He laughs, but his eyes fall fast, and I know he’s thinking about his hot and cold antics the last few days. I don’t blame him for it. I know it’s simply him, but still. It’s funny and proves my point wasn’t all crazy talk.
He shakes the empty pizza pocket box in the air, tosses it behind him, and takes the stairs two at a time.
He places himself right in front of me. “Little Bishop.”
“Playboy.”
“I’m a fucking pizza pocket.”
I laugh, and his eyes roam my face. “But when you’re hot...” I tease.
His tongue touches the lifted corner of his lips and shifts closer. “Hop in my ride, we’re going to the zoo.”
“Not going to ask me if I have plans or even want to go?”
His frown is instant, and I laugh.
“I’m kidding.”
“Wouldn’t matter if you weren’t.” He glares at my shirt. “You’re mine today.”
With a hint of haughtiness, he smirks and steps around me.
All I can think is... how about tomorrow?
We make it through the exotic birds, monkeys, and the butterfly room when Zoey decides she’s ready to play at the playground, so we head for the center of the place, where a large open playzone is. The entire park is animal themed. The slide is the giraffe bent to eat, the spinning saucer in the center a turtle’s shell, and monkey bars that are, well, not monkeys, but designed to look like bamboo and straw and have little stone monkeys at the edges. Zoey, though, she went down each slide exactly one time, and has been sitting in front of the garden, watching the groundskeepers as they plant a brand-new row not far from where she is, Victoria at her back, running her fingers through her hair. Neither of them have yet to look away.
“Cutest fuckin’ thing you’ve ever seen, yeah?” Royce looks to me.
I grin, nodding. “She calls you Uncle Bro?”
His smile grows wide at that, a softness in his eyes that’s new to me.
It’s calm and gentle. I’d like to see it more often.
“Maddoc’s Uncle D, I’m Uncle Bro, RaeRae is... well, RaeRae.” He chuckles. “She picked up on my nickname for Raven and it stuck.”
I grin, look to Victoria and Zoey again and chance asking, “And her mom, she calls her Rora?”
The gentleness is gone in a flash, and his eyes snap to mine. They’re guarded and unsure, but then he blinks, his features smooth and he makes a decision.
Whatever it was though, he isn’t forced to share it. Captain comes out of nowhere and does first.
“Victoria isn’t her birth mother,” he shares as he watches them, a tenderness in his tone that can’t be described it’s so raw. So real.
Royce clamps a hand on his shoulder and walks away, but I keep my focus on Captain.
Not her birth mother?
“Her mom is gone, not dead, but she might as well be. She never wanted Zoey, and maybe one day I think she’ll regret her choices. It will be too late when or if she does.” His eyes flick to mine and back.
“Zoey is too much like us, loyal to a fault. Honest. She doesn’t realize it yet because she’s not around anyone to hear the word mom, we have no mothers, but she’ll see it soon, with Raven, and then who knows what will follow. But it’s just a word.” He shakes his head fiercely. “That girl right there.” He speaks of Victoria. “She’s the reason Zoey was born.”
I expect him to stop there, but Captain opens himself up a little more.
“It doesn’t matter what she calls her, what that little girl feels is the love of a mother. Victoria is her mother, in every way that counts, and more.” Captain looks my way.
The corner of my mouth lifts, and my nostrils flare so I don’t tear up in front of him. “She’s very lucky.”
“I’m lucky,” he replies instantly. “We’re lucky. She’s just a child, getting what every child should. There should be no luck in that.” The despondency in his tone is easily deciphered.
“And yet places like Brayshaw, and the Brayshaw group home exists. Because even though no child should be raised in hate or anger or pain... we are.” I don’t realize I was whispering until the last word leaves and I force a laugh.
I stand, but Captain doesn’t let me pass. I look up and he gives a small smile.
“You’ve been through some shit, more than I know, but you’re not hardened or bitter.” He shakes his head, true, honest perplexity clear in his tone. “How?”
“If you’re worried your little girl will grow and—”
“I’m not,” he cuts me off. “I know she’ll be okay, better than. I want to know about you. How are you... you? Caring and gentle. Good.”
My lips pinch into a tight smile as my shoulders lift and hold. “I had a brother who loved me, who I loved back. He told me our life was not what life was about, that we’d have more. I don’t think he believed it, but I believed him, and when things were dark, his words gave me light,” I share.
“That’s not all,” he guesses.
I hesitate at first, and then decide I want to share. He cares enough to ask, so that’s something.
“It would have been easy to fall into the ugly surrounding us, and sometimes it took a lot of self-convincing to remember my brother’s promises, but living with what we did, it made the world around me so much clearer. It only took one glance or one nervous conversation of no importance with kids at school or wherever, to know they lived with darkness, too.” I look off. “Their eyes were a little dead, and I realized they didn’t have a brother like mine, someone to give them hope... a North Star to believe in, to... seek out for guidance when they felt lost.”
“So you gave them one.” Understanding, maybe a bit of realization, brings creases to his forehead. “You were strong for strangers. You helped them see there’s more. You were the hope to lost souls.”
An unexpected stir builds beneath my ribs, and I meet Captain’s gaze again.
“I tried.” My lips pull into a one-sided smile. “It was only words, a smile or someone to sit with at lunch, play with at recess.”
“And the idea of more, the possibility of hope not lost. You gave them something they could reach for in the dark if all they had was themselves and the sky above them. That’s a fucking lot, Brielle.”
“It wasn’t really,” I say quietly. “But it was all I had to offer.”
Captain nods, his expression tight, a richer sentiment flashing across him, one I have no idea how to read it’s so profound. “I know you could be happy here. Do you?”
“That’s all I wanted.”
Concern draws his brows together, and he inches closer. “Wanted?”
I open my mouth, but close it.
Why did I say wanted?
Do I not want that?
Do I want more?
Captain’s face grows serious. “I can see what’s happening, Brielle. We all can.”
Tension buds low in my stomach, seeking a place on the surface as the flowers in the garden before us.
“As far as what?”
His eyes cut across the place where Maddoc and Royce are waiting in a long line at a snack shack.
“He’s not easy to handle.” Captain’s tone is firm, but worry weighs heavy in his words. “He’s the toughest person I know. The bravest, boldest, but he’s... not easy to handle. He fucks up when he feels.”
I shift in the seat, my eyes sliding to Raven who sits only a space away, focused on us.
I look back to Captain. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because there’ll be a time when you need to remember it.”
Is that not what I’ve been doing?
Not that he’s aware.
Or maybe he is.
No secrets among them, right?
“You sound so sure, Captain.”
“That’s because I am.” His response is instant. “I need you to understand that what feels like the end, is always the beginning. It’s where he has to be pushed back, or he’ll get lost.”
&
nbsp; He stares.
Maybell said the same thing, but hearing it from Captain, the words somehow hit harder.
When I finally force a nod, he nods back and walks away.
My head falls to the iron backing of the bench and I look up at the sky, trailing over the small line of clouds and focus on the shades around them, but even breathing in color isn’t working right now, as it always does.
Raven must sense it because she scoots into the space beside me.
“You know Captain’s right. Royce is tough. Too tough. The rest, it gets buried.” She shifts toward me. “When I first got here, I fucked-up their world, turned it upside down, all while having no idea I was doing it.”
I smile at her stomach and her hands come down to cover where my eyes touched. “I have a feeling they would describe your arrival a lot different.”
“That’s because they’re not normal.” She laughs, but quickly refocuses. “I won’t get into details, he can tell you all about it another time, but basically everything went to shit and quick. Victoria wasn’t with us yet. Me and Cap were held up in a hotel trying to find a way out of the mess we were in, but there was no answer we could come up with, so it went on and on. Maddoc... he left.” Her eyes hit mine. “Don’t think less of him, the situation was fucked and you have no idea what he had to sit back and try to accept. He didn’t want to leave... he had to.”
I hardly hear what she’s saying, I’m too focused on what’s behind her words.
Raven and Captain, they were held up.
Victoria wasn’t in the picture, and Maddoc, he was gone...
Royce was alone, or that’s how he felt.
“Exactly.”
Our eyes meet, and a solemnness covers hers.
“This is when my brother was helping you?”
She nods.
Jesus.
He really felt... left behind, every bit the lost boy.
“These boys, they’re so much the same, but Royce...” She trails off.
“You love him.”
She nods. “I love all three, but I love them differently. My relationship with each one is spades away from the other, but at the end of the day I would die for them the same. And then they’d hate me for it.”
There’s that line again, but I believe it coming from her.
She looks to where Maddoc and Royce are now waiting for their order. “Royce, I’m not shitting you, is delicate, but he never lets anyone get close enough to know it. It’s masked under his anger and playfulness. He wants to love, but he’s not capable of loving lightly. It’s not in his nature. He’s explosive, and he knows it, but you know that, too.”
I take a deep breath and she turns to me.
“He will love fiercer than anyone ever could, deeper than most would think possible, but chances are, he’ll tear you apart in the process. Can you handle that?”
I swallow, shaking my head. “I’m so far from enough for him, and I don’t say that in self-pity. I say it because I understand the reality around me. I’m not afraid to say I want him, but I know I’m not a girl he would ever love. Not the kind of love he’s after.”
The all-consuming love he angrily shared he wants. The queen who fits his black fairy tale.
Raven drops her eyes to the grass, a slight smile on her lips as she scoots herself to the edge of the bench with a wince. She pushes to her feet, her gorgeous, light eyes meeting mine. “That right there, is exactly why he will.”
With her hands cupping her underside of her belly, she walks away.
With each step farther she grows, my breathing speeds up, the possibility of what she’s saying blooming in my chest, but it’s an acidy sting, not a ruffle of butterflies.
To love Royce Brayshaw would be so easy, and dare I say I’m almost there, but to be loved by Royce Brayshaw... that’s an entirely different story.
It’s not long later we’re packing up and heading for the parking lot.
Captain and Victoria step ahead, helping Zoey inside, and Royce chooses that moment to throw his arm around my shoulder.
I look up, finding his eyes already on me, and he halts us both in place.
My lips tingle in memory, and his tongue pokes out to wet his own.
“‘Member when I said you were in trouble?” he rumbles.
I nod.
“Good, ‘cause that shirt? Hiding my mark on your skin?” He raises a brow, bringing his lips to my ear. “I’m gonna tear it to shreds... while it’s still on your body.”
My core heats, my lips parting.
“And I’m gonna use my teeth to do it.” He slips closer. “Just wait. I’m—”
“Oh fuck... guys?” Raven’s voice cuts through the air.
Royce tears away.
Captain steps out of the front seat while Victoria rounds the side.
Maddoc pushes her hair over, gripping her chin and bringing her eyes to his.
“We’re not making the reservation,” she hisses.
His other hand comes up to her face, holding her still. “What is it, baby?”
Her face scrunches and she nods. “That’s exactly what it is.”
Maddoc frowns, and all at once, their eyes fall to the ground.
A small puddle of liquid pools around her shoes.
The boys freeze, each one of them.
Stuck like stone. Unblinking. Unmoving. Doubtfully breathing.
I look to Victoria.
She frowns from one to the next, and a sigh leaves her. She glances my way. “You drive?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She closes Zoey’s door. “‘Cause this shit’s about to get interesting in three, two...”
All at once, the boys come out of their state of shock, each shouting the same exact thing at the same exact moment.
“Holy shit! The fuckin’ baby!”
And then Maddoc passes out.
Chapter 25
Royce
Baby.
The baby’s coming.
Holy shit.
“Royce!”
My head snaps left to find Victoria throwing her hands up at me, Raven glaring down at Maddoc on the ground, and Cap frozen with his hand on the door handle.
“Captain isn’t moving,” she says.
Fuckin’ swear she’s speaking in slow motion. And when did it get foggy? “I need you to grab Maddoc—”
She cuts off when suddenly Brielle’s pouring a bottle of water over his head.
He flies up like a demon possessed, eyes wild and crazed, hands fisted. He towers over her.
“Well, that worked.” Victoria smiles.
Brielle fights a laugh and points behind him.
He whips around and Raven lifts a brow, reaching for him.
He rushes to her, his knuckles finding her chin. “Snow?”
“You ready for this, Big Man?” she rasps, and fuck me, my brother’s grin.
I’ve never seen a thing like it.
I look to Brielle who saw it too, and her eyes fall to the ground right before finding me.
She winks, and as if the pull of her lips is connected to a string bound around my organs, everything inside me grows tighter, the corners of her mouth lifting so damn high. For my family. Sharing in our moment.
I’m snapped out of my Tink trance when Raven’s heavy huffed breath fills the air.
Raven scoffs a small laugh, her hands falling to her stomach, the corners of her eyes a little tense. She knows each of us are ready to bombard her with questions and beats us to the punch. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Breathe.”
I think that last one was for Maddoc, but my ass needed the reminder.
“We need to go.” Victoria walks over, slips her hand in my pocket and tugs out my keys. She tosses them to Brielle. “Raven’s with you. I don’t want to scare Zoey.”
“Why would Zoey be scared?” Maddoc steps toward Victoria, but quickly jerks back to Raven, so I crowd her instead.
“Why would she be scared, what do you mean?”
Victoria gapes at the both of us. “You guys, she’s gonna hurt. She might even scream. Get ready for it.”
My brother’s face pales and he shakes his head. “No.”
Brielle and Victoria laugh. “Yes. Now get her in the car, we need to get to the hospital.”
“I can’t feel my legs.”
“I can’t feel my fuckin’ body,” Maddoc rasps.
“K, well, I can feel a whole lot of funky shit happening in mine, so maybe can we do this on the way?” Raven rushes out, a low hum following.
“Baby.” Maddoc reaches out to touch but her hands shoot up.
“The car.” She nods. “Now.”
He grabs his girl’s hand and I slip behind them to supervise.
Before she can step inside, she hunches over with a fought groan.
Maddoc’s eyes hit mine. They’re strained with worry, fear, and all the other shit my brother never shows.
I grip his shoulder and then Cap is beside us.
We stand there, surrounding her, and finally she stands again.
Raven spins around, meeting each of our eyes, and fuck me, tears fill hers. She starts to laugh, shaking her head. “Don’t do this shit to me, my hormones are fucked.” She smiles. “Just... get in, yeah?”
Maddoc slips in first, reaching for her.
She puts a hand in his, and Cap holds out his arms, helping her up and into the car.
He climbs in beside her, and I only remember to move when a soft, gentle hand slips into mine.
I look from the warm, calming connection to the girl responsible for it, and when she tugs, I follow. She must have opened the door, because next thing I know, I’m in the front seat, staring at Brielle behind the wheel of my ride and liking the look of it.
We’re on the road in seconds.
Minutes into the drive, Raven’s breaths grow deeper, small huffs, and low groans following. Her head keeps falling back on the seat, only for her to lean forward in the next. It’s the longest, most stressful ride I can remember taking.
“Your dad’s already here,” Brielle mentions as we’re pulling into the parking lot. “Victoria must have called him.”
She drives right up front, stopping where our dad’s standing with wide and worried eyes. He rushes over and rips open the door.
Break Me Page 26