Us After You

by Claudia Burgoa

  He sends me most of the information he gathers. I’m filled with rage when I read Sage’s medical report. There were two separate reports. In the first, the officers at the scene reported it as domestic abuse. The second says burglary—and it was filed a week after the incident.

  I flinch as I read the hospital report. Lacerations, broken ribs, and a fractured wrist. I wonder if that’s the wrist where she tattooed those words. Sage had a miscarriage because of the trauma to her abdominal region.

  There’s a restraining order filed in Oregon against him which expires in six months. But she filed several since their divorce.

  “We’ll gather all the evidence we can find to extend the restraining order—and add Mae and you to it. This new one will expire, too. Just make sure you keep extending it,” he explains.

  “You don’t need to add me.”

  He laughs. “I’ve no doubt you can defend yourself—I taught you all you know. I’m afraid I’d have to hide the body, and I’m too old to be doing that shit.”

  “Thank you for researching this so fast for us,” I say.

  “Hey, there’s nothing to thank. We’re family. You’re not only my nephew; I owe you my life,” he retorts. “We’ll have a security team assigned to Sage just in case. I don’t want you playing vigilante.”

  “Everything okay?” Ethan asks, entering the office.

  “Mason, I’ll call you later. Thank you again for all your help,” I say, before hanging up the phone.

  “You called your uncle?”

  “Sage’s ex is a piece of work.” I go to the small cabinet I have in the office and pull out two glasses and the bottle of scotch. “We need to call Fitz to update him.”

  “How bad is it?”

  I keep it simple because I don’t know how much Sage would want me to share. It’s not something I should just be telling everyone—not even my best friend.

  “You like her,” he says, when I finish telling him the story.

  “That’s good, right? Since I’m going to live with her.”

  “No, you like her in a way you’ve never liked anyone before,” he states as a matter of fact, and I hold my breath because the last thing I want to do is hurt him. “I always wondered who the lucky person would be to get your heart.”

  “Eth…”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not in love with you.” He chuckles, running a hand through your hair.

  “This won’t break my heart,” he assures me. “Sorry to break it to you, but even though you were my first, I moved on—several times.”

  “How about you?” I ask, because for a guy who always liked monogamy he’s been single for way too long.

  “There has to be someone out there for me. I’m in no hurry. For now, I’m enjoying life,” he says, with a lightness in his voice that relaxes me.

  When we arrive at the house, I start moving the boxes we brought from her apartment and place some of them in the office and the rest upstairs in the hallway. Tired and hot after the multiple trips to the truck, I take off my shirt.

  “Why did they buy a mansion?” Sage asks, as she makes her way to the kitchen where I’m grabbing a glass of water.

  “Who? Alex and Nana? Or …” I don’t say their names. It feels weird to talk about them and now owning their house. The place where I’m going to live for the next couple of years.

  “Well, they own one, too,” She agrees.

  “Nana loves to live around water,” I explain. “They found that house, which is big enough to receive his family and us.”

  “What about this one?”

  “Nana,” I answer again. “She wanted Rocco close by because she always liked to take care of him.”

  “Why do you guys call her Nana?”

  “Hannah Banana,” I explain. “She’s easy to tease. Flustering her was fun when we were teenagers. She hated it and loved it. Zeke’s lazy and called her Nana.”

  “Okay, so we live in a mansion,” she concludes, but her voice sounds off, like she’s not thrilled that the house is big or maybe it’s about the financial status, which is strange, because her parents come from old money and her ex-husband does too.

  Is that why this bothers her? Why she didn’t like me at the beginning?

  “I don’t want to sound like a spoiled brat, but who is going to clean. I have a one-bedroom apartment. This is … a lot.”

  “I chose the master bedroom,” I announce, buying myself some time, as I think about the cleaning issue.

  We need a cleaning service to help at least once a week. We both work.

  “What gives you the right to claim it?” She challenges me.

  “I’m bigger,” I respond.

  She lays a manicured fingernail against my bare chest, pushing me backward. “You won’t be just getting shit because you’re bigger, older, or a man.”

  I’m sure she meant for it to be anything but sexual, but my body gets the wrong message, because it’s suddenly very aware of her. My brain fizzles, and all my thoughts are gone. It’s only her, those hands, and the possibilities.

  This awareness screams one thing.

  I want her. My cock agrees.

  Me too, buddy. Me too.

  And I’m not the only one. A lovely scarlet flush colors her complexion, almost hiding the freckles that adorn the bridge of her nose.

  I grab her finger and say, “Be careful with your weapons of mass destruction, Ms. Heywood. It wouldn’t look good if I end up in the ER due to being hurt by this stabby object.”

  She snatches her hand back, glaring at me, as though it’s my fault that she’s frazzled and hissing.

  “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page,” she says, recovering quickly from whatever we had going on just a second ago.

  “I don’t want to state the obvious, but I got here before you, so I got to call the room.”

  “What are you, sixteen?” she protests.

  “What do you want me to be? I like role playing,” I offer.

  “He’s a guy with a dirty mind and an annoying sense of humor,” Hannah says, as she enters through the kitchen door. Alex is right behind her, holding Mae. “Is that a new tattoo?”

  I look down at the tiny footprint next to my heart and grin. “Do you like it? Hawk hooked me up last night. It’s a replica of Mae’s birth footprint, but he scaled it, just in case I need to put more.”

  “Gorgeous,” Hannah says and turns to Alex. “We should do that too. I’ll get mine next to the Sinners of Seattle logo.”

  Alex who is holding Mae shakes his head. “I’ll pass. Love this little one, but I’m not sure inking her footprint is the way to go.”

  “It might be when you have your own kids,” Sage offers.

  “That reminds us,” Nana says. “We moved all her clothes to the nursery and only kept the basics, in case you need us to babysit her. We set the small crib in the master bedroom. It’s easier to have her sleep there at night.”

  “You’re right, the master bedroom should be yours,” Sage says, with a triumphant grin.

  “Do we have the basics?” I ask the obvious and try to ignore Sage because the comeback isn’t appropriate for Mae—or Hannah. I don’t want her to cut my balls off.

  Nana nods. “Everything is new, washed, and put away.”

  “Thank you for doing all this,” I say and ask, “Do you have a cleaning service?”

  “It’s no hassle,” Alex answers and pulls out his phone. “I’m texting you our people. Tell them I sent you.”

  “Okay,” Nana says. “This was great, but we’re ready to go back to being just Uncle Alex and Aunt Nana.”

  Alex looks at her and grins. Fuck, I don’t want to know about their sex life and getting back their groove.

  “Leave a sock outside the backyard door,” I recommend. “We don’t want to visit you and find you fucking on top of the counter.”

  Hannah laughs. “As much as I’d love to see your face when that happens, we’re actually leaving tomorrow on vacation for a wee
k. If you need anything, call anyone but us.”

  “So helpful,” I tease her, and she gives me the stink-eye. “Dude, I’m joking. You deserve this vacation.”

  “There’s a list with Mae’s schedule in the kitchen and a second one in her room. Mom helped me, so you can call her if you need anything.”

  “Everything is under control. Give me my Snuggle Bug,” I request, walking to Alex, who kisses the top of her head.

  “Be nice to Tuck and Sage, Mae,” he says. “Don’t fuck this up, Tuck. I trust you.”

  “Thanks, man, for everything you’ve done for us.”

  “Hey, Nana, do you need me to take care of the evil spawn and the pup?”

  She smiles and shakes her head.

  “Bruno and Draco are already at my parents, but thank you.”

  “The doctor’s information is in the journal.” Alex puts the diaper bag on top of the kitchen island. “You have enough diapers for a week. Don’t buy in bulk yet because she’s growing too fast.”

  “What journal?” Sage asks.

  “They’ve been creating a journal with pictures, milestones, and apparently allergies.”

  “We learned a few things from my brothers and sisters,” Alex says. “I know Nana said not to call, but call if you need anything.”

  Once they leave, Sage says something that alarms me. “You have to teach me how to change her diaper.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She clears her throat and says, “Look, I’ve never been around children. I was the baby of the house.”

  “Any babysitting jobs?”

  She shakes her head. “Nope. The Heywoods don’t need to work.”

  “Cousins?”

  “My cousins live in Oregon, and I didn’t grow up close to them.”

  “Do they have children?”

  “Yes, but I steer away from the kids because how embarrassing it is to say, I don’t know how to carry a baby or change a diaper. Now I know how to properly carry a baby, but the rest is new to me.”

  “Oh, fuck,” I complain. “So, I need to teach you?”

  She nods. “Sorry, not everyone has five siblings and twenty million younger cousins like you.”

  “Do you like kids?”

  She gives me a sad smile, and I remember the miscarriage. How could I be so fucking insensitive?

  “Just teach me, okay?”

  “I talked to my uncle,” I inform her. “They’re already filing for a restraining order extension. It includes Mae and me. Douglas will be served once the judge has processed it.”

  “Why?”

  “It expires in six months,” I explain. “After what happened between you two …”

  “You know,” she states. “I thought he loved me. My parents liked him enough.”

  “Why did you marry him?”

  “I was twenty-two when I met him. Freshly graduated from college and looking for a job.” She closes her eyes briefly. “It was a career fair. He was charming … no one had paid that much attention to me. Look, I’m not a supermodel, and to get noticed in my circle, you had to be blonde, thin, and chirpy.”

  She touches her auburn hair. “Mom always said redheads are bad luck.”

  Sage kisses Mae’s little hand. “We’re not. It’s just a hair color.” Her attention goes back to me. “The point is the guy did what many haven’t done before—he saw me. At least pretended to care, to love me. People like me … we do anything to receive love.”

  “Like you?” I ask, confused.

  She’s so fucking beautiful. Perfect. Interesting. And what I like the most about her is that she doesn’t take my shit.

  “My parents weren’t loving,” she answers. “No nighttime stories, words of love after scabbing my knees, nor praises for getting good grades. I grew up craving love and attention.”

  I want to hold her, to pull her into me, but I let her speak.

  “You fall in love with the first man who says you’re beautiful,” she concludes. “You oversee the emotional abuse, the cheating, the … almost everything. Until you wake up two days later after the worst beating and find yourself in a hospital bed with the news that you were pregnant, but … you lost the baby because you let him get that far.”

  My heart aches for her. Her words cause a pandemonium of feelings that I have no fucking idea how to control. There’s this need to make things right for her by clutching, pulsing, even demanding blood from the fucker who hurt her.

  “I didn’t know,” she says, her voice breaking as she caresses Mae’s head. “About the baby. Only seven weeks old. If I had known … I would have filed for divorce before he sent me to the hospital. Maybe not. I always thought he’d change and be the man he was when we first met.

  “He didn’t fight the divorce under the condition that I wouldn’t press charges—and I’d file under irreconcilable differences. I kept the apartment on 5th Avenue and reclaimed my maiden name.”

  “Why does he keep looking for you?”

  She looks at me pensive. “How do you know about that?”

  I go into detail about Mason and his security company. Even include that I worked for him—not that I almost died while in duty.

  “Thank you? I … I’d have liked to tell you under my terms, but I guess you needed to know everything.”

  “You’re safe with me,” I promise. “I’m not Corbin, but I’m not Douglas either.”

  She nods and smiles. “Teach me how to do this parenting thing. I’m a virgin.”

  “Taking your virginity will be my pleasure,” I joke.

  “Boundaries.”

  “You started it. I should make a list of words you shouldn’t say to keep it safe.”

  “I need a safe word?” she asks, almost grinning.

  “If you want to.” I chuckle. “I meant to say ‘keep it clean.’”

  She laughs. “I’m sure you just need to hand me a dictionary.”

  45

  Tucker

  Things I shouldn’t do—ever. Hand Sage a stack of books to learn about babies. After she confessed to never being around babies, I dragged her—and Mae—to the bookstore. We bought several books about babies, including the famous, Don’t Expect to Know Everything About Your Baby.

  “I went through my catalog and that book isn’t famous,” Sage tells me. “We could’ve ordered these books from my grandparents’ bookstore and helped them.”

  “How is the bookstore doing?” I ask, as I’m trying to connect the router.

  She glances from the book toward me and then back. “What are you doing again?”

  “Installing the internet connection,” I explain, wondering why she changed the conversation.

  “Do you think she missed breastfeeding?” she asks.

  “I miss breasts. Do you know when the last time I—”

  “Tucker, we agreed,” she warns me, but when I look at her, there’s a faint smile playing on her lips.

  Winking at her, I say, “Babe, you used one of the magic words.”

  “Magic words?” she asks, arching an eyebrow. “You’re the most ridiculous man in the world.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” she presses.

  “Look, you can’t miss what you don’t have … in a way,” I answer. “While we’re talking about her missing her parents and the future, let’s agree that we’ll be upfront with her. She’s ours, but she had other parents. They were human beings who made mistakes, but we’ll never use their flaws as a way to make her better, or she’ll resent us—and she might hate them too indirectly.”

  “That’s too specific of a response,” she says, and when I look at her, she’s studying me. “What’s your story? I thought you were a foster child.”

  “Adopted,” I inform her.

  “You look like your mom,” she points out the obvious. “Except, she has very cool eyes.”

  “My sisters have them too,” I inform her. “Thea is my mom. As you know, she’s a recovering addict. She had me when she was seventeen and gave me up
for adoption because she was all alone.”

  “Open adoption?”

  “No, my adoptive parents didn’t want that. She thought they were good people, which was true up until my father cheated and started a new family,” I explain and add, “I was Tucker Dean Callaway.”

  “You like to change your last names, huh,” she jokes.

  “When Thea married Tristan and Matt, they found me. I was almost ten, but they stayed away because I looked happy.”

  Sage rises from her the couch and takes a seat right beside me, touching my hand. “What happened?”

  “My world crumbled at fourteen. When Travis Callaway decided he didn’t love Mom and knocked up his mistress, he no longer had any use for me. So, he told me I was adopted. Imagine growing up with one truth then being told after so long that you’re not who you think you are and there’s a missing part—which sounds weird, but my heart always knew there was something lacking. The absence of someone important.”

  “You think things would’ve been different if you were told where you came from?”

  I nod. “That and also if they hadn’t changed so much from loving parents too … Aurora Callaway went from being a sweet mother to a bitter woman who had lost—I guess—everything. After that, she always talked shit about my biological mother. The junkie, the whore. She didn’t want me with her anymore. She checked my arms to make sure I wasn’t using.

  “When she started dating again, she chose only scumbags. One of her boyfriends always tried to hit me, and if it wasn’t for Ethan … the point is things got bad. That’s when the Deckers flew to Texas to rescue me. They brought me to Seattle, and I had to learn how not to hate Thea as much as I did.

  “You can’t not love them you know, but it’s so fucking hard to accept that she left me. Maybe even to forgive her. Still, I had an attitude up until a couple of years ago,” I tell her, not proud of myself. “I didn’t want to accept that it was time to grow up and leave behind the partying and fucking that made my teenage years bearable.”

  “That’s why you push people away,” she says, in a eureka tone, that’s far too enthusiastic after I just told her something not many know. “Because you’re afraid of rejection.”