“At the Lion?” he asks, flicking the pot on and then leaning back against the sink to face me. He crosses his arms and I do what I can to not focus on the taught bulk of them.

“Yeah.”

He tilts his head, inspecting me. “You were there. You tell me.”

I lick my lips and then shrug nonchalantly. “You seemed to hit it off with that girl that Linden introduced you to. I saw you guys leave in a cab together.”

“Did you now?” he asks. I love the way he says “now” with his accent, like “no” but sweeter.

“Mmm hmm,” I say, wishing I hadn’t said anything.

“And how did that make you feel?”

What, is he seriously asking me that? I give him a look. “I felt nothing except maybe a bit of pity for the girl who will be kicked to the curb in a few days.”

His forehead crinkles. “Is that so?”

“Stop answering me with questions.”

He lets out a little laugh. “Fair enough. For your information, it went nowhere. She went straight home from the bar.”

So the noises I heard last night…I fill in the blanks. They were all him again.

“And,” he says, straightening up and sauntering toward me, his massive form seeming to take all the space in the apartment suddenly, “for your information, the date with Justine ended the same way.”

“Two nights in a row and no sex,” I comment.

“That’s right,” he says calmly. “It happens. Usually when my mind is preoccupied. Why fuck somebody if you can’t stop thinking about someone else?”

Oh my shit. Is he talking about me?

Of course he’s talking about you, I quickly tell myself. But still, even knowing that’s probably true, there’s no part of me that’s prepared to handle any of this. Bram gave up screwing both those hot babes because he was thinking about me? Miss Single Mom with scars and stretch marks and who, at the moment, is wearing the ugliest night garment ever?

He’s joking though. Beneath that smolder in his gaze, beneath that somewhat wicked twist to his mouth, it’s all a joke like it always is. Bram the jokester, Bram forever pulling my leg.

He has to be joking.

“Mommy,” Ava suddenly says, appearing between the two of us. It takes me a moment to tear my eyes off of him and look at her.

“Y-yes, angel?” I ask her, surprised at how my voice is shaking. I’m also surprised at all the other feelings coursing through me, the physical ones that make the situation extra inappropriate.

“You said we’re going on an adventure today,” she says. “Where are we going?”

Right. IKEA. I can feel Bram’s eyes still on me and I don’t dare look at him. I don’t think I’m ready for the truth, no matter which way it spins.

“To a store to get us a new couch,” I tell her.

She looks at the couch, puzzled. “But I like our couch,” she says with her lower lip trembling. “It’s my castle.”

My heart melts and I automatically crouch to her level, pulling her under my arm. “I know you do, Ava, but where we’re going we are going to get a better couch. Maybe two couches! And you know what?”

“What?’ she asks quietly.

“There’s a magical room there called the ball room,” I tell her. “Remember when we watched that movie and you saw the kid hiding underneath all the balls.” Unfortunately I think I’m remembering the movie Traffic, which she most certainly did not watch with me, but she doesn’t need to know that. “It’s so much fun. When I was a kid, it was almost as good as Christmas.”

Now she’s looking at me like I’m damn crazy.

“It’s true,” Bram says and she looks up at him. “You’re about to have a very fun adventure. Are you ready, little one?”

Because she’s so in love with Bram, her eyes light up and she smiles, nodding vigorously. I’d be jealous of him if I wasn’t feeling a whole whack of other things, especially in my uterus. It’s like it’s kicking at me – hey, Nicola, hey, he’s a good one – and I think I may have to put my uterus, vagina, and heart into some sort of holding cell where only my brain has the lock and key.

He eyes me with a lazy kind of excitement. “Are you ready?”

I take in a deep breath and manage a smile. “Let me just put on some clothes and run a brush through my hair.”

“You’re perfect just the way you are, babe,” he says. “Though those nipples of yours seem to be vying for my attention.”

I look down at my chest and see them poking through my thin top like they’re trying to tunnel their way out. Shit.

I slap my hands over them and hurry on over to my bedroom, wishing I could start the morning over and yet oddly giddy about where it’s been so far.

***

When we pull into the IKEA parking lot in Emeryville, I’m surprised that it isn’t full. Then again, even though it’s Sunday, it’s still early. I glance at the clock on the slick dashboard of the Mercedes and it’s 9:50, ten minutes till opening. I wonder if this is what middle age is going to feel like, trying to beat the crowds or snag a deal by going early.

Then I look over at Bram, whose hand is still on the gearshift, and for a split second I imagine more grey in his hair. I imagine more stubble on his gorgeous chin and lines by his eyes. I imagine him older and I imagine myself older, and a teenage Ava in the backseat.

My heart seems to expand at the thought, feeling whole, complete. Then it stutters, as if it’s something it can’t even begin to comprehend and I feel embarrassed that my mind even went there for a moment. Holy moly, what the hell has gotten into me?

“Let’s go to the doors,” I say quickly, opening the door and getting out of the car. I can tell Bram is puzzled by my abrupt departure but I need to clear my head and focus on the task at hand. Couch, couch, couch. Swedish furnishings. Mesh pits filled with balls. One-dollar hot dogs.

By the time we get to the doors though, after wrangling Ava out of the booster seat and making sure I have sliced apples, a small bit of juice, the insulin pen and glucose monitor just in case, the store is open for business. Still it’s relatively quiet and we’re lucky that the ball pit isn’t all full. Ava is measured to make sure she’s tall enough to go in and then we leave her there with the daycare, which gives us about an hour on our own, just enough to look around the store and then pick her up for lunch.

I watch her for a few minutes as she slowly approaches the edge of the pit, watching the kids who are already in it. She’s never been that shy with other kids but I haven’t really exposed her to them either. I guess I just don’t have any friends who have kids – something that happens when you have a kid early and out of wedlock.

One child, a boy a few good inches taller that her, swims through the balls and then stops in front of her. He grins, toothless and then throws a ball at her. It bounces right at her head and before I know it, I’m ready to run to the pit, scoop Ava up and call that little shit what he really is.

But Bram has grabbed hold of my arm and he’s pulling me back and to him.

“Easy, mum,” he murmurs in my ear. I let him hold me and we watch as Ava picks up the ball and throws it right back at the boy. It hits him square in the chest and she scowls at him before walking off to the other side of the pit where a girl with red pigtails bounces up to her.

“He’s not much different from you,” I mutter as my heart rate turns back to normal.

Bram still has his hand around my bicep and he lowers it down my arm, his fingers skimming over my skin until I’m certain he’s going to grab onto my hand and hold it. But then he pulls away all together. “And Ava knows just how to deal with boys like me, just like her mum has. Shall we?”

I know we won’t get anything done if I keep standing in by the play center. I watch as other moms come and drop off their kids and then hurry away into the store as if they can’t wait to be done with them. I’m so used to being around Ava all the time that it’s hard not to have her with me if I can help it. But this is good for her and it’s good for me. It has to be.