Love Series (Complete Series)

by Natasha Madison

  “No one.” I know she’s lying. “Just, can you help me?”

  I close my eyes while pinching the bridge of my nose. “What do you want to know?”

  I hear her covers rustling again. “Before we do this, you need to promise me that whatever you tell me is the truth, no matter how much it may hurt me. I’m not searching for half-truths. No more. I need to know even if it hurts, even if I get mad, even if it’s not what I want to hear. I need to know.”

  “Jesus.” I shake my head. “You can’t let sleeping dogs lie?”

  She now laughs out loud. “He’s dead, so I’m not sure he gets a vote.”

  The sound of her laughter fills my body with something, making me smile. “Okay, fine, what do you want to know?”

  “How did they meet?” Simple enough.

  “He was in town, I think working, and they ran into each other when he was walking out of the restaurant, and she was walking in.”

  “Figures,” she says under her breath. “How long did they date before he proposed?”

  “Shit,” I say, trying to think. “I’m not really sure. I want to say nine months, maybe a little bit more.”

  “Did you like him?” she asks me.

  “Very much. He was a brother I never had. When he was home, that is.” I stop myself. “I don’t mean home. I meant when he was here. His home was with you and his girls.”

  “Thank you,” she says softly, “but I don’t even think he knew where his home was.”

  I’m about to say something else when the alarm rings. “Shit, I have to go. We just got a call.”

  “Oh,” she says quietly, “okay. Thank you for this, Blake.” She disconnects, and I run out of the room, getting my gear on as we are briefed about a kitchen fire that just started in a house. The owner came home from work and fell asleep with the oil on the stove. It’s two hours later when we pack up all our gear and head back to the station.

  Shrugging my jacket off and stepping out of my gear, I pull my phone out of my pocket and see that I have a message. It came in right after we hung up.

  Thank you for tonight. Stay safe.

  I look at the time, and see that it’s almost two in the morning.

  Anytime.

  I answer her back, and I’m shocked when she answers right away.

  Glad to know you’re safe.

  I don’t answer, thinking maybe I woke her up, so I close my phone and head to the shower and then quickly crash once I’m done.

  I dream of Frankie, I dream of the time she told me she loved me, I dream about the time we sat on the beach watching the water with her in front of me. Her hair blowing in my face. But when I lean down to kiss her, Frankie’s face doesn’t smile back at me. It isn’t Frankie’s lips I lean down to kiss—it’s Samantha’s.

  The next day, I try to forget the dream while also trying to make sense of it. I try to convince myself it’s because she needs help, because she’s alone. But when I open the phone and text her, it isn’t about Eric, and it isn’t about Hailey, it’s about her. It’s about making sure she is okay.

  I hope you are having a better day.

  I press send and put it back in my pocket. I’m getting up and getting something to eat when it buzzes in my pocket, so I pull it back out.

  I’m actually having the best day in a long time. Thank you for asking.

  I smile, putting the phone away. That night, I don’t know why I expect my phone to ring, and I don’t know why I constantly check the time. I don’t know why I’m disappointed when I see it’s eleven thirty and no calls have come through. But then, my phone rings.

  Samantha

  Samantha

  I shouldn’t call him. I shouldn’t want to call him, but he holds the answers.

  After I hung up the phone with Blake last night, I lay in bed thinking about what he told me, thinking about the questions I still needed answered. I turned and drifted off to sleep but never fully fell asleep, so when the phone beeped at two thirty, it was no surprise who it was. I answered him and quickly fell back asleep because the morning would be here way too soon.

  The girls and I got up and made pancakes together, hung out in our pjs all day while we watched every single Disney movie we had. We ordered Chinese food and ate in the living room; the mess was very minimal, but I didn’t care one bit. Even when half the box of rice fell on Daisy and went between the cushions, I just shrugged. I cleaned up the mess while they showered, and now we were all camped out in my king-size bed. And it was fucking blissful. I watched the time go from nine to ten to eleven and then finally caved. I picked up the phone, sneaking out of my bedroom and going downstairs. He answered after one ring.

  “Don’t you sleep?” he asks instead of saying hello. I laugh.

  “I took a three-hour nap today,” I tell him, and it’s the truth. The minute they put on Boss Baby, my eyes closed, and I slept till the end, and even was asleep when they put on another one.

  “Figures you didn’t even sleep last night,” he tells me, and I hear the softness in his voice. “Did my text wake you?” he asks, the worry evident in his voice.

  “We aren’t allowed to lie, right?” I ask him. “Yes, you did.”

  “Sorry,” he says. “I should have just waited until this morning.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell him, and it really is. “What do you do?” I ask him. I’m not sure if he’s a police officer or fireman.

  “I’m a firefighter for the county,” he says, and the job fits him.

  “So you do shift work?” I ask, not sure how it works.

  “Yes, we do shifts. Four days on, three days off,” he answers, and I hear creaking in the background.

  “Is it hard?” I ask, not even able to imagine being gone from home for four straight days. “What happens if you have a family? A wife and kids.” And my heart stops for just a second. Holy shit, he could have a wife and kid, and I’m calling him, I’m texting him. “Are you married?” I ask before I even know the words are coming out of my mouth.

  “So one question at a time,” he starts. His voice just soothes me, so I lie down on the couch with the phone tucked between my shoulder and my cheek. “It is always hard; sleeping on a cot is nothing like sleeping in your own bed.”

  “This is true,” I agree with him. “Although I have to say I hate making the bed. I don’t really ever make it. No, that’s a lie,” I say right away. “I don’t want to make it, but I do.”

  He laughs, and I smile. “Usually the wives pass by or they go home for an hour or so. They do it in shifts in case something happens,” he answers, and then I hold my breath, knowing it’s the last part of the question. “I’m not married, nor do I have children.”

  “I should have asked that right away. It wouldn’t have been right for me to call you and text you if you did,” I tell him quietly. And then I realize what I said. “I mean no disrespect.”

  “I get it,” he says, breathing heavily. “At no time did anyone suspect he was married,” he finally says out loud. “Not fucking once.”

  “I think I knew,” I whisper. “I mean, I didn’t know, know, but …” I finally breathe. I’ve never told anyone this, not even Judy. “He had just come back from being away for two weeks, and he came in and just kissed me on the lips and turned around. No hug, no I missed you, nothing.”

  “Okay,” he says, waiting for more, and I give it to him.

  “I felt him pull away. He turned, hugged the girls, and gave them attention, then took off to take a shower. Lizzie looked at me confused, like she didn’t understand why he wasn’t hugging us, why he wasn’t telling us how much he missed us and that it was so long and he hated it. There was just something missing. I chalked it up to him just being tired. He was just …” I feel my arm get wet with the tears that are coming now. “I dismissed it and told myself it was nothing. Till the next time it happened, and I waited until after the kids were in bed and went down to him as he watched television. I turned off the television and asked him if he was happy.�
�� I laugh bitterly. “He was very quick to tell me that he was more than happy.”

  “Samantha.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I say. “I told him that if he wanted out, he could go, and I wouldn’t stop him. I would never stop him. I would never ever keep the girls from him. I begged him, Blake, fucking on my knees begged him to tell me.” I sniffle. “I sat there giving him the fucking out, and he got off the couch and sat in front of me and held my hands, telling me he was just tired, telling me that he loved me more than life itself, telling me that the girls and I were his life, and that without us, he wouldn’t be able to survive,” I say. “After that, he made an effort, but it was never the same, so I sat there waiting each time he came home to tell me he wasn’t happy, to tell me he was moving on, but then I got pregnant.”

  “Samantha,” he says quietly, but I don’t stop.

  “I sat on the toilet and begged for it to be negative, prayed to whoever would listen to me for it be negative. It wasn’t; it was positive, and he was so happy, or at least, that is what it felt like. And then two days later, the cramps started, and I woke up covered in blood. I knew what was happening. I knew that somehow I actually wished our baby away, and they took it.” I don’t even try to stop the sobs.

  “Samantha,” he whispers, and I feel like he is so close. I feel like he is here holding me, and he isn’t. “These things happen.”

  “I know,” I say, my nose stuffed. “I know it was a sign, but I can’t help but think I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want it. I wasn’t the only one sending out that prayer.” I wipe my tears. “Did they want children together?”

  He blows out. “Yes, every single time they were together, they talked about it. They were going to start trying next month.”

  “What would he have done? How would he have been a father to that child and my children? How do you have two lives?”

  “I don’t know, Samantha,” he says. “I don’t think anyone can answer that. I have to believe that one day, both worlds would have come crashing together, and he would be out two amazing women.”

  I whisper, “I wonder if he loved me.” I blink, my eyes getting heavy. “I know he loved me, but was he in love with me or was I just there?”

  “You’re killing me,” Blake says.

  “I’m tired,” I finally say. “I think I’m going to go to bed. Thank you, Blake. For this, for listening to me, for answering me.” I don’t wait for him to answer. I just hang up the phone and drag myself to bed, cuddling into Daisy. I close my eyes, letting the blackness take me to sitting on a beach watching the waves crash to shore like where we went on our honeymoon. I feel his arms around me and look back to kiss him, but it isn’t Eric. Those blue eyes are green, the clearness now cloudy, and the smile belongs to Blake.

  The next morning, we are all up at the same time. The girls sit around the table, and I’m opening the fridge when the doorbell rings. I walk to it and open it to see it’s Elliot. “Hey,” he says. “I brought doughnuts and figured I could visit with the girls.”

  I step aside as he walks in. He’s never, not fucking once, rang that doorbell. He has a key and has used it ever since we moved in. “Did you forget your key?” I ask him.

  “Nah, I just didn’t know if …” He stops talking, not sure what to say. “It’s been a weird couple of days.”

  “Has it?” I answer him, putting the doughnuts on the table while the kids get up and run to him, telling him all about our girls’ weekend.

  “Are you not going to Mom and Dad’s for Sunday lunch?” he asks me while the kids are eating.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “It got a little tense the other day, and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”

  “You’re family.” He smiles at me, and I look at him and shock him when I answer.

  “Families take care of each other. Families hold and support each other, not watch one of their own being shoved down and beaten.”

  “Sammie,” he finally says, “I should have …”

  “Yeah, you should have, but you didn’t, so I get it. I’m really not family; I just married into it. My mistake.”

  “Girls, do you want to stay home or go to Grandma and Grandpa’s?”

  Daisy yells that she wants to go, while Lizzie says that she would rather just stay home. I look at her, not sure what is going on.

  “Why don’t you take Daisy?” I tell Elliot. “And Lizzie and I will stay home and relax.”

  He nods at us. “Sure thing. Sugar plum, go get dressed so we can go.”

  I watch Daisy run up the stairs while Lizzie leaves the table to go upstairs to her room. “Dad is going to wonder why you aren’t there.” Elliot looks at me.

  “Okay.” I shrug my shoulders. “Tell him I wasn’t feeling well. Tell him Lizzie didn’t want to go.”

  “Sammie, he was just mad.”

  I slap the table, angry now. “He fucking blamed me for Eric marrying someone else. Like if I would have fucked him seven days a week, it would have stopped him from going out and seeking someone else.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “How?” I throw up my hands. “How wasn’t it like that?”

  He doesn’t have a chance to answer because Daisy comes skipping into the room.

  “Ready freddy,” she says.

  “Give mom a kiss,” Elliot says, and she turns and comes to me, kissing my lips.

  I walk them to the door, then wave at them as I watch them drive away. I close the door and then head upstairs, not expecting what is to come.

  Samantha

  Samantha

  I knock on the door to Lizzie’s room. Opening it up, I find her sitting on the middle of her bed, closing the book she was reading. “Hey,” I say to her. Walking into the room, I take a seat on her big queen-size bed. The room is straight out of a magazine. She and Judy set out to create her own private oasis.

  The bed sits in the middle of the room with her name painted in the middle of the wall. It took them two days to finally put everything in its place when Adrian went on a business trip. A desk is in the corner with a funky lamp on it, piled with her stuff.

  “You okay?” I ask her, sitting on the bed in front of her. “You are acting awfully weird.”

  She looks down and then back up at me, the tears so big in her eyes they run over. “Baby.” I reach out for her, but she shakes her head.

  “I know, Mom,” she says, and I look at her with my eyebrows pinched together. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” I ask her, sitting up straighter as my heart beats faster and faster and faster. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Who is Hailey?” My mouth snaps open as I watch my baby girl sit in the middle of the bed struggling to understand anything in this fucking mess that Eric left behind. “Mom, was Dad married to another person?”

  I reach out for her hand, holding it in mine. “Baby, this is just …”

  “I heard it all,” she says finally. “I heard Uncle Elliot and Uncle Ethan talking in the garage. He married another woman.” Her body not able to contain her sobs. “He didn’t love us anymore.”

  I grab her in my arms as her sobs rip through her, hating him at that moment. I hate him for giving her this burden, I hate him for giving her this pain, I fucking hate him. “He loved you with everything he had. Everything.” I smooth her hair down. “He loved you so much, so, so much; all he did was for you.”

  “So then why would he marry someone else?” It’s the million-dollar question.

  “Honey.” I look in her eyes as tears fall down my face. I want to take away all her pain. “Your father loved you and Daisy with everything he had. Never ever, ever doubt that.” I kiss her cheeks. “We were going through a tough time; it isn’t anyone’s fault. He fell in love with this lady.”

  “How?” she asks. “How do you love so many women you marry them?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t answer that,” I tell her honestly. “I have no idea, not one. The only one
who can answer that is Dad.”

  “Would he have tried to take us with him?” she asks with fear. “Would I have had to go?”

  “Honey, all these what-ifs are going to make you sick. The only thing we have to remember is that he loved you so, so much.”

  “I’m angry with him,” she says. “So angry.” She looks down. “I’m also angry with Grandpa A.”

  “Why are you angry with him?”

  “He was mean to you two nights ago and said some mean things. I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “I’m a big girl. You don’t have to be mad at him for me. He loves you.”

  “And I love you,” she says.

  “Now, I want you to promise me that you won’t tell anyone you know. Promise me that if you need to talk, you come to me, and I will answer any questions you have honestly, even if it hurts.”

  “Okay, Mom,” she whispers. “I won’t tell anyone.” The last thing anyone needs to know is that she knows. “Can we go watch a movie?” she asks, and I smile. “Beauty and the Beast.”

  “Cartoon or real?” I ask her, not really caring. I could do both.

  “Real.” She smiles, climbing off her bed. “I’ll start the movie, and you get the doughnuts.”

  I smile at her. “Meet you downstairs in a bit. I have to go to the washroom.” I walk into my room as Lizzie walks downstairs to get the movie ready, waiting till the door closes before letting my sob out. If I didn’t hate him before, I fucking hate him now. Leaving our children with doubts of how much he loved them. He was a selfish, selfish, selfish bastard, and I hope he’s somewhere rotting.

  I wash my face, then head downstairs to Lizzie. We end up watching the real and then the cartoon version when Elliot brings Daisy back.

  Daisy crawls on the couch with me, kissing my cheek and lying down on my lap. “She should pass out soon. I took her to the park.”

  I look down, bending to kiss her nose while she watches the end of Beauty and the Beast. “Did you bring any leftovers?” I ask him, and he looks down and then up again.