Egomaniac

The rest of the week was just as amazing as movie night. Spending time at home with Drew and Beck showed me so much more about the man than I would have learned on dozens of dates. Come to think of it, that should be part of the dating ritual. On the second or third date, the man should have to bring a child, perhaps a niece or nephew if he doesn’t have children of his own, so you can see the relationship he has with them. It would cut to the bottom line better than six months of dating.

Whether we had breakfast or dinner together each day, Drew always managed to carve out time for all three of us together and for the two of them alone. It was starting to feel like my own little family. But in the back of my mind, I realized things wouldn’t always be this way. Alexa would be returning tomorrow, and I wasn’t sure what that would add. I was definitely curious about her.

This afternoon I would be watching Beck alone for a few hours while Drew had a deposition he couldn’t reschedule. He’d planned on asking one of the assistant teachers from Beck’s school who sometimes watched him, but I insisted I could handle it.

Drew had a stash of movies that we could watch upstairs in his apartment, and I’d bought some old-school Jiffy Pop popcorn to make on the stove. Babysitting would be a piece of cake.

Or so I thought.

Then I had to call Drew’s cell phone and interrupt his deposition ten minutes after it started. To tell him we needed to go to the hospital.

“I’m so sorry.” It was the millionth time I’d said it. We were in a small curtained room in the same ER we’d sat in for my twisted ankle not even one full week ago. Only this time, Beck was being treated.

“Things happen. It was an accident. Now he knows better than to touch the stove.”

“I should have known better.” Beck and I had made the Jiffy Pop together. He’d never seen popcorn made that way. His big chocolate eyes grew like saucers watching the silver foil inflate with each pop of the kernels. When the popping had slowed, and the foil looked about to burst, I’d slid the silvery pan from the heat onto a cool burner and poked a hole in the top to allow steam to escape. When Beck went to sift through the movie cabinet, I thought nothing of going to the bathroom. I was out of the room less than three minutes, thinking how nice the afternoon was as I washed my hands…when the screaming began.

The poor little guy had gone back to the stove and, unaware that part of the flat top burner was still hot since it was no longer orange, tried to hop up to watch the steam coming out of the top of the Jiffy Pop. He’d unknowingly placed his entire hand on the still-hot burner.

“His mother’s kitchen has gas. I should have explained that the top stays hot to him when I got the new stove a year ago. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

Beck shrugged. The boy was a trooper. “It doesn’t even really hurt that much anymore.”

The doctor said it was a simple first-degree burn and applied Silvadene lotion, then wrapped Beck’s hand with gauze on the inside and an ace bandage around the outside.

I put my hand on Beck’s knee. “I’m so sorry, honey. I should have told you it stayed hot even when the color changed.”

A little while later, a nurse came in and gave us dressing instructions, a tube of cream, and some gauze to use the next day so we didn’t have to get to the store right away. Even though everyone treated it like it was a common occurrence, I still felt like shit.

The first time Drew left me alone with his son, I’d broken him.

“I look like a boxer!” Beck announced on the way home from the hospital. “Dad, can you wrap my other hand? And maybe get this stuff in red?” He pointed to the ace bandage.

“Sure, buddy.”

The two of them were back to their normal selves, but I still felt horrible. Drew reached over and put his hand on my knee as he drove. “People are going to start looking at me funny with you two.”

I furrowed my brow.

“You’re in an air cast, and he’s got a hand wrapped.”

I covered my mouth. “Oh my God. Imagine—they look at you funny, when both injuries are completely my fault.”

Drew’s voice lowered. “Seriously, I see you sitting there trying all sorts of guilt on for size. It was an accident. It could have been me making the popcorn, and the exact same thing would have happened.”

“But it didn’t.”

“Stop beating yourself up. Two months ago he had a black eye from running into the dresser while his mother was watching him. He’s a little boy. They do shit without thinking and get hurt.”

“Oh, no.”

“What?”

“I hadn’t even thought of his mother. She’s going to hate me.”

“Don’t worry about her. There wasn’t much of a shot of her liking you anyway.”

Great. Just great.