“That’s what I thought,” she grinned. Then she turned back to scrolling through Netflix: “So what kind of movie are you in the mood for?”
“Hmm...maybe something about a zombie apocalypse where only men are infected, and all of the women come together to form an army and savagely annihilate them?”
“So…you want a horror movie?” Summer glanced at me apprehensively.
“I actually thought that sounded more like a feel-good comedy.”
Just then, the doorbell chimed from the front door of my apartment. Summer and I both flicked our eyes towards and the door.
“Are you expecting someone?” Summer asked, turning towards me with a frown.
“Maybe it’s FedEx? I went a little crazy, shopping online the other day…”
“Another Sephora haul?”
“The Baby Shop, actually.”
“Vanessa Bailey, you are a changed woman!” Summer teased, feigning awe.
“Ok, ok…I might have ordered a few things from Sephora too…” I confessed.
“Naughty girl,” Summer shot me a smirk as she stood up and walked towards the front door of my apartment.
I bit off another chunk of ice from the Freeze Pop, filling my mouth with tangy cherry slush as I reached for the TV remote. I was just about to start clicking through the Netflix menu, when I heard Summer’s strained voice:
“Umm…Vanessa?”
My eyes flicked up, and that’s when I saw who was standing in the doorframe of my apartment:
Josh Hudson.
His grey eyes met mine and, for a few seconds, I was completely paralyzed as we stared at each other from across the room. I felt the cherry-flavored ice sizzle as it melted on my tongue, and I felt my stomach flip -- though I wasn’t sure if it was my own nerves, or the baby.
“I’m going to give you two some privacy,” Summer said. She left the door open and slipped away towards the bedroom, leaving Josh and I alone.
“Are you ok? Is the baby ok?” he said finally, without moving from his spot just outside the front door.
“Fine,” I choked through my mouthful of melted Freeze Pop. “We’re both fine.”
Relief flooded his face, but he didn’t move.
“We need to talk, I--”
“Leave,” I said firmly.
“Vanessa--”
“Leave,” I repeated, my voice growing stronger.
I kicked off the blankets and stood up. My legs felt shaky and weak, but I channeled all of my strength into stomping deliberately across the apartment. I gripped onto the front door and was about to slam it shut, but then he reached forward and wrapped his fingers around the door frame. If I slammed the door shut, I’d probably break every one of his fingers in the process.
“Give me one reason not to slam this door,” I told him, hesitating.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough,” I tightened my grip on the door knob, but he kept his hands where they were.
“I fucked up,” he said. “I know that. But I want to explain--”
“Oh, now you want to explain?” I scoffed. “A little late for that now, don’t you think? Maybe if you had tried explaining a little sooner, we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
His face tightened and his eyes burned intensely. He understood what I meant.
“I was going to tell Brady,” he said through gritted teeth. “I was going to tell everyone. Believe me, I was. But…”
“But what?” I demanded. “Let me guess: you were waiting for the right moment? Is that what you’re going to tell me, huh?”
His face was still, and he didn’t say a word.
“Do you think I got to wait for the right moment, Josh?” I asked. I could hear the anger in my own voice, and I could see pulses of red flashing every time I blinked my eyes.
“Look at me!” I demanded, pointing to my rounded baby bump. “Do you think that I got to keep this to myself, while I waited for the right time to tell everyone?!”
“No,” he said softly. His eyes flashed towards the ground.
“I knew this was going to happen,” I shook my head. “I told you, that night at the restaurant: mothers don’t get to pick and choose when they act like parents. When I decided to keep this baby, I was committing to be a mother 100% of the time. But fathers…fathers get to choose when parenthood suits them. You were only there for this baby when it was convenient for you.”
Josh’s jaw tightened and his lips pressed together, but he kept his eyes on the floor.
“It was never like that, Vanessa. I promised you that I would be there for everything, and I have been.”
“So where were you last night when I was admitted to the hospital? I needed you then, Josh. Where were you?”
“There’s an explanation for that. Please, just let me explain--”
“An ‘explanation’ is just a nicer word for an ‘excuse,’” I snapped, shaking my head. “I was raised on excuses. My father had every excuse in the book for why he couldn’t be my dad. Eventually, he didn’t even care enough to make excuses anymore, and he just left.”
“Vanessa--”
“I don’t care that you couldn’t be there for me, Josh,” I said, feeling my voice thicken. “I don’t care that you let me down. But I won’t let you do that to this baby. I won’t let you raise this child on excuses.”
“My grandfather had a stroke yesterday,” he said suddenly.
I felt my heart catch in my throat and my mouth fall open in shock.
“He was rushed into surgery. I was in the emergency room all night.”
“Oh my God,” I stammered. The hot anger immediately drained from my head, replaced with a surge of ice-cold shock. “Is he ok?”
“He made it through surgery,” Josh said. “The surgeon was optimistic.”
I was stunned silent, and my hand fell away from the doorknob.
“I wanted to call you,” Josh said. “But my phone died, and I didn’t know your number…”
I saw the weakness and hurt on his face. I saw the heaviness under his eyes, caused by a sleepless night. For a split second, I even felt guilty that I hadn’t been there for him. For a split second, I wanted to forgive him for everything…to wrap my arms around him so that I could hug and kiss away all the pain.
Then I remembered that phone call that I had made to the firehouse. I remembered the confusion in Brady’s voice when I mentioned our baby, and I remembered how much it had hurt to realize that the baby and I were just a dirty little secret; an indiscretion that Josh had kept to himself all this time.
“You should be with your grandfather,” I said sincerely. “He needs you.”
“You need me, Vanessa. You said so yourself.”
“I thought I needed you,” I corrected him. “But I was wrong. I can take care of myself, just like I always have.”
“Please, Vanessa,” he pleaded. “Give me a chance…”
“I did give you a chance, Josh.” My voice was soft, but firm. “I think it’d be for the best if we both spent some time apart.”
“Vanessa--”
“I don’t want to fight right now,” I said, and now I was the one pleading. “The doctor told me to rest.”
He didn’t move an inch from the doorway, but he also didn’t stop me from slowly closing the door. I watched his hand on the doorframe, and part of me hoped that he wouldn’t let go; part of me hoped that he would stop me from closing the door.
No matter what I said, I realized that I still wanted him to stay. I wanted him to prove me wrong. I wanted him to show me that he wasn’t giving up that easily…
But as the door drifted shut, I saw his fingers slip away from the frame at the last minute.
He had given up on me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | JOSH
“Oh fuck, baby! That’s it, that’s it! Oh, fuck yeah…”
The thin apartment walls were no match for the muffled moans coming from Duke’s bedroom.
I hadn’t caught a glimpse of the
mystery woman that Duke brought home with him that night, but if the animal sounds coming from his bedroom were any indication, he must have struck gold: they were already on round three, and they showed no signs of slowing down.
I glared up at the wall as the grunts and moans flooded into my own bedroom, then I turned up the volume on iPod earbuds and focused my attention back on the Ikea instruction booklet in my lap.
Tonight’s project: a changing table to match the crib that now occupied the corner of my bedroom.
When I had rushed out of the apartment to drive to the hospital the other day, Duke had stayed behind and continued to work his way through the crib assembly. When I had finally gotten back to the apartment, he had surprised me by having the crib fully assembled in my bedroom.
I had been genuinely touched by that. It was probably one of the nicest things that anyone had ever done for me. It was definitely the nicest thing that Duke had ever done for me.
Then again, living with Duke had been full of surprises. From our encounters at the firehouse, I knew him to be an asshole and a shit-stirrer. He always seemed to be dishing out insults or making fun of the rest of the crew. He was also a major diva. There was even a rumor going around that he had almost flunked out of the Fire Academy for balking at getting his boots dirty during a drill exercise.
Duke had obviously come a long way since those days. He had learned how to work hard and be a team player (most of the time, anyways). But he still kept up a certain facade at the firehouse. It was only after we moved in together that I realized there was another side to Duke: a side that was a lot more sensitive and caring than his ‘hard partying playboy’ persona would lead you to believe.
The crib was proof of that.
I remembered the conversation that Duke and I had been having, right before that phone call from the hospital. I had promised him that I would talk to Brady. In a way, I had: the truth had all come out as he drove me to Vanessa’s apartment.
Things had ended pretty abruptly. After I had tried talking to Vanessa and gotten the door closed in my face, Brady had driven me home in silence. We hadn’t spoken since then, and I knew there was still a lot that we had left to talk about.
I glanced at my iPod screen. It was nearly midnight. Brady would be at the firehouse; he was working nights this week, so that he would have days off to be with Cassidy and go to doctor appointments…
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop, I’m going to-- oh yeah!”
I turned my music up louder, drowning out the moans. Then I stood up and grabbed my car keys.
Maybe I can’t fix things with Vanessa right now…I thought to myself. But I can fix things with Brady. I’m going to go see my brother.
***
“Your shift doesn’t start until 8 AM,” Brady said, sliding out from underneath one of the trucks that was parked in the vehicle bay. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” I said, stuffing my fists into the pockets of my Firehouse 56 hooded sweatshirt.
“Ok,” Brady said. He wheeled himself the rest of the way out from under the truck, then he deposited a wrench into the toolbox by his side. “What’s on your mind, February?”
“You’re really calling me that now?” I scoffed. “The calendar isn’t even out yet.”
“I heard you made quite the impression,” Brady shrugged. “Firehouse 56 might have a new poster boy, after all…”
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. The calendar seemed so inconsequential after everything that had transpired over the course of the last few days…
“So what did you want to talk about?” Brady asked as he reached for a stained rag and wiped the black streaks of oil from his hands.
“Everything, I guess,” I said, sinking down onto a spare mechanics stool. “I didn’t think that everything was going to blow up like this.”
“That’s the funny thing about secrets, isn’t it?” Brady grinned at me. “No matter what your intentions are, everything seems to have a way of coming out eventually. And when that happens, everything does blow up. And the people you were trying the hardest to protect, end up being the ones who get hurt the most.”
“You’re right,” I nodded slowly.
“I know I’m right,” Brady smiled again. “I did the same damn thing a few months ago. Remember?”
I nodded. I remembered how hurt I had been by my brother’s secret… and I remembered how long it had taken for me to come around and understand things from his perspective.
“I’m such a hypocrite,” I muttered.
“You’re not a hypocrite. You’re just…human. We all just try our best, but sometimes we make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes hurt people.”
“I think I really hurt Vanessa.”
“You did,” Brady nodded.
My eyes flicked up and he just shrugged.
“I’m not going to bullshit you, Josh. There were a lot of people who were hurt by this.”
“What do you mean?” Who else did I hurt?
“Cassidy, for a start,” Brady said. “She was stuck in the middle. Vanessa made her promise not to say anything to me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I guess Vanessa thought you would want to tell me yourself,” Brady shrugged. “But as time went on, it became more and more obvious to Cass that you hadn’t said anything. And that put Cass in a really shitty position: she had to choose between betraying her best friend, or continuing to lie to her husband.”
“But…she never said anything?” I frowned.
“She wanted to,” Brady said. “But she knew it wasn’t her place to interfere. She felt so guilty about it, that she actually started to distance herself from Vanessa. Of course, I didn’t know about any of this until the truth finally came out the other day…”
“I’m so sorry, Brady,” I cringed, balling my fists deeper into my pockets. “I had no idea…”
“I know,” Brady told me in a calm voice. “It’s impossible to know how much our secrets affect people, until the truth comes out and we see the damage we caused…”
“How is Cass?” I asked. “That must have been so hard on her.”
“It has been,” Brady nodded. “Especially since she’s pregnant now, too. She would have liked to share some of these experiences with Vanessa…”
“Vanessa had no idea,” I shook my head slowly. “She had no idea that Cassidy was struggling to keep the secret…”
“Nope,” Brady confirmed, shaking his head. “Cassidy didn’t think it was her place to tell Vanessa that I didn’t know. She didn’t want to give Vanessa anything to feel stressed about. She was hoping that you would eventually just tell me yourself, and then everything would work itself out.”
“But that wasn’t the case…” I cringed again.
Vanessa had mentioned that she hadn’t seen Cassidy as much as she would have liked, but she assumed that it was just because they were both busy. I had no idea that it is actually because of me and my secret.
“I was hurt, too,” Brady said. This time, his voice was softer. “When Vanessa called me from the hospital and revealed that she was pregnant with your baby, I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that my own brother would look me in the eye, day after day, and not tell me that he was going to be a father.”
“I wanted to tell you, Brady,” I said. “I was going to tell everyone on the night of my anniversary party. But…”
“But then I told you my news, first,” Brady finished for me. “And you felt like you had been overshadowed by your big brother, yet again.”
“Yes,” I admitted with a nod. “I know that’s stupid, and that’s not an excuse. I know I need to get over those feelings that I have--”
“I thought we had worked through all of that…”
“I thought we had, too,” I said, locking eyes with my brother. “But I guess that insecurity came back when I realized that I could never be as good of a father as you w
ill be.”
“That’s bullshit, Josh,” Brady said. “I inherited Dad’s rigidness, and you inherited Mom’s big heart. It’s always been that way. You’re going to be an incredible dad.”
“You don’t know that--”
“I do,” Brady said. “I heard what you said the other day, to the Colonel. I could hear in your voice how much you wanted this, and how much you already love this baby.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I shrugged, sinking further down on the mechanic’s stool. “I blew it with Vanessa. And even if I could convince her to give me a second chance, my apartment is no place to raise a baby. I can’t exactly rock a baby to sleep, when the sound of Duke having sex is coming through the bedroom wall…”
“Well,” Brady sighed. “I might not be able to help you with the first part, but I can help with the second part.”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t been entirely honest with you, either,” Brady admitted.
He stood up and leaned back on the front bumper of the truck that he had been working on, then he crossed his arms over his chest and glanced up at me.
“Josh…when Dad died, he left everything in his will to me.”
“I know,” I said. It wasn’t exactly fair, but I never wanted anything from my dad, anyways. I had way bigger issues to make peace with, than my father’s will…
“You deserved half of the inheritance,” Brady said.
“Brady--”
“I had a lawyer split everything up for me, fifty-fifty. Even the house; I mortgaged half of it, so that I could put the funds into a trust for you.”
“A…trust?” I thought that only guys like Duke had ‘trusts’ set up in their name...
“Yeah. I wanted to give you everything, but honestly…I was worried you’d blow through it. Even when you got back to Hartford and started working at the station, I wanted to make sure that you were in a better place.”
I frowned, trying to understand…
“I shouldn’t have kept it a secret,” Brady said. “I thought it was for your own good. I told myself that when you were ready, I would hand everything over.”
If Brady had told me this a few years ago, I would have been angry. I would have accused him of being patronizing and condescending…but now, I just felt gratitude. When he told me that he had done it for my own good, I knew that he meant it. And he was right: if he had given me a lump sum of cash a few years ago, I probably would have blown it on a plane ticket or an RV or a boat…or anything that would get me further away from Hartford.
February Burning: A Firefighter Secret Baby Romance Page 15