by Quinn, Taryn
She gripped my hand fiercely, cutting me off mid-stream. A good thing, since blubbering was sure to follow. “I’ll be there every step of the way. I swear.”
“Okay.” I exhaled, long and slow, and squeezed her fingers. “Okay. I can do this.”
“You absolutely can. You’re happy, aren’t you? For real? Not just to ease my mind.”
“No. I’m genuinely happy. Scared out of my mind, but happier than I’ve ever been. I want my baby.”
“Not just yours,” she reminded me, as if I could ever forget.
“I know.” I forced a smile onto my face. “My parents will be here tomorrow. My mom told me to tell you to keep the baby in until she got here.”
Ally chuckled. “Aww, that’s great. I can’t wait to see them.” Then her forehead wrinkled. “What are they going to say?”
I shrugged. “Truthfully? My mom will probably tell me I have very good taste.”
“Well, you do. As do I.”
We shared a conspiratorial grin and then I leaned forward to give her a gentle hug. “I’m going to swing by the house, see if he needs help with Laurie.”
“Oh, he should be free now. Mr. Hamilton—James,” she corrected herself, “was stopping by to relieve him after he and Seth had a cup of coffee. So, if you want some privacy away from my house,” her pointed glance made me duck my head, “he should be available.”
“We do keep our clothes on sometimes, I’ll have you know. Besides, he’s mad at me. Pretty sure screwing won’t be the first thing on his mind.”
“That’s a bet you don’t want to make. He’s male. It’s first, second, third, and fifth.”
“What’s fourth?”
“Eating between rounds.”
I had to laugh as I hugged her once more and promised to return to see the baby first thing in the morning when they got sprung.
As soon as I stepped out of the room, I pulled out my phone.
The hour of reckoning had arrived.
Fourteen
I’d just started a movie for Laurie—that freaking Trolls, which she loved—when Sage’s ringtone drew me away from some paperwork. Normally, I’d be putting Laurie to bed around now. But tonight was a big night. Her little brother had just been born, and she was all wound up. I hadn’t even bothered trying to corral her, hoping she’d wear herself out with singing and dancing trolls and mindless babbling about how one day she was going to marry Justin Timberlake.
Kids today had no taste.
And adults today would stall by thinking disparaging thoughts about pop stars to avoid looking at their phone.
I finally gave in and read Sage’s text, the words reverberating in my head as if she was at my side and saying them.
Hi. If you don’t hate me, can we talk? It’s important.
I didn’t even have to think about my answer.
I don’t hate you. When?
My first guess was that she’d suggest tomorrow. Maybe after work. Important or not, it was late enough in the evening that if we spoke now, there was little chance of us not ending up in bed.
Even if she told me she was using me, it was probably going to happen. I wasn’t proud of it, but I was honest. At least about that. I wanted her, and even going two days without having her felt like an unbearably long time.
Her answer came swiftly.
Tonight. Now. If you can. I know you’re with Laurie, but your dad is coming to relieve you. I think. Or if he doesn’t, we can hang there. I can help.
Joint babysitting my niece wasn’t what I had in mind. I wasn’t insistent on sex happening, since Sage was apt to need to say any-damn-thing. But if we spent the night watching Laurie, it was most likely guaranteed not to.
After having to see Trolls again, I deserved for it to at least be an option on the table.
I tapped out a response.
My dad is probably on his way, as you said. I’ll meet you in an hour? If something comes up, I’ll text.
Meet me where?
I debated for a moment before replying.
The cabin. It’s still set up for V-day.
Yes, that was me, taking jabs where I could. Another thing I wasn’t proud of, but when a guy gets labeled as a convenient penis, well, shit happens.
She didn’t take long to answer.
Ok. I’ll be @ the cabin in 1 hr. Text if James doesn’t show.
I blinked. Hmm. Guess she really was chummy with my father. I wasn’t entirely sure he even allowed Ally to call him James. If he did, it was a recent development.
“Unca Ollie, can I see my brother again?” Laurie came over to me and pressed her little hands on my knees, giving me her most imploring expression.
“Sure thing.” I flicked away Sage’s text and pulled up the one Seth had sent with the baby’s picture.
My new nephew was so small. So easy to break. I’d held Laurie shortly after her birth and I’d been struck by the same thing then. I wondered if Seth ever got freaked out. He didn’t seem to, but then again, I hoped I wasn’t obvious about my thoughts on the subject either.
When Laurie was born, I’d been all too eager to hand her back to her parents. She was cute and all, and I’d loved her before she was born, but I hadn’t had any interest in children. Not even peripherally.
Over the past five years, things had changed. I’d changed. Not necessarily to the point where I was eager to procreate, but the idea wasn’t as abhorrent as it once was. I’d also developed some affinity for children. My niece in particular, but I had to hope she wasn’t an isolated case. My new nephew would be a secondary test. If that affinity extended to him as well, perhaps one day I might even consider having my own.
One. Possibly two.
Probably one was enough.
But then two meant they’d have a sibling, and no one liked being an only child. That had been Seth’s original reasoning for his proposal for Ally, though how he’d gone from hey, need a sibling, to hey, need an entire football team, I did not know.
“Unca Ollie, picture!” Laurie craned her neck to see my phone, and I realized I’d been lost in a world of my own making.
One where I was thinking about having children, God help me.
This was all Seth’s fault. Damn him. If he’d set off some internal twin alarm clock with his incessant reproducing, I was going to kick his ass.
“Here you go. Sorry.” I turned the phone toward her and she grabbed it, pulling the screen close to her face so she could examine every detail.
“He no look like me,” she said sadly.
“You mean his hair color?”
She nodded.
“Well, it’s early days yet. Your dad and I were born with blond hair that got darker. Sometimes it changes.”
“He’s not a girl.”
My lips twitched. Laurie had been defiant about wanting a sister until Ally had told her she was having a boy, and we all thought she’d come to terms with the idea of him being male. Clearly, deep down, she had not.
“No, he’s a little boy. But boys are fun too.”
She looked at me, her lower lip stuck out. Waiting for evidence.
“Well, how about your friend Wes at school?”
Her expression brightened. “My boyfriend?”
I was just going to ignore that tidbit. “Yes, your friend who is a boy. You like him, don’t you?”
“Yes, we are gonna get married soon.”
I filed that information away to harass Seth with at a later date. Probably when he finally cornered me about Sage, which I expected to be anytime, now that Ally had popped out the kid.
“Does your father know? He must be so excited.”
Laurie put her finger up to her mouth and let out an exaggerated “shh” as if Seth could actually hear her. “Is a secret.”
“Ah, I know how that is.” And I was glad at least the secrecy part of everything was finished. Even if the way it had all come out was horrifying at best.
Method aside, I was still glad the sneaking around didn’t h
ave to continue. If anything was going to continue between me and Sage at all.
“Wes is okay. For a boy,” she added, back to staring at my phone. “I don’t know if my brother will be.”
That she pronounced brother as “bwother” every time was far cuter than it should have been.
“I wasn’t happy with mine either at first.”
Laurie frowned. “My daddy?”
“Yes. I was stuck with him from day one. He was whiny and smelly and I didn’t want him around. Until your grandfather took him to school one day and I had to stay home because I was sick. You know what happened?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
“I was bored and lonely the whole day. I didn’t have anyone to talk to or play with or even to annoy. It wasn’t fun at all.”
“You wanted him to come back?”
I nodded. “And when we were at the same high school and he came back here to come to school with Ally, I didn’t like it then either.”
“Because he’s your best fwiend?”
I wouldn’t have characterized Seth that way—as the wise Sage had once said, I didn’t have many friends—but I supposed it was true.
“Yes.” I swallowed hard and tucked my phone against my hip. “I guess you’re right.”
Laurie screwed up her nose. “But what if they like him better?” she whispered.
“That is not possible. I promise. Though, I don’t know, you do make a lot of noise.” I caught her around the waist and tipped her upside down, making her squeal with laughter.
We were playing helicopter when my father came in, smiling wider than I’d ever seen him.
“There’s my little girl. Going to come say hi to Grandpa?”
She clambered down and ran over to grab him around the knees. He’d never been an overly active grandparent until the last year or so, and we’d all wondered why. Now he was positively beaming.
He could’ve had a change of heart. That happened occasionally. Even to hard-shelled Hamilton men.
Not that I knew anything about that.
Once Laurie ran off to the kitchen to get a juice box, I gave my father a quick hug. “How’s the baby?”
“Handsome, healthy, and strong. A Hamilton through and through.” My father grinned. “How are things here?”
“Fine. She’s been watching Trolls.”
“Again?”
I had to laugh. “It is her favorite. You’ve come to relieve me, I heard?”
“From who? Your brother?”
“Sage,” I said carefully, testing the waters. I didn’t know if he’d overheard the office brouhaha the other day—I certainly hoped not—but I was interested to see how he’d react to the idea of us in any case.
I got my answer swiftly.
“Are you dating her?” he demanded.
I started to say no. We hadn’t discussed this, and public was a word that wasn’t part of our relationship. If we even still had one. But my curiosity won out.
“And if I said I was?”
“I’d say it’s about time you got that right.” He clapped my shoulder hard enough to dislodge a bone or two. “She’s a good girl. You be careful with her, or you’ll answer to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
I said my goodbyes to Laurie and walked out more shell-shocked than I wanted to admit. My father hadn’t given Seth a hard time about Marj, Laurie’s mother, but he’d been reluctant to offer Ally the same seal of approval. He finally had, and now seemed to treat her as he would a daughter.
Sage had always been different. Somehow she was special to him. My father wasn’t exactly friendly, but when it came to Sage, he’d never had anything but smiles and warmth.
That was her power. She could turn foes into friends, enemies into lovers.
Players into men who wanted to fucking commit, even if they didn’t have the foggiest idea how to be worthy of her.
I arrived at the cabin and pulled into the driveway behind her car. I climbed out and walked up to the driver’s side door. Sage was still seated inside, her eyes closed as she sang along to something with the light of the makeup mirror illuminating her face.
Her beauty was staggering.
I knocked on her window and all at once, her joy disappeared. She turned off the car and opened the door, her expression wary. “Hi.” She passed a hand over her hair as I stepped back, giving her room to disembark. “I was a little early.”
“And I was a little late.” I rubbed my thumb over her cheekbone and she visibly shuddered, even in the near darkness alleviated only by the scattered security lights. “Are you wearing different makeup?”
“What? No. Why?” She took a minute step away from me, but it might as well have been a mile.
I’d never been this fucking greedy for contact before. The more she sidestepped me and sought distance, the more I wanted to pull her close and never let her go. Just bury myself inside her and sink into her kiss and forget the rest of the world existed.
Powerful? Hell, she was a goddamned titan.
“You looked luminescent while you were singing.”
She released an awkward little laugh. “You forget your contacts today or something?”
That she’d even noticed I wore them boggled me. She paid attention, far more than I gave her credit for.
When I didn’t respond, she exhaled. “Look, I wanted to apologize.”
“It’s done. Over with.”
“Oh, really? Is that why you haven’t called me—” She stopped herself and held up a hand. “Don’t answer that.”
“I haven’t called you because I thought it was better we both take some time to think.”
“You mean because I indicated you were akin to a living vibrator. Hop on and use, hop off and move on.”
“Your choice of description leaves much to be desired. But yes.”
“That wasn’t it at all. I swear. I told you I was glad it was you, and I meant it. I told Ally that too tonight.”
Swallowing suddenly became a lot more difficult. “You did?”
“Yes. I told her the truth—that you were exactly what I needed that night, and a lot of nights since. I screwed up. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain, and I’ve been bottling too much inside. I’m sorry.” She moved forward and tipped her head against my chin. “I’m so sorry, Oliver.”
It was easier than I expected to just stroke a hand over her hair and breathe her in. She smelled like the lake mixed with the crispness of the snowy night. Fresh, pure. Completely intoxicating.
Mine.
“You saw the baby?” I asked huskily.
“Not in person yet. I just missed him. He wasn’t breathing as well as he could be, but he’s fine. I saw a picture though. He’s gorgeous. Pink and perfect.” She swallowed audibly. “You saw one too, I’m assuming?”
“I did. Probably the same one. Laurie was disappointed he doesn’t look like her.”
“Oh, well, babies change so much.”
“Exactly what I told her. I’m not sure she believed me. But then I told her how I thought I didn’t want Seth around until—” I broke off as she fidgeted and shoved my hands in my pockets. “You probably don’t care about any of this.”
“I do. I really do. It’s just… God, this is so hard.”
I’d thought we were finished with our big talk after we’d discussed the office incident. But from the way she was wringing her purse between her hands, we clearly were not.
I wasn’t ready to hear what she had to say, whatever it was. Maybe if I led her inside, distracted her with other pressing needs, she’d forget.
All I wanted to do was to go back to where we’d been in my office, minus the secrecy. With that gone, things were perfect. Or they could be, if she’d just let them.
“What were you singing?” I asked, wanting another minute’s reprieve. “You turned off the radio before I could hear the song.”
She laughed softly. “‘It’s Raining Men’.”
“Oh. Huh. Do you sing often?
I never noticed, except at Celine Dion. And you sang along with Elvis. Well, fake Elvis. So, yes, I guess you do like to sing.” I exhaled. “All right, whatever else it is you’d like to say, just say it. I considered seducing you to delay it, but that’s ridiculous. So…out with it.”
She stepped closer and stroked her hand over my tie, from the knot all the way down. My stomach trembled as if she’d used her tongue. “I hope you still want to seduce me after I’ve told you. I could really use the stress relief.”
I frowned. “Told me what?”
“You’re going to be a daddy.”
Fifteen
Oliver gazed at me as if I were speaking in tongues. How he could be so vexed was beyond me. He’d seen the evidence. For pity’s sake, he’d pulled parts of it out of my damn body.
“Broken condom, remember?”
He didn’t say a word. I wasn’t even sure he was still breathing. And despite the near darkness, I would’ve sworn he’d gone pale.
“I didn’t want to wait to tell you. I just found out tonight, before Seth called me about the baby. The other baby. Not ours. God.” I let out an awkward, semi-maniacal laugh and pushed a hand through my hair.
I wished I’d pulled on a hat before I headed out to the hospital. This wind was brutal, and we were standing outside on a property that backed up to the frozen-over lake. If that wasn’t enough, it had started to snow again, the flakes clinging to my cheeks and chin. Even my eyelashes. I blinked them away, hoping the view had changed.
Nope. Oliver was still standing motionless.
Dread curled around me like smoke, acrid and bitter in my throat. I glanced at my car, half tempted to climb in and drive away. But he was blocking me. I couldn’t escape.
“Oliver, for fuck’s sake, say something.”
He didn’t make me wait long. And when he spoke, I wished he hadn’t.
“This is all Seth’s fault.”
“Excuse me?” I crossed my arms over my front, but it wasn’t lost on me that I was protecting more than myself now. “If you’re going to start with some nonsense about if Seth and Ally hadn’t made you go to Vegas, none of this would have happened—”