by Vi Keeland
She shook her head but smiled. “You’re gross.”
“Yeah. You think that’s gross?” I stuffed her underwear into my jeans pocket. “I’m keeping these until later, and I’m going to snort them like a fucking perv on the long bus ride home as some sort of demented foreplay before I come back and eat you.”
***
Jayce seemed distracted as we waited in line for coffee. “My treat,” I said when we got to the register.
“Thanks.”
He was quiet even when we sat down. “What’s up with you? You look like someone killed your dog.”
Jayce forced a smile. “Just tired, I guess.”
“New fiancée wearing you out already, old man?”
My brother stared down at his cup. “She’s pregnant.”
Not exactly the direction I expected this conversation to go. “Wow. Umm…congratulations.”
He raked fingers through his hair. “I really like her a lot.”
“You don’t love her?”
He shook his head. “No. I wish I did.”
“Then why did you ask her to get married?”
“It was an accident.”
My brows rose. “An accident? How, exactly, do you accidentally propose to someone.”
His head dropped into his hands. “I don’t know. She told me she was pregnant, and she was upset. Obviously, it wasn’t planned. She was crying and said she’d always dreamed of getting married and having kids but not starting a family so young and on her own. I would never abandon her, and I didn’t want her to feel like she was doing it on her own.”
“So you asked her to marry you?”
Jayce yanked on his hair. “Fuck! I hated seeing her bawl, and it’s my responsibility, too.”
“Maybe she feels the same way? She might be scared and not want to marry you either. What did she say when you asked her?”
He slumped farther into his chair. “Her face lit up, and she jumped into my arms and said she loved me.”
Shit. Jayce is a stand-up guy. As much as it seems ludicrous that someone could accidentally ask someone to marry him—it made total sense when it came to my brother. In fact, he was such a good guy that I knew the answer to my next question before I even asked. “Did you tell her you loved her back?”
He looked at me. Of course he did.
When he picked up his coffee to drink, his hand was shaking so badly that he sloshed it all over the place.
“It’s gonna be okay, bro.”
“How?”
“You’ll talk to her. Tell her you care about her and you plan to support the baby, but you’re not ready to get married.”
Jayce stayed quiet for a long time. He looked deep in thought. “Why can’t I love her?” He mumbled. “She deserves better than a guy who can’t give her his heart because someone still has a piece of it.”
I closed my eyes.
My fucking heart broke for so many reasons.
Chapter 25
Natalia
I woke to an empty bed.
I’d left my phone somewhere in the living room, and there wasn’t a bedside alarm clock. The blinds were drawn, but the slats were open, and since no light was coming in, I guessed it wasn’t yet morning. But where was Hunter? I waited a few minutes to see if he’d just gotten up to get a drink or use the bathroom, but he didn’t come back, and the apartment had no sound of anyone moving around. Unable to fall back asleep, I wrapped a sheet around my naked body and went to look for the man whose arms I’d drifted off in.
All of the lights were off, but the city from beyond the sliding glass doors illuminated the apartment enough for me to see that Hunter wasn’t in it. Finding my phone, I checked the time—four-thirty in the morning. We’d only fallen asleep a couple of hours ago. Perhaps Hunter was an early riser gym rat?
This girl wasn’t, so I decided to head back to bed and get the answer when I woke back up in a few more hours. I was almost at the door to the bedroom when movement from the balcony caught my attention. Hunter was sitting outside.
I watched him for a few moments as he stared off into space. He looked deep in thought, almost troubled. Eventually I walked to the door and slid it open. He turned at the sound.
“Hey. What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“Just getting some fresh air.”
I pulled the sheet tighter around me. “It’s freaking cold.”
“Didn’t even notice.”
“You looked lost in thought. Anything you want to talk about?”
Hunter’s eyes met mine. He seemed to deliberate for a moment, but then he shook his head and looked away as he spoke.
“No. Just couldn’t sleep.” He stood. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed.”
He was quiet as we walked back to the bedroom and even quieter as we slipped back into bed. Just like last night, he lay on his back and pulled me to him so my head rested on his chest. I listened to his heartbeat for a while, and even though I found it soothing, I still had an unsettled feeling.
Turning over from my side to my belly, I put two hands on Hunter’s chest and used them to prop up my head so I could see his face while I spoke.
“Do you have trouble sleeping often?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is it trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?”
“Both.”
“Is it because you have a lot on your mind?”
“Maybe.”
“You know what I heard helps with that?”
“What?”
“Giving more than a one-word answer,” I said sarcastically.
Hunter’s lip twitched. “You know what I heard helps?”
“What?”
He did some ninja-like move that flipped me onto my back, and suddenly he was hovering over me. “Strenuous physical activity.”
“Umm…how often do you wake up? Because if that’s the case, I might not be able to walk by Monday.”
The cloud that had shadowed his eyes only a few moments earlier seemed to lift. “Would you think I was a total dick if I admitted I’d love for you to burn every time you sit down on Monday?”
“You want me in pain?”
“No, I want you to remember what it felt like for me to be inside you.”
I was certain that wouldn’t be a problem. I raised my hands over my head and arched my back, hoisting my breasts toward his face. “Do your best, Mr. Delucia.”
***
Hunter had a few hours of work he needed to do, so I went down to the Italian grocery store I’d spotted at the corner to pick up something for lunch. We’d stayed up until after the sun rose and finally fallen back asleep until after ten. I’d woken to Hunter’s erection prodding me from behind as we spooned. The man had an insatiable appetite for sex.
I picked out all of my favorite finger foods to snack on for lunch—black olives, stuffed grape leaves, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes with basil, marinated mushrooms—rather than just a boring sandwich or something. By the time I got to the cash register, my handheld basket weighed a ton, and I’d managed to ring up eighty dollars worth of crap.
Hunter had given me a key to get back in, but my hands were too full, so I used my foot to knock. He came to the door with a pencil behind his ear, a pair of low-hanging sweatpants, and no shirt. Damn. All these good Italian snacks—and him.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to put everything down to use the key because one of the bags is starting to break. I think the olive container spilled because my hand is holding the groceries in.”
Hunter grabbed the two bags from my left arm and attempted to take the other.
“No, I got this one. I don’t want it to break.”
In the kitchen, Hunter peeked into the bags. “What is all this stuff? I thought you were going to the deli to get lunch?”
“This is lunch.”
He furrowed his brow and reached into one bag. “Cannolis?”
“It’s dairy. One of the four main food groups.”
Pulling ano
ther item from the bag, he held up a container of rainbow cookies.
I pointed. “That falls into breads and cereals.”
He lifted a brow.
“What? It has the same ingredients. Flour, salt, eggs…”
He set it down and pulled out a package of stuffed grape leaves. My mouth watered. “Fruits and vegetables.”
He shook his head. “It’s the leaf of a fruit. Not quite sure it counts as a fruit or vegetable itself.”
I took them from his hand. “Semantics.”
Chuckling, he reached in again. This time, he came up with a large jar of Nutella. “This one I know.”
“You do?”
He ignored me and opened the jar, peeling back the silver freshness seal before sticking his finger in and scooping out some of the heavenly creamy stuff inside. I knew from the cheeky grin on his face when he looked up that his interest had nothing to do with the deliciousness of the spread. Leaning in, he ran his finger along my exposed collarbone before bending to suck the hazelnut off.
“Body paint. This goes in the bedroom for later.”
I laughed because I thought he was kidding, but he disappeared into the bedroom with that jar. My mind started to race with what I’d be painting and sucking later.
When he returned, he squeezed me from behind and kissed the top of my head. “Thank you for going to the store. I’ll help you unpack and then finish up. I only need ten more minutes or so.”
“Don’t be silly. Go do your work. I’ll get everything unpacked and put away and make us a nice spread of snacks.”
Hunter kissed my forehead. “Thanks.” He walked halfway to the dining room table and turned back. “Almost forgot...Derek called while you were out. He’s coming to town for business in two weeks. Wants to meet us for drinks.”
“Okay. That sounds great. Anna mentioned he had a trip coming up.”
I took my time with the groceries and made a sampler platter of all the goodies. Hunter had blueprints spread all over the table, and when I saw him begin to ravel the top one back into a roll, I brought lunch and some plates to the table.
“Looks awesome,” he said.
“Did you get done what you needed to do?”
“Yeah. This project’s been going on for years. We’re the third builder on it. Whenever there’s more than one builder, there’s a reason.” He wrapped a rubber band around the roll he’d been working on and tapped it to the table. “Owner is from Dubai and doesn’t realize New York City has a byzantine building code. The building is old and needs structural reinforcements for everything he wants to do. Which is fine, but when you change the weight of what you’re building three times during the renovation, and the first builder used beams that barely supported the first set of plans, you’re basically starting over. And even though almost all blueprints and plans are done on a computer now, he wants to see every set of changes on an old-school, pencil-and-paper blueprint drawing.”
“What does he keep changing that makes it so heavy?”
“The house on top of the building.”
I’d thought I’d heard him wrong. “He’s housing something on top of the building?”
“Yeah. A house.” Hunter chuckled. “He’s building a house on top of the roof of an old cast-iron building.”
“A whole house?”
“Pretty much.”
“Why? Is the building not residential?”
“No, most of it’s residential except for the commercial storefronts on the bottom two floors.”
“So why not just renovate an apartment instead of building a house on top of the roof. I don’t get it.”
“Building is a playground for the extraordinarily wealthy in New York. You can’t look for logic. The answer is always the same—because they can.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Keeps me employed. This particular building is actually really beautiful. I’ll take you to see it one day, if you want. The top floors are closed during renovations, and we’re at a standstill until the city approves the recent round of changes.”
“I’d like that. Even though I’ve lived here all my life, I don’t really take the time to appreciate the architecture.”
“Ever think about living somewhere else?” Hunter asked.
“I used to. I went to college here in the city, and Anna went to school out in California. We’d take turns visiting each other over breaks and had big plans for me to move out to the west coast so we could live next door to each other again. We planned to be pregnant at the same time and for our daughters to be second-generation best friends.”
“Could still happen. I’m sure Anna and Derek will have more kids.”
A picture of Anna and me sitting in Hunter’s yard with babies on our laps, while Derek and Hunter stood nearby at the barbeque making dinner, suddenly flashed before my eyes. The thought warmed me, even though it also scared the crap out of me that my head had gone there. Hunter wasn’t in this for the long haul. This was just a fling. Wasn’t it?
I smiled hesitantly, afraid to get my hopes up, but deep down knowing they already were. “Maybe. You never know, I guess.”
Chapter 26
Natalia
Hunter and Derek were already seated at the bar when I walked in. Spotting me, both men stood. As I made my way over, I realized it was the first time Hunter and I had been out in public with a friend. Over the last few weeks, we’d spent as much time as we could together—meeting for breakfast if we couldn’t see each other at night, taking a dozen kids out to dinner for Izzy’s sixteenth birthday, watching her basketball games, sneaking in a daytime movie between my counseling sessions. We even had lunch on the roof of his jobsite one afternoon, not to mention we’d spent so much time in bed, it was surprising I could walk. Yet we’d been in a private bubble. Unless you counted Izzy, we were always alone.
So as I approached the two men, I wasn’t quite sure how to greet Hunter. He settled that internal debate for me the moment I neared. Taking my hand, he pulled me flush against him, gave my hair a little tug, urging my head back, and planted a possessive kiss on my lips.
I smiled, more than satisfied with his greeting, and let out a breathy “hey” before turning my attention to Derek. “How’s my sweet little Caroline’s baby daddy?”
Derek smiled and bent to kiss my cheek. “I’m good. Will I sound like a total wuss-bag if I say I miss the way she smells?”
My heart let out a beautiful sigh. “Not at all. You sound like the perfect man.”
“Hey…what about me?” Hunter chided.
“Awww.... You’re slighted because I paid a compliment to another man? That’s cute. But my heart just melted a little hearing him say he missed the way she smells. It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. Not sure you can top that, pretty boy.”
Hunter wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to him. “I miss the way parts of you smell, too.”
I elbowed him. “That’s not romantic; that’s perverted.”
“What’s the difference?”
We all laughed, and Hunter pulled a bar stool around so the three of us could sit in a little circle at the bar. We caught up on baby pictures, Anna’s newest obsession with everything in the house needing to be organic, and Caroline’s most recent checkup.
“I almost forgot—Anna wants me to call while I’m with you guys. She gave me specific instructions to order you both mimosas and call on speakerphone.”
Hunter had already ordered a glass of wine for me. I held it up to my lips before sipping. “We can skip the mimosas. I’ll tell her you ordered them if she asks.”
“Oh no. You have no idea how hormonal my wife is right now. I’m not taking any chances.” Derek motioned for the bartender and asked for three mimosas before calling Anna on speakerphone.
“Hey, babe. You’re on speakerphone.”
“Do they have mimosas?”
“They do. Got myself one, too.”
“After we hang up, send me a picture of the two
of them with their drinks.”
Derek arched an eyebrow at us as if to say I told you. “Will do.”
“Hi, Nat!” Anna yelled.
“Hi!”
“Hi, Hunter. Are you taking good care of my girl?”
“I’m trying,” he said and gave my knee a little squeeze.
“I wish I could be there with you guys right now. But it’s too soon to fly with Caroline with all the recycled germs on a plane. So, since Derek had to be in town for business this week anyway, this is as close to the four of us sitting together as I could come up with. Derek, do you have my props ready?”
He shook his head, indicating that he thought his wife was loony, but reached into his pocket, nonetheless. “Got it.”
“Okay. Show the first picture.”
Derek held up a picture of me and Anna. We were probably only about four or five and were pushing our old baby carriages with our dolls inside.
“Nat, I’ve known you my whole life,” Anna said. “You’re the best friend a girl could ever have. When I was putting together what I wanted to say today, I tried to think of an example of when I’d asked you for help and you were there for me. But I couldn’t. Because even though I’ve needed your help often over the last twenty-plus years, I’ve never had to ask for it. You’re there giving it before I even have the chance.” Anna’s voice cracked, and I knew she was tearing up. “You’re my person, Nat. And I love you and trust you with my life.”
I was feeling all choked up myself. “Love you, too, Anna Bow Banya.”
She cleared her throat. “Your turn, Derek. Next prop.”
Derek shook his head, but shuffled the pictures so he was now showing an old photo of what I assumed was him and Hunter. “You beat up Frankie Munson when he called me a nerd in sixth grade. In eighth grade, when I was too shy to ask a girl to the dance, you asked the hottest two girls to go to the dance with us. In tenth grade, when you were captain of the football team, and I was captain of the debate team, you didn’t give a crap that you hung out with a nerd. You’ve always had my back, bro.”