I helped her load up her car and opened her door for her. “Remember to call me as soon as you’re done. If you need anything, I’ll be here,” I said, leaning down to kiss her one more time before she climbed in. I couldn’t get enough of this woman’s kisses. I had seen doting, head-over-heels couples before, but never understood the appeal. Now I did.
“Thank you,” she said, a big smile on her face.
“Bye, Ky,” Stella shouted from the backseat.
“Bye, baby girl. Be good for your mama,” I told her.
Then I shut the door. I stood in the parking lot, watching them drive off. My life felt right, like I’d finally found the missing pieces, and they were Simone and Stella. I hadn’t expected it or even asked for it, but here I was, lucky in love. I headed to my car, counting down the days ‘til I could finally share my happiness with my family and friends.
Chapter 15
Simone
I watched Stella play with her grandparents. It was obvious Brad was going to miss another visitation. Everyone was having fun, but I was missing Kyle. He must have been missing me too because I heard a text come through on my phone.
Kyle: Hey! How’s everything?
Me: Everything’s fine. Brad bailed on visitation.
Kyle: I’m sorry.
Me: I don’t care but it makes me sad for Stella.
Kyle: How long are you going to stay?
Me: We’re having lunch with them so probably till 1. Do you want to meet at the apartment?
Kyle: Sure!
Me: Ok I’ll see you then.
I ended that text with a kissing emoji and immediately questioned whether I should have done that. After watching him with Stella this morning and knowing how he always tried to take care of me, I knew without a doubt that I was falling in love with him. However, I had no idea where he was mentally with everything and I was afraid of pushing him too quickly when it’d been my idea to take things slow. We were definitely on the fast track in our relationship, but, somehow, it didn’t feel like it was happening fast at all. It felt like a long time in the making.
I knew a relationship with me was a big undertaking, so he had to be into me at least a little to continue dating me with Stella as part of the deal. But I was all in and I wanted him to be as well.
Kyle: Is that emoji a promise of things I have to look forward to tonight? I sure hope so.
Well, thank goodness it didn’t freak him out. I tried not to react and make Marla or Jim curious.
Me: Maybe. : )
We left Jim and Marla’s after lunch. The plan was to put Stella down for a nap and then I could spend a few minutes getting ready before Kyle came over.
I got Stella out of the car and was climbing the steps to my apartment when I saw a man sitting next to my door. I stopped my ascent until I realized it was Brad sitting there. His clothes hung on him and it was evident he’d lost weight. Actually, he looked like he hadn’t showered for a couple days, either, and he had dark circles under his eyes. For a split second, I felt sorry for him, but then I felt a burning rage start to build up inside of me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, the anger in my voice clear as day.
He jumped up and I realized he hadn’t even noticed us coming up the stairs.
“Uh… hey.” He stood there awkwardly, nervous. Brad was never nervous. He eyed Stella when I put her down and she just stared up at him with no recognition of her own father. She tucked in close, hugging my left leg. I put my hand on top of her head, smoothing down her hair and letting the motion calm her, and me.
“Well?” I demanded, hand on my hip.
“I wanted to come and talk to you and to see Stella,” he said, quickly adding the part about Stella.
I glared at him, seething. “That’s why I was at your parents’ house earlier today. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
The Brad I knew emerged. He rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Simone, don’t be a bitch.”
“I’m being a bitch?” I yelled. I took a moment to calm down. This wasn’t any way for me to act with Stella watching me. “I haven’t heard from you in months and I’m just supposed to be nice to you when you decide to drop by?” I asked, quieter but no less angry.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding apologetic at all. “Can we just talk for a couple minutes? Please.”
As infuriated as I was by his sudden appearance, I also needed to get Stella inside. I just wanted him gone. “Fine, I need to put Stella down for a nap. We can talk as soon as I’m done.” I opened the door, walked through, and waited for him to close the door behind us.
I put the diaper bag down next to the door and then walked Stella into her room. As expected, Brad made no effort to interact with his daughter, which ticked me off even more. My girl deserved to have a father who loved her more than anything.
Someone like Kyle. A man who took time out to play with her, read her a story, or just talk to her even if her vocabulary wasn’t stellar yet. A man who woke up in the middle of the night to calm her down when she was teething and then stayed with her so she felt safe and comforted. Why couldn’t the man with a biological connection to her do the same?
“Time for a nap, sweetie,” I said as I lifted her up and placed her in the crib. “I love you.”
“Love you, Mama,” she responded, her eyelids already growing heavy.
I closed her door gently behind me and walked back into the living room where Brad was sitting on the couch with his head rested on the back cushion and his eyes closed.
“Hey,” I said while kicking his foot with my own to wake him. “What did you want to talk about?” I had absolutely no patience and I wasn’t going to act like the old Simone and be passive in order to keep him calm.
“Can’t you sit down?” he asked, but it sounded more like a demand.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Brad.” I crossed my arms and stared at him waiting for him to tell me why he was here. “Talk. Or get out.”
He wasn’t used to my sassy attitude. I wasn’t either, but I was done being used and treated like crap and just taking it when I deserved better. This was about me finally standing up to this asshole. “So, how are things going?” he started, looking cagey and uncertain.
Seriously? He was attempting to make small talk? I had no desire to engage with him.
“Brad, what do you want?” I asked again, my irritation with him growing even stronger.
“I want to come home,” he said, matter-of-fact.
“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I miss you and I want to come home,” he said, but he wasn’t even looking at me.
“Bullshit!” I knew the bastard didn’t want to come home. He made it obvious he could barely stand my presence when he was with me. There was absolutely no way he missed me.
“It’s not bullshit, Simone! I’ve been thinking about things and I want us to be a family again.” The jerk was totally trying to use my old insecurities in an effort to manipulate me.
“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there. In the seven months since we broke up, you have made no attempt to contact me, you’ve missed almost all of your visitation days, and you sure haven’t paid any child support. Now I’m supposed to believe you want to play the family man?” I asked, the sarcasm dripping from my words. I rolled my eyes. “Forgive me, but I just don’t buy it.”
He looked shocked at my statement. Maybe because when we were together he never heard me stand up to him until the day I told him I wanted a divorce. I had always tried to keep the peace, to not make waves because I had wanted to make things work between us so desperately.
But now I knew how a real relationship was supposed to be, how it should feel. I never had to hide my feelings from Kyle. I was able to express my needs without worrying that he was going to verbally berate me. I could never go back to the kind of relationship I had with Brad. One where I had to hide my feelings. And knowing that my daughter was doing well despite an
absent and uncaring father gave me courage to not fall back into the ridiculous notion that I needed to be with her father in order to provide stability or a happy home for her.
“What the fuck has gotten into you? I thought you would be happy I wanted to come back,” he said, genuinely surprised I wasn’t jumping up and down at his offer.
“Too much has happened,” I stated. I shook my head. “I’ve changed. I’m not the same person you were married to.”
“Is there someone else?” he asked, scowling at me.
“If there was, it wouldn’t be any of your business,” I shot back.
“Fuck that! Of course, it would be my business. Whoever you’re seeing would be involved with my daughter. I should have a say in that.”
That had my blood pressure spiking. “Like I had a say when you were fucking someone in our bed and doing drugs while our daughter was a room away?” I needed to take a breath. There was no point in arguing these details with him. I just needed him to leave.
I was about to tell him the conversation was over when I heard a knock at the door. I knew in my gut that Kyle was on the other side. Suddenly, I was filled with anxiety. There was so much bad blood between the two of them that I knew this could only end badly. It was one of the reasons why I’d wanted to keep our relationship quiet.
“Who the hell is that?” Brad asked, jumping up from the couch.
“None of your business,” I replied as I got up to answer the door before he could.
I pulled the door open and Kyle must have seen the distress on my face.
“Hey, babe, what’s wrong?” he asked, quietly.
“Is that the asshole you’re seeing?!” Brad shouted, trying to catch a glimpse of who was at the door.
Kyle looked over my shoulder and then back to me again. His face was red and there was a look in his eye that I had never seen before. He looked like he wanted to murder someone.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Kyle asked through gritted teeth.
“He was here when I came home. He said he wanted to talk.” I glared back at Brad. “I was just getting ready to ask him to leave,” I answered.
Kyle pushed the door open and stomped over to the couch. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, glowering at Brad.
Brad got right in Kyle’s face. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said. Then he turned toward me. “So this is the douchebag you’re seeing?”
“You don’t get to question her or her actions,” Kyle growled, clearly pissed off and getting angrier. “You lost that right a long time ago. Now you get to deal with me.”
I was worried this was going to get out of hand quickly.
Suddenly, Brad started laughing, like hysterically laughing. “I can’t believe this,” he managed to get out between laughing fits. “How in the world did this even happen? Wait, is this how you paid your legal fees. A fuck for every few billable hours?”
Brad couldn’t spew another vicious word from his mouth before Kyle’s fist was crashing into his jaw. Brad fell backwards onto the carpet but that didn’t stop him from getting in one last jab, this one directed to Kyle. “How can you possibly want to be with the whore I cheated on your sister with?”
I saw Kyle start to charge so I jumped in front of him. “Stop!” I pleaded. “He’s not worth it.”
“He’s not, but you are,” Kyle declared, and lunged toward Brad again.
I placed my hands on his chest and gently pushed him back. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to physically move him, but I hoped my touch would calm him a little. “Please, just let it go.”
He finally made eye contact with me and relaxed a tiny bit. “You need to get the hell out of here,” he said, looking around me at Brad.
“I’ll talk to you later,” Brad said to me as he pushed up off the ground and moved toward the door.
“No, you won’t,” Kyle sneered.
“Dude, you can’t keep me from talking to my daughter’s mother,” he said, emphasizing that Stella was his, and then he slammed the door behind him as he left.
“Is your hand okay?” I asked, carefully grabbing hold of the hand he had used to knock Brad to the ground.
“It’s fine,” Kyle said, tension still radiating off him. “So what did he want to talk to you about?”
I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of peas out of the freezer for his hand while he went to the sink to run water over his knuckles. “He said he wanted to get back together,” I answered truthfully. I examined his knuckles but the skin hadn’t split and it looked okay. I put the peas in a towel and placed it over his right hand, just in case.
“Are you serious?” he asked, incredulous and fuming. “The nerve…”
“Well, that’s what he said, but I don’t believe him for a second,” I explained. Holding the frozen veggies on his hand, I looked back at Stella’s quiet room, surprised she had slept through the chaos out here. I glanced back up at him. “There had to be more to it. There is no way he decided he wanted to suddenly play house. If I had to guess, Tiffany kicked him out again and he needed a place to crash.”
He looked at me, then down at his feet. “What did you tell him… when he said he wanted to get back together?” he asked cautiously, but his face was tense, ready for bad news.
I didn’t like his expression or the tone in his voice, like he knew what I’d say and it wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. In my heart, I knew I would never go back to the type of relationship I had with Brad. The feelings I had for Kyle went beyond anything I had ever felt before. Maybe he didn’t feel as strongly about me and therefore didn’t understand that I no longer wanted any part of that.
When I didn’t say anything right away, he continued. “I know how much you wanted things to work out with him—for Stella’s sake.”
“Are you serious right now?” I asked with a hint of anger. How dare he doubt what I would do in this situation!
He hesitated and tossed the bag of peas aside. He ran a hand through his hair. I could see the doubt in his eyes as he faced me. “I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying. I just thought what we have together meant a lot to both of us. The fact that you think I would give that up to go back to him—well, it hurts.” I was trying to keep the sadness out of my voice and tears out of my eyes.
I started to move away from him but he reached out and grabbed my hand.
“Hey, come here,” Kyle said, pulling me into his arms. “You’re right, I’m so sorry, babe. I shouldn’t have doubted you for one second. Just seeing him here made me crazy. The thought of losing you freaked me out. Please forgive me.”
“Kyle, of course, I forgive you,” I said, sinking into his body. I looked up at him. “But I need you to trust that I’m not the same person I was when I came to you seven months ago.”
“I won’t ever question you on this again,” he said. We stayed there in each other’s arms in the middle of kitchen for a few minutes.
“Let me go get her,” Kyle said when we heard Stella waking up.
The three of us spent the rest of the day together. I felt content hanging out at the house with Kyle and my daughter even after the crazy afternoon. I woke up Sunday morning in Kyle’s arms. It was a perfect way to start my day. Then, my text alert went off, and with it, my bad mood started.
Brad: So you and Kyle, huh? I wonder what he would think if he knew about the night we first got together.
I swallowed hard, gripping my phone so tight I could hear it start to crack. Brad still knew how to hit me where it hurt. I hadn’t told a soul about the night Brad and I met. I wasn’t proud of my actions that night. I had done things I was ashamed of and had never done again. Kyle had told me about his mother’s drug addiction and how she eventually died of a drug overdose. I also knew he was still angry with her even after all this time—
I felt it just then: fear, panic, and desperation, all at the same time and in equal measure. I never wanted him to view me in the same way he viewed
his mother.
Me: What do you want?
Brad: Well I wanted a place to stay but I guess that won’t be happening.
Me: No it won’t and that has nothing to do with Kyle.
Brad: Well I wouldn’t get too attached.
Me: What is that supposed to mean?
Brad never answered my last text and it left me feeling unsettled. I wanted to tell Kyle the truth, but I feared he wouldn’t understand and eventually it would be a deal-breaker for him. I couldn’t lose him over a one-time mistake three years ago.
*****
A week and a half later, it was Wednesday evening, the day before Thanksgiving.
Kyle was at my apartment where he spent a majority of his time now. He’d slowly brought a few things over, taking over a drawer in both my bedroom and bathroom. We hadn’t really discussed it, but it felt natural and the three of us had fallen into a rather comfortable routine, our lives seamlessly blending together.
Tonight, like most nights, he’d come straight here after work, still in his suit. We had enjoyed a home-cooked dinner, and then I cleaned up the kitchen while Kyle had put Stella to bed. Now, we were relaxing on the couch, snuggled up and watching some crime drama Kyle liked and just enjoying each other’s presence. This was how I’d always wanted my home and family life to be. I wasn’t even watching the show. I stared at the screen but I was listening to beat of his heart. Right now, my life was better than I could have ever imagined it. Perfect, really.
But the past several days hadn’t been all sunshine and roses. A couple things had been weighing on my mind, more and more. There was Brad’s weird text that I was hoping was just him blowing hot air because he never followed through on anything. Add to that, I hadn’t yet told Kyle about the threat. If Kyle’s history with Brad wasn’t so ugly, I may have shown him the texts. I hated not telling him the truth, but everything was going good and the old Simone kept whispering: Don’t ruin it. It could all blow over, right? God, I hoped so. I really did…
Falling for the Unexpected (Life Unexpected Book 1) Page 23