Oh, and there’s another person who looks slightly upset.
Okay, a lot upset. A lot. About something. My oldest brother, Conrad.
I have no idea what’s happening and I know that he will never tell me either. But about an hour ago, he disappeared into the house for something and when he came back out, he was glowering.
At nothing in particular, but he was glowering.
Finally there’s me.
And the fact that I’ve done something that all my brothers never wanted me to do. Not again.
I don’t know how they’ll react if they find out.
That I’m in love with him. That I never fell out of love with him.
So I’ve decided that I won’t tell them. I won’t tell anyone.
I’m already not telling Reed. I’ve already promised him that I won’t love him. So there’s no reason for anyone to find out what I’ve done.
Although this time around, it’s hard.
Harder than the first time even.
The first time, I wanted to be good. I wanted to not lie or hide from my brothers. I was ashamed at what I was doing, falling in love with someone despite all the warnings.
This time, I don’t want to keep it from people like it’s a dirty little secret. This time, I’m not ashamed. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong by loving him.
This time, I’m not naïve either.
I know he’s a villain. I know he has all the power to hurt me.
But I also know that he can be a hero if he wants to be. He can be a protector, a lonely protector.
So I don’t know if this whole get-together was a good idea. Because not only do I have to hide my love for Reed, I also have to pretend to be happy about going to Juilliard.
I thought I would be.
That I would be so, so happy about going to the place where I’ve wanted to go ever since I was five.
But I’m not.
As people around me, my brothers especially, make plans about what’s going to happen after Halo is born, all I want to do is cry.
My brothers tell me that they have thought it all through: I’m going to live with Ledger, Stellan and Shepard, who all share an apartment in New York. They have also begun baby shopping and clearing out a room for me. And since Reed lives here now because he works for his dad’s company, he can visit whenever he wants to.
I expect Reed to say something then.
I expect him to object and declare that he’ll be moving to New York with me. Or as crazy as it is, that I’m not going anywhere without him. Mostly because he’s buying stuff for Halo too and hoarding it all in the spare bedroom as if he means for us to stay.
But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t tell us that he has a plan. He simply stands there with a tight jaw and shuttered eyes.
Again, I try to tell myself that it doesn’t matter.
If he’ll visit Halo and be there for her, then that’s enough for me.
But I can’t help but want to sob and sob and sob.
Anyway, after that miserable party, when I’m not sobbing, I’m knitting.
Oh, I knit like crazy these days.
Tempest bought me so much yarn that I can knit well into next year. I knit Halo everything that I can think of: socks, booties, hats, scarves. Even sweaters.
When I complete the first sweater, baby blue with little white wings and a white halo above it, and I show it to Reed, he doesn’t say anything for a minute.
A whole minute.
I sit in the bed, propped up on my pillows as usual and count the seconds.
When I can’t take the suspense anymore, I ask, fearfully, “You don’t like it?”
Sitting beside me, he looks up then; he’s been staring silently at the sweater all this time and my heart squeezes in my chest at the look in his eyes. All molten and intense.
Then he speaks, his voice so rough and guttural that my heart bleeds in my chest. “I like it.”
“This is my second attempt,” I whisper, clutching my nightie. “At intarsia.”
His jaw, as usual stubbled at night, moves back and forth. “It’s perfect. Just like the first.”
Again, I want to ask him.
I want to ask him what he did with the sweater that I made him. But I can’t.
I’m still too afraid.
I’m afraid that he will break my heart even more. I’m afraid that even though he’ll tell me that he’s thrown it away, that maybe he doesn’t even remember where he put it because it was so inconsequential to him, I’ll make him another sweater.
I’ll keep knitting for him and storing them away somewhere like the brokenhearted girl that I am.
So I don’t and he doesn’t tell me.
What he does do is love me.
That night he’s the most tender he has ever been. He clutches my belly, cradles it as he moves inside of me. And when we come together, he cuddles with me tightly.
He can’t stop kissing my forehead.
He can’t stop smelling me, rubbing his nose in the crook of my neck. And then he does the sweetest thing ever. He spreads that tiny sweater over my naked bump and kisses it.
In fact, he sets up camp there, near my swollen belly, lying on his stomach and propped up on his elbows as he keeps staring at the sweater, at my belly. Deep in thought, he keeps tracing my veins over my distended belly.
“No boys,” he says, suddenly.
I was playing with his hair, my other hand cradling my bump, but I stop now. “What?”
He looks up with a fierce frown, his bare chest tight, his shoulders brittle. “No boys. Ever.”
Halo kicks in my stomach. “For Halo?”
“Yeah. Boys are fucking assholes.”
I chuckle, tugging on his hair. “Takes one to know one.”
His frown thickens. “Exactly. No one gets to break her heart.”
“What if she falls in love with one?”
“She won’t,” he declares as if he can control that. “And if she does, I’m going to kill him. So problem solved.”
I can’t help it then. I laugh. “You’re going to kill the boy Halo falls in love with.”
“If that’s what it takes to protect her, yes.”
I study his outraged features, his longish hair brushing his strong, muscular shoulders, his hand on my belly, the hand of a protector, a predator.
Her hero. My villain.
“You’re crazy,” I murmur.
“She’s mine.”
I smile, my eyes all wet. “She is.”
“No one gets to hurt her.”
See?
My Halo will get her happy ending and so as her mom I’ll take my happiness there.
As her mom, I’ll ignore my own heartbreak.
I’ll ignore that her hero is my gorgeous villain.
***
Late-May, in my seventh month of pregnancy, I get what I want.
So all this time, I’ve been trying to figure out how to help Reed. How to set him free from the job he hates, from his dad and that company that’s sucking the soul out of him. When he leaves for the office after dropping me off at school in the morning, he’s all smooth and polished but by the time the day ends, it’s like he’s been in a war.
He, of course, does not want to talk about it.
I’ve even discussed it with Tempest but she says the same thing. That her brother has always been like this. He won’t talk about it. He won’t discuss it. He won’t let anyone know what he’s feeling. It’s just best to leave him alone because he’ll bite your head off if you show even a little bit of sympathy or try to help him.
But I can’t leave it alone.
Flawed and destructive and gorgeous, he’s the love of my life.
I have to help him. I have to find a way to get him free.
So I’ve been mulling it over and over about what to do.
But then a miracle happens.
>
I get to meet Pete.
Reed’s sixty-year-old friend who sucks at giving advice.
The only reason I get to meet him is because I’ve annoyed Reed so much by asking about him ever since he revealed that piece of information to me. And because I told him if he won’t talk about his job, then I at least get to meet his one and only friend, Pete.
Besides, he’s met all my friends. He knows my entire family.
Why is he being such a jerk about me wanting to meet his one and only friend?
So after a lot of debate, today we’re going to meet Pete.
Through my poking and prodding, I have at least found out that he’s the owner of Auto Alpha, where Reed used to work back in Bardstown High. And he was the one who taught Reed everything about cars.
I’m so excited to meet him.
In fact, I go all out in preparation.
I’ve baked him chocolate chip cookies and vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. To thank him for being Reed’s friend when my villain never had anyone. I wanted to bake Pete something different and fancier. But idiot Reed won’t tell me what Pete likes so I’ve gone with the safest choices.
Reed glares at the cupcake boxes in my hands as I emerge out of the glass house before taking them from me and depositing them inside his Mustang.
I know his mood is off for the reason only he understands. I mean, we’re going to go meet his friend. How bad can it be?
Even so, I smile up at him. “I’m excited.”
His frown only deepens as he stares at my smiling lips. Then jerking his smooth jaw up, he asks, “What’s this one called?”
I touch my lips. “Oh. Uh, Queen of the Bards.”
It’s dark-green lipstick, almost black, and I’ve paired it with a lime green maternity dress with black printed flowers and black flats.
I’ve given a lot of thought to my appearance. This is the first time I’ll be meeting a friend of the guy I love and I’m trying to make a good impression.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because of Bardstown. Our town. I love it.”
“Good,” he almost growls.
I frown. “Good what?”
“To know the name of the lipstick that I’m going to wipe off your lips.”
And then he does just that.
He grabs my face and leans down to kiss me. I’ve gotten a lot heavier now but I’m still a ballerina and my toes jump up so I can meet him halfway.
When he’s done, he lifts his head and I open my eyes to find him wiping my lipstick off his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why did you do that?”
His fingers flex on my face and on the small of my back. “Because I draw the line at cupcakes.”
“What line?”
“The line of what I’ll let you do for other men.”
I fist his hoodie; he’s back in my favorite outfit ever, his white hoodie and dark jeans. “What you’ll let me do.”
“Yes,” he growls again. “You baked him cupcakes and that’s it. You’re not going to wear lipstick for him too.”
I stretch up my toes even more. “Roman, it’s Pete. Your friend. He’s old.”
He flexes his grip on my body again. “He has eyes, doesn’t he?”
“Is that why you’ve been a grumpy bear all day? Because I was baking him cupcakes?”
“Cookies too. Besides, you shouldn’t be working at all anyway. You’re fucking pregnant.”
Yes, I know.
And if he had his way, he wouldn’t even let me get out of bed.
I shake my head at him and Halo chooses that moment to wake up and kick. Which he feels, obviously, because he has me plastered to his body.
“See? She agrees with me,” I tell him. “She thinks Daddy’s crazy too.”
His gaze pierces me then, all dark and dangerous. “Daddy’s crazy because her mommy makes him that way.”
My breasts are all squished into his chest, heavy and achy, and my thighs clench and unclench with every breath I take. But I can’t get distracted. I have to go meet his friend.
“It’ll be fun. I promise,” I whisper up to him and with one last heated and agitated look at me, he lets me go and we go see Pete.
And it is fun.
Pete is like Santa Claus. Bushy white beard, beer belly and a loud good-natured laugh.
He’s happy to see me. He says that he’s heard a lot about me and he was dying to meet the girl who stole Reed’s Mustang and drowned it in the lake.
“Serves him right for being an asshole to such a pretty girl,” he says, laughing. “He had to work on it all summer.”
I shoot Reed a guilty look and he flips Pete the bird, which makes Pete laugh even harder.
Pete practically inhales all my cupcakes as we chat. Because he says my cupcakes taste exactly like how his wife, Mimi, used to make them before she died a few years ago.
And then Pete and Reed start arguing over Pete’s accounts.
Reed sits at the computer at Pete’s desk and tells Pete that he needs to take better care with his finances. That from the looks of it there are some pending invoices that customers haven’t paid yet. Pete tells Reed not to tell him how to run his business. Then Reed tells Pete that Pete won’t even have a business if he keeps going like this and that Pete should move aside and let Reed fix stuff for him.
And to get back at Reed, Pete tells me stuff about Reed’s Bardstown High years, how Reed used to spend all night up in the garage, how he’d be so interested in everything but tried to pretend that he wasn’t. Pete also says that Reed is some kind of a genius with cars.
At which point, a customer appears and Reed chooses to disappear, making me realize that Pete’s compliment was what sent him away. I saw his face, all tight and somehow shaken up.
I realize that their bond is so precious, Pete and Reed’s. Like father and son. And I’m so grateful that Pete was there for him when he had no one.
But that’s not the end of it. I realize something else too.
I realize that Reed loves cars.
I mean, he would have to, to build one of his own, but this is something else.
He’s at ease here, in his element.
Among the cars, checking them out, looking under the hood, sliding under one’s body, working with tools. Tools I don’t even know the names of. All I know is that while sitting inside Pete’s tiny office, watching Reed talk to customers and other employees, I’ve never seen him happier.
Not even when he was playing soccer.
I mean, back when he played, he was fantastic. But he was also super competitive, super wrapped up in winning and goading others, my brother especially. It brought out the worst in him.
It brought out the villain.
But this is different.
He loves this. He has a passion for it.
Halo moves inside me and I rub my stomach, trying to calm her down.
There’s Daddy, I tell her. Look how happy he is here.
“He loves it,” I murmur, watching Reed bent over a sleek black car.
“He does,” Pete says from his chair, pulling my attention back to him.
“I’ve never seen him like this. So relaxed and at ease.”
His smile is fond. “That boy loves cars, yeah.”
I wring my hands in my lap. “Do you think… Do you think he can come back and work for you?”
His smile wavers slightly but still remains on his lips. “You’ll have to ask him.”
I swallow. “He won’t talk to me.”
He chuckles then, his beer belly shaking. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”
With emotions pressing into my throat, making my voice all wobbly, I say, “I’m guessing the house that I live in is yours. He said it belonged to a friend and you’re his only friend.”
Pete nods. “Yeah. He wouldn’t ask but I offered. It was something Mimi wanted. A vacation home but not really out of town. Just close to the cliffs and sec
luded. Something we could escape to when we wanted. Anyway, he was going to rent an apartment but I told him to take it. After Mimi, it was sitting there empty anyway. How are you liking Dr. May?”
My eyes widen when I realize that Pete was the one who recommended her. “I… You recommended Dr. May too?”
“Well, the boy was freaking out. Showed up at the garage with a mountain of books, saying he didn’t know the first thing about any of this.” Pete chuckles again fondly. “He was a sight to see that night. Told me he needed a doctor, a good doctor, a fucking excellent one for his Fae but someone out of town and so I hooked him up with Mimi’s old doctor. We never had kids but we did try and Mimi seemed to like her.”
Then I blurt out, “Thank you. For being his friend. I-I grew up in a big family. I mean, my parents were never there but I grew up with four brothers who took care of me. They still do. And I was so scared when I found out about…” I rub my belly. “But I had friends, and even though my brothers were mad, I knew I could count on them. But he… didn’t have anyone. To talk to. He pretended he was fine. He always does that, but yeah. So thanks. For helping him.”
At this, moisture coats Pete’s eyes. “He’s a pain in the ass with his crap about computers and things but I love that kid.” When I smile, he says, “Like you.”
I swallow again, this time thickly, painfully. “Please don’t tell him. I’ve made him a promise.”
“He’s a clueless asshole, isn’t he? Making such a sweet girl cry for him.” He shakes his head. “I won’t say anything. Even if I did, I doubt it’d get through his thick head. But you, Callie, you don’t be afraid to push him. Don’t be afraid to do what needs to be done to make that bastard see sense.” Then with a twinkle in his kind eyes, he says, “And when you get a chance, ask him what he keeps in the trunk of that fucking Mustang of his.”
That was confusing. But okay.
I take Pete’s advice and tuck it inside my heart as we leave.
He’s right.
I need to push Reed to make him see that this is his dream. This garage, his cars. The Mustang he built when he was in high school. That’s what he wants to do.
He’s always talking about my dream of being a ballerina, but what about him?
What about what he wants?
I need to give him that. After everything he’s given me, after everything he hides from me.
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