The Baby Arrangement (A Winston Brother's Novel #1)

by J. L. Beck

  "Yeah, yeah. Bit of freedom. Now I can make other people endlessly slave for me."

  "Glad to hear you'll be able to be the new evil boss. Grow a mustache so you can twirl it."

  "Will do."

  He broke away from me, stretching out. I resumed shuffling cans into cabinets, frozen pizzas into freezers.

  Jeremy, though, went where his eye caught something.

  My pregnancy test.

  Oh shit.

  "Is something wrong, Tate?" he said, picking up the test and turning my way.

  "Um...uhh..." What did I say? He still didn't know. He didn't even know I was sexually active, let alone recklessly with his best friends. I just stood there dumbfounded, which I had serious doubts helped my cause.

  "Are you worried you might be pregnant?"

  "That's um...um for...." I hadn't really made any good female friends I could pass this off on either. All my free time had mostly been spent fucking. "Umm....a science project?"

  Jeremy looked me up and down. He had been oblivious before, but that was when he was exhausted and just wanted to get on with it all. He wasn't stupid. Not by a long shot.

  "Are you sleeping with a guy who refuses to use protection?"

  "Umm... I..."

  His fists bunched up. "Selfish assholes. Just because they can run away from the problem they think it's okay. Did they pressure you, Tate? Who is it? Do I have to kick someone's ass?"

  "It's not like that... They aren't...um... Neither..."

  "They? Neither? There's more than one of them?" He approached me, looming over me. He was intimidating like this, even if it was out of desire to protect me. "Who is this? I didn't even think you were doing stuff like that, Tate. I thought you said you just hung around the apartment a lot."

  In his rant, he didn't notice something important. Like a door opening.

  Like Joel and Logan walking in.

  Them seeing him looming over me.

  "Um, this is a bad time?" Joel spoke up.

  Jeremy turned to face his so-called best friends. He looked them down, his anger quite clear. He walked right up to Joel. He wasn't as tall as either of them, but my brother wouldn't let something like that hold him back.

  He looked right up at Joel and spoke firmly. "Are you fucking my sister, you asshole? Both of you?"

  Joel didn't really know how to respond to that. Logan didn't either. We never discussed what we would do further. It wasn't something pleasant to think about, so we just didn't.

  As such, we didn't really have a plan on what to do if something like this happened.

  "Speak to me, you loudmouth asshole." He shoved Logan. "I let you into my house. I show you kindness, and I don't ask for anything in return, yet you come in here and...and....seduce my little sister?"

  "Jeremy, look..." Joel tried to intervene with rationality and logic. "We didn't seduce her. Or try very hard to. She was on board."

  "You manipulated her!"

  His shouting accusation was followed by a sudden sucker punch right to Joel's chin.

  Joel stumbled back and immediately launched his retort, throwing a punch right back. Jeremy took it like a champ, but he wasn't done.

  They started to go at it.

  "Guys, stop it!" I called out. "They didn't do anything wrong, Jeremy!" I shouted.

  I may as well have been speaking Greek to them.

  The punches continued to fly.

  Logan, uncharacteristically, dove in and pushed them apart, playing the rare part of peacekeeper.

  Jeremy wanted no part of this, though, weaseling past Logan and going right back for Joel before realizing that Logan was just as viable a target for his anger, and then he started throwing punches his direction, too.

  Logan, not known for his saint-like temper, immediately started firing back when the punches went his way.

  "Stop it, for Christ's sake! Don't fight over me!" I called out. I wasn't going to get in the way of these men throwing punches. Just from a size perspective, this looked like something that was a seriously bad idea to get involved in. "Stop it! Goddammit, please, stop it!"

  I thought it was all fruitless.

  Finally, though, I got through to one of them, and that was all I needed to do.

  Joel. He heard me. He rushed Jeremy, but this time he wasn't going for fists of rage. He pushed his brother back, sending the message along to him as well. "You heard the girl, stop this nonsense!"

  My brother wasn't listening to reason.

  His anger couldn't top the strength of both of the twins, though, as they were holding him back.

  "Calm the fuck down, right now, Jeremy."

  "I'll calm my fist into your face!" he yelled back, confusing me for a moment in trying to figure out what that terminology actually meant.

  "We're not going to solve anything by throwing punches at each other, man."

  "Yeah, but I'll feel better!"

  "Calm down. Jesus."

  "Jeremy, please," I intervened. "Just chill out. They didn't seduce me. They didn't make me do anything I didn't want to do."

  Somehow, that only made Jeremy angrier.

  Yet he regained his composure. For a time, he was silent, eyes closed, and lost in thought.

  Then he spoke. Softly, but in a way that was free of even the hint of suggestion of bullshit. "Leave. Out of my apartment, now."

  "We need to talk this out, man," Joel said.

  "I don't want to talk it out. I never want to see either of you again. If I see you near this place, or anywhere near my sister, I will say fuck everything and do everything in my power to end you both."

  "Dude, you don't have to—"

  "Get out!" he shouted. He wasn't going to be argued with right now. "Stay away from me! Stay away from my sister! You two are manipulative trash."

  They let him break away, his most explosive outbursts now dulled. He stormed away from us but didn't leave our line of sight, angrily pacing in front of the sofa.

  For a time, the twins stood in silence.

  I knew that right now no rational discussion would be done. "Go on, guys. Just leave for now. Everyone needs time to cool off. We can figure this out later."

  Joel's eyes scanned the room. Logan did the same. They nodded my way and departed, knowing that even something like an “I love you” would only prove to set Jeremy off more.

  They left the apartment, knowing that there was nothing they could do right now but play along with Jeremy's absurd ultimatums.

  Me? This was where I lived. I couldn't exactly run away from my brother. I had to face him, for better or for worse, head on.

  So I did. I loved my brother, and I believed in him. He wasn't going to start a brawl with me, so I could take solace in that fact. I crossed my arms and looked up at him. "You don't need to do all this."

  "Apparently, I do."

  "Hmm? Why? I told you, they didn't do anything I didn't want them to do, Jeremy."

  "Well, then apparently, I can't trust you to take care of yourself then."

  I raised an eyebrow. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  "You're eighteen, Tate, but apparently your physical age is a whole lot higher than your mental one. I can't trust you to keep yourself out of trouble, so I guess I'm back to protecting you from yourself."

  "You can't be serious."

  "I can be serious. What did Mom always say to me? My house, my rules? Well guess what, you're in my house, Tate, and you're going to follow my rules. Since I don't have to put in a million and one hours at work, I'm going to expect you to be home right away after your classes and staying where I can see you. I don't want to have to tell Mom about how irresponsible you are. It looks bad on me, too."

  "Are you really that worried about me having a social life?"

  "Apparently, yes, because your idea of a social life is fucking my so-called best friends!" His tone only got shoutier as he went on. "You're on lockdown. Grounded. Whatever it is. You can't be trusted without me watching over you, Tate, because apparent
ly you go and get yourself..." He grit his teeth and wildly gestured toward the table.

  The pregnancy test.

  Silence lingered between the two of us. I could tell he was still at a loss for words himself through all of this.

  "Yeah," I said, breaking the silence. "And what if I am? What are you going to do about it?"

  "You better hope you aren't, Tate."

  "I better hope I'm not, huh?"

  "I don't even want to think about what I’ll do if that test turns out to be positive."

  A grunt escaped my lips. I was certain that he wouldn't be happy. The lethargy, the nausea, it all added up to that. Yet maybe I wanted it to be negative. Maybe I wanted to be able to move past this. Not shake my relationship with my brother any more than I needed to.

  Wait. I paused, stopping my train of thought.

  Maybe I wanted it to be negative?

  God. Jeremy must have been right, because I couldn't trust myself.

  There was a good part of me that wanted be carry the twins’ child and become a teenage mother.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  You ever just want to go on a rampage?

  Break everything in sight? Throw stuff around. Scream at whoever is in earshot?

  Then you're sitting there weighing the pros and cons of going berserk and dealing with the fact that you try to be a decent human being.

  Which means you don't go around destroying other people's property and shouting at them incoherently.

  As such, I was seething. Pacing. Fists balled up and ready to explode, with no easy way to vent my frustrations.

  Logan? He wasn't much better. I was surprised he didn't give in to the rage.

  "Fuck, man," I let out. We were right in front of the apartment building. Our agenda was to spend some quality time with Tate, the carnality of that time dependent on Jeremy's presence. It really had gotten to the point that while I really, really liked fucking her, even just hanging out and watching a movie was a pretty good time.

  Because we'd probably go fuck later as soon as Jeremy passed out or was called into work. I was a patient man and there was no girl worth waiting for more than Tate.

  "You got any ideas?" Logan said, scratching his head. "‘Cause I'm all out."

  "We should have approached him calmly instead of sneaking around on him. Think of how fucking disrespectful we were. Fucking in every single room of his apartment."

  "Hey, we cleaned up after ourselves."

  "Still. We knew this would provoke him. We've spent the last month going nuts on his sister under his nose. It does makes us look suspect."

  Logan leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. "Yeah, I see your point. He's been sort of wary of us ever since he caught us tag teaming Tabitha half a year back."

  "Tate's not Tabitha. Not by any means." I didn't even want to think about those days anymore. After Tate, no one was going to compare. No one else would do.

  "What? We just sit around and wait for him to come to his senses?"

  "No," I said flatly. "That's not going to happen. Did you see what I saw, Logan?"

  "Hmm? What? Tate and Jeremy were arguing. He flipped out about something. I wasn't really sure why."

  "That why is what's really concerning me."

  "What, how did he find out about us? You think Tate ratted us out?"

  "No," I shook my head to emphasize my belief. "She was just afraid of his response as we were. He put the pieces together without her saying a word."

  "How'd he do that then? I doubt he's going to nanny-cam his eighteen-year-old sister, man."

  "There was a pregnancy test on the counter."

  It hit Logan like a bag of bricks. "Wait, do you think she's...?"

  "We haven't exactly been playing it safe."

  That was the other elephant in the room we never talked about, alongside Jeremy knowing about our relationship. How wantonly we engaged in raw, bareback lust. How both us always refused to pull out. How we wanted those extra few seconds inside of her, so serene that they made any risk worth it.

  "It's a test, though. That's not confirmation."

  "A woman gets signs. Unless they're deliberately trying, they're not just going to randomly buy a pregnancy test for no reason."

  "So, there's a good chance she's... We’re going to be..."

  "We're?" I laughed. "That's a way to put it."

  Logan scowled. "You going to be requesting a paternity test to make sure it's yours?"

  "Of course not. This is both our doing. Paternity is our burden together, brother. It doesn't matter whose sperm won the biological lottery, Tate is ours, and whoever child she carries is our child, too."

  My brother lingered for a moment, his eyes closed, his thoughts coming together so quickly and completely.

  Then he bolted right past me into the building.

  "Wait," I called out. "What are you doing?"

  He stopped just to shoot me a glare. "Tate was more than just a fucktoy for us already, Joel. If she's going to be the mother to our children, then I'm seeing her, and I don't give a single fuck what Jeremy says. She's coming with us if she has to. I'm not going to let her be financially held captive."

  I blinked a moment, and then smiled. He had a damn good point.

  So I darted past him, rushing the elevator.

  "Let's go get our woman, Logan."

  He just smiled in return, following me on my way.

  I sighed, tossing the test in the trash can. I didn't want to think of it right now.

  Did I text them? Jeremy didn't cut me off from the internet, and there weren’t any easy ways he could police me sending them e-mails or whatever.

  Unless my brother was also a master-class hacker on top of a finance wizard. Unlikely.

  Texting wouldn't fill any voids anyway. I'd grown closer to them over the past few weeks. They were the highlights of my life, the way they would verbally spar with one another and then direct the blows to me, as if training me to become a quip warrior right alongside them. We watched movies, played games.

  Then we fucked like animals. Relentlessly.

  Then back to those less carnal things.

  Then more fucking.

  I had to say, the last few weeks had been the best ones of my life. That's what love was, I guess. Where you want to be with someone, and every moment without them is some sort of massive, arduous challenge you don't know if you'll be able to survive.

  With nothing better to do, I laid on my bed. Staring at the ceiling. Hating my life. There was no reasoning with Jeremy right now. He got in these moods sometimes, and you just couldn’t really do anything about it.

  Just wait and hope that the crazy would eventually go away.

  Somehow, though, with this, I was sure I was going to waiting a long, long time.

  It didn't help that I was already missing the twins hardcore. They turned me from virgin to slut with great efficiency.

  Part of me wanted to do the run away from home thing. If he was going to treat me like a child then I was going to act like a child.

  I wasn't going to have to make that decision.

  "Tate!"

  It wasn't my brother calling for me.

  It was Joel.

  "I told you never to come back here!"

  That was my brother.

  I shot up, knowing a conflict was on the horizon.

  Running out, I saw the two of them standing there, Across from them was Jeremy, who was definitely ready to start another fist fight and at an extreme disadvantage.

  "Get out before I call the cops," he was quick to threaten. Again, my brother wasn't dumb. He knew he couldn't overpower one of them, let alone both of them.

  "No can do, friendo," Logan said, pushing past him. Jeremy tried to stop him, but Joel swooped in and pushed Jeremy away.

  Logan rushed me and swept me up into his arms, taking me off my feet and quickly laying a sweet kiss on me. It was just as luscious as the first time.

  He then, to my surprise, st
arted carrying me off.

  "Where are you taking her?" Jeremy yelled out.

  "Stop being so melodramatic," Joel said.

  "This is the mother of our children," Logan began, "the woman who will make our lust into a family. I love you like a brother, Jeremy, but if you're going to deny me this, I don't know what to say."

  Anger continued to boil inside of Jeremy. I was almost afraid he was going to do something nasty, but nonetheless, he stepped back. "If this is what you want, Tate, you go live with them. You let them take care of you. You can't expect me to do all this for you and keep doing it when you spit in my face."

  I elbowed Logan, dropping down. "I'm my own woman, brother. I just want you to see that. I'm thankful for everything, but you can't force me to choose between family...and...well, family."

  With that, I made my way to the door. Either he would calm down or I would come back for my stuff later. At this point, I couldn't have cared less.

  "Come on, boys."

  Logan and Joel shared a glance between one another, nodding their way.

  "Tate..." Jeremy muttered as I left. He was trying to say something. I tried to give him time.

  He would need more time. I sort of believed that cliché line about it healing all wounds.

  This wound would be no different.

  Apparently, tonight was meant to be a quickie night, for lack of a better term, even if things with them were never really quick.

  They had duty tonight. Which meant mostly sitting around the firehouse and doing nothing in particular until something caught on fire. If the universe was just, they'd spend the whole night doing nothing, but given there were thousands of people in the city, likely one would need help eventually.

  "It's so quiet here," I said as we walked in. The place was mostly dark, a few lights here and there. It was the early evening, so it wasn't exactly the twilight shift yet.

  "Yeah, most of the folks here sleep through their shifts," Joel went on. "Do some power naps and whatever. Getting sleep where you can. Only the dead can sleep through that bell going off."

  "And Tom," Logan added in.

  "Tom will wake up to it. Dude's nearly deaf, but that thing going off and someone yanking him off the bed will get him moving."