by Jordan Marie
“I was just out walking and saw you.”
“Then maybe you could keep on walking.”
“What are you reading?” I ask instead of responding. I motion toward her book.
“Funny you should ask,” she says and then holds out the cover to me. I read the words and a smile pulls at my lips.
“How to Survive Stupid Decisions.”
“I guess I don’t have to ask what your stupid decision was.”
“I guess you don’t,” she agrees.
“What if I started this conversation with I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole?” I ask her.
She studies me and I try to remain still during it. I just need to get us back on even ground. There’s more here to consider than just me or Faith. Much more.
“I’m not sure asshole quite covers it,” she finally says and she even manages a small smile. It’s the kind of smile that doesn’t touch her eyes, but it’s there just the same.
“Dickhead?”
“I think you’re insulting dickheads everywhere.”
“Maybe I could just leave it at I’m sorry for right now?” I suggest.
“I’ll think about it. What are you doing here?”
“It’s a park. I was clearing my head and saw you.” I shrug, giving her the truth, even if it is the bare bones of it.
“I meant in Texas. Shouldn’t you have jumped a plane straight back to California? I would have thought when I kicked you out of the house last week you would have left immediately.”
“I’m thinking of moving to Texas permanently,” I answer. I watch as her eyes dilate, her body tightens and I’m afraid I’ve pushed it too far again. But whatever she’s feeling, she buckles it down and rises above it.
“I thought you guys had to stay close to your team. Don’t you have practices and things?”
“I was cut from the team. It was happening before I met you in Vegas and part of the reason my head was in the space it was in,” I tell her and then I wince because I realize how that sounded and it’s not what I meant. “I didn’t mean… Fuck, Faith, I… Help a man out here, will you? I always seem to be putting my foot in my mouth when it comes to you.”
Then the strangest thing happens. Faith… giggles.
“I got it, Big Daddy. Life had been kicking you in the balls and you got drunk.”
“Pretty much. You know, I think I’ve missed you calling me Big Daddy. Never thought that would happen,” I say, shaking my head and sitting on the bench beside her. She tenses, so tightly I can feel it in the air, but she doesn’t stand up and leave. So maybe I’m getting somewhere.
“Freak,” she mutters.
“You don’t seem as angry as you were last week,” I tell her, trying to tentatively direct the conversation.
“I’ve had some time to think things over. I suppose you finding out about the baby the way you did and where you did wasn’t ideal.”
“You can say that again,” I agree, feeling…hope.
“You were still an ass,” she grumbles and I don’t really have anything to say to that, because I was.
“I want us to be friends, Faith.”
“Friends?” she asks, disbelief and maybe shock mingled in her voice.
“Is that so hard to believe? You’re having my child. That’s a bond between us no matter what our past is.”
“Doesn’t seem to me, Titan, like you want to be part of this child’s life.”
“I do. If I didn’t I would have never come to Texas, Faith.”
“So you’re saying we start over? Become…”
“Friends.”
“How much of a bitch does it make me if I tell you I’m not sure I want to be friends with you?”
“That just means I’ll have to try hard to make you see what I already know.”
“What’s that?”
“That we’ll make great friends.”
She doesn’t really respond to that and her face is filled with skepticism, but for the first time since I decided to come to Texas I’m feeling a little better about the decision.
I just hope I can prove to her we can be friends. We have to be… because I really want to be a part of my child’s life. With every day I spend thinking about it, I’m more and more certain of that.
It’s everything else I’m feeling lost with.
38
Faith
“Good Lord, Ida Sue. It’s a thousand degrees in here. What’s going on?” I ask, walking through the living room.
I’m not exaggerating either. It’s miserable in here. I mean, outside was warm, because this is Texas and the heat has picked today to play with us, but inside Ida Sue’s house is a whole other dimension—and that dimension is hell.
“It’s hot as Cyan’s balls after his all-night sex parties,” my cousin Mary growls. Her hair is pushed on top of her head, she’s using a paper fan and she’s wearing a bikini top and cut-off shorts—all that and she’s still sweating like a hooker in church.
I’m starting to rethink wearing my jeans and T-shirt myself.
“Hey, Blossom! I’m in the kitchen!”
Mary barely acknowledges me. As mean as she looks right now, that might be a good thing. Still, before I leave the room she literally growls at me, “This is all your fault, Faith.” Then she stomps off.
I have no idea what she means. Mary and I have always gotten along. I shrug it off, thinking the heat just makes her grouchy. I walk into the kitchen, wondering if I can convince Ida Sue we should go out to eat.
“Ida Sue, this heat can’t be good for the ba—” I stop when my gaze locks on the scene in front of me. “—by…”
The kitchen table has been pushed off to the side. In the place it usually sits is a ladder and on that ladder is… Titan.
“There’s my girl. How are you feeling?” Ida Sue asks.
My mouth goes dry. My blood is strumming a loud, wild song in my ears. It’s not just the shock of seeing Titan.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my mouth falling open after I manage to get the words out. Titan is on a ladder working on the chandelier—or rather where it was. He’s wearing those tight Levis again, only now he doesn’t have a shirt on. He’s sweating—because again, it’s hotter than hell in here—and the perspiration is running down the sides of his neck. I follow one slow dripping trail as it glides down his shoulder, over his pecs, making a path that leaves me feeling flushed in a way that has nothing to do with the heat in the room. It slinks lower, moving over the indention of each ab so lovingly I wish I could follow it with my tongue.
“Quite a show, ain’t it, Blossom?” Ida Sue says with a lecherous grin, elbowing me gently in the side.
I’m really starting to hate the nickname Blossom.
I watch my aunt watch Titan and I know her face mimics what mine was doing just a minute before. It wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t start drooling.
“Your aunt’s AC broke down and she had a ceiling fan she wanted installed in the kitchen,” Titan answers. He looks down at me and gives me a smile that makes butterflies take flight in my stomach, those beautiful eyes of his sparkling, his face almost tender. “You look really good tonight, Faith.”
“I… uh… thanks. I meant, what are you doing here?”
“He’s staying with me while he finds a place in town,” my aunt answers—ever helpful.
“He’s… Titan?”
“Didn’t have many options, babe. Ida Sue offered, seemed the best solution.”
I ignore the way he casually tossed in the word ‘babe’ and then I ignore the tingles that run through me when he said it. I try to concentrate on the biggest problem. The one that has the most potential to rock my world off its foundation.
“The best solution… to what?”
“I told you I was moving here, Faith. I didn’t lie.”
Oh crap. I mean, I know he said that, but somewhere in my head it all got fuzzy. I thought he’d get tired of staying and go back to California. Seeing him in my aunt’s hou
se—an aunt he complained for weeks about because she kept pinching his ass—does not sound like he’s doing something he will give up on. I don’t know what it says, but it doesn’t seem like a good thing for me.
“Titan, aren’t you jumping the gun a little bit? I mean, we just found out I’m pregnant. There’s no need to make life-altering decisions right now. We can figure it all out when little Zeus or Eris gets here.”
“Zeus or Eris?”
“Greek gods. It was my idea, sugar-lumpkins. With a dad named Titan, the baby needed a special name,” Ida Sue chirps cheerfully. “Of course we could always continue the family tradition. How do you feel about naming your son Turquoise?”
“Turquoise?”
“Pretty, right? We could call him Turq for short. Turquoise Vegas… or was it Colorado where the soldiers finally swam home, Faith?”
“I think I’ll just leave and we can do dinner another night—after the air is fixed,” I answer instead, totally ignoring my crazy ass aunt’s questions.
“Nonsense. The pizza will be here soon.”
“Pizza?”
“I ordered it. There was no way I could cook in this kitchen. But when Titan here gets the fan going, it should cool down enough to eat. I hope you’re hungry, I ordered a ton. Once the air stopped working, though, everyone began bailing. White and Kayla couldn’t make the trip here, they had a parent-teacher conference, Gray and C.C. are stuck at home with sick babies, Black refuses to eat dinner with us because I won’t let him hit Titan.”
“I’d like to see him try,” Titan grumbles, stepping down from the ladder. He’s got a cloth he’s rubbing his hands on as he steps into me, invading my space.
“Why does Black want to hit you?”
“Because I was an insult to dickheads everywhere,” he says with a soft smile. I stare at the smile and the way the white of his teeth shines little by little. I stare so long that I have the strangest urge to reach up and kiss those lips, run my tongue over them, lose myself in them. I shake my head.
It’s just pregnancy hormones. That’s all it is.
“Babe?”
“When did the babe thing start?” I ask, because clearly I’ve lost my mind. I sound annoyed, because I am. Every time he calls me babe I feel a little shiver run through me.
“What?” he asks, his face moving to show confusion, and I watch every movement. I watch it and enjoy the show, because he’s close, because he’s beautiful, and because I like it. I watch because I’m insane and I do it while thinking that if this is not pregnancy hormones I’m in deep shit.
“You’re calling me babe,” I grumble and my frustration shines through and I can tell that bothers him because those soft eyes cloud and the small lines around them tighten.
Yes, I’m staring at him that close.
“Can’t really call you wife now, Faith,” he points out.
His words are spoken plain and simple. There’s no vehemence behind them, no attitude given to indicate he meant to serve a blow—but he did. The words hit me and when they hit… they hurt.
They shouldn’t have, but they did. Still, that isn’t his problem and after his last visit I swore to myself I’d stop reacting to Titan emotionally. There is a child involved, a child he obviously wants to play some sort of role with. I grew up with a parent who didn’t want a role in my life, and felt like she was forced to do that. It’s crazy—especially since she had three kids, but it was true. She didn’t want us. We felt that every single day.
Every. Single. Day.
I don’t want my child to know that feeling. I never wanted them to. So I swallow down my pride, paste a smile on my face and shrug away the hurt.
“Got it,” I say, and maybe my voice is a little tight, but I ignore that and avoid Titan’s eyes.
“Does the fan work now?” Ida Sue asks. I hadn’t realized she was gone, but she’s walking back to us holding a glass. “Here you go, some of my sweet tea to quench that thirst you raised,” she adds.
Titan is still looking at me. His gaze is locked on me, and I don’t know what he’s thinking. He looks thoughtful and his face is almost soft and for some reason I wish I could read his mind; I wish I did know.
“Thanks,” he mutters, taking the glass from Ida Sue. He takes a few steps away from us, putting some of the tools he used to work with down on the table.
“Oh, it works perfectly! C.T., you’re magnificent! Isn’t he magnificent, Faith?” she asks.
I should have, but I didn’t. I was hot, I was mourning the fact—however stupid it was—that Titan no longer called me “wife,” and therefore the initials Ida Sue used floated right past me. Instead I am caught up in the view, because Titan tilts his head back, perspiration still gleaming on his dark skin, and drinks the tea. And when I say that, I mean he tilts the glass up and while he drinks, I watch the way his throat moved, his adams apple teasing as it shifts. Jesus, how a man can be that sexy drinking out of a glass with pink flowers on it is beyond me—but it is true.
“Quite the show, isn’t it, Blossom?” Ida Sue asks softly in my ear, repeating her earlier question, and it may be a different show, but the star of it is the same and she’s not wrong.
“Damn it, Lovey! Why is it a million degrees in here?” Jansen asks, coming in from the back door, and yanking me out of my Titan haze—mostly.
“Our AC broke down,” she says, not tearing her eyes away from Titan—not that I blame her. It takes work for me to do it, but I do my best to focus on Jansen. “Titan was nice enough to install a ceiling fan for me. It should cool down soon,” she says—again keeping her eyes glued on all that is my ex-husband.
Jansen stalks over to us. He takes one look at a shirtless Titan, one look at a spellbound Ida Sue, and his face goes tight.
“Son of a bitch,” he growls under his breath and then he literally stomps from the room. I stand there, watching him go—not really understanding. Until a minute later.
“Ida Sue, why the fuck do you have the heat set on ninety-two?” Jansen growls from the hall.
I watch as my aunt is pulled from her Titan-lust-filled haze and annoyance moves over her face.
“That damn man is too smart,” she grumbles under her breath, but I still hear it and I can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out. Ida Sue goes to the hallway for what I can only imagine is damage control.
Titan is standing to the side and with the shocked look on his face, I laugh harder.
“I got played,” he grumbles.
And I laugh even harder.
“Damn it,” he growls.
And I laugh so hard, I feel tears seeping from my eyes.
39
Titan
“I don’t think Jansen is your biggest fan,” Faith laughs. We’re out on the porch, because even with the air conditioning going full blast in that damn house, it’s too hot to breathe. Everyone grabbed their own box of pizza and retreated wherever. I saw Jansen drag crazy Ida out toward the barn. Wouldn’t have been my first choice, but they didn’t take a pizza box so I figured they weren’t really eating.
“Your aunt is crazy as hell,” I tell Faith after taking a bite of pizza.
“She’s good people though,” she says softly, staring up at the sky.
“Yeah, she is,” I answer and I’m not talking about her aunt. I clear my throat, because suddenly it’s tight.
“Titan—”
“Faith—”
We say the names at the same time and she smiles, her face gentle and kind.
“You first,” she prompts.
“No, you go ahead,” I tell her, because fuck, I have no idea what I was about to say. I just wanted to keep her here…with me.
“I was going to tell you that you didn’t have to stay here.”
“Are you offering your place?”
“What? No, of course not… I didn’t mean that.”
“Damn, for a minute there I had hope.”
She frowns and looks at me. “Titan you don’t need to live here at all. You hav
e a life in California and you can still be a part of this child’s life even if we don’t live in the same state,” she says.
I put my pizza back on the box that sits between us. Faith and I are sitting on the top step of the porch. I push it back, out of my way, and move my hand along the side of her neck, holding her face gently.
“I want to be with you when the baby moves. I want to hold your hand when we see the baby for the first time… Hell, I want to be there for each of the doctor’s appointments. I want to be the one with you when we find out if we’re having a boy or a girl. If I’m completely honest I want a hell of a lot more than that, Faith. I’ll bide my time, but I will do it here, because that’s where you are, that’s where our baby is and that’s what matters.”
“It’s kind of crazy to move and start over, considering we don’t know much about each other and we’re…”
“We don’t know what we are yet, Faith. We’re going to find out,” I tell her, my eyes dropping down to her lips.
“We are?” she asks, her voice husky.
“Definitely,” I tell her and because I can’t resist, I bend down to touch her lips. It’s a brief kiss that I don’t press. It’s just lips touching, but it has depth behind it. It has meaning behind it—whether she realizes it or not.
“So we’re starting over?” she asks when I pull away.
I want to laugh, because starting over means we forget the past and that’s not happening. I’m never going to forget how it feels to slide between her legs and sink inside. I don’t want to forget.
“What?” I ask, giving in to the urge to smile.
“We’ll start over. We’ll be… friends.”
“Friends?” I ask, not really liking the sound of that. I have friends. I don’t have the urge to kiss them, to bend them over and bury myself inside of them—but I definitely do with Faith.