by Jane Anthony
The doorman waves me through as the gate lifts over the hood of my rusted-out Ranger. I find a spot just outside her door and let myself in, but my elation falls flat when I see her on the couch. She’s curled in a ball with the television light glittering on her tearstained cheeks. “What happened?”
“Sit.” She gestures to the seat beside her then pulls the blanket up around her shoulders until her entire body’s wrapped in fleece.
My heart pounds against my rib cage. I trudge through the small space as if slogging through quicksand. Silent tears leak from her eyes. She wriggles her fingers up from the blanket and grabs her hair. It’s her tell. Anxiety falls off her in waves, the foreboding quiet tearing me apart. I ball my hands, bracing myself for the impact as she finally opens her mouth.
“I’m pregnant.”
Chills skitter down both arms like a clutter of spiders. I shiver. “Pregnant?” I ask, dumbfounded.
Fear clouds her jade eyes, turning them dark as emeralds. She nods, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.
“How is that possible? We’ve only been together a few weeks.”
“Jesse.” My name flits off her tongue in a breathy whisper as everything suddenly becomes clear.
Chewing back the rage bubbling inside me, I study her features, afraid to ask the question I already know the answer to. “Don’t say it. I don’t even wanna fucking know.” I jump from the couch and pace a line to the kitchen then turn back around. “Did you call him yet?”
Another hard tug on her hair, another wave of emotion cresting her lash line. “No.”
A sharp breath hits my lungs. “Are you going to?”
“I have to.” Fat tears roll down her cheeks. She swipes them away but more follow.
“You have other options, you know.”
“You think I don’t know that? It’s all I’ve thought about since the second I found out.” A strong breath blows from her lips as she regains her composure. Turning her face to the wall, she says, “I guess I should probably accept his proposal.”
Anger unspools in my stomach. It leaks across my tongue, vicious and dry. “Over my fuckin’ dead body, you will.”
Her sodden gaze snaps to mine, fear darkening their mossy color to a deep shade of shining emerald. “It’s not your choice!”
“You don’t love him!”
Whatever poise she was struggling to hold falls by the wayside. She crumples in on herself, burying her face in her blanket-covered hands. “But he loves me. Maybe it’s enough.”
“No. That’s a bullshit cop-out. We both know what you’re really going back for!”
She clips her brows together, looking up at me with that wounded gaze that slices me open as I stalk toward her, but my fury outweighs the love crushing my chest as I narrow my eyes.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Say what?”
“You’re going back for the money! You’re having his kid. He can afford to give you both the lifestyle you’ve always wanted. Fucking say it, Wren.”
Red rage rolls up her face as her eyes well with a fresh batch of tears. She drops her foot to the floor and pushes from the couch, the blanket pooling around her feet. “How dare you?” she seethes. “Don’t you come in here and make false accusations at me, Jesse Dylan. You have no idea what I’m feeling right now. I am pregnant and alone and terrified, and I have no fucking idea what to do about it.”
Moving toward her again, I stop short before reaching her fully. I’m afraid to even touch her. “No one said you had to do this alone.”
“Right,” she wails, throwing her arms in the air. “You think you’re gonna ride in on your big white horse and save me?”
My pounding heart thunders in my ears. “Why not? You have a problem? You run to Jesse to fix it, right? You’ve been doing it our whole lives!”
She pins me with a headstrong glare, her olive eyes narrowing to slits. “You’re an asshole.”
“And you’re so fucking stubborn I should have my head examined for even considering this. I’m not offering you charity. I’m telling you that I love you, and I don’t give a fuck that you’re carrying his baby because it’s still a part of you, and I can’t turn my back on that. Not again.”
The corners of her mouth turn down, the fight draining out her. “I can’t let you throw your life away on my mistake.”
“My life is nothing without you in it.” I take a small step toward her, half expecting her to shrink away, but to my surprise, she meets me halfway. “Do you love me, Bird?” I ask, lifting my palm to her cheek.
“It’s too complicated now.”
“It’s a yes or no question. Either you love me, or you don’t. There’s nothing complicated about it.” I bring up my other hand, cradling her face. “You tell me you love him, and I’ll let you go. Hell, I’ll deliver you to his doorstep and see you on your merry way. But not if there’s a shred of love for me inside you.”
She nibbles on her lip. “You know I love you.”
“Then don’t tell him about this.”
She winces, but doesn’t pull back “He has a right to know.”
I shake my head, sucking a sharp breath through my nose. “He never deserved you.” My hand falls to the flat plane of her stomach. “And he doesn’t deserve this. He may be able to buy you anything you want, but he will never love you like I love you.”
A range of emotions scatters her eyes. They roll across the watery green surface, warping the color like an oil slick. “I know,” she whispers as a final tear rolls down her cheek.
My eyes scan her face. “What do you think? You want to do this with me?”
“All or nothing?”
“All or nothing.”
Her single nod is all I need. I pull her in, dipping my head until my lips meet hers in a gossamer kiss. Her chest rises, our fate sealed as my tongue invades her mouth in possessive hunger. She’s mine, and nothing will ever come in the way of that again.
CHAPTER 23
Jesse
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re leaving me.” The tape dispenser screams as Erika tears off a lengthy piece and secures the flaps on a cardboard box labeled paints and shit.
“I’m only going across town. I’ll still come back to check on things. You’ll be fine.”
“Whatever,” she says with a dramatic sigh, but the corner of her mouth twists in a smirk. “So you and Wren . . . finally, huh?”
Wrenching open a dresser drawer, I pull the entire thing out and dump its contents into the open maw of a waiting box. Boxer briefs tumble inside, filling the empty space with blues, reds, and greens. “Looks that way.”
Erika lifts a light brow, securing her hair into a silky ponytail. “You’ve been in love with the girl your entire life. Why do you sound so bummed?”
“It’s complicated,” I grumble with a shrug.
Erika plops down on my bed. “Boys are so lame.”
I let out a frustrated gripe and fall on my back next to her. The mattress jumps, making Erika spring up. “Keep a secret?” I ask.
Her expression sobers, the whites of her eyes peeking around bright blue irises. “No. But you’ll tell me anyway.”
“Wren’s pregnant.”
Her jaw goes slack, her lips forming a tiny O. “You dog!” she yelps, pushing against my arm. “I’m gonna be an aunt.”
My pulse ratchets up to high speed, my heart thundering against my rib cage. “That’s the secret part.” I fix my gaze on the single brown spot marring the tile on the drop ceiling above me as I spill my guts to my sister. “Baby’s not mine.”
She pulls her knees under her stomach and pushes into them. “Whose is it then?”
A jolt of contempt flushes my system. “You met him.”
“Wait. Let me get this straight. She got knocked up by that douchey guy, and now you’re the daddy stand-in?”
“I guess, yeah.” I kick my leg up and catapult my body from the bed. “You should have seen her face, E. She looked so fucking terrified. S
he was crying and everything. Then I offered to help out, and it was like . . . her eyes lit up. I mean, they burned like emerald fire, full of hope. It was the right thing to do.”
Erika sits stone-faced while the bomb I just dropped explodes around us. I brace myself for her to tell me I’m an idiot. She wouldn’t be wrong. I’m a masochist of epic proportions, but I can’t help it. Love makes people crazy, and Wren’s turned me into a psychotic man with no hope of recovery. No drug can cure what I have—it’s terminal.
“Holy shit,” she replies after a beat. “That has got to be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Stop.”
“No, Jess, seriously! You act like this is something people do. It isn’t. They should erect statues in your honor.”
I stand at the foot of my bed, letting my gaze wander over the concrete blocks one last time. “Yeah, well, no one’s going to find out. And if they do, I’ll know it’s because you blabbed.” I glare at Erika over my pointed finger. “Wren is telling her family the baby’s ours.”
“I promise I won’t tell, okay?” She crisscrosses her chest and lifts my pinky with hers.
“Thanks. And you know, if shit gets too heavy here, I’m just a phone call away.”
Erika crawls to the edge of the bed and opens her arms, folding me into a hug. “I hope she realizes how lucky she is.”
Is she, though? I’m fairly certain it’s the other way around.
“C’mon,” I say, breaking away. “Enough dawdling. Let’s get this shit loaded in the truck.”
“Ooh, using the dad voice already! I like it!” She grins.
I roll my eyes and swipe a box from the corner of the bed, but my heart jumps at the word. Dad. I never saw myself with a family. The only thing I have to offer is an endless stream of bad puns and a long bloodline of alcoholism. Me raising a kid . . . ? What a joke. My mom’s right. The last thing this town needs is another derelict Dylan. My dad and his brothers raised enough hell in these streets. But there’s something about the idea of a little Wren. A perfect, pint-sized someone with red hair and green eyes, looking up to me to show them the way. Chills scurry down my spine just thinking about it.
“So when’s she due, anyway?” Erika kicks away a clump of dead leaves as she piles a box into the bed of my Ford.
“When’s who due?” The warbled voice floats on the frigid wind, her trudging footsteps not far behind.
Ignoring my mother’s inquisitive gaze, I jump in the back and push the boxes against the cab to make room for more. I don’t have much, just some clothes and art supplies, but it’s enough.
“Don’t worry about it, Ma.”
“Let me guess. You knocked up some whore, and now you’re moving in to ‘do the right thing.’” Cigarette smoke curls around her hand quotes.
A sharp, nicotine-laced breath hits my lungs. I pull back the reins on my initial rage, knowing she doesn’t mean the shit she says. “Don’t call her that.”
“You may as well just keep going.” She raises a glass to her mouth.
“Don’t have a cow. I’m only going to The Glens.”
The tip of her cigarette glows in the dusky light as she sticks the filter between her crinkled lips and sucks in a strong drag. The smoke coils from her nostrils like a dragon and floats around her lifeless hair. “Right. You won’t last. You’ll see. You’re just like your father.”
A punch to the chest, right on cue. “Dad didn’t leave us, Mom. He died. It’s not the same thing.”
A rumble of gritty laughter rolls in her throat. “You believed what I told you to believe,” she grumbles with a wave.
I try to move around her, but she steps in the way. The stink of booze carries off her breath. I turn my head to get away, but the liquor-filled statement burns in my brain. It jars free a lost memory, something I haven’t thought of in ages. I was about five or so when I woke up, and my dad was gone. It felt like months, maybe longer. He didn’t even say goodbye or tell me where he was going. He just disappeared like a puff of smoke from my mother’s lips. Then as mysteriously as he went, he returned.
With my first set of paints.
I’d blocked it out, but it all comes back clear as crystal. The sound of my mother’s sobs filtering through the paper-thin walls. If you leave this house again, never come back.
“I knew when we settled down that I couldn’t hold him forever. Some people just aren’t cut out for fatherhood.”
I narrow my gaze at the woman swaying on her feet. “Are you saying my dad’s alive?”
“I’m saying Dylan boys were meant for leavin’. Your father. Your good-for-nothing uncles. And you.”
The wind whooshes from my lungs as if I’ve been sucker-punched. “You told me he died.”
She lifts her shoulders to her ears with a smug expression. “He was dead to me.”
“How could you?”
“You wouldn’t stop asking. Where’s Daddy, where’s Daddy? He was never coming back, Jess. It was easier that way.”
Fury shoots through my veins, my blood boils and pops. I wrap my fingers around her skeletal arms and shake. Her head snaps back, the glass shattering on the broken patio stones at my feet.
“Jesse!” Erika runs from out of nowhere, her slender body knocking against me. I stumble backward and fall into the corner of my truck, Erika’s wild eyes pinning me to the quarter panel as she holds our crying mother against her chest. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
The adrenaline pumps through my system as I scramble backward. I’ve never lost control like that before. Dave’s actions channeled through me, the anger he unleashed without warning shaking in my fists like a scar that never heals.
The betrayal.
How could she lie to me all these years? How could she allow me to think my father’s dead knowing he’s out there somewhere?
“You’re right about one thing, Mom. I am leaving. I’m walking away from all of this. From your drunken outbursts and your negativity and your constant jabs.” I swallow hard and wrench open the truck door, turning back one last time before hopping in. “You can remember me when you’re lying on the floor in a puddle of vomit, and I’m not there to clean it up. I didn’t leave. You drove me away. And I’m running toward a better life without you in it.”
“THIS IS ALL YOU BROUGHT?” A crease forms between Wren’s brows as she looks at the pitiful number of boxes piled up in my new home.
“There are still a few things back at the house, but I’ll get them another day.”
The short drive over wasn’t enough to wane the adrenaline pumping through my system, but I push it down far into my gut and hide it away. Wren has enough on her plate without having to worry about my problems. I’ll deal with my shit on my own.
“Okay. Well, let’s get you unpacked then.” She bends down, gently plucking a box from the floor.
“Put that down! Are you crazy?” I ask, taking it from her and placing it on the dresser. “You shouldn’t be lifting anything.”
“Jesse, I’m fine. It’s not that heavy.”
“Just let me do this, okay? You sit down.”
I shoo her away with a wave of my hand, but she only crosses her arms with a wry smile. “Are you gonna be like this the whole time?”
“I might.”
Without comment, she pushes to her toes and drops her lips to my cheek.
“What was that for?”
“For being adorable.” Her palms slide up my chest, the warmth of her skin seeping through my shirt. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
The wanton sound of her voice caresses my cock. I roll my hands down her back, pulling her in closer to let her sweet smell erase all the bullshit brewing in my veins. “How about I make you ecstatic?”
She leans in, her breath hot against my ear, her heart beating close to mine. “Let’s hurry up and get you unpacked.” She scrapes her nails across my stomach before rounding the bed.
I stand for a moment, watching the cutest ass I’ve ever seen s
himmy away from me. Black yoga pants hug her slender curves in a way that should be illegal. I’m convinced those damn pants were invented just to fuck with us guys.
“I emptied two drawers for you and made some space in the closet,” she adds, tearing open a box of socks.
A couple of notebooks lie strewn on the bed. I sweep them into a pile and pull open the nightstand drawer, but a little pink wand inside tells me this one isn’t earmarked for me. “Uh, Bird . . .” I say through a growing smirk. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?” A small gasp escapes her lungs as she turns to face me. With wide eyes and stained cheeks, she stands there stupidly before stammering, “That’s my side of the bed.”
My smirk widens to a full grin. “Should I be jealous?”
She sweeps her hands over her face, then pushes her hair back. “Just put it back!”
Watching her cheeks turn seven shades of red is way too much fun. There’s no way I’m putting it back. “Dirty Birdy,” I croon, laying it on thicker and heavier as I go. She lashes out to grab it from my hand, but I snap it back. “What do these three buttons do?” When I jam my thumb on the first button, the wand whirs to life. “Wow, this thing packs a wallop! I’m shocked you haven’t chipped a tooth using this thing.”
“You’re an ass!” She pinches her lips, crossing her arms in a huff, but I can see by the curl in the corners that she’s not as angry as she’s letting on. “And yes, you should be very jealous. Me and BOB are in a committed relationship.”
“You named it?”
She raises a brow. “B. O. B.—battery-operated boyfriend.”
Visions of Wren masturbating on this very bed stiffen my cock to steel. Her eyes pinched, her mouth parting with small, breathy moans as she rides herself to orgasm.
Fuck. Unpacking can wait.
I sweep my arms around her back and throw her on the bed. “Threesome!” I announce, pouncing over her like a playful puppy. The mattress bounces under the force of my weight, Wren’s laughter echoing over the quiet hum of the machine lying between us.