Wild Side (Rose Hill, #3)(72)

I baked cookies and brought them next door as a thank you to my landlord for letting us rent the other side of his duplex.





The attempts at making contact with Rhys just keep coming with each entry.


Left my car door open and drained the battery. Watching Rhys give me a boost was a fantasy I didn’t know I had.





Sometimes I get Rhys’s mail in my mailbox by accident. Hand delivering it is always a highlight. Now and then, he even opens the door shirtless.





Usually, my attempts at making contact with my hot-ass landlord are half-hearted, but today he came through for me. The woman who runs the daycare that I take Milo to called saying she was sick, and I was too nervous to take a day off work—I really need this job. Rhys heard me on the phone in the backyard, and this time, when he popped his head over the fence, he didn’t ask about my sister.





He offered to watch Milo.





I have no idea what the man does for a living, but he’s often home. He seems nice enough, and I was desperate, so I took him up on the offer.





My stomach was in knots all day. The mom guilt was real. Leaving your child with a man you barely know probably isn’t recommended. It gave me another dose of guilt for all the times I disappeared to god knows where on my parents.





Needless to say, when I rushed home, Milo was happy as could be. Fed. Changed. And asleep in Rhys’s arms while they waited for me on the front porch.





With no dad in his life, it was the first time I’d seen a man hold him. It was a sight I could get used to.





Talk about butterflies.





I swallow, eyes scanning the entry again as my fingers trail over my sister’s pen strokes. Touching the proof that Rhys has been in Milo’s life for a long time.

As I make my way through the journals, the familiarity between the three of them only grows.


We had Rhys over for dinner to thank him for bailing us out.





Rhys joined us at the town fair. He won Milo a stuffed panda bear so big that it almost looks real. Watching them together is…something I didn’t know I needed.





Today Rhys asked about my sister, and it fucking pissed me off. All the time we’ve spent together, and he saw her out the front window a year ago and still thinks about her?





It was petty of me, but I told him she doesn’t come around often, even though I’d let her visit last time he was out of town. Made it sound as though she’s so focused on her own life that she’s practically forgotten about Milo and me. May not have cast her in the kindest light.





But she’s gotten so much in life. She can’t have this too. I don’t want her to come here, bringing up old Erika where new Erika is making her fresh start. It’s easier to have Emerald Lake be free of all that shit.





At any rate, I ended up telling Rhys about my addiction issues to help explain the situation. He listened and let me talk it out without interjecting at all. I think it was therapeutic to get it off my chest. There’s something so steady about him. So compassionate. He thanked me for sharing with him and hugged me when I got it all off my chest.





Today was a good reminder that I can’t have Tabitha visit when he’s in town.





It’s a view into her head that isn’t mine to take. And yet… a part of me gets it. I just never saw my presence that way. I did the best I knew how with a situation I wasn’t properly prepared to navigate.

It also shows me the turning point when Erika came to visit more often, the time when she started saying her landlord didn’t like her having visitors. In retrospect, she became secretive, and I interpreted it as busy and happy and just…thriving.

And maybe she was, but her fixation on Rhys takes a different turn. And as the year passes, so does her tone. She’s agitated. Cutting in her words.

Still, I read on.


Rhys bailed me out AGAIN with a childcare mishap. Today I worked late, so he had to do bedtime. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but when I came home, the house was quiet. I tiptoed upstairs, eager to see Milo and worried I might wake him.





That’s when I saw Rhys, standing over his crib, big hand laid over his tiny chest, singing him “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”





Watching them brought on tears, so I snuck back downstairs and locked myself in the bathroom to hide. I don’t know what it was specifically. It was just sweet. Got me right in the feels.





They were happy tears. They made me want that nuclear family for Milo. But when I asked Rhys to stay for a drink, he politely declined. The look on his face said it all.





It made me realize he only comes around when Milo is here.





It made me realize this may not be going where I hoped it would.





Which is fine.





Whatever,

Erika


That entry makes me wince. The whatever hits differently on the heels of her realization. That whatever is a turning point.