by Aiden Bates
Derek kept his body still and his expression neutral. He could talk about it now like it wasn't a thing, like he wasn't seeing his father's gun in front of him right now. "No," he said, in a perfectly natural tone of voice. "No, but the situation is a bit different. You know that traffickers lie, so there was a possibility your parents weren't involved. I know what my father did, and what he intended to do. Besides," he added, before she could dig any deeper about that line, "he's got at least five more years before he comes up for parole again, so it's not an issue."
Ayla lifted her eyebrows. "Will you support him for parole?"
"Nope." Derek scratched at his neck. "So what's the bigger issue at home? Is it fitting in, or is it more other stuff?"
Ayla bowed her head. "Well, Dad's still pretty pissed that I stayed away for as long as I have. And he's kind of right. I know it hurt them, for me to be gone for so long. I just couldn't face them, not knowing everything. I still have a hard time with it. I know every time they look at me they're seeing the ruins of their hopes and dreams for their little girl and I'm not sure how to deal with it."
"You don't have to deal with it." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "If they had unrealistic expectations for you, that's their problem, not yours. And anyone who sees a smart, passionate, dedicated professional who fights for children and thinks, 'You know what? That's not what I hoped and dreamed of for my daughter,' needs help, and lots of it."
Ayla snickered. "If only it worked that way for girls. Parents, and other family members, get these weird ideas about 'innocence.' Once you're not a virgin anymore, even if it wasn't your choice, you're no good to anyone."
"Oh, Ayla." He got up and crossed over to the couch. "I'm so, so sorry that anyone ever made you feel that way."
"I know they're not trying to." She sniffed. "I do. And they're being as nice as they can, you know? It's just Dad must have asked me six times on Saturday if I was going to 'get over this phase' and make some real money, and Mama kept asking when I was going to meet a nice man and give her grandchildren, and it was just too much. I had to cut the visit short." She pulled her knees up to her chest for a minute. "I'm sorry. You don't need to hear any of this."
Derek rubbed circles into her back. "Need's a subjective term. You need to tell it, and that's what's important."
She shook her head. "I just don't know what to do here. I love them, and I want to make them proud. I love my work, and I feel like I'm doing some good. I'm not okay with giving it up for the brother of the guy who sold me to pay off a gambling debt."
Derek felt those words with all the force of a punch to the gut. "Ouch. No. Absolutely not."
"And I can't give Mama the grandkid she wants. Even if I wanted to, which I don't, I can't. There was damage." She blushed a bright crimson.
Derek held his hand up. "You don't have to say anymore. First of all, it's not on you to 'give' anyone else children. That's not your role in life, okay? You're not some glorified brood mare. You're a person, whole and complete. Second, I think your mom probably just hasn't thought about that yet. Many people think of love and marriage as this kind of happily ever after, right? So when she talks about wanting you to find Mr. Right and make little Rightlings, it's because she presumably sees that as a reward for everything you've suffered."
Ayla shuddered. "She doesn't get that for some folks, the last thing we want is that kind of union."
"It's not in her frame of reference." Derek took her hand. "With time, your mom will probably get it eventually, at least as much of it as you'd want her to."
Ayla pulled her jacket in closer to her body. "And you?"
"Me?"
"Do you see marriage and kids as a kind of happily ever after?"
Derek ran his tongue ring against the back of his teeth. "I don't… I don't know. I figured I might have kids eventually, but that was just a kind of 'most people do' kind of thing. It wasn't a bucket list item." He squirmed. "I haven't thought about it seriously until kind of recently. Getting shot does that to you, I guess."
"Generally, yeah." She wrinkled her nose. "So you started thinking about it, and?"
Derek knew what she was asking. He couldn't tell what side she was coming down on, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. At the end of the day, Ayla wasn't going to have any input in the decision. She was almost as much of an outsider here as he was. "I don't think it's a realistic possibility. I'm not…" He looked out the window for a second. "I'm not that guy. I don't know how marriages work, or how long-term couples work. I don't know how families work. And let's face it, I'm not exactly marriage material. I'm a rock 'n' roll DJ and that's about as much as you can say about me." He grinned, to show it didn't bother him.
It did, but that wasn't the point. It shouldn't.
"Derek," Ayla said, and she blinked. "If you want more than that, you need to say something. And quickly."
"It won't do me any good." He tightened his jaw, and then he forced it to relax. "And hey, what am I really losing out on here, right? No one's going to come home drunk in the middle of the day throwing things around. No one's going to take off for days at a time, leaving me with a kid and no money. And no one's going to start smacking me around or feel compelled to 'put me in my place.' I get to enjoy the fun parts without any of the drawbacks, right?"
Ayla pressed her lips together and looked at him out of the side of her eye. "You know most guys aren't really like that, right?"
Derek wagged his finger at her. "That's because we don't let them get their hooks in. Do you want to stay for dinner? We've got bean stew."
Ayla looked like she wanted to say something, but she decided against it. "That sounds great," she said instead.
***
Alex saw Ayla's car in the parking lot when he got home on Monday, so he decided to stop in at Derek's. He didn't think Derek would mind. It was after Ayla's working hours were over, so it was just social time and frankly no one had more of a right to Ayla's social time than Alex.
Ayla let him into the condo, but there was a light to her brown eyes that hadn't been there before. Alex didn't quite trust that light. It was the same kind of light he'd seen in Amadi's eyes, the kind that told him he'd done something wrong without telling him what it had been.
"I was wondering if you would mind some company tonight," he said with partially forced cheer. "Looks like you already have some, but I guess the more, the merrier?"
Derek looked down for a second, and Alex thought he might turn him away. Then he smiled again, and gestured toward the kitchen. "Of course. Come on in."
He sat down to another bean stew. He could see some excitement in the three Spanish speakers, and a little bit of tension. He couldn't understand what the tension might be about, but he'd figure it out when Ayla left. Ayla didn't need to get involved with his relationship with Derek. That just wasn't her place, or her interest. She had enough on her plate as it was.
Alex found himself kind of surprised that he, himself, wanted to get involved with whatever was going on with Derek. Derek was a strong, grown man. Derek could certainly take care of himself. He'd shown that perfectly well over the past few weeks. Sure, he'd had that little moment of vulnerability when he found out that Martin Greer got out of jail, but he hadn't wavered since then.
They got through dinner, and after Ayla insisted on doing the dishes she got up to leave. "Alex, would you mind walking me out to my car?"
As it happened, Alex did mind walking her out to her car. He'd prefer to try to get some time with Derek. He couldn't very well say no to her, though. He escorted her out to her Chevy, even though the parking lot was perfectly safe. She'd never wanted an escort before, so he knew she must have something to say to him. She'd say it when she was good and ready. Rushing her wouldn't get him anywhere.
He wasn't disappointed. "What's going on with you and Derek?"
"Don't you think that's a little personal?" He leaned against her car and crossed his arms over his chest. He was stalling for time
, and he knew it.
"Maybe. You're my brother. He's my friend. He's the guardian of one of my clients, too. By all rights, I should tell you to back off, just because of that relationship."
Alex frowned. "I won't do that. That's absurd. There was no relationship between you and me when I started hanging out with Derek."
"I know that." She sighed. "And I think half the reason he's being so patient with me is because of you. Which is why I'm asking you, again, what's going on with the two of you? I guess what I'm really getting at is, what are your intentions with him?"
Alex threw his hands up into the air. "Are you kidding me? Intentions? It's the twenty-first century, Ayla. No one has 'intentions' anymore. We're both grown men. We don't have intentions. We do stuff and then we get on with our lives."
"So you're not thinking about anything beyond the moment." Ayla lifted her eyebrows, just a little bit.
"No." An image flashed into Alex’s mind. He saw himself in a house, a nice and neat house with a pretty garden and a trimmed yard. Derek worked in the kitchen, shirtless, while their three kids played around his feet.
He almost lost his breath from the beauty of it.
"No," he said again. This time his voice faltered. "I'm not. That's not how people work. And besides, you already know how Mom and Dad feel about him."
Ayla scoffed. "Who cares?"
Alex sputtered, gasping for breath. "Who cares? Who cares? I care, Ayla. You should care. They're our parents. They've suffered. They've worked so hard for all of us. It's our job to make them proud!"
Ayla shuddered and looked down at the ground. Then she straightened her shoulders and looked up at Derek's window. She took a deep breath, chin jutting out. "I'd like to think all the children I've helped would be enough to make them proud of me, and all the lives you've saved should be enough to make them proud of you. We don't owe them our happiness, you know?"
"We kind of do." Alex stood up straight. "At least we owe it to Mama. I think we owe it to Dad, too, at least to a certain extent. I'd like to think we can probably do both, though. I never really sat around and thought about settling down. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it with someone who can fit in with the rest of the family, you know?"
Ayla curled her lip. "So you don't care for Derek at all?"
"That's not what I said and you know it. I like him. I think that's obvious. Do you think it would be kind to bring him into a family that doesn't care for him? Because he knows what Dad thinks. And that would just be the tip of the iceberg, once we started getting into the rest of the family." He pushed his hair out of his face. "Come on, Ayla. You wouldn't put anyone else through that."
"I'd expect his husband, his alpha, to protect him from that. But I guess if you don't feel that way about him, maybe it's better that you should just back off." She lifted her chin further, eyes gleaming.
"Wait, what? First of all, what planet is this, that two guys can't fool around unless they're getting married? Second, are you for real right now? He's not looking for that. And he doesn't need protection. Not from me, and not from anyone else. Did you somehow fail to notice the way he handed Dad's ass back to him when we all went out to lunch?"
"And I noticed how you completely failed to back him up, too." She snapped her fingers. "The fact is, that guy is completely alone in the world."
"He's not alone in the world." Alex pointed at Derek's condo. "He's got Amadi."
"Don't you think he deserves more than a foster brother?" She stomped her foot. "Don't you think he deserves someone who just wants him, and wants to be with him? Amadi's going to move on and start his own family someday soon, and where's Derek going to be then?"
Alex’s chest hurt when she said that, but he still looked away. "Okay, that's sad, but why is that my problem? Don't you think he should be with someone who's more his type, for crying out loud?"
"I think I'd rather he was with someone who cared for him."
"I do care for him. I'm not prepared to commit to going against our family to be with him." Alex shook his head. "Why is this so hard for you to grasp?"
"I don't know. Maybe because I think he deserves a happily ever after. But you're right. I don't think that's your problem at all." She narrowed her eyes at Alex. "I don't think you should be part of it at all." She slid into the car. "Good night, Alex."
He patted the top of her Chevy. "Good night, Ayla." He couldn't understand what his sister was trying to say, but maybe he wasn't supposed to. There were a lot of things Ayla said these days that Alex couldn't hope to understand.
He slipped back upstairs and hesitated at the door of Derek's condo. He wanted to knock. He wanted to get back inside and spend more time with Derek, and he wanted to get back inside because Ayla had just told him he wasn't good enough to be there.
At the same time, he thought it might seem weird after Ayla had been so transparent about wanting to get him out of the house. And it had been a long day at work. Maybe he should just go home and go to bed.
He sent Derek a text after he got back to his place instead. Good night.
Derek texted him back after about an hour. It wasn't a good sign. Good night. Sleep well.
Maybe Alex did need to figure out what he wanted from Derek, if anything.
He fixed himself a martini, sat back in his favorite chair, and stared at the wall for a little while. It was easy for Ayla to judge him. She had two decades' resentment built up against Mama and Dad, enough to override her natural respect. And, well, disrespect for Mama couldn't be tolerated but Dad certainly hadn't done much to earn it back from her.
Alex didn't have that kind of excuse. Sure, the image that sprang to his mind while he'd been talking with Ayla had been a beguiling fantasy, but it could never be more than a fantasy. Derek's long hair and obvious piercings marked him as "other" as far as the Brennan family was concerned. If he were to ever be seen without his shirt on, his tattoos would get them both ostracized. Only one kind of person had tattoos in Mama's world, and they didn't get connected with the family by anyone who valued their ties.
We don't owe them our happiness. Ayla's words came back to him like a bad smell. She had no idea what they owed Mama, and maybe she didn't owe either of their parents anything. Alex did. But he'd brought Ayla home, hadn't he? It had been roundabout, and not entirely intentional, but he'd still brought her home. Shouldn't that get him somewhere? Shouldn't that buy him some freedom?
All of this speculation was predicated on the notion that Derek himself wanted to be with Alex. He hadn't said he did. He'd said he was okay with what they had. Why, then, would Ayla be acting like a busybody?
He mulled things over in his thoughts for a few days, until he had a chance to go over to visit with his mother. Dad was out. He was usually out, especially on weekends. "Your father is hosting late night office hours," Mama explained.
Alex kept his face neutral. He'd had plenty of practice pretending to buy the lie by now. He could just about avoid visibly reacting. "Well, it's good for his students, I suppose. They don't have to skip classes to meet with him. Anyway, I was wondering how you're holding up."
Mama waved a hand. "I'm holding up beautifully. How else should I be doing? My daughter is home, and my family is together again."
Alex smiled politely and accepted the cup of tea she passed him. "And you and Ayla are getting along well?"
"Of course." She bowed her head. "At least, we're getting along well as much as we see of one another. It's hard for her, you know. She hasn't been a daughter for a long time, and it's a big adjustment for her."
Alex bit his tongue for a moment. "Do you ever try to see her without Dad?"
Mama flinched. "I don't think she's ready for that, do you?"
Alex snorted. "I think she's more ready for that than she is for Dad. He's not the way she remembers. Which is fine," he added, as his mother's face fell. "People grow and change. But we've all had time to get used to it, and she hasn't. It might be okay for you and her just to hang aroun
d together for a little while."
She nodded slowly. "Maybe. I think I offended her last weekend." She heaved a mighty sigh. "I mentioned the possibility of marriage, and children. Don't you think she deserves to be happy?"
A-ha. So that was where Ayla had gotten those ideas. "I think that might not be something that interests her right now."
Mama hunched in on herself. "She's like you, then. I've failed."
Alex covered his mouth with his hand. "Mama, you haven't failed. And it's not that I'm not interested in that sort of thing, okay?"
She gave him a sharp look. "You're thirty-three years old and you've never once brought a man home. You're not interested in that sort of thing."
Alex squirmed. "It's complicated, Mama. I didn't feel comfortable settling down while Ayla was missing." It had been true. There had been more to it than that, of course, but it wasn't a lie.