by Emilia Finn
She snickers. “Google ‘B.O.B.’. I’ll wait.”
I would normally say no. Hell, Lyss is asleep, which means I should be taking my ass to bed and catching my own downtime so I can start everything all over again tomorrow. But I set my phone on speaker anyway – then reconsider immediately when I hear Brooke move around her room.
No way am I explaining whatever Brooke says, if Lyss wakes up and overhears.
I stand from my stool, move to my junk drawer on the other side of the counter, and yank out a set of headphones. I switch them on, wait for the Bluetooth to sync, for the light to switch from red to blue, then I set them on and go to the internet browser.
“You there?” I venture.
“Uh huh. What did you find?”
“Headphones,” I chuckle. “I’m going online now. B.O.B., enter.”
I watch the screen populate. For the search results to drop down.
“Bug-out bag?”
She bursts out laughing so loud that I swear, if I went to my front porch, I could probably hear her on the breeze. “No, we’re not preppers. Try again.”
My heart stumbles for just a second. “Baby on board? Fuck, Brooke, the second option says baby on board.”
“Calm down,” she drawls. “We didn’t even have sex yet. Not baby on board. Next option? By the way, you have serious trauma you should probably work through when it comes to women, sex, and the potential for babies. That’s twice today you’ve nearly died from the thought.”
“I became a father before I graduated high school,” I snap. “My baby was sick and hardly slept. Let’s not forget the time she nearly died because I wasn’t paying enough attention. Lyss and I were saddled with a crazy-as-fuck bitch as our only help, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, because beggars, choosers, all that shit. Oh, and let’s not forget Lyss’ mother was going to the store, but decided somewhere, at some traffic light, that she should ditch us and travel with a rock band and get high every night. What the fuck do you think I’m gonna say about babies at this point in my life, Brooklyn?”
“Oof.” I can almost see the way she falls back from my hit. The way she gulps for fresh air. “Jesus on a scooter, Miles. Ya know what?” Her voice becomes farther away. Her tone. “It’s cool. Don’t worry about B.O.B. I’m better off doing that on my own.”
“Brooke…”
“I’m not looking to have babies right now, Miles. I’m not even saying I’ve thought about me and you and babies. Hell, we haven’t even had a date yet. But I want babies someday. And I don’t want to walk on eggshells around you. The moment we have sex, you’re going to panic about the potential for an oops, and even though that would be scary, I’d prefer to be nervously optimistic rather than fear the anger I feel coming from you right now. That’s not what I want for myself, so let’s just consider today done. It was fun, but… yeah. Not gonna be made to feel guilty about something your ex did to you. See you around, Miles. You should probably get off the internet now.”
And just like that, she hangs up.
The call clicks, the line goes dead, and in my ears remains the static from my headphones.
“Fuck.”
I stare at my screen. At the Google page. And when I don’t touch it for a minute, the black lock-screen.
“Fuck!”
I toss my headphones aside and drop back onto the stool I began on tonight. Elbows on the counter, my head in my hands, I breathe through the adrenaline that races through my chest. And when that doesn’t work, I push up again and move to the doorway.
I grab onto the bar above, let my weight drop, and hang until my body comes back into alignment. Until I can exhale the panic, the anger, the adrenaline. And inhale the truth.
I just threw a fuck-ton of my baggage at a girl that didn’t deserve it.
“Shit.”
I lift my head, stare at the top of the frame I stand in, and when I still don’t feel relaxed, I pull up and work my shoulders until they burn.
She has absolutely nothing to do with Karla, nothing to do with the shit I’ve lived, nothing to do with anything. She’s simply a beautiful woman that declared she kinda liked me, that she wanted to spend time with me and my daughter. And I threw it at her like she deserves to burn for Karla’s crimes.
I’m an asshole.
“Daddy?”
I drop my feet to the floor, and spin in the doorway to find Lyss at the bottom of the stairs with her doll clutched against her chest, and her fists rubbing at her eyes.
“Hey, baby. What are you doing?”
“Are you sad?” She steps off the stairs, and makes her way toward me. “I heard you… did you stub your toe?”
“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry for waking you, baby.”
I scoop her up when she comes closer, bring her to my chest so her arms and legs wrap around me, and her cheek rests on my shoulder, then I make a round of my house. I switch off lights, lock doors, snag my phone on the way through the kitchen and, leaving the book on the counter, head upstairs and bypass Lyss’ bedroom door.
“Come on.”
I push through my bedroom door, switch off the light, and let the moon guide me, and then I toss my blankets back and place Lyss in the center. I turn the TV on with the remote, slide in beside Lyss, and before the opening credits begin on whatever DVD is in the machine, she curls up against my side and rests her cheek on my shoulder.
She throws her arm over my stomach, squishes her doll between us so the straw hair tickles my nose, and a moment later, her soft breath evens out, and her lashes flutter.
It’s not yet eight, but in my world, eight is late. We’re up early, training in the yard, working toward our emancipation and independence. The Rollers have given us so much, but I’m not as free as one would think. I’m still relying on others. And if I stop going to work, if I stop training, then Lyss and I are on our asses and worse off than if we’d just stayed in our shitty apartment.
I need to train hard, win one more tournament, and maybe then I can relax.
Lyss’ breath comes out on a little snore, and her snore turns to a boogery hock.
I sigh. We forgot to give her the medication she takes for her sinuses. Busy day, fun day, distracted. We forgot to give her the medication that makes it easier for her to breathe while she sleeps, and now it’s too late.
Tonight is going to suck, and yet, her breath tickling my chest makes it worth it. Her unconditional love, her complete dependence on me. I’m the only person on this planet that can take care of her, that will always put her needs first and foremost. And maybe I’m exhausted, maybe I’m bitter at Karla, but I wouldn’t change it. Not a single minute of it.
I bring my phone up again, slide it open to the camera, and while Lyss sleeps, I take a picture of us. For me to look back on and remember the days that make it worth it. And for Brooke.
I attach it to a text, type: It’s worth it. It will always be worth it. I’m sorry for making you think otherwise. Goodnight, Brooklyn. Thanks for spending the day with us.
Then I toss the phone away and curl in until Lyss and I are intertwined the way we both love.
“Goodnight, baby.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. Inhale, and smile when all I smell is chlorine. Tomorrow, we’ll wash her hair. Tomorrow, we’ll remember her nose medication too. “I love you.”
Brooke
Consideration
Red flags? Or something he deserves understanding and leniency on?
Those are the questions that move through my mind as I wander through my estate and head toward the gate with Twain on my heels.
I swear, I have no clue how the day I spent with Miles and Alyssa escalated so explosively. It was fun, it was sweet, it was nice, then BOOM! Babies and arguing and ended phone calls.
It’s not like I’m racing ahead of us and planning a Walker wedding. Hell, I don’t even know if I like him enough for a second night spent with ice cream. But I do know that at some point in the next decade, I’m going to want marri
age. Babies. A family. And if he can’t do that, then there’s no need for me to waste my time.
If we’re fundamentally wrong for each other, then it would be stupid to spend time building something that maybe looks nice at first glance, but doesn’t have the foundations in place.
It was easy for me to write him off once I hung up. Toss him away, place him in the friend basket, and hope that I’ll still get to hang out with Lyss sometimes when our schedules line up. Because hell knows, I’m already attached to the beautiful baby girl.
It was easy to make those plans, to snatch up my laptop, to write a fight scene between Roman DeLuca and Tallulah – Tully – while my emotions were still hot.
But it didn’t work.
Tully was mad, she was spitting mean words, preparing to advance their argument from words to something a little more, but Rome, in that way he does, managed to de-escalate her temper. He wore her down, pulled her in for a hug, he pressed a kiss to her hair, and reaffirmed their promises to always be best friends… and then Miles’ text came through.
It’s hard, he’s saying. But it’s worth it.
Damn Roman DeLuca for knowing how to calm Tully so easily, and damn Miles Walker for sending me the exact thing that I didn’t know I needed. Those sweet-talking, kindhearted bastards know how to make everything better.
It would be so much easier if Miles never sent that text.
I’ve given him space the last week or so, kept to myself, either in my room or in my office. I’m not mad at him anymore, and I’m not actively trying to ignore him. I’m just taking space, letting him have his, letting him concentrate on his training and on Lyss’ schooling, and as I move through the estate as the days pass, when I sometimes catch his eye while he’s working out, I wave, I smile, then I call Twain away from Lyss and keep on walking.
He came here with a very specific purpose – to train, to win, to raise his daughter.
And I have a book to write.
I duck through a tight patch of trees twenty yards from the estate, step over knotted roots that threaten to trip me every time I come out here, and dip under a low-hanging branch that has tried to knock me out more than once while I was distracted with the stories in my head.
My laptop sits in my bag today, which hangs on one shoulder. It takes only a few minutes to reach my destination – I never go far – to tug on the rope ladder I knotted together forever ago, and to start up the tall tree.
High above me, a treehouse stands, and what was once a box built onto a tree that we had to hack branches away from to make fit, is now a box that the tree has accepted as its own. The branches have grown around and incorporated the addition in an almost caress. The house is gaudy and plane, asymmetrical as the tree’s embrace has created pressure, bent it to the shape it could and would accept.
They compromised. The tree demanded a certain form, and the house conformed, but held its main structure. Now they’re married together, and I’m not sure even a hurricane could knock it down.
The rope ladder is my daily workout, the way it sways and moves, forcing my core to engage and keep me moving – though if a hurricane passes through while I’m on the rope, I’m probably a dead woman. I slowly make my way up, higher, higher, as my shoulders strain and my legs shake.
I should go to the gym at least half as often as my family tells me to; I swear, I don’t remember ladders being so hard to climb when I was a kid.
I make it to the top, crawl into the pleasantly lit space and, laying on my stomach, I poke my head back out of the opening to catch sight of Twain.
“Lay down, bud. Rest.”
He plops down with a grin, wiggles his butt to make sure he’s comfortable, then drops until his chest hits the ground, and his breath comes out on a gust.
“Good boy. I’m working now, okay? Working. Don’t chase the ducks.”
Yes, we’ve had to discuss this in the past.
Sitting up again, grinning at the beanbag I hauled up here when I was sixteen, I move to sit on it, and drag my bag closer along the scuffed wooden floor.
My family knows this treehouse exists – they helped build it, after all. But what was once a fun getaway for the kids has now become my space. My office, in a way. Everyone knows I come here to write, so they leave me alone for the most part, and don’t encroach on my privacy.
Because I’m so close to the estate, all I have to do is peek out the little window to catch a glimpse of my house through the trees. No way were my uncles gonna build us a deathtrap unless they could comfortably see us when we were falling. And though the trees have grown denser over the years, the view remains largely the same. I see my roof, my porch, the front of my mom’s car when she parks it in the drive.
And when I move a little – as in, all the way to the other side of the eight-foot box – I can see Miles’ roof. His porch. The tree in his yard, and the tire he’s settled beside it. He plans to create a swing at some point, I suppose. I see him lifting weights in the yard, and feel mildly guilty when I know there’s a gym on the estate I haven’t told him about yet.
The poor guy lifts logs and gallons of water.
Or, like he is right now, he sits Lyss on the Olympic bar so he can lift her too. And she’s so used to it, she barely reacts as she needs to engage her core the same way I do when I climb the stupid ladder.
The estate is mostly empty at this time in the day; my family is at the gym, and the kids who were in school with Lyss tend to go to the gym too. My Aunt Tina is a photographer, and though she doesn’t have to do that to pay the bills, she still enjoys taking the odd jobs. She enjoys working in her dark room more, and developing the images she took.
Miles and Lyssa are the only people around in the afternoons, so I come back to my treehouse, I bring Tully and Rome with me, and I watch father and daughter work out together. I watch them interact when they think they’re all alone. I watch and smile at his complete devotion to that little girl.
Some could say his behavior is an act – everyone can look like parent-of-the-year for a minute if they have an audience. But he’s just as perfect in the afternoons when it’s just them.
Better, in some ways. Because when others are around, he has to be on guard to make sure no one is offering her food. He’s on her heels always, pressing her to use her manners, reminding her not to make out with Twain.
Right now, alone, he doesn’t have to be so on guard. He gets to be free for a minute, and damn him for being so good with her.
Drawing in a deep breath, I take the laptop from my bag, flip the lid open, and prepare to spend a few hours in my home away from home. I plan to be in this treehouse in the physical sense, but in my mind, I’m Tully, and I’m walking through a forest with Rome in search of a war that has been going on for hundreds of years. I’m in search of a bad man, a man that took someone I love. He’s holding her hostage, and I plan to sweep in and end him in a painful way.
“You’ll remember not to touch them, right? Don’t let them get their arms around you.”
“Rome–”
“I know. Just humor me. Don’t make me worry about you.”
I roll my eyes. “I won’t touch them. Besides, I won’t need to. Why would I lay a finger on the scum when I can barbeque them from afar?”
His smile is handsome. Charming. Disarming.
“Just like Miles Walker,” I say out loud.
Dammit, Brooklyn. Focus.
Lifting my fingers from the keyboard, pulling my breath in until my chest can’t take a single molecule more, and letting it out again, I press my fingers to my eyes and give myself a whole minute to work on clearing one man out of my conscious, and bringing Rome back in. Then I nod, place my fingers on the keys, and keep going.
Back into the forest, the greens, the browns, the soldiers that follow us as we move. They follow my command, they protect me. They’re a hell of a lot more objective about it than Roman Deluca is.
“That’s my girl,” Rome says. “Stand on the side, do what you d
o, and watch me flex my manly muscle.”
Scoffing, I shoulder-bump the man that stands at six and a half feet tall. “Your ‘manly muscle’? I’ve known you since we were babies. I’ve seen you when you wet the bed, I’ve seen you fall over and cry and ask me to kiss your boo-boos. That’s a lot of non-manliness to overcome.”
It’s like he’s not even trying to be subtle anymore. We were friends. The platonic kind. But now he throws his arm over my shoulder and pulls me against his side as he lets out a rumbling laugh. “I haven’t wet the bed in ages, Tully. It’s rude of you to continue to throw that in my face.”
“Really?” I ask. “How long is ages?”
“Like, at least three months.”
As is always the way when I’m working, time passes without my knowledge. Daylight turns to darkness, the lights at my estate flicker on, driveways fill, and the scents of dinner waft on the breeze.
Usually, that’s what brings me back to reality – the scent of dinner.
I look away from my laptop, from the five thousand new words I didn’t have before I came out here today, and draw in a cleansing breath like I haven’t breathed in hours. The cool air slides into my lungs, cools my belly, freshens my throat, and brings a smile to my face.
Finishing a scene is like an endorphin high. And knowing something delicious is cooking at home is my reward for working hard.
I push the computer off my lap and climb to my knees with a groan. Lifting my hands above my head until they touch the ceiling, I stretch as much as I can, bend my spine the opposite way to counteract hours of poor posture, and with a yawn, I poke my head out of the treehouse into the dark.
“Twain? You there, bud?”
A single, snapped bark.
He’s exactly where I left him. My guard. My sentry. Much like Rome is for Tully, I suppose.
Coming back to my beanbag, I take the bag I brought here, slide my laptop in, and sling the bag over my shoulder. Then, risking my life just like I do every single day, with a rope I tied like I think I’m some kind of skilled sailor, I make my way to the ground in the dark, and pray if I fall, I don’t squish poor Twain. The moon is out, but the tree’s canopy dilutes most of the light so that I can barely see three feet ahead of me.