,” he said. “I’ve seen it. I’d get one for here but that is more junk that I don’t have a lot of space for. He’s rolling everywhere he can to get to where he wants.”
“I’ve noticed that,” she said. Max seemed to understand he was the object of discussion and lay down and started to do that to get something else he had his eye on.
“You want to know more about Max, right?”
“I want to know a lot of things. I think maybe it’s best to talk about him before we talk about us. What time does he go to bed? Or you can tell me to mind my own business.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “There is an awkwardness between us. I don’t want that. I don’t think you do either.”
