“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 th
e 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 will 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.
“You didn’t have to do that…” I said slowly. “Split the inheritance, I mean.”
“It was the right thing to do,” Brady countered. “And now…you can use that money to give this baby a real home.”
“Brady, I don’t know what to say…” I stammered, still in shock.
“You don’t need to say anything,” Brady shrugged. “You’re my little brother…I just wanted to look out for you.”
“I know,” I nodded. “I’m sorry I ever doubted that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | VANESSA
Thirty-Four Weeks
“I thought you said this place was in the Upper East Side?” I croaked as I glanced up at the grim storefront.
From my vantage point on the sidewalk, it was hard to take everything in at once. The storefront was covered with a tattered vinyl awning, marked with faint letters reading ‘BEAUTY SALON’ that had been all but bleached away by the sun. There were two large windows on either side of the front door, but the glass had been shattered and boarded up with moldy plywood that was now streaked with graffiti and ‘missing person’ posters. The front door itself was still intact, behind a shield of dense iron bars.
I glanced to the left and right, to see if the neighboring storefronts were any less grim. To the left, I could see three giant red neon dollar signs glaring from the front window of a payday advance loan shop. And to the right, there was a dim sum restaurant whose front window was occupied with a mildewed fish tank full of grey fish treading through murky green water. A few had already perished and floated to the top...
“Ok,” Brie sighed heavily. “Technically this is East Harlem…not the Upper East Side. But I think this place has a lot of potential! It’s exactly what you’re looking for, and it’s in your budget!”
I echoed her sigh, glancing back up at the storefront.
Brie Wallace was the closest thing to a real estate superhero that Hartford had. Her face was on buses and billboards, underneath the slogan: “I don’t just sell houses…I work miracles!”
That’s why I had scribbled down her number and given her a call: I needed a miracle.
Being under strict doctor’s orders to slow down had forced me to reevaluate my long-term plan for Fairy Godmother Beauty. I knew that things would only get harder once the baby was born, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to jump from job to job anymore.
I had a baby to think about. That meant it was time to settle down and establish my roots. And what better place to do that, then in Manhattan?
> New York City had always been the end goal…and now, it’d be a reality. Summer and I had decided to give Fairy Godmother Beauty a permanent home by opening a salon in the big city. We’d still work the occasional gig, but the majority of our work would be done in our new salon.
As soon as we came up with the plan, I began envisioning the perfect studio space: a modern, white salon drenched in natural light and chic furnishings, and a back room where my baby could nap through my shifts.
It seemed perfect. But now, blinking up at the vacant unit that Brie had eagerly told me about, I realized that I might have let my imagination wander a little too far…
“At least take a look inside before you make any decisions?” Brie asked.
“Ok,” I agreed reluctantly.
Brie unlocked the metal security gate and the front door, then she pushed it open and stepped inside. She immediately started coughing.
“Try not to breathe,” she said over her shoulder, holding the door open for me.
The smell hit me immediately as I stepped through the door: a mixture of mold and musty old cigarette smoke. I stifled a cough, then I thought about the baby. I tugged up the neck of my t-shirt and covered my nose.
“As you can see,” Brie explained, waving an arm around, “This used to be a salon. That means you might be able to save some money on remodeling expenses!”
I glanced around, taking in the interior. There was a row of shampoo stations, but they were in bad shape. The leather seats had been cut open with a knife, and the foam cushioning had been savagely ripped apart. The sinks themselves might have been fine…but there had obviously been a leak in the pipes, which had resulted in the floor bending and warping from water damage.
Those repairs alone would easily cost more than the price of installing and plumbing brand new shampoo stations…
“What do you think?” Brie asked optimistically, turning to face me.
My eyes were still moving around the salon, taking in the graffiti decorating the walls and the shattered glass mirrors. It was hard to find one thing to feel optimistic about in the entire space.
The Complete Firehouse 56 Series Page 34