“Tonight I’m picking Italian because I seriously need a meatball sub.”
I got her back to our table where we grabbed her things. She told the people at the party she was having ‘contractions.’ Genius since they didn’t even try to hold us up.
She told me the address of a sandwich shop and after my GPS got us there I cringed. It’s gross on the outside but the inside is just downright not up to health codes.
She forced me to buy one too, though and after one bite I realized I’d buy food from these people if they were selling out of a dumpster. It’s that good.
It’s interesting to be in a tux with a pregnant woman in an evening gown eating at a one-star place.
Her body guard and mine looked as grossed out as I was at first.
When we were done we went home and the tiny house I used to view as a cage looked more like a beacon of glory.
“Let’s watch a movie.” She asked once we got inside.
I took off my jacket, “Alright. Which one?”
“Roisin Black’s last book, Someone to Come Back To, they made it a movie. It just came out. It’s not a girl flick. It’s about a Navy Seal. Even Moses likes it.”
“Using a tree hugger that doesn’t eat meat isn’t a way to convince me.”
She stood on her toes, “Come on!”
I smiled, “I never asked but, doesn’t watching movies frustrate you?”
“No, I can hear everything going on. If you still don’t mind describing a few things. You don’t have to.”
“I want to. That’s fine.”
“Great.” She went to the steps.
We both got comfortable then met in the living room. She sat on the couch with me. It’s a little couch. It doesn’t wrap around the room like my usual ones do. The TV is a widescreen but not a home theater. All that’s missing but she’s closer to my body.
She’s so close that when she inevitably fell asleep, her head was in my lap. While she slept I saw her sleep shirt move. I put my hand over her stomach and there it was. Our baby was moving all about. The only real family I know is on this itty bitty couch. I smiled to myself. Maybe I can let myself love this.
Maybe.
Chapter Twenty-Five
BRIANNA
December
“Here it is,” I told Danielle. I played the list recorded on my phone.
Nursery Check!
Clothes Check!
Infant Essentials Check!
Doula Check!
Christmas Decorations Check!
Baby Gear of all kinds:
Swing
Crib
Changing Table
Bouncer
High chair
Play pin
All have a big fat Check! Even though the baby won’t even need a few of those.
“Oh!” I said as she finished putting a safety lock on the dishwasher. “Child locks…”
“Bloody fucking hell!” Gabe screamed from upstairs. Then we heard a slamming sound.
Danielle laughed, “Check!”
“Brianna!” he boomed.
I made my way carefully to the stairs and Danielle followed. “What’s up?” I asked.
Danielle kept giggling and that made it hard to act innocent.
He sounded like he stopped at the stairs and then there was shaking sounds, “How in Christ do I get this thing open?” he snapped.
“It’s a child gate,” I told him. “Just use your thumb to pull back the springy thingy.”
“What the fuck is a springy thingy?”
I sighed, “I’m blind and I figured it out.”
“You put one in downstairs too?! How many damned gates do we need? We are not harboring a convict! It’s an infant!” He sounded like he was beating the shit out of the gate up there. “Your Dads said this wasn’t even necessary until it’s moving!”
“I know but I’ll just feel way better if they are up. What if I don’t see when she starts to crawl? This way there are no accidents-. Gabe! The springy thingy!” I snapped when I heard him jiggling it.
Danielle laughed then bounced up the stairs and showed him how to do it.
“Thank you!” He said as he came down. “You have safety locks on every single appliance in the house. I can’t even get doors open.”
“You do realize they are built to keep toddlers confused. Not adults.” I said.
“My IQ was measured, Love and it’s perfectly high. It’s not me, it’s the locks.”
I crossed my arms, “Is this more cigarette withdrawal crabbiness?”
“Yes!” he snapped.
I opened the bottom gate for him and heard Danielle go into the back room upstairs.
He laughed at himself. We laughed together.
He came up behind me and hugged me close. I didn’t expect that.
His arms moved low to touch my stomach. “Slow…down…” he ordered.
I tried pulling his arms off. “I’m not doing too much and don’t squeeze or you’ll make me have to pee again.”
He didn’t let go, “Do you know, how many women would die to have a man that comes with servants?”
“Yeah, for me it’s annoying.” I tried to get free of him again but he didn’t let go.
“Thank you,” he said to my ear.
I felt his forearms, “For what?”
“The house…I don’t think a decorator with sight could have done better. Between the Christmas prep and the baby safety, I’ve never felt more ordinary in my life.”
I laughed and set my head back on his shoulder. “Never had Christmas decorations growing up? Isn’t Christmas as big a deal in the UK as it is here?”
“It’s bigger probably but I usually spent it at school.”
I felt a weird heavy sadness.
I stepped carefully because when it comes to his past Gabe isn’t good at sharing. “You didn’t go home?”
He let go of me, “I stayed away at school. Lots of boys do. It was a great school.”
“That’s not the point. Didn’t your mom or dad want you back?”
He laughed in that way I hate. It’s to brush something painful off as nothing, “Boys start from thirteen to eighteen and Dad had his business parties, mom was traveling… school was their sitter.”
I turned around, “Then, before that, you had Christmas at home…right?”
“Well yeah, but father doesn’t decorate. I usually got something from my Nanny. She would visit in the afternoon, make me something-. Oh bloody hell Brianna, don’t cry. I’m not a sad little boy.”
I wiped the tear I let slip, “Yes you are. That’s pitiful. I was an orphan and I had better Christmas’. Your parents need to be shot.”
He laughed again, “I was a rich boy. I don’t think that makes me pitiful.”
“Wealth isn’t love. That’s why you think sex and booze fix everything because you substitute anything you can for the real thing.”
“Sex has nothing to do with my damaged past.”
I crossed my arms, “If that were true you wouldn’t flee the scene afterward. You feel good about sex because its touch and affection, which you never had but people that showed you affection, would leave... so you leave. Your Dad also made sure to grind it into you not to trust women.”
“I don’t always leave you,” he defended, “I stayed that first night.”
“We didn’t actually have sex that first night and you still kinda left.”
“No,” he sounded upset, “I stayed Bri. I was asleep when I got the call from my Dad. I’ve never woken up with a woman. I even stumble out drunk as fuck to avoid a morning.”
I let that simmer in my thoughts. I was the first woman he woke up to. That’s really special. “But in the end, you’re afraid to sleep with someone?”
I felt his hand go around the back of my neck and his other slid around my waist, “I’ll take you upstairs and have you all through the night just to prove I can.”
Whoa. My body throbbed like a toothache. Yes. I want him to do jus
t that. I’m so horny I can’t stand myself but… now it’s my own insecurities in the way.
I laughed and shook my head before trying to get loose, “You must be desperate if you’re after me now. I’m the size of a house. I blew up this month.”
He pulled me closer, “No, you are not. You’re still very small. Your bump looks like a…what do you call it here? A football?”
“Footballs are shaped like this…” I showed him with my hands, “If I’m shaped like a football the baby is a cone head.”
“Footballs are round.”
“Ohhh,” I clicked. “I forget Brits call soccer, football. You mean I look like I have a soccer ball.”
“Yes.” He put his hands over my belly on both sides. “You’re still tiny, but you have a ball under your dress.” His touch made me feel wonderful. “Our ball.” He tipped my chin up and I mourned the fact I can’t see his eyes right now. “We’re under mistletoe…” he told me.
I pushed at his chest. “Aww see, you were doing so good, then you lied. Danielle and I didn’t put any up so…tough luck.”
“No, actually,” he laughed around the lie. “Actually, I put some up all my own. It’s right here above our heads.”
“Kissing under the mistletoe is corny.”
He held my face, “Why are you so stubborn? You make me mental. Just stop bitching and kiss me.”
“Mr. Gilmore!” Danielle’s voice called as she bounded down the stairs. “A Melissa just called your phone, here,” she came in and Gabe took his hands from my face to get his phone in a hurry. It was ringing again when he cut it off.
“Uh…thanks, Danny.” He sounded anxious and when I heard Danny leave I hid a smirk. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I took Christmas cd’s off the dining room table and walked to the library, touching the walls to gage my way.
He followed. “Melissa is a work friend.”
I laughed, “We aren’t married. You don’t have to hide your life from me. I know you have casual ‘tumbles’.”
He stood at my back while I felt around the speaker system on the one shelf. “I’m not trying to be indiscrete…” he explained, “The press seems to know everything.”
My old school stereo opened up to three disc players and I felt the braille labels on my cd covers, “I’m not jealous, or hurt. I’m not withholding sex to get back at you either. I wanted you to drop the drinking and smoking because they’re harmful but sex is life. It’s human. I have no right to make you be lonely. One day I might date someone and I would want you just as understanding.”
I place one cd in and then felt the other labels.
He shifted to my side. “You think about dating?”
“Not now, obviously but yeah, in the future. I don’t exactly want to be alone forever either.”
“How would that work? With us?”
I put in another cd. “We aren’t together. Isn’t that why you still screw around?”
He was quiet a minute. “But they’re nothing to me. They come and go. I don’t really intend to stay with any of them but you’re talking about dating. What happens if the guy you’re with-? We live together now. What guy would be alright with that?”
“The right one.” I put the last one in the player and closed it up so soft Christmas music could play.
“You expect a man to not mind you living with the father of your child?”
“If he really loves me he’ll love Willow and if he loves us, he’ll understand you are part of us. You’re family.”
I went to sit and found my audio book of Roisin Black’s novella ‘Unfinished Business.’ I got comfortable on the sofa and was about to put in my earbuds when the couch dipped from Gabe’s weight and I felt his arm go along the back of the sofa. “What if you fell madly in love and this guy made you pick between me and him? What then, eh?”
I sighed, “I’ve been single most my adult life. You really think telling some guy to blow me would be that hard?”
“I don’t think when girls say it…that men take it to mean ‘fuck off.’ Sounds more like an invitation. We wouldn’t live together if this guy becomes the one, would we? What if Willow thinks he’s her father? Would you leave her with me or take her away?”
I think I actually sense a trace of fear. I put my hand out and felt my way up his chest to his rough jaw, “Gabriel. I’m not your mom. I’m not leaving you or Willow. Can we stop talking about some imaginary man? Dating is a nightmare for me, I doubt adding a kid will make life much better in that department. You’re more likely from the two of us to end up married.”
“But answer the other stuff.”
I groaned and dropped my hand to his tie, “We’ll live together as long as both of us want to. As long as it benefits Willow and until it doesn’t work. Willow will only ever call you, Daddy. You are her daddy and I’ll always make sure she knows that. As far as taking her away, I would never take her away, not unless I felt you were a danger to her and I truly believe with all of me that you never would let that happen.”
He was quiet and I gave his tie a tug, “I know this is hard and it’s new for me too. We aren’t doing things the traditional way. All I have to work off of is doing what feels right but that’s why when girls like Melissa call, It’s no big deal. We have our separate lives and we have the one that revolves around Willow. Stop putting such high expectations on yourself, okay?”
He brought his hand from the back of the sofa to run his fingers through my hair, “You’re giving up a lot to be a mother. To be part of me…”
“Well, I love you.” Oh shit. I can actually feel him going pale.
“Wh-what?”
“Ugh, chill out, you spaz. I mean…family love, not romantic love. I love you as part of my family.”
He still felt stiff as a surfboard. “You said Love…like love. You can’t.”
“Gabe! Love isn’t just for-.” I put down my earbuds, “Alright, I’m going to explain this, and then I want you to go away so I can read. You’re being a pest. I need to know how this book ends and you are driving me nuts. Love is one of those infinite things that has no limits or labels. When I tell Moses I love him, it’s not a sex invite or a stage five clinger situation, it’s a ‘you mean something to me and I want you to know it’ situation.”
He shifted, “So you aren’t in love with me?”
I shook my head, “No. I just love you. I care. If something happened to you I would be devastated and I like having you in my life. You matter. So I love you. Even right now, when I’m trying to fucking read.”
I felt his hand twining in my hair again. That does feel awesome, “So…If I say it back you won’t want marriage or something you won’t go whacky?”
I laughed, “I think I can contain myself.”
He sounded like a smirk was coming, “Can I say it back?”
“You have to feel that way too. If I got hit by a bus would you be sad?”
“Don’t talk about that.”
“What if I got hurt? Would you be upset for me and want me better?”
“Of course.”
“Then I hereby authorize you to say it back.”
He laughed, “This is intense, I’ve never said this about a person. A car maybe. Uh…er…okay,” he shifted again to face me full on and I felt his leg ticking off the seconds. I had to really hold back the laughter. “So…Brianna…”
I felt around for his hand, “It doesn’t have to be formal, just a heads up. You can say, love ya.”
“Right, okay.” He fidgeted some more, “Hey…so…I love you… and…you have a nice bum.”
I laughed, “Good start but for future reference, you don’t have to add a flirtatious come-on.” I put my earbuds in.
He pulled them out by the wires. “Wait, wait, I got it now.” He shifted again, “Hey Bri, I love you too.”
I fake smiled, “Really? Because now that you admit it you can help me pick a wedding dress!”
He jumped up like there was a spring on his as
s and I laughed myself into a fit. At least now I can read.
Chapter Twenty-Six
GABRIEL
December 29th
I actually had a family Christmas. It was strange. Like being trapped in a Hallmark card. Moses and Chloe, Brianna’s Dads, Moses’ Dad…they were all here, cramming in this little house Brianna needed to have.
The spare room I had to have, had become my office but it was actually where all the presents were stored. Brianna is turning my world upside down. Even as I crouch here in the back of the house with my cigarettes I can’t help but feel the effects of her. Even the smokes aren’t as satisfying as they once were.
I breathed out and watched the thick gray smoke drift into the cool air and wondered why I wasn’t the least bit homesick for England. Probably because I don’t really have a home. This is the first real home I can recall.
I laughed with no one around. I’m a millionaire living in a middle-class home with three cars parked on the side and the smallest home office ever.
I crushed the cigarette and went inside to where Brianna was with Danielle, making dinner. That’s weird too. I eat from home and it’s usually far from my usual diet of gourmet raw fish; it’s homey American food which requires more gym time.
“What is that?” I asked as I came in.
Danielle handed Brianna a spice, “It’s chili!” she said. “Brianna makes the best Chili! She made it last week when you were in Hawaii.”
I nodded. “Ah, yes…Hawaii…” I went to sit at the smaller table and watched them cook.
Brianna felt around for the spoon, “Why did you say it like that?”
I felt the petal of a bright red poinsettia from the bouquet on the table. While I was away on business I broke all my promises. I drank, I smoked shamelessly, and I have no desire for her to know. I learned when I came back feeling like death that being away from her is bad for me. She’s trusting me and I’m still letting her down in secret. Worst of all, she was afraid I would miss Christmas. She wants me around.
I shrugged, “No reason, it was just a boring trip.”
She laughed, “Can a place like Hawaii be boring?”
The Co-Parent (The Relationship Quo Series Book 3) Page 25