Kira
Later that day, Kira dropped by her ex’s house to pick Lucian up. She had to take Dylan with her even though she knew that Larry was going to have questions she didn’t want to answer. “Come here, big boy, let Kira hold you,” she said as she scooped Dylan up into her arms, carrying him all the way up to Larry’s front door.
“You’re late,” Larry said by way of greeting as he opened the door. He looked like shit, like even spending fifteen hours with his kid was too much for him. Kira didn’t really have any sympathy for him, especially after all he’d put her through when they were married.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get him out here,” Kira said, hitching Dylan up higher in her arms.
“Who’s this?” Larry said, pointing at Dylan and narrowing his eyes at Kira suspiciously. Kira was tempted to scoff, annoyed at the implication behind Larry’s question. What, does he think I had another fucking kid while he wasn’t paying attention? Kira thought to herself, biting down on her own bottom lip just to keep herself from laughing at Larry. He was such a fucking idiot. What had she ever seen in him in the first place?
“My new job,” Kira replied. “Will you bring me my son, please?”
“You can come in for a minute, you know,” Larry said, opening the door wider to let Kira inside.
Kira just shook her head, staring blankly at Larry until he sighed and backed away into his house to get Lucian. “It’ll be just another minute, Dylan, and then we can go back home and bake brownies,” she said.
“Okay,” Dylan said, beaming up at her. Sometimes, when Dylan was particularly sweet, Kira doubted that Brent was really his father. He looked like him, at least from certain angles, but in terms of personality they were so different. Dylan was so sweet and generous, always making sure that Lucian had as much food as him and got to play with Dylan’s toys as much as he wanted. By contrast, Brent was a cold hard shell of a person. He was like this robot, his metal skin impenetrable. Looking down at Dylan’s sweet, happy little face, she knew for sure that it had been insanely stupid of her to ever think that Brent would be interested in her in any romantic way. If Dylan—lovely, perfect, kind Dylan, who had a heart way too big for his tiny body—couldn’t get past Brent’s many shields, there was no way anyone was getting in there.
“Mommy!” Lucian called out, dashing through the living room and crashing into Kira’s legs, hugging her as tightly as he could.
“Well, hello to you, too!” Kira said, smiling down at her son. It was a relief to know that no matter what, her son could still bring her joy just by hugging her and showing her that she was loved. She was appreciated. It didn’t matter if everything else in her life was shit, as long as she had Lucian. “Come on, baby, let’s go home,” she said, leaning down to pet the top of Lucian’s head, smoothing over his messy hair.
“Aren’t you going to say thank you?” Larry said from somewhere inside his house.
Kira rolled her eyes. She knew that it was probably useless to engage in any conversation with him at all, but she decided to take the bait, probably because she was already on edge from all the stuff with Brent. “What are you talking about?”
“For watching him,” Larry said, stepping out into the living room again where Kira could see him.
Kira scoffed, scowling at her ex-husband. “You don’t get a cookie for watching your own son, Larry. It doesn’t work that way.”
Larry shrugged. “I don’t know, Kira. I mean, I’m sure you had a lot of fun yesterday. Go on any dates?”
Kira flushed, her whole body going hot as she thought of what had happened the night before. Could Larry smell it on her or something? Still, she tried to keep her face calm, unwilling to let Larry know that he’d actually shaken her up at all. “No, I was busy with work. You know, I had to find a new job since you ruined the last one for me.”
“That wasn’t me,” Larry said, but Kira just rolled her eyes again, not believing him for a second. “But anyway, I just want you to know that you need to tell me before you start dating anyone, okay?”
“What? Why?” Kira asked.
“So I can run a background check on the guy,” Larry said. “There are a lot of crazies out there, you know, lot of creeps. I don’t want anybody with a record hanging around my son.”
“And why the hell do you think I’d let a dangerous man around Lucian?” Kira said, silently reproaching herself for cursing around the children. She’d been getting better at not doing that, but Larry just got on her last nerve. She didn’t understand how she’d stayed married to him for so long. He was a piece of garbage, really, not a man.
“I’m not saying you would do it on purpose,” Larry said. “But you don’t think things through sometimes. Like the thing with your landlord, right? You picked a shitty place to live, and then you get surprised when the landlord turns out to be a scumbag. That’s no way to raise Lucian, Kira.”
That was it. Kira couldn’t force herself to be nice to this asshole, even in front of the children. “Don’t you ever talk to me about how to raise my son,” Kira said between clenched teeth, reaching forward to pull Lucian closer to her side.
“He’s our son,” Larry corrected her. “Not just yours.”
Kira huffed out a bitter laugh. “Right. That’s why you’re the one working your ass off to take care of him and make sure that he’s well fed and has a stable home. Oh, wait…” She hardened her gaze, glaring at her ex-husband with as much disdain as she could muster.
“Whatever,” Larry said, shrugging in defeat. “Just make sure whatever creep you’re fucking now doesn’t put his hands on our kid. Okay? See you later.” Larry slammed the door in Kira’s face, and Lucian gripped harder onto his mother’s legs, whining a little under his breath. Kira inwardly reproached herself, not for the reasons Larry had given, but because she’d lost her temper in front of her son. I shouldn’t have done that, she thought as she guided the two boys back to her car. Lucian needs to know that it’s okay for him to love his father without feeling like he’s betraying me. I shouldn’t let him see our conflicts.
Kira kept beating herself up on the drive back over to Brent’s house, but she forced a smile on her face as soon as they got home, letting the two boys dash around the house wildly as she prepared the ingredients for the brownies. She kept her mind focused on baking, trying not to let her thoughts drift off into dangerous territory, but every so often she flashed back to what had happened in the kitchen the night before. God, I’ve never been fucked so well in my entire life, she thought as she poured the thick batter out into a pan. How the hell am I going to act normal around him tonight?
Kira pushed the question out of her mind. She didn’t have an answer for it, so there was no use torturing herself by obsessing about it. She’d just have to handle the situation as maturely as she could manage, but in all honesty it was more likely that Brent would continue to ignore her for as long as she worked at his house. Good, she thought to herself as she waited for the brownies to finish baking. I don’t want him to want me. It makes things simpler.
“Wait, hold up!” Dylan called out as he raced past the kitchen into the living room, apparently calling after Lucian.
“You can’t catch me!” Lucian said back in between fits of giggles. Kira had to smile then, despite the darkness of her thoughts. Her child’s happiness was just too contagious to resist.
After pulling the brownies out of the oven to cool off, she followed the boys into the living room, where they were chasing each other around in circles. They were moving so fast that at first Kira couldn’t make out their faces. They were just two blurs of color darting around the room, but eventually Lucian had to pause to pant for breath, and she noticed that his whole face was covered in dirt.
“Lucian!” Kira protested, marching across the room to hold her son’s face between her hands to inspect it. “What have you gotten into?”
“Um…” Lucian said, his face falling, aware that he was in trouble now. “Um, I don’t know, Mommy…”
“Oh, I think you do,” Kira replied, giving her child a stern look. “Was it the flower pots in the den? Did you knock them over?”
“I—maybe…” Lucian said, his cheeks flushing as he averted his eyes from his mother, looking over her shoulder and biting his lip in anxiety.
Kira sighed and shook her head. Boys will be boys, I guess, she thought to herself. She scooped Lucian up into her arms and walked towards the staircase on the opposite side of the room, heading for the bathroom in the middle of the second floor hallway.
Dylan followed them upstairs, but he stayed outside of the bathroom, chattering at Lucian through the door while Kira peeled off her son’s clothes and began to run a bath for him. “Lucian, it’s okay, Brent doesn’t even like the flowers, he told me so,” Dylan said through the wall.
“Okay,” Lucian said in a small voice, apparently still feeling ashamed over his actions. “Mommy, will Mr. Barkley be mad at me?”
“No, honey,” Kira promised him, even though she knew he would probably be a little bit annoyed at the destruction of his flower pot. “I don’t think he cares that much about us.”
“He’s funny,” Lucian said as he stepped into the bath, splashing the water up on his face to get the dirt off. “I like him.”
Kira didn’t say anything. She felt a slight ache in the center of her chest, watching Lucian smile as he started talking about how much fun he had with Dylan earlier that day, but she got distracted when she saw something on Lucian’s arm—a wide bruise on his skinny bicep, mostly purple with yellow around the edges. Kira reached out and gently grabbed Lucian’s arm, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Honey, what happened here?”
Lucian turned to look at what Kira was pointing at. “Oh. I don’t know. I guess I bumped into something.”
Kira frowned and rubbed the bruised skin a little, hoping to soothe any leftover pain her son might have felt. “Did you tell Daddy about it?”
Lucian shook his head, splashing more water on his face. “No, I’m fine. I’m a big boy now, Mommy.”
Kira smiled a little, just for her son’s benefit, and leaned over to kiss the top of his head. “You’re right. You’re my big man now.” Lucian was the only man she needed in her life, after all. She just needed to remind herself of that whenever she thought of Brent and what had happened between them. Anyone other than Lucian was a distraction.
Dylan knocked lightly on the door. “Am I your big man?” he asked in a soft voice, barely audible through the layer of wood separating them.
Kira felt something break apart in her heart, her jaw dropping open as Dylan’s question sunk into her mind. She stuttered for a second, unsure of what to say. She wasn’t this kid’s mother, but…how could she say no? He’d been abandoned by one parent and was steadily ignored by the other. She’d promised to be there for him already and she couldn’t take that back, even if Brent thought that was a stupid idea.
So she said the only thing she could think of, and when her answer left her mouth she realized that she believed it. “You are, too, Dylan. You’re a very good boy.”
Dylan laughed lightly and sighed, like she’d just given him the answer he’d been waiting for his whole life. Kira felt happier then, too, her chest feeling lighter and freer after she’d said the words. She had two people in her life now, she realized, both of whom seemed to love her. What else could she ask for?
***
Brent came home early that night, around eight, hours before he usually stumbled into the house at night. Kira, who was in the middle of putting the boys to bed, felt incredibly unprepared, her whole body flushing as she heard Brent shut the front door behind him and walk further into the house. It’s fine, she told herself as she patted Dylan’s head and left him alone to go to sleep. Brent’s not going to say anything about what happened. You won’t ever have to deal with it. It was just a fluke, and you’re never going to have to think about it again.
Still, she felt a little sick to her stomach as she went into Lucian’s room to make sure he got into bed on time. “All right, say goodnight to your mama.” She leaned over to kiss his forehead while he struggled with his sheets and blankets.
“Goodnight, Mommy,” Lucian said, sighing deeply as he stretched his arms upward and outward, his pajama shirt rising to reveal a splotch of dark grey bruises on the bottom of his stomach.
“Lucian,” Kira said firmly, grabbing his shirt to inspect the bruises more closely. “What happened here?”
Lucian didn’t answer at first, staring at his mother and biting his bottom lip for a long moment before he finally said, “Um, I think I fell in Daddy’s backyard.”
“Fell onto what?” Kira asked. “What happened to cause this, baby?”
“I don’t remember,” Lucian said quickly, the pupils of his eyes dilating so wide Kira could barely make out his irises.
“Lucian…” Kira said in a warning tone of voice, reaching out to brush her fingertips gingerly across his bruised stomach. “Please tell me if something is going on, okay? I need to know if anybody—if anything is hurting you.”
“Everything’s fine, Mama,” Lucian said, smiling brightly at Kira. “I’m pretty sleepy, though.”
Kira sighed and nodded to herself, pulling Lucian’s shirt back down to cover the bruise back up. “All right, baby. You get some sleep. But we’re going to talk about this again tomorrow, okay? And I want a better answer than just ‘I forgot,’ all right? Sweet dreams, my sweet baby,” she said as she exited the room and switched off the lights.
Standing there in the dimly lit hallway, she could barely make out the noises from downstairs, but after a few moments of hard concentration her mind blocked out all other stimuli and zeroed in on Brent’s movements on the floor below. His footfall kept going back and forth, so he was walking around, maybe even pacing with anxious energy. What does he have to be anxious about? Kira wondered to herself. It’s not like he let his boss bend him over and fuck him and then ignore him the whole day afterwards. When she strained her ears, she could make out the faint sound of glass clinking. Maybe Brent was making himself dinner.
Kira was tempted to just go back into her room, the one adjoining Lucian’s, and wait there until Brent left for work in the morning. Maybe if she delayed seeing him for a week or so, she would no longer feel awkward whenever she saw him or heard him.
But for some reason her feet moved forward, carrying her to the stairwell, reducing the distance between her and Brent. Her body seemed to move of its own volition, as if there was a rope wrapped around her torso, dragging her forward despite the protests her brain was repeating on a loop as she headed downstairs.
Kira saw the exact moment that Brent heard her. His shoulders stiffened and his head turned to the side for a brief moment as she came up behind him in the kitchen. In a way, it was a reversal of the night before, when Brent had snuck up behind her. Kira felt a rush of power at the thought, her blood traveling faster through her veins as she approached Brent, stopping a few inches away from his back.
“Hello, Kira,” Brent finally said after a long, tense pause. He was still facing the other direction, his hands flat on the counter in front of him as if he was preparing to launch himself through the window to escape this confrontation.
He’s nervous, Kira realized with a smug sense of satisfaction. He’s afraid I’m going to talk about it. Let’s see how long I can torture him before I put him out of his misery.
“Haven’t seen you around much the past couple of days,” Kira said, turning around and heading to the refrigerator to get a snack.
She heard Brent inhale quickly, like he was caught off guard, but he didn’t say anything right away.
“Just wanted to check if you needed an update on Dylan or anything,” Kira said, keeping her tone light and casual, as if she really hadn’t had any contact with Brent over the past week or so.
“How is he?” Brent asked after clearing his throat. His voice sounded a little ragged, as if he either hadn’t spoken in days or had shouted out his vocal cords.
“He’s wonderful,” Kira said honestly. She grabbed a yogurt from the refrigerator and went back over next to Brent to grab a spoon from the silverware drawer next to the sink. “He’s one of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met in my life. He loves Lucian, and they play together for hours whenever Lucian isn’t at preschool or with his father. By the way, you should really look into getting Dylan into a preschool program. They can help him develop some learning skills earlier on in life.”
“Can’t you do all that?” Brent asked, turning around to face her. His face looked long and drawn, his eyes dimmer than usual. He must have had a rough day, Kira observed silently as she began eating her yogurt, taking her time to answer Brent’s question.
“Not exactly,” Kira said after swallowing a couple spoonfuls of yogurt. “I haven’t been trained or anything, anyway. I’ve been able to do an okay job with Lucian, but I’ve had help from his teachers. Maybe you can sign Dylan up for the same one Lucian goes to. That way, he’d be sure to have at least one friend.”
“Maybe,” Brent said. He thumbed at his bottom lip and stared at the floor next to Kira’s feet. “I don’t know anything about kids, though. Wouldn’t it be worse to put him in a school only to have him be removed from it down the road?”
“You mean…when you find his mother?” Kira asked. Brent nodded slowly, still not meeting her eyes. “You’re still committed to that?”
“Nothing’s changed,” Brent said, finally lifting his gaze toward Kira’s face. Kira’s heart froze in her chest for a millisecond then pounded so hard she was afraid she was going to pass out. He’s not just talking about his son, Kira realized, keeping her gaze as steady as possible as Brent continued to stare at her. He’s talking about the sex.
“All right,” Kira said, licking her lips and nodding in agreement. “I assumed as much anyway, but it’s good to check in.”
“Right,” Brent said. He turned back to whatever food he was preparing on the countertop. Kira was honestly too nervous to look over at him now to see. Her fingertips were shaking and her knees felt weak. Her stomach tossed and turned inside of her. All of the power she’d felt from before seemed to disappear all at once, leaving her hopeless and inert. She leaned back against the refrigerator and only looked at Brent out of the corner of her eye.
“Anyway,” Kira forced herself to say. She shoved the rest of her yogurt into her mouth so she would have an easy excuse to leave the room and go back upstairs to hide from Brent, “I better head to bed. I have to get up early to—”
“Ahhh!” Before Kira could get the rest of her sentence out, she was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream. “Lucian!” Kira cried out, dropping her yogurt and breaking into a run. She dashed upstairs as fast as she could, rushing to her son’s room and flipping on the light. “Lucian, what is—”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” Lucian shouted, sobbing brokenly as he reached out to be picked up by his mother.
“Baby, what is it? What happened?” Kira whispered into his ear. She held him close and rocked him back and forth in her arms.
Lucian just sobbed harder and buried his face into Kira’s shirt, gripping hard at her neck.
“Is everything okay?” Brent asked. Kira almost jumped, her nerves all on edge after Lucian’s howling scream. She turned around slowly to face her boss and nodded to him.
“I think so,” she replied, petting over the back of Lucian’s head. “Did you have a bad dream, baby?” she asked softly. She rubbed Lucian’s back to soothe away the tension in his little spine.
Lucian nodded and sniffled, keeping his face buried in Kira’s chest.
“It’s okay now, darling,” Kira said. “You’re safe. Everything’s fine. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.”
Lucian choked out another sob but otherwise didn’t make any noise in response. Kira’s skin prickled with worry. Her son was usually so talkative and animated. In the past, whenever he had a bad dream, he’d tell her about it in extreme detail, asking her if any part of it was real. Why was he not jumping into a long-winded explanation now? And did it have anything to do with the bruises she’d noticed earlier?
“What’s going on?” a small voice asked. Kira turned back to the hallway again and saw that Dylan got gotten up and was now standing next to his father, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Nothing, honey. Go back to bed,” Kira said. She hugged Lucian closer when he gripped her neck even harder than before, his little nails digging into her skin painfully.
Dylan frowned, his brows furrowed together as he looked to his dad for an explanation. Brent just sighed and put his hand on the top of Dylan’s head. It was the first time Kira had ever seen Brent touch Dylan, at least in a semi-affectionate way. “Go on back to bed, Dylan,” Brent said. “We can see Lucian some more tomorrow.”
Dylan hesitated, his gaze flipping between Brent’s face and Kira’s a few times before he finally nodded and turned back around. He paused again at the door to his bedroom and waved a little at Kira before he disappeared back into his bedroom.
“Why don’t you tell me what you dreamed about, sweetheart?” Kira whispered into Lucian’s ear again. She shifted her weight from one foot to another as the weight of her son in her arms became more difficult to bear.
Lucian didn’t respond, staying perfectly still in her arms, like a sack of rocks.
Out of nowhere, Brent spoke again, his voice softer and sweeter as he addressed Lucian. “Hey, buddy. Are you hungry? Why don’t we go downstairs and have a sandwich? I know when I have a bad dream, a quick snack can help me forget about it faster.”
Lucian was still for another long moment before he finally nodded his head, keeping his face pressed into Kira’s shirt. Kira looked up at Brent again, surprised that he hadn’t gone back to his bedroom by now, but when Brent nodded and gestured for her to follow him downstairs, she complied. She kept a safe distance, though, of at least a couple feet from Brent until they made it back into the kitchen.
“What kind of sandwich do you want? I have just about everything here,” Brent said, presumably addressing Lucian but looking straight into Kira’s eyes.
“He likes peanut butter on wheat bread,” Kira said. “Isn’t that right, baby?”
Lucian nodded slowly. Brent set about making a plain peanut butter sandwich. Kira was practically transfixed, watching as Brent’s wide, broad hands worked slowly and methodically at making the perfect sandwich for Lucian. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Brent’s long, thick fingers, the same ones that wrapped around her neck just twenty-four hours earlier.
When he was done making the sandwich, he gestured for Kira and Lucian to follow him into the dining room. He set the plate down on the table before taking a seat. Kira had a feeling that Lucian wasn’t ready to be put down yet, so she settled on the seat and held Lucian in her lap as he reached out for his midnight snack. “Do you want to tell me what you had a nightmare about, honey?” she asked softly. She brushed some of the hair back from Lucian’s forehead as he leaned over to bite into his sandwich.
Kira’s son just shook his head and chewed, completely disregarding the question. Kira felt frustrated and a little annoyed, but she promised herself she wouldn’t show it, instead giving a comforting backrub to her son as he continued to eat.
“What do you have nightmares about?” Lucian asked when he was halfway through his sandwich. It took Kira a moment to realize it, but he was talking to Brent, not her.
“Uh, what?” Brent asked.
“You said you have nightmares, too, sometimes,” Lucian explained. “What scares you, Mr. Barkley?”
Kira inhaled deeply, preparing herself for Brent’s inevitably caustic, vague response. He didn’t let anyone get close to him, not even his own son. Why would he answer Lucian’s innocent question?
But instead, Brent smiled. The expression looked oddly out of place on his face, like he was molded only for misery. “A lot of different things scare me,” he admitted, tapping his fingers on the table in front of him.
“Like what?” Lucian asked with his mouth full.
“Oh, lots of stuff,” Brent replied. “Sometimes I have dreams about big storm clouds closing in on my house. Or other times I have nightmares that I’m stuck in a dark room and I can’t find a way out of it. Stuff like that.”
“Sounds scary,” Lucian commented. He brushed his hands over his plate to get the crumbs off his fingers. He turned around in Kira’s lap to face her and said, “Mommy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?” Kira said. She kept her arms wrapped tightly around her son even as he wriggled a little bit on her lap.
“I’m tired. Can I go back to bed?”
“Of course,” Kira answered. She got to her feet carefully so as not to drop Lucian on the ground. “Do you want Mommy to lie down with you for a while?” Usually, Lucian wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep after a nightmare unless he was cuddled up with Kira. She knew it was a habit he’d have to break eventually, but not tonight.
“No, I’m okay,” Lucian said. His response surprised her so much she stopped in her tracks for a second to make sure she heard her son correctly. “I’m so sleepy…”
“Okay, honey, I’ll take you back to bed,” Kira said. She hitched Lucian higher up in her arms as she left the dining room and walked back to the staircase.
“Can Mr. Barkley come with us?” Lucian asked, reaching out beyond Kira’s shoulder to gesture towards Brent, who had followed them from the dining room to the main entrance area.
“Um…” Kira wasn’t sure what to say. She turned to look at Brent to see if he was put off by the mere suggestion of spending more time with his live-in help.
“Sure I will,” Brent said. He walked faster to catch up with them and head up the stairs.
“I—thank you,” Kira stuttered out. Her face burned a little as Brent led the way back towards Lucian’s room. Why was Brent being so nice? He hadn’t even reacted this way when his own son had a bad nightmare a few weeks before. What was it about Lucian that suddenly made Brent act like a decent human being? More than decent, Kira realized. Not even Larry would stay up with me to talk Lucian down after his nightmares, and he’s my son’s father. Why in the world is Brent being this way?
Kira finally dropped Lucian back down on his bed and gathered the blankets around him to protect him from the cold. “Sweet dreams,” she said as she pecked Lucian on the cheek.
“Can I have a kiss from Mr. Barkley?” Lucian whispered, as if he was afraid to ask the question.
Okay, that was probably going too far, Kira guessed. “No, honey, just go to sl--” she started to say to her son, but before she could say anything else, Brent appeared at the side of the bed and leaned over her to get to Lucian.
“Goodnight, champ,” Brent said. He pecked Lucian’s forehead lightly and then walked out of the room.
Kira’s jaw dropped open as she watched Brent walk toward the door, but when Brent turned around and made eye contact with her, she tore her gaze away from him, refocusing her attention on her child. “Goodnight, darling,” she whispered as sweetly and reassuringly as she could. “We’ll talk in the morning, all right?”
“Goodnight, Mommy. Don’t let any monsters get you,” Lucian said. He yawned widely as his eyes slid shut.
As soon as she was fairly confident that Lucian was asleep, Kira got to her feet, turned the lights off, and closed the bedroom door behind her. Out in the hallway, she sagged against the wall and buried her face in her hands as the events of the day caught up with her. She felt utterly wrung-out, like every drop of energy in her body had been drained away.
“He’ll be okay.” Kira dropped her hands from her face to make sure that she’d heard correctly. Brent was standing across from her now, chewing on his bottom lip and crossing and uncrossing his arms every few seconds like he couldn’t get comfortable. “He seems to be all right, anyway.”
“I don’t know,” Kira admitted. She signed deeply and peeled herself off the wall. She walked further away from her son’s room just in case he was still awake and happened to be listening. “Can I get your opinion on something?” she asked Brent. He followed her down to the opposite end of the hallway, safely away from both Lucian’s and Dylan’s bedrooms.
“Sure,” Brent said.
“I’m not sure how to say this,” Kira admitted. If she had any energy left inside her, she would have felt embarrassed to talk about this with Brent, afraid that he’d think it was inappropriate, especially given their previous lapse in professionalism. But for now, other demands outweighed her bashfulness. She needed advice, and unfortunately there wasn’t really anybody else she could turn to at the moment. “Lucian came home with weird bruises on his body.”
Brent’s brow immediately furrowed. His eyes narrowed as he listened to Kira’s words. “Big or small?”
“Big,” Kira said. “And I don’t know how they got there. Lucian said he fell or bumped into something or just had some kind of normal accident while he was running around, but…”
“But you think something else might have happened,” Brent suggested, stating it matter-of-factly rather than phrasing it as a question.
“Right,” Kira replied. “Like…I don’t know. I’m just being paranoid and freaking out about things. It’s probably nothing.”
“Not necessarily,” Brent said. They came to a stop in front of his bedroom. Kira fidgeted with her hands for a moment, feeling awkward and unsure of what to do until Brent gestured for her to follow him into his room. “Come on, let’s talk in here.”
Kira did as she was instructed, going over and sitting down next to Brent on his bed. The heavy sensation of dread hung over her chest, making her feel like her breath wasn’t able to get inside her lungs. What could have happened to Lucian? Kira wondered. She picked anxiously at her fingernails, tearing up the sides of her cuticles painfully. Where did those bruises come from? Could…someone have hurt him?
“I don’t know what to do,” Kira confessed, thinking out loud. “I really don’t know.”
“About the bruises?” Brent asked.
Kira nodded, still not looking directly at Brent. “I don’t know what they mean. I mean, I don’t want to freak out over nothing, you know? Larry…he’s a shitty guy, but he loves his son. He wanted partial custody of him when we broke up. I don’t think he would hurt him.”
“But…?” Brent prompted her.
“But I don’t know for sure,” Kira said. She blew out her breath in frustration. “I don’t want to accuse him of something. I mean, we already don’t get along. I got into a fight with him today in front Lucian…and Dylan, too, by the way. Sorry about that. I know it’s very unprofessional and wrong and I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s okay,” Brent said. “Trust me, I’m sure Dylan has seen a lot worse.”
Kira smiled sadly, then finally turned to look at her boss. “Weirdly, that doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Sorry,” Brent said. He returned her humorless smile, which looked more like a grimace on his face. “But I guess there’s probably not a whole lot anyone can do right not to make you feel better, huh?”
Kira nodded. She swallowed hard around the bile that was creeping up her throat as she pictured the bruises on Lucian’s skin. “Yeah. I guess I just have to let myself feel this way. Terrified and fucking useless.”
“You’re not useless,” Brent said, his tone weirdly defensive, as if she’d just personally offended him. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” Kira asked, shrugging at Brent. “It’s the truth. I can’t even get my son to tell me what’s going on. He’s five years old, and he’s already learning how to lie to me.”
“Men learn to lie to the women in their lives at a young age. I wouldn’t worry about it” Brent said, offering another smile, a little brighter this time. “Anyway, all you can do right now is exactly what you’re doing. Paying attention. Asking Lucian to tell you if something is wrong. Being concerned. It just means you’re a good mom.”
Kira scoffed and rubbed her own arms against the chill of the room. “Yeah, right. I can’t even afford a good place to stay. Whenever you’re done with Dylan, we’ll be back living in some cramped shithole. Lucian’s going to grow up hating me, and he won’t be wrong to feel that way.”
“Hey, stop it,” Brent said. He shuffled closer to her on the bed until they were almost touching. “Don’t talk like that.”
“I’m just being honest with myself,” Kira said. She sighed deeply again, feeling a heavy weight of despair on her heart. Either something was happening to her son, or she was freaking out over nothing. Either way, she wasn’t acting the way a mother should act. A real mother protects her children no matter what, Kira thought. A real mother has things under control. Why can’t I just be strong for Lucian? Why does everything have to be a goddamn mess?
“Beating yourself up right now isn’t going to accomplish anything,” Brent argued. “Look, you tried to get him to talk to you. That’s all you can really do right now. So try not to think about it.”
Kira sighed and rocked her head back, rolling her shoulders one way and then another in an attempt to get at least some of the tension out of her pent-up muscles. “I don’t think that’s an option right now,” she said, laughing bitterly at herself.
Brent was quiet for a long moment. Out of the corner of Kira’s eye, she could see that he was frowning, his usually blank and expressionless face wrinkled with frustration. “How can I help?” he finally asked in a low, soft voice, barely audible even in the silence of the room.
Kira was caught off-guard. For a long time she couldn’t come up anything to say. Finally, after several long silent moments, she cleared her throat and said honestly, “I don’t think you can. Thank you, though.” She paused for a moment then said what was on her mind. “You know, you really surprised me tonight. I thought you hated kids.”
Brent seemed to flinch a little, like she’d crossed a boundary by saying that. Oh, well. She couldn’t exactly take it back now. “I don’t…hate kids,” Brent said haltingly. “I just don’t know how to be…” He let his sentence trail off, sighing to himself and staring down at his own lap.
“I’m sorry,” Kira said. She turned to face Brent and scooted a little bit closer until their legs were touching slightly. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. It’s just that you don’t seem like you want to be around Dylan very much.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Brent said. He nodded to himself and then turned to meet Kira’s eyes again. “I mean, look. I only met him a couple weeks ago, like two days before I met you. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. Nobody ever trained me for this.”
Kira let Brent’s words hang in the air around them for a long moment before responding. But eventually she murmured, “That’s kind of how I felt when I first had Lucian.”
“Oh, yeah?” Brent asked. He shifted around on the bed to fully face Kira.
“Yeah,” Kira admitted. She still felt a slight burn of shame climb up her back as she thought about how she felt in the weeks after Lucian’s birth. “During the pregnancy, I thought I would have Larry’s help, you know. He wanted a baby. I thought everything was going to be okay. But when he actually got here…” Kira’s words broke off, and she shook her head at herself, still disappointed in her heart for ever loving someone as weak and cowardly as Larry. “He didn’t help me at all. I was all by myself, and I wasn’t ready for that.”
“So what did you do?” Brent asked. His face remained calm, but his voice betrayed some sense of urgency, like he desperately needed to know the answer.
“I waited,” Kira said, thinking back on those long hours where she stared down at Lucian, praying for the strength to take care of him. “In some ways I’m still waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Brent asked.
“To feel ready,” Kira said. “To feel like I’m not a total fuck-up ruining my child’s life. I still don’t know if that’s true or not.”
“You’re not a fuck-up,” Brent said, shaking his head at her. “You’re not.”
“Pfft. Thank you, but you don’t know me well enough to say one way or another,” Kira said. She sighed deeply and stretched her neck from one side to another, trying to work out the painful kinks that had formed in her muscles over the past few hours. “Anyway, you can only do your best. Even if that’s woefully inadequate.”
“Hey. Come on. Stop talking about yourself that way,” Brent said. His brows furrowed in frustration as he glared at Kira.
“You’re not the boss of me,” Kira said a little sarcastically. “Oh, well, I guess technically you are, but I can still self-deprecate if I want. You don’t get to determine that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Brent said. He got to his feet, towering over Kira, his eyes blazing with something that chilled Kira to the bone. “I’m going to have to disagree with you on that.”
“What—” Kira started to say, but before she could get any other words out, Brent swept her into his arms, picking her up easily as if she weighed next to nothing. “What the hell!” Kira cried out, but her legs instinctively wrapped around Brent’s waist anyway, if only to keep herself from tumbling to the floor.
Now she was above Brent, suspended above his head and staring down into his eyes, which still seemed to burn with an emotion that Kira thought she recognized but couldn’t identify. Kira swallowed hard just to steady herself and wrapped her arms around his neck, licking her dried lips and meeting Brent’s piercing gaze as unwaveringly as she could.
“Stop fucking insulting yourself,” Brent whispered hoarsely.
“Or you’ll do what?” Kira asked, her throat going dry as she saw Brent’s eyes fall to stare down into her shirt, his tongue poking out of his mouth as he looked at her cleavage.
“I think you fucking know the answer to that already,” Brent said. His hand dug harder into Kira’s back, forcing her body closer to his as he walked around the perimeter of the bed. Before Kira could prepare herself, Brent growled and tossed her hard on the bed, making her body bounce on the mattress with the force of his muscles.
The next second, Brent was on her, pinning her down to the bed with a hand on either side of her head. He stared down at her for several long moments, already panting as if he’d run a full marathon.
“What do you want from me?” Kira whispered into the space between their mouths, unable to keep her eyes off his full, dark lips.
Brent licked his lips, his sharp white teeth bared as his eyes scanned up and down her body. One of his hands slid down to stroke her side. “You keep asking questions you already know the answer to,” Brent whispered. He leaned in, brushing his lips against her neck, applying soft feather-touches to her skin, over and over again until she shivered violently and clutched the back of his head with both hands, keeping him pinned in place with her arms.
Brent’s breathing, now echoing against her ear, only got harder and faster while his hand found the hem of her shirt, pushing it up and exposing the skin of her stomach to the cold air. Kira whimpered and squirmed under his touch. His hand began rubbing her stomach, pushing her shirt up further until her bra was exposed. “You’re so fucking tempting, you know that?” Brent muttered into her ear, biting hard under her chin and making her squeal and arch up into his body.
Kira could feel Brent’s grin on her skin, his teeth dancing over her flesh but making her wait for that gloriously painful moment when it would press down into a real bite again. “You like this?” Brent whispered into her neck, licking her collarbone back and forth until she finally stuttered out a response.
“Y-yes,” she whispered. A hot blush coursed up her whole body, making her woozy and light-headed. What am I doing? What the hell is going on? I can’t do this. I can’t fuck him again. I can’t! That little voice in the back of Kira’s mind kept protesting on a loop over and over again, but with every swipe of Brent’s tongue it faded, her mind filled only with the sound of Brent’s breathing and his light, teasing laughter.
“Yeah, you fucking like this,” Brent said as he drifted back up to her ear, tonguing at her earlobe before skimming the edge of his teeth around the perimeter of the shell of her ear.
“Mmf, yeah,” Kira admitted. She wrapped her legs around Brent’s waist, tugging him closer into her crotch. “Yeah, I fucking like it.” Her own voice was hoarse and shaky, her breathing speeding up as her hips twitched forward of their own volition, humping against Brent’s cock which was hard inside his jeans.
“Mm, you’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?” Brent nibbled along the edge of her neck. She moaned and gasped, tangling her fingers deeper into his thick hair.
“Yes,” Kira admitted, finally realizing what she’d wanted this whole time. Her body ached for him, her cells screaming out to be touched by his hands, his tongue, his teeth, his cock—every inch of him that she could possibly touch. “I fucking need it. Give it to me.”