Heels

by Megan Erickson

  At dinner, I got the full story. Over lasagna, garlic bread, and a salad, I heard stories about freckle-faced, tow-headed Bryan who always had a bit of an aggressive, fearless streak in him. Their rough childhood only exacerbated what personality traits Bryan had been born with, or at least according to Tara.

  “And how did you two meet?” I wiped my mouth with my napkin and gestured between Tara and Lance.

  “Ah, fuck,” Lance muttered and threw back the rest of his beer.

  Tara pointed her fork at him. “Hey don’t be like that. I love our story.”

  “Our story is fucked up.”

  She clasped her hands together and batted her eyelashes. “The best ones always are.”

  He waved a hand at her. “You tell then.”

  She turned to me with a grin on her face. “I’ll give you the short version tonight. I’ll save the long version for another time. So basically, we met in a small Pennsylvania town at a bar. It was a one-night hookup because I have a thing for dark-eyed brooders and I was the only girl in the bar wearing boots.”

  “It wasn’t about the boots,” Lance said.

  “We had to walk to that damn warehouse! No bitch in heels was doing that.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Anyway, we hooked up, it was hot as hell—”

  “La la la la la la—” Bryan chanted, fingers in his ears.

  “—And that was going to be it. Until he found out I was Bryan’s sister, which was a problem because Lance wanted to kill Bryan.”

  I choked mid-sip and spewed water all over the table. Tara cackled. “I love telling that part of the story!”

  Bryan patted my back as I waved. “Go on, go on,” I managed to say between coughs.

  “Basically Lance thought Bryan killed his brother. Bryan did not, but neither of us really knew that. The problem was that Lance started falling for me, I started falling for him, and so that threw a whole wrench in the I-will-kill-your-brother-to-avenge-mine master plan. Then my ex-boyfriend—who was Bryan’s best friend—kidnapped me and ordered Bryan killed because Reb is a massive dick.”

  “Was,” Bryan muttered.

  My head was on a swivel. “What?”

  “That’s where Bryan was when you found out you were pregnant. Anyway, Lance saved Bryan,” Tara continued, “then they joined forces, saved me, and that was that.”

  I knew some of that because Bryan had told me, but it was still a lot to piece together. “Wow.”

  “See?” Lance said, popping the top on another beer. “Fucked up.”

  “So Reb… what do you mean…was?” I asked Bryan.

  He met Tara’s gaze squarely when he answered me. “I was set to kill him myself, but another of his enemies wanted to do it more. I let him have the honors.”

  “You would have?”

  He still didn’t look away from Tara, and for the first time since I’d arrived, real sorrow crossed her face as she faced her brother—sorrow and affection. “I probably would have.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He finally turned to me. “Because he was so full of hate for me and for Tara. I didn’t think he’d ever let us be. We’d never be safe with him alive, and I couldn’t handle that.”

  I swallowed, but wasn’t sure how to answer that. He’d kill his best friend?

  “He was going to kill me, baby,” Bryan said softly. “Except he got his goons to do it. At least I was going to shoot him myself.”

  I flinched, and Tara must have caught it because she clapped, startling us. “Well!” she said, her voice a little too high-pitched to be genuine. “Who wants dessert? I made brownies for sundaes. Sam, want to help me get them together?”

  Bryan reached for my hand, but I evaded, unsure how to handle his words. He’d told me the truth, and that had to mean something. But could I handle his truth? I followed Tara into the kitchen where she gathered ingredients for the sundaes.

  She cut half the pan of brownies before she heaved a breath, fisted her hands on the counter, and squeezed her eyes shut. I froze where I’d been placing the brownies in the bowls.

  “Samantha,” she said, and lifted her gaze to meet mine.

  I didn’t know how to take her tone. Was this when she told me I wasn’t right for her brother? “Yes?” The word rasped up my throat like sandpaper.

  “Bryan is…he’s Bryan.” She looked uneasy, and dropped the knife into the pan. “Jesus, this is hard.” She rubbed her hand over her heart. “This is going to sound terrible, but I never thought he’d live this long. I never thought he’d find any sort of long-term relationship and certainly not a baby.” Her jaw clenched. “I love him,” she whispered fiercely. “I’m alive and have this life because of him. We both have scars, physically and emotionally, because of what we did to stay alive. Bryan’s are worse, because he was on the front lines. But I can see…” her voice cracked and she sniffed. “Shit. I can see how much he loves you. And the way you look at him. I’ve never seen anyone in my life look at him like that. Not even me, and I’m probably the only person on the planet who loved him for the first thirty years of his life.”

  “Tara,” I whispered as I felt the tears fill my eyes. “That hurts my heart.”

  “I know it does,” she reached for me. “My God, you’re like this pure spirit. I’ve never met a woman like you.”

  “I’m far from pure.”

  She shook her head. “No it’s… figurative. It surrounds you. You wear your heart on the outside of your body. I’ve never talked like this before, but I’ve been reading some self-help books and shit.” She choked out a laugh, and I laughed too, until we were crying sad and happy tears into the pan of brownies.

  Tara swiped at her eyes. “I understand if he’s too much for you, and this all becomes too much. All I ask is you try, and that you take care of his heart even if it has to end. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I do,” I said, wanting to put her mind at ease, but still unsure myself what the future held. “I can assure you that I love him. And I’m at the point now, where I hope love is enough. Is it?”

  Tara’s gaze drifted toward the living room, where we heard deep voices. “I didn’t think it was enough for Lance and me. But then…it was. It really was.”

  “That gives me hope,” I said.

  Tara smiled, and a tear slipped down her upper lip. She inhaled deeply. “Okay,” she said. “We better finish these sundaes before the men come in here and find us blubbering.”

  “I could use a sundae right about now anyway.” The brownies were still warm.

  “Ditto, girl. Ditto.”

  Later that night, after sundaes, and more stories Bryan and I lay in bed, my head on his chest. My mind was still whirling, although Tara’s words had helped somewhat.

  “Do you have regrets?” I asked him.

  “Regrets? I don’t know if that’s how I’d describe my feelings on the things I did. At the time, I justified every one. Every single threat, beat down, or worse I had reasons. It’s hard to look back and regret things when I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. Do I have remorse though? Yeah. I got remorse.” He sighed heavily. “Is that a cop out? I take responsibility for what I did, and for the consequences.”

  “I don’t know if it’s a cop out,” I answered honestly. “You’re saying you did horrible things and you had reasons. I don’t think those are the same as excuses.”

  “No,” he said softly. “No excuses. I made decisions that harmed people, that ruined people’s lives. And I did it in order to protect my family and my men.”

  “So…” I swallowed and let the words slip. “You placed your life and those of your family and men over others.”

  “Not my own,” he said. “I don’t think I ever placed my own life over anyone else’s. But Tara’s? Yes. My men? Yes. I did. Don’t we all though? If someone is aiming a bullet at your sister and a stranger and you can only save one, who you gonna save?”

  “Life isn’t full of hypotheticals like that t
hough.”

  He laughed darkly. “Baby, those weren’t hypotheticals in my life. No lie. So yeah, I gave some people’s lives more value than others. That’s how I justified what I did. Never looked at it that way, but you’re right. And I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s what I chose to do.”

  I wondered if I’d regret my next question. “Can you give me an example? I just want to understand. Well not understand, but see where you’re coming from.”

  He folded his hands behind his head and sighed as he stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. His teeth tugged on his bottom lip. “All right so there was this guy, all right. He was pimp, and a shitty one at that. Got his girls on drugs, beat ‘em, didn’t protect them worth shit. I stayed out of his business because it wasn’t my business. That’s just survival. But he picked up one of Tara’s friends. Girl was a mess, dabbling in drugs, but she hadn’t done any hard shit until Baker picked her up.”

  “Baker?”

  “Yeah that’s what they called him. So he picked her up, got her shot up, and tossed her on the corner to work. Tara marched her ass into fucking Camden and pulled her into her car, took her home, got her clean. Baker was not happy. He shows up on my doorstep and says I have twelve hours to deliver Tara’s friend or he’d jab a needle into my sister’s veins.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I don’t like being told what to do by dickhead pimps. So I picked up Baker’s son—kid was twenty and a pimp himself, so I didn’t feel too bad— and slashed him from ear to throat and sent him back to his dad with a note that I’d wipe out Baker’s entire family if he didn’t drop the whole thing. Baker was a motherfucker but not stupid, and he wasn’t about to risk his family for one hooker, so he dropped it.”

  My stomach churned. “You…slashed him?”

  Bryan placed his thumb at the bottom of his ear and drew it down his jawline. “With a knife. Every time Baker would look at his son, he’d see that warning sign.”

  I didn’t want to imagine what Bryan looked like standing over a guy, slicing his neck, watching the blood stain his clothes, pool beneath the man’s body.

  Bryan must have seen the look on my face. He rolled over, and reached for me eyes concerned. “Jesus, baby I’m sorry.”

  I held up my hand. “It’s okay.”

  “Can I hug you?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “Fuck,” he hung his head. “Do you see now? Do you see why I made sure to handle all of that before I came back to you?”

  “Including Baker?” My tears spilled down my cheeks.

  “Shit, baby… yeah. Including Baker.”

  I wiped my face. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “I’ll be okay. I just need to sit with this. I understand you better now that we came to see Tara. Talking to her, I can see why you’re the way you are.”

  “And you can see why I want to be better?”

  I gave him a watery smile. “Yes,” I whispered.

  He kissed me, then held me, and I didn’t fall asleep for a long time as I listened to his deep even breaths.

  “Protector.” That one word came out of nowhere, with zero context.

  I straightened in my seat where I was about to doze off. Nothing but farmland stretched for miles around our car as we sped down a highway on our way home. “I’m sorry?”

  “Protector,” he said again. His jaw flexed as he stared straight out the windshield. One hand gripped the wheel, while the other was propped on the side of his door. “At your core, you’re all heart, that’s what you are. Right?”

  “Right, yes.”

  “Well I’m a protector,” he said, emphasizing his words with a bang on the wheel. “Sometimes I fuck it up, and a lot of times I’m misguided, but that’s when I feel most like myself. When I’m protecting and caring for my family. I didn’t realize it when I only cared about protecting Tara. But now that I have you and the baby, I’m falling back into that role.” His demeanor changed, smile spreading across his face. “And I want to. It feels good, like coming home to your bed after six months in a hotel. You know?”

  He was like a kid, almost childlike at his realization. I reached across the truck and rubbed his thigh. “I get it.”

  “Feels good to say it out loud.”

  “But you have to protect yourself too,” I said. “Because protecting me is protecting yourself. Understand?”

  He placed his hand over mine, expression softening. “Yeah, I understand.”

  I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, a smile on my face as I drifted off to sleep to the sound on Bryan humming along with the radio. I could do that in peace, because I was right next to my protector.

  Eighteen

  Sex while pregnant was a whole new experience. Maybe it was all the extra blood in my body, but felt everything felt bigger, better, more. Which was why sex in the morning was a bad idea. I loved sex in the morning with Bryan, but now that I lay on my back, aftershocks of my orgasm rocketing through me and Bryan’s hand caressing my belly, I was not in any sort of mood to get up for work.

  “Lime is kicking,” he said softly, his mouth against my shoulder, eyes directed down my body.

  I knew, I could feel it from inside, which was the craziest feeling. I placed my hand over his, and felt the small little kicks. We chose not to find out the gender of the baby, so as we neared the end of my second trimester, the baby was still “Lime.” We had our guesses though. Mine was boy. Luke’s was girl. Tara’s was gender fluid.

  We lay like that until Lime stopped moving, and the time crept closer to the last minute I needed to get up to be ready in time.

  “I have to get up,” I said. “Bumble Bee’s preschool class is coming in for a story time field trip.”

  “Want me to come in and read?” Bryan propped his chin on my shoulder.

  I shoved him away with a laugh. “No, I got it.” I rolled onto my side with a grunt and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  “Stay in bed. Have Verne do it.”

  “Can’t. Verne’s wife is having her colonoscopy today so he’s busy at the doctor with her.”

  I stood up and turned around to see Bryan wrinkling his nose, elbows braced behind him. “Really? You needed to give me details like that?”

  “I didn’t, but your face is funny.”

  “Now I gotta go to work thinking about that.”

  “Think about me naked instead.” I stretched my arms over my head and tried to strike a seductive pose. I knew what I looked like, swollen belly, enlarged breasts, puffy face. My hair and skin had never been better though. I’d never thought I’d feel sexy while pregnant, but Bryan made me feel that way. He loved my body even more now.

  His eyes heated, and he lunged across the bed at me. I squealed and ran into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. “No! I can’t be late!”

  He banged on the door as I turned the shower on. “Come on!” He called over sound of running water. “I’ll shower with you. Conservation first.”

  “No, last time we showered together while I had this belly, we both nearly fell and died.”

  “Fluke,” he said.

  “Go away, Bryan!” I stepped into the shower and lathered up as quickly as I could.

  “Fine! But because I still love you, I’ll have your breakfast ready.”

  I shook my head, smile nearly hurting my cheeks. This was my life now. Everything morning. Sex with Bryan, him making me feel wanted and sexy, and then breakfast ready and waiting for me. The what ifs were no longer what ifs. I was no longer questioning whether I made the right decision. Because this now, this morning, made everything worth it.

  When I got out the shower, I dried my hair quickly, pulled it into a bun at the crown of my head, and slipped into a maternity dress. I stared forlornly at my heels in the back of my closet. “Soon, babies,” I said, as I slipped into some flats.

  Out in the kitchen, Bryan had a plate of toast, fruit, and scrambled eggs waiting for me as he scarf
ed down a bowl of oatmeal. “Looking good, Peaches.”

  I glanced down at my dress, not even noticing I’d worn a coral color. “Thank you.” I ate quickly as I was cutting the time close. When I was gathering my things at the front door, Bryan hugged me from behind. “Gonna go shower.”

  “Okay. Where’s my planner?” I dug into my bag. “I swore it was in here.”

  “I’ll bring you lunch.”

  I dropped my bag on the table by the door. “Where the heck is it?” Then I spotted it on the floor to the hallway closet. I must have dropped it. I broke out of Bryan’s hold and bent to pick up the planner. “You don’t have to bring me lunch.”

  “Want to.” He leaned in as I walked by him and kissed the skin below my ear. “Have a great day, baby.”

  I quickly brushed a kiss on his cheek. “You too,” I muttered, realizing I still needed to clean up the story time area. I’d meant to do that the day before but then there’d been a critical cleanup of puke near the audio book shelves.

  I threw the door open and jogged out, waving over my shoulder. “Sorry gotta run. See ya tonight!”

  “Lunch!” he called after me.

  “Right, right.” I waved at him through the windshield as I pulled away. He stood in the doorway watching me. He wasn’t smiling. I waved again, and he grinned. I smiled back.

  An hour and a half later, story time was over, and I stood with the two teachers from Bumble Bee’s while the kids had a low-mess snack of pretzels and juice boxes.

  “Thanks, Sam,” said Meredith, a new hire at Bumble Bee’s who I graduated high school with. “You always make this something new and fun for me. More than just an adult in the front of the room reading a book.”

  I’d gone all out today. Puppets. Different voices. Interactive stuff with the kids shouting out words they knew. We even wrote our own story, which I had to guide since all preschoolers wanted to talk about were butts and poop. “Of course. This is fun for me.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need to sit down?” asked Harriet, the teacher who’d been at Bumble Bee’s the longest—two decades.