ONE MORE TRY

Chapter 2

Joshua

I drove past the gates and into the compound, my hands tight on the wheel. It had been an hour ago already, but my heart was still beating fast in my chest.

A sound from the back seat had me looking at Steven, who I'd strapped carefully into his car seat.

"Are you comfortable back there, little guy? Don't worry; we'll be seeing your mom soon, okay?"

We would have arrived a lot sooner, but I was a little paranoid with Steven in the back seat, so I was driving slowly and carefully.

I parked the car, then jumped out. I moved to the back seat, and pulled both Steven and the car seat out of my car, then closed the doors. It locked itself automatically as I walked up to the house. Wendy was already there, opening the door to meet us.

"Oh, you're back," she chirped, hands outstretched. "Give me back my baby!"

I rolled my eyes as I let her take Steven, then followed her into the house, closing the door behind us.

"You sound like I wanted to run away with him. You told me to take him out because you had things to do."

"It wasn't a lot of stuff, though! I was done ages ago, and I've been waiting for you to bring him back to me."

She shot a glare over her shoulder at me, and I could only roll my eyes. It was just Wendy being her usual self. She had been in such a hurry earlier that she'd disturbed me on the one day I had off in the week and demanded I come and spend some time with Steven. I knew nothing about being around children, but the little tyke was adorable, so I didn't mind it, but it was still my day off.

"You could at least be grateful, you know," I muttered. "I could have ignored you when you called and gone back to sleep."

"Don't listen to your uncle, baby," she cooed, ignoring me. "He's a total grump, but he's a nice guy under that grump, okay? He loved spending time with you today."

I frowned, feeling a little irritated. But I couldn't say it was a lie. Wendy's son was well behaved, and there hadn't been any accidents along the way. I was never sure of how I felt about babies. Before, when Alessandra and I were still together, I had thought we would have children someday after we got finished college and got married. Things ended between us in a way I hadn't expected.

Meeting her today at the part, with a baby in tow no less, had been the best thing to have happened.

I had been worried about how I would get in touch with her. It had been more than a year since she walked out of my life, and of course, there was no way I could forget her that easily.

"So?" Wendy said, glancing at him once more. "You look excited. Did something happen at the park? Did you finally meet someone?"

I touched my face, confused. Did I look excited? I thought I was hiding it well, but then again, Wendy and I had always been close, and she was good at reading me.

"I'm glad I don't have you working with me in the company. You'd be insufferable."

"Oh, please. The only reason I'm not working for you is that you couldn't afford me," she teased. "But anyway, what happened?"

I hesitated, but in the end, decided there was nothing wrong with telling her. There was no one else close to me than her, aside from Alessandra, but that had changed in the past year for a reason. I planned on improving it.

"You'll never guess who I met up with today."

Wendy hummed. "You're right; I'll never guess because it's annoying. Just tell me?"

I rolled my eyes.

Wendy led us through the kitchen and to the back patio of the house. We sat at one of the patio tables underneath the shade, and she set Steven in his carrier on top of the table in front of her.

"I saw Alessandra."

Up until then, she hadn't shown much interest in me, but when I mentioned that name, she looked up, just as surprised as I have been to see her.

"Did you say, you saw Alessandra? As in, the Alessandra that walked out on you last year after that crap that went down with Auntie?"

I grimaced. "She did, but it hurts to hear it, you know?"

She waved a dismissive hand at me, and I frowned at her. At least care a little bit about my feelings, cousin dearest.

"Where did you go? I asked you to take my son for a walk; I hope you didn't go anywhere too far."

"Seriously, what do you take me for? If you distrust me this much, why did you call me to come and look after him in the first place?"

"Because I was desperate and you were the last person I thought of," she said bluntly.

I stared at her for a long moment. "Tell me again exactly why we're close? I feel like I should leave now before you insult me further."

"No, no," she said quickly. "I'm really sorry, okay? I do trust you; it's just... I haven't heard much about her since what we heard about her exam. I didn't have the time to look for her, but she wasn't keeping in touch, and I wondered if she didn't move out of town."

"She told me she lost her phone when I ran into her in the park. She was pushing a baby with her, Wendy."

Her mouth went round in a soundless "Oh."

She understood the implication of what I was saying.

I had kept it in when I saw Alessandra. At least, I hoped she hadn't been able to read me as quickly as Wendy seemed to be, but I had not been okay to see her pushing a stroller, like the one I was. I hadn't tried to look, because I didn't want to come off as overly curious, but I had wanted to see the baby that was in it. At first, I'd wanted to lie to myself that it might be a doll or a dog in there. But I heard the baby cry.

"Was she..."

I sighed, and ran a hand down my face, feeling the same frustration I'd felt earlier.

"I was jealous when I saw Alessandra walking around with a baby," I admitted. "I thought she'd moved on quickly and had a kid with someone else. I had no idea what I was going to do it that happened, but she told me that wasn't the case."

It had been such a relief, and it had been hard not to let it show. I'd thrown out the assumption that she became a nanny because it was the first thing that came to mind that wouldn't make me feel like I was about to have a heart attack.

She hadn't moved on.

That meant I still had a chance, but I couldn't push to talk to her right then, either.

Alessandra and I hadn't been talking in the time leading to the breakup. Not because we didn't want to, the situation we were in at the time was just terrible. There just wasn't enough time for us to focus on our relationship.

When my dad fell ill, I knew I had to take over the company, and everything else was pushed to the back seat. I didn't want that to happen with Alessandra and me, but she was finalizing her exams and spending more time with her colleagues at school, and studying, and spending less time with me. I didn't want to bother her, and I was busy anyway, so we would go for long bouts of silence before I realized we weren't talking.

I had thought things couldn't get any worse. They did.

My father passed away. In that time, I wanted to talk to Alessandra. But she was busy, and I had my mother and Rachel. I wanted her exams to go well, so I gave up on bothering Alessandra.

Then, a month later, out of nowhere, Alessandra broke up with me and walked away. I kept trying to talk to her, but I had so much to do, and I got busy again.

By the time I wanted to find her so we could have a proper talk, she seemed to have disappeared. Aside from the news of what happened at school, no one had talked to her or knew how to contact her.

I had thought I'd lost her forever. Now that I'd found her again, I was going to make sure we had that long-awaited talk.

Wendy speaking up brought me out of my thoughts.

"Did you guys talk? What the hell happened to her over the past year and a half..."

I held a hand up, and her voice trailed off.

"I can't answer all those questions at the same time, you know? Anyway, she's acting as a nanny, so the baby is someone else's. We didn't talk much, and honestly, she didn't look like she wanted to talk to me much. But I did manage to get her number by saying you might need a nanny," I added with a grin.

It was Wendy's time to roll her eyes. "Why would you go and do that? That's silly, Joshua. Just tell Alessandra how you feel. You always wanted to speak to her after she disappeared, but you get the chance, and you blow it like that?"

Immediately, I was shaking my head.

"Allow me to have my secrets for a little bit longer, Wendy. Besides, it wasn't exactly the best time."

We were both busy. I could have offered to walk with her, but she did look like she was ready to run away from me when she first saw me. I didn't doubt that, if I'd asked that, she would have turned me down flat. Alessandra had seemed a little tense at my presence, and while I wasn't sure why, I knew this wasn't something I could force, or try to move along quickly.

"Wouldn't it be easier if you just told her everything, though?" Wendy questioned. "I mean, you act all tough, and you busy yourself with work, but I know how much you cared for her and I know you're not over her."

I snorted. "Of course I'm not over her. I've known her for nearly a decade, and we were together for about eight years. You can't just erase all that in fifteen months. At least, it's not gone for me, but I don't know about her. I can't just go up to her, say 'Alessandra I'm still in love with you, can we get back together' and hope for the best."

Wendy rolled her eyes but didn't argue.

I nearly did do it, though, I thought.

When I saw her at the park, a lot of things didn't register at first. After convincing myself that she was really in front of me, what I wanted to do at that moment was run to her and pull her into my arms, ask where she'd been, why she had left me, and told her that I wanted her back.

Her eyes looked down, into the stroller she was pushing. Reality crashed on me, and it was chilling. It'd taken all I had to appear casual when I went up to her and spoke to her usually.

"I'm not going to be hasty," I murmured. "I feel like if I push too much, she'll run away again. I don't know why she ran in the first place, and if I could figure that out first, it might be easier to fix this. But I plan to do this one step at a time. And you are going to help me, Wendy."

I turned my gaze to her, and she narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously.

"What do you want from me? If you want me to be your little spy..."

"Nothing like that. I got her number, but she only gave it to me because I said you might need a nanny. So what I need from you, is to get busy, and try to align it with the days I'm not quite so busy."

"And why exactly do I have to plan my life around you?" she questioned, incredulous.

"It's not something that difficult. You don't have someone to look after the kid when you have things you want to do, right? So you've been holding yourself back while you look for someone, but you wouldn't trust strangers that easily. It doesn't even have to be around my schedule. Just tell me when and I can handle things at work."

It was a busy time, but I was already giving it my all. Besides, I was the boss. No one said I couldn't delegate some of the work to other people to do.

After doing nothing but living and breathing work for the last year, I deserved some time to myself.

Wendy thought about it, but in the end, just sighed and shrugged. I knew that meant she agreed with me, and I grinned.

"Whatever. It's good, I suppose. It'll stop you from being miserable."

I watched as she went back to paying attention to her son, cooing at him and tickling him to make him giggle. And I remembered Alessandra and the way that she looked into the stroller, maybe she was better with kids than I'd ever given her credit for. Maybe splitting up was good for us, and would make us stronger once we got back together. Maybe I was being hasty. Maybe she wouldn't give me one last try.