by A. Zavarelli
That cancer almost destroyed Brighton instead of me. Now I’d learned it was also my unborn child too. How do you think I felt?
Like a giant fucking worthless prick that’s how.
But she should’ve known how I’d feel about this. How much it’d mean to me, or how much I’d want to be a part of it. She snatched it away from me without so much as a second thought.
Did she think I’d be a shitty father too?
The better question was, could I even blame her if she did? I didn’t know the answer to that. But what I did know was I had a right to prove myself if she’d given me the chance. But she didn’t.
And that said everything I needed to know.
Chapter Eighteen
Brighton
Ryland had really gone to the mattresses on this one.
Not only had he brought Matt, who was now in the corner arguing with Nicole about our ‘shitty apartment,’ but he’d called my landlord too.
“Sorry.” The guy shrugged. “But there’s been a violation of the lease.”
Ryland was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed, watching the entire interaction. This had him stamped all over it, and I knew my landlord was full of shit. Money talks, and he didn’t blink twice when Ryland paid him off.
“What kind of violation?” I argued. “I want to see proof.”
“You can take that up with my lawyers.”
“Lawyers?” I frowned. This guy couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t afford a fresh coat of paint, let alone lawyers.
“That’s what I said.” He slapped the papers down on the counter and headed towards the door. “You have three days to vacate the premises.”
“That’s illegal!” I shouted.
I was pretty sure, anyway. But the landlord didn’t seem to care. He just stomped out, humming a happy little tune as he went. I expected to see a victorious smile on Ryland’s face, but there was no such thing. His eyes were still ice cold, his expression flat.
“I’ve been more than patient, Brighton,” he said. “I let you have the upper hand because I was sorry for what happened.”
I shot him a scathing look, but it didn’t even faze him. “And I’m still sorry about that. But the games stop, right here, right now. You’re having my baby, and I’m done playing. You and Nicole will move back into your apartment. Today. I will not have the mother of my child living in a place like this, and that is not up for debate. Do you understand?”
“You’ve given me no choice.” I glared.
He didn’t even look remotely sorry about it as he continued. “Ted will be at your service, should you need to go anywhere. And I will provide everything you need, financially.”
“And what else?” I snapped. “Is there some sort of agreement you’d like me to sign in blood while you’re at it? My life and body belong to you for the next eighteen years?”
“No,” he responded flatly. “No contracts, no agreements, no us. You’ve made it abundantly clear that isn’t what you want. So this is just about the baby now.”
“Oh.” I swallowed, and it felt like there was glass in my throat.
He didn’t want to be with me anymore. Why the hell did that hurt so much? It was what I wanted, but hearing him say it cut me to the bone.
“And what happens when the baby is born?” I rasped. “You aren’t taking it away from me.”
“You mean like you took it away from me?” he shot back.
God, he was really upset about this. I honestly didn’t understand why. The first time I’d asked him if he was trying to get me pregnant, he’d sounded so horrified by the idea. And he was the one who insisted on getting birth control right away. It was only logical to believe he’d still feel the same. But I guess I was wrong. And I worried that he wouldn’t ever forgive me for it.
“You know I would never do that to you, Brighton,” Ryland said, his tone softening a fraction. “But I will have equal rights.”
“Of course,” I whispered.
“And when the baby is born, I’d like you to consider staying home. I think it would be best. And, of course, I’d take care of everything for you.”
“Right.” I nodded, my eyes burning with unshed tears. He sounded so detached. Like this was some kind of business arrangement he was making as if I had suddenly ceased to exist. It fucking hurt.
“Ted’s waiting downstairs to drive you to the apartment,” he informed me.
“I haven’t even packed yet,” I said.
“Let the movers do it,” he insisted. “I don’t want you lifting anything heavy.”
I would have protested, but I didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. I barely had the energy to muster up a fake smile for him. “Okay, Ryland.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ryland
The days bled together in a repetitive stream of work.
How this hadn’t bothered me before, I haven’t a clue. Now it all seemed tedious. Day in, day out, the dull fucking thud of my fingers on a keyboard. Tapping out texts and emails and squaring away things of a monotonous nature.
Hello hamster, meet treadmill.
Lately, I’d taken up reading to fill the mindless drat. Baby books, if you could believe that. In one of my drunken stupors, I’d apparently purchased a whole shit load of them on Amazon, with express delivery. I wanted to learn everything there was on the subject if only to prove to myself I could do this.
A knock at my door sounded, and I glanced up to catch Matt lingering there. Since our talk the week before, he’d been visiting me often. Frankly, I didn’t know what to make of it. I hadn’t a need for a friend since I was in college, but it appeared that was his end goal with these little visits.
He was a good friend to Jackson. The two of them were thick as thieves from the time they began building Lego kingdoms in middle school. Truth be told, I liked Matt. Begrudgingly, perhaps. I wasn’t in the habit of liking anyone for longer than what they could do for me.
Brash?
A little, maybe, but necessarily so. A man in my position was more accustomed to making enemies. You see, all the players in my world had their own selfish agendas. Quick to ask for a favor and even quicker to disappear when you needed it to be reciprocal. The moment the flash of the cameras went off, they were out the door and onto the next big fish.
The friends I did have made themselves scarce after my family died. They didn’t know how to handle it either. I hadn’t seen the need to replenish such trivial relationships. Now I bartered in tit for tat. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. The situation with Matt was a little out of my emotional league if I was being honest. I was trying to do something out of the good of my heart. Heh.
I’d seen the error of my ways. Nicole’s fragility could no longer be denied, and I took responsibility for that. I’d played a role in keeping her in such a dark, emotionless pit. What could I say, hell was a lonely place, and I didn’t want to be alone.
But now, I was trying to make good. Absolution and all of that. Was there any amount of holy water that could make me clean again?
“Hey man.” Matt took a seat without invitation. “How’s it going?”
I tossed the baby book aside and opted for the bottle of whiskey on my desk instead.
“Who knew the many things that could go wrong during childbirth?”
“Brighton’s tough as nails,” Matt replied. “She’s going to be just fine, Ryland.”
Easy for him to say. That wasn’t how I saw her. All I saw were potential disasters at every turn. Things that would take her away from me. Not that she was mine anymore.
I took a shot and wiggled the bottle in Matt’s direction in offering. He nodded, and I poured us both a tumbler before leaning back in my chair.
“What do you want?”
Blunt and to the point, my words were far past the point of shocking Matt anymore. He’d seen my descent. He knew this was all that remained. He expected nothing more. In a way, it made me feel at ease around him.
“I need
some advice about Nicole,” he mumbled.
“And you’re asking me?” I arched a brow at him. “Have you seen the train wreck I’ve made of my life recently?”
“Okay.” Matt shrugged. “So maybe it’s not really advice I’m after. More like a favor.”
One of my least favorite words. I had the distinct impression I wasn’t going to like it in this case either. “What kind of favor?”
“You need to tell her yourself, Ryland. She’s never going to buy it if you don’t.”
“And how do you propose I do that when she isn’t speaking to me?”
“Since when have you ever shied away from persistence?” Matt cajoled.
I shrugged. He did have a point there. Also, I’d been planning to chat with Nicole, anyway. But I didn’t want Matt to think I was doing it for him.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He grinned, and I pointed at the door.
“Now get out of my office.”
Chapter Twenty
Brighton
“It’s so strange being back here.” Nicole furrowed her brow as she looked around the apartment.
“I know,” I agreed.
“Maybe we could redecorate,” she said thoughtfully. “Get ready for the baby.”
“Sure.” I slumped further into the couch.
I didn’t know how we were going to do that since Ryland had moved all of my stuff down here. He’d set up my sewing room in the spare bedroom, erasing all parts of me from his own apartment. I couldn’t even go in there. I didn’t know how I was supposed to set up a nursery.
“Brighton?” Nicole placed her hand on my arm. “Are you okay? I hate seeing you like this.”
“I’m fine.” I smiled weakly.
“You’re not fine,” she protested. “Please don’t be sad. What can I do to cheer you up?”
“You could call Matt and make up with him,” I teased.
Her face soured, and she shook her head.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Will you look at us?” she snorted. “A couple of sad sacks moping around because of the bastard men in our lives. We need to get a grip.”
“Fair point.” I laughed.
“We should do something fun today. Let’s go shopping for the baby. This is supposed to be a happy time for you.”
“I don’t have any money,” I argued.
“That isn’t true,” she smirked. “You have Ryland’s card. And I do remember him telling you to use it. C’mon, you could shop for years and still not even put a dent in his bank balance. This is for the baby. We need to get prepared. Do you even know how much stuff babies need?”
I shrugged because I knew she was right. I still hadn’t bought anything yet. And it did sound kind of fun.
“Alright,” I relented. “But let’s not go too crazy.”
Nicole was right. Babies needed a lot of stuff.
It was hard to tell what was actually necessary, and what wasn’t. But Nicole had no problem throwing whatever she thought might be slightly useful into our shopping cart.
“Have you thought of a theme yet?” she asked, staring at some different wallpaper trims in bright colors.
“No.” I shook my head. “I wanted to wait and see what I’m having first.”
She pouted. “That isn’t until next week, maybe. If they can tell.”
Next week. God, that was surreal. I couldn’t believe how fast it had gone. I wondered if Ryland would want to know. We hadn’t even discussed it. We hadn’t discussed much of anything since I’d moved back two weeks ago.
Every day, he sent me exactly one text to check in with me and see how I was doing. He told me if I needed anything at all, I was to contact him right away. But I hadn’t thought of anything that sounded like a good enough reason to bother him.
It hurt because as much as I loved Nicole, I wanted Ryland to be the one to do these things with me. It was silly and unrealistic, but suddenly my shopping trip didn’t seem all that fun anymore.
“Maybe we could just do something yellow,” Nicole continued.
“I’m really tired,” I blurted. “I think I’m all shopped out for one day.”
“Really?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Okay, I’m sorry Brighton. You’re right, we still have plenty of time. Let’s go home, and you can take a nap.”
***
I spent the entire weekend sewing while Nicole moped around the apartment and scrubbed every surface she could find. She was full of anxious energy again, and I didn’t know what had been going on with her.
I thought maybe she was nervous about looking for a new job, but it could also be because she and Matt still weren’t speaking. It was a subject I wanted to revisit, and tonight, I had every intention of doing just that.
I’d gone to her favorite bakery and bought her a dozen cupcakes, fully intending to do nothing but binge on sugar and make her pour her heart out. But when she breezed into the apartment looking relaxed and happy, I was a little surprised. She set to work, laying out a truck load of takeout food on the counter.
“I ordered just about everything on the menu,” she stated. “So help yourself to whatever you want.”
She wasn’t making eye contact with me, and I knew something was up.
“Nicole?”
“Yeah?” she asked absently, bending down to look through the cupboard as though she had lost something.
I walked around the counter and shut the cupboard, forcing her to look up at me as I crossed my arms.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” she blinked.
Now that I was closer, I could see that her eyes were swollen and puffy, but she had a smile on her face that was the polar opposite.
“Nicole… I can see you’ve been crying,” I said carefully. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Sheesh, I can’t get anything past you,” she muttered as she stood up and leaned against the counter.
“Blame it on the men in my life,” I retorted.
“I planned to tell you all of this after dinner,” she said. “But I met Ryland for coffee today.”
“You did?”
That familiar space in my chest hollowed a little more at the thought of him. I’d been doing so good at keeping him off my mind, but the simple mention of his name was enough to almost topple my resolve again.
“He’s been messaging me for a while about it,” she said. “And I decided to go see what he wanted. Despite everything that’s happened, he’s still like a brother to me…”
“You don’t have to justify why you went,” I assured her. “I know you care about him, Nicole. I want you two to be friends, nothing would make me happier.”
“Well honestly, I was pretty much expecting the entire conversation to be about you,” she said. “I thought he was going to try to get me to talk to you or something. But it wasn’t about that at all.”
“What was it about?” I asked curiously.
“It was about Jackson.” She leaned against the counter and stared off into the distance for a moment. “Ryland told me that it was time for me to live my life. To be happy.”
Warmth filled my heart when I realized what she was saying. Ryland had finally absolved her of her guilt over moving on.
“That’s really amazing, Nicole.” I smiled for her. “You deserve it.”
“That isn’t all.” She rifled through her purse and pulled out a check. “He gave me this too.”
I stared at the check addressed to Nicole with more zeros than I could count, trying to understand what it meant.
“He sold the house on Belvedere Island,” she explained. “And he said that Jackson would have wanted me to have the money.”
“He sold it?” I repeated, tears brimming my eyes. “But… that was where he grew up. It was the only thing he had left…”
“That’s what I said.” Nicole shrugged. “But Ryland said it wasn’t home anymore. That without his family, it doesn’t fe
el right, and it never will.”
Shock resonated through my entire body at his decision. I could only imagine how difficult that must have been for him, and I wondered how he was handling it.
“Did he…” I cleared my throat and tried to wash away my emotion. “Did he look okay?”
“He looked… different,” she answered.
“Different, how?”
“I don’t know, he seemed kind of… defeated.”
“Oh.”
“He asked me to give you something too.” She pulled another envelope from her purse.
I took it between my shaky hands and tore off the seal, hoping it was a letter. Some kind of communication from him other than a text. I hoped he was getting better and that his anger really was gone. But did that mean he was moving on from me too?
I was disappointed when I shook out the contents and found another check. It was for twenty million dollars, and it was addressed to Sophia’s Shoes. My legs wobbled a bit, and I had to grip the counter to keep from falling over as I read through the paperwork.
It was a donation to the charity which stipulated that 50% of the monies would be deposited into my own personal account in order for me to run the foundation full time.
Nicole peeked over my shoulder and gasped as she saw the amount.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “That’s…”
“Crazy?” I finished for her, setting the check down on the counter. “I can’t accept that.”
“Why not?” she asked. “It’s for the foundation. He obviously wants you to run it. And he probably wants you to feel like you have a steady income, Brighton. You’re having a baby.”
“Do you think that’s why?” I blinked up at her. “He’s paying me off?”
“What?” Her eyes widened. “Of course not. Where would you get that idea?”
I didn’t get to answer because there was a knock at the door. Nicole almost looked embarrassed as she moved to open it.