“No, but I also didn’t—don’t want to cheapen what it meant to me by creeping out of your hotel room at five am because we’re done having sex and you can’t deal with cuddling. You wanted me, and you got what you wanted. That’s done. Now you’re going back to your life and I’m going back to mine. End of story.”
The story sucks, and I want so much to have a chance at a rewrite, but since it’s not gonna happen I at least want it to end with some of my pride intact and him not knowing how I went and started feeling more for him than is smart.
“Imp.”
“It’s okay, Devon. It’s not like we made any promises to each other, you know.”
He sighs and nods, and I swear I see some regret there before his face goes blank and he gives me an empty smile that makes my heart hurt.
“It was good though. So good.”
“Yeah.”
“I wish—”
“Your brother broke his arm?” I interrupt, not needing another round of disappointment to go with the boatload I’ve had for the night.
Together he and Logan will have me crying into a gallon of chocolate mousse and whipped cream. I don’t mind it. It’s just that the tears totally ruin the flavor.
“Yes. Ryan.” He sighs. “Garret rang me, and while everything seems fine, I can’t risk it. He wants to go in for rugby when he’s out of school, and he can’t if it’ll be a recurring injury.”
“You love them very much.”
I like that. It means he’s as into family as I am, and that’s what I’ve always wanted, to love someone who shares the same values as I do. Family means everything to me, and maybe that’s why I’m so pissed at Lo. He feels the same; he’s just being a stubborn ass.
“Yes. They’re everything to me.”
I understand him then, as those eyes of his go soft and a smile tilts his mouth. He’s spent all these years raising three boys and being their everything, and that’s all he knows. All he wants to know.
There’s no room in his life for anything else, and honestly, even if there is, I don’t think it would make a difference. He won’t let it.
“I gotta go make sure Lila’s surprise from Mama and me is ready,” I say, pulling away and smiling, though it hurts. “If I don’t see you before you leave, tell Ryan and the boys I said hI, and tell Garret I said Amelia is really pretty but I don’t thinks she’s as into him as he is her.”
I leave him with his mouth hanging open and make my way to anywhere that isn’t near him. I don’t get to talk to them a lot, since we’re not that close, but I follow them all on Facebook and sometimes I send them messages to cheer on their achievements.
Like I said, I’m real into family, and those guys are part of mine, even if their big brother’s a douchebag.
Chapter Eleven
Oh, shit.
I don’t know what to do with myself, and instead of being the grown idiot that I am, I do the childish thing and bury my head in the sand and just pretend that I don’t know a thing, that nothing’s changed and that I’m not terrified out of my mind.
Instead I focus on everything around me that’s either improved or gone to shit. For instance, the day I got back to the city and walked into the office and coincidentally bumped straight into Peter he’d jumped back like I have the clap and apologized as if I hadn’t been in the wrong, not watching where I was going.
Shocked me, to be truthful, but I’d nodded and taken in his face.
“Are you wearing concealer?”
He’d blushed deep red and scuttled away like I’d lit a fire in his shorts. I learned later that day that someone had hit him, a lot, and that he’d been wearing concealer to hide his two black eyes and bruised jaw.
Love to kiss the hell out of whoever did that.
It’s been two months since the wedding, and I’m surprisingly good. I went on a blind date—sans the tentacle arms of one Kurt Engelhouser—and I really like the guy.
Dillon lets me order whatever I want at dinner without giving me the look that says ‘you really think you need that?’ and he doesn’t make fun of me for wanting to take things slowly. He kisses me goodnight—on the cheek—and leaves me at my door, happy to just be with me for me and not what he can take.
And now that’s all blown to hell and back because I’m a fucking dummy and I went and ruined things before they even started. I don’t know how this is going to play out, and I honestly can’t say I’m okay, but I will be, just as soon as I do what I should have done three years ago.
“Abi, you got a minute?” I ask, poking my head in her door.
She motions me forward without looking up from her desk and makes me wait while she gets done reading. Classic psyche-out tactic, but whatever. I no longer need to care.
“What is it, Slade?”
“I need you to know that I have to leave this morning, I have a very important call to make, and I kinda won’t be back. Ever,” I say, enjoying the shock that fills her eyes and leaves her mouth hanging open.
She’d be really pretty if she weren’t such a bitch, but hey, that’s not my problem anymore.
“What the hell are you talking about? You can’t just leave!”
“Yeah, I really can. No contract, remember? It used to scare me that you could kick me to the curb without so much as a week’s notice, but now I am totally glad I let you screw me over that way because it means you can’t make me stay.”
So what if I’m enjoying this? I’m not spiteful by nature, but hell, with the way my week’s been going, I so need to get the upper hand on something. And it looks like that something is Abi.
Yay!
“Slade!”
I’m grinning as I walk away and grab the box of keepsakes from my desk, because I hear her cursing all the way.
“Hey, Becky?”
I turn to Trish and arch a brow, looking over her shoulder to the clique of bitches huddled behind her.
“Where are you going?”
Oh, so they’re worried because the office drudge is leaving. Figures they’d spend years making my life hell because I’m too fat and quiet to fit in, but now that they’ll have to actually get off their skinny, manicured asses they want me to stay.
Huh!
“Home.”
“Are you sick?”
I can tell by the way she asks that she knows I’m leaving, and the thought is not one she likes. This woman and her friends have spent three years shuffling their workload to my desk because they’re lazy and entitled, just as a lot—not all—but a lot of beautiful woman are.
Things come easy to them, so they think they can coast through life on looks alone while the rest of us regular Joes and Janes do all the work. I hope Abi hires someone just like her so that the lot of them are forced to do something, for a change.
Not spite, just that I hate to think that’s all she’ll ever be because no one wants to push the pretty mean girl to be more.
“No, but I am sick and tired. Do me a favor? Use the brains God gave you and do something other than going to hair appointments and waiting for others to carry the load. You’re better than the vacant shell you make yourself out to be.”
I walk away and don’t look back, because honestly, I don’t have time to care about her feelings, or anything else, for that matter. I have something to do, and I plan to do it before I lose the courage.
When I get home I dump my box and kick off my shoes, grabbing the phone and my old address book. I breathe deep and dial, part of me hoping he doesn’t answer even as the other part hopes he does.
“Baxter.”
And just like that I feel the need to say carrot. Broccoli. Turnips. Anything but what I’m about to say.
“Devon.”
The silence hangs between us for a full minute before I hear a door close and then the squeak of a chair.
“Imp? What’s wrong?” he asks, and I can almost see the exact same look on his face as the one Grey gets when I sound this unsure. Weird to know that a guy I don’t really know a
ll that well knows me down to the tone of my voice.
“Nothing. Well. Maybe something, but it’s not bad, at least I think, it’s not, it’s just that I—” I let the sentence peter out and drag in a lungful of air, feeling lightheaded from that mouthful.
“I think I’m pregnant, and I thought you should know. That’s all. Think about it and call me when you’re ready to talk.”
I hang up and disconnect my phone and put my cell on silent, grabbing the pharmacy package from the kitchen counter and breathing all the way to the bathroom.
I’m not sure yet, as you can tell from the tests in my hand, but if I have to suffer through two minutes of utter hell, so does he. Seems only fair.
Chapter Twelve
Dev
It’s been exactly a week since I got that phone call, and my gut is still aching with equal doses of fear and a strange joy I can’t quite grasp. Imp said she thinks she might be pregnant, and then she hung up and probably disconnected her phone, if the constant non-answer is an indication.
So I’ve spent the time thinking, and I know what I have to do.
“You going to talk or what, mate? Because I have a have a Halo hookup soon with this really hot bird who’s into kicking my virtual arse, and I’d really like to get to it,” David gripes, slinging his massive body over the couch and looking like the proverbial teenaged mess that he is.
I sigh and raise a brow, waiting for Ry to stumble in, his hair sticking out at blonde angles on his sleep-mussed head.
“Yeah, you all right, man? You look like a right mess, you do,” he says through a yawn, scratching his belly with his uninjured hand.
“I’m fine, just need to run something by you two before I do anything,” I say, flicking at the top button of my shirt and loosening the collar. I’m nervous, absolutely hate telling them what I need to, because I’ve spent years trying to raise men I can be proud of and now I have to tell them that I’m a wanker and that I’ve fucked up a woman’s life.
“This about that bird back in the States? That hot one who Facebooks me whenever I win a match? I like her. She’s a solid one, that. Didn’t you spend a week with her and her family at that wedding thing?”
“Yes, Ry. And no, you may not refer to her as ‘the hot one’, you little shithead. Now what I have to say is—”
“Just spit it out already, old man. We’re not bleeding five years old,” David grumps, shoving a hand down his pants to scratch his balls.
Seriously, I have something really important to say, and I have to watch my almost grown brother scratching his nuts. Hopeless.
“If you’ve got crotch rot and I have to take you to the doctor I’ll skin you alive,” I warn, pointing a finger at him and scowling.
“Relax, man, just a little itch from that piece I had last week. She thought shaving my balls would make things ‘kinky’. Fucking itchy as all get out, but the experience was definitely worth the raw bag. Now get on, will you?”
I sigh again and lean my elbows on my knees, meeting their gazes.
“Imp, Becky, Grey’s sister, is the woman I was with at the wedding. She gave me a call, and…I think she’s pregnant,” I admit. “If she is I can’t just leave her alone to deal with this.”
“Well ‘course not ,old man. You have to marry her if she is, and that’s totally not negotiable. A real man takes care of his family,” Ry growls, and I nod because there’s really nothing else to do.
I’m so proud, and rightly so, that I’ve managed to raise a halfway decent man. They’re cocky buggers through and through, but my boys are respectful of women, something I have always prided myself on—till I fucked up so badly with imp.
“Yeah, but I can’t do that an ocean away, and the thing is that I know she won’t come here.”
That makes them both sit up and pay attention, and I wince, sweating buckets.
“I know that it’s unfair and that I can’t expect—”
“Hot American girls. Loose American girls. And pizza. And driving on the wrong side of the road. Sign me up!” David yells, rubbing his hands together with glee. “But I refuse to call footie soccer, yeah? So you better warn those buggers not to say that foul word in front of me.”
“You’re okay with this?”
“Yeah. ‘Course. And I think Garret will be too, since he hates all those prissy pusses at college. Think we could get one of those places with a lot of open space? I want a bloody dog, and this shithole isn’t right for an animal.”
Huh. This happens to be a two million pound bloody penthouse, thanks.
“Ry?”
His eyes cloud over for a second, and I whump my palm into my head. Fuck. Rugby. I almost forgot he’s committed to the sport and that if we move, which I bloody well need to, he won’t have that anymore.
“Shit. Yeah. Sorry, mate, this can’t work.”
“What? Why? You telling me you’re going to stay here while your baby mama lives all the way over there, and you’ll be okay with it? Not bloody likely, you arse! Baxter men always do the right thing.”
“But rug—”
“Nah, mate. It’s all good, man. Haven’t cared about that for a long time, just didn’t want to disappoint ya. Now then, got any pics of our girl, or you gonna be a greedy bastard and keep us guessing?”
I hand them my phone with the pictures I’d taken in secret throughout the week of the wedding and sit back, shell shocked by their response. I’m literally asking them to uproot their entire lives and follow me across the ocean to go and get a girl who possibly isn’t pregnant, since she’s not answering my calls and probably doesn’t want a thing to do with me.
But I’m excited, truly excited for the first time since I convinced myself that I can’t have more than the family I’d fought to keep. I can’t even think of that time, not and keep the bubbly euphoria that’s sweeping through me right now, so I don’t, I let it go and instead sit back and start planning my move.
I’m a self-made man and can run my companies from anywhere, so skipping over the pond’s no problem. All I need to do now is make it so that by the time I have everything ready my little imp will have no choice but to come home to me and stay there, where she belongs.
It won’t be easy, not after my spectacular fuck up, but I’ll manage as long as there’s hope.
“Who’s giving Garret the good news, then? Because I really have to go kick that bird’s ass and win my bet. One more last hoorah before I sample the fair over the pond, then.”
He rubs his hand together and stomps off with a grin on his face, and I almost feel sorry for the poor girl stupid enough to bet her body on a game of Halo.
“Wanker,” Ry mutters, shaking his head with a cheeky grin. “You seriously got a woman pregnant, after your constant lectures and the truckload of condoms you shovel at us? Ever heard of bagging before tagging, mate?” He tsks and shakes his head, but he’s grinning so big I can’t take offense. “You love this bird, Dev?”
I want to say yes and keep myself on the pedestal they have me perched on, but I can’t lie to him. I didn’t lie to them six years ago when our parents died and I had to explain to three teenagers that they would never come back, and I won’t now.
Not even to save my own arse.
“I like her. A lot. But I can’t say I love her. She’s smart and funny and so fucking beautiful, even though she thinks she’s fat and plain and never believes a compliment. She’s brilliant, but I…I’ve never set out to love anyone, and I don’t know if I can.”
That’s what terrifies me most about all this. I’ve closed myself off to the point that I only know how to give love to those I consider mine. I must have said that out loud, because Ry walks over and slaps the back of my head.
“So make her yours, you dumb fuck. We go over there, and you make sure she becomes ours, and bob’s your uncle.”
“What if she’s not pregnant? She never phoned back, and she won’t answer my calls.”
He gives me a look like ‘are you barmy’ and rolls his e
yes.
“Then make sure she gets that way, you arse. Seriously, I’m the seventeen-year-old and have more game than you do, old man. If you want something, you don’t give up. You taught us that. You want this bird?”
“Yeah.”
And I really do. Even if she’s not pregnant now and hates my guts, I want her all for myself. I see things in her I haven’t allowed myself to see in years, and now that the thought has taken root I can’t get it out of my head.
Imp is mine. I may not love her, yet, but I want to. I want to give her my family and let them be hers. I want more with her. Children and home and even her orange, knitted doilies hanging over the couch arms.
I want my brothers teasing the hell out of her and that sexy smirk she gets when she’s done something naughty and thinks no one knows. I want so much I’ve denied myself, but mostly I just want to make her look at me the way she used to, like I hung the stars.
What I got from her last time was sadness, disillusionment, and a whole lot of scorn. I deserve it, but I want my biggest fan back, weird as that sounds, and I won’t rest until she’s so tongue-tied she recites the names of every vegetable in existence.
“Right then. You sort out all the grown up stuff, and I’ll go see if she’ll talk to me. Now now, old chap, keep your dirty looks to yourself. Not my fault you bolloxed things up with her. I’ll just help you fix them. Pay me later. I take cash and checks, no IOUs.”
I laugh when he looks hopeful and flip him the bird, waving him away even as I bring up my contact list and take a deep breath. I need an inside man on the job, and while I may end up losing my dick in the process, I’ll risk it if it gets me that little bit closer to my goals.
Chapter Thirteen
Becky
“Go ‘way!”
I roll over in bed and shove a pillow over my head to drown out the banging noise in an effort to get another hour out of the snuggly place I’m drifting in.
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