LIKE A BEACON, I HEAD toward Lydia’s without a second thought. That’s bullshit. I’ve been thinking about it all day, so it’s had more than a second thought. This…thing has had a ten-hour hold on my brain.
When we pull up in front of her building, Bruno starts pawing at the window. I reach over and rub his head.
“Calm down. Let me make sure she’s here.” Pulling out my phone, I type out a text to her.
Are you home?
My palms start sweating when her reply doesn’t come instantly. What am I thinking? I should’ve texted earlier and made sure this was okay. I’m probably making myself look like a total stalker. Ding. I look down at my phone at her response.
Yes. Are you here?
Shit. Do I say yes? Do I say I’m on my way? Do I say, no, I was just checking on you? I hold the phone and stare blankly at it. Finally, I settle on honesty.
Bruno and I just pulled up.
Bubbles indicating her typing a response dance across our text thread.
Good. I could use your help. Come up.
I wipe my palms on my jeans and clip the leash to Bruno’s collar. He jumps over my lap to exit the truck when I open the door.
“Damn, dude. Hold on.” I step down and shut the door, locking it behind me with the remote as we walk across the street.
When I step off the elevator and walk toward her door, I can hear muffled baby cries coming from her apartment and Bruno must hear it too because he starts whining and pulling on the leash. I pet to calm him and knock at the door. A few seconds later the door opens and Lydia opens the door, frustration in her features.
“Hey. Come in.” She leaves the door open and walks back toward the main room. I walk in after Bruno, pulling on his leash to get his attention. “I was just making Liam a bottle. Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.”
I nod, walking around the couch and over to where Liam lies in his playpen, arms and legs flailing as he cries.
“Well I guess he’s decided to cry when he’s hungry now, huh?” I laugh a little.
“Yeah. He definitely makes it known now,” she says from the kitchen. I want to reach down and pick him up, anxious to soothe him, but not wanting to cross any boundaries.
Fuck it. She asked me to hold him yesterday and I can’t stand to see him crying. I reach down and lift him to my chest, his cry quieting to a whimper as I pat his back. Turning to walk to the couch, Lydia stands behind me, bottle in hand and a smile on her face.
“Is this okay? He was really crying.”
“It’s fine. I’m just having a hard time believing you haven’t done this before.” She hands me the bottle and I take it, moving to sit on the couch.
“Yeah, well, I guess we all gotta learn sometime. Right?” I adjust Liam in the crook of my arm, putting the bottle to his mouth. He immediately starts gulping the contents, nearly choking. Lydia reaches down and adjusts him, helping him take slower sucks. She sits beside me and Bruno sniffs him a couple of times before lying at my feet.
“Ever think about having one of your own?” she asks. I nod a couple times, having considered this before.
“I do. But honestly, I thought more about being a foster parent or adopting more than I’ve thought about having my own. Not that I wouldn’t want a child of my own, there are just a lot of kids who need families.”
She turns to the side, crossing a leg under her, appraising me. “Same,” she says simply. “I’ve actually talked to a friend of my fathers who works for an adoption agency. The number of American children in foster homes is staggering. Coming from a great family myself, it’s hard to imagine not having that. Even more so, that there aren’t more people anxious to consider it.”
I want to look at her, but the ball of emotion in my chest keeps my eyes glued to Liam. I guess I thought someone like her would never consider fostering or adopting, or possibly even be in opposition of it. It’s just another thing I add to my mental notes of things I’ve been wrong about with her.
“You said in your text that you could use my help?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Oh. Yeah. Well, let me just show you.” She nods, standing and walking around the couch. She comes back around, pulling a large cardboard box with her, sliding the top off to reveal something with wheels.
“What is it?”
“A jogging stroller,” she says, hand on her hip, looking down at it like it’s a giant Rubix’s cube. I figured it was something of the sort, but the thing is huge and looks like it could fit way more than a little baby.
“Damn. Looks like you want him to have plenty of room.”
“Liz, Madi’s mom, ordered it. Apparently, it’s like the Rolls Royce of jogging strollers. It has this weatherproof cover and everything. I knew when I opened the box there was no way my Jedi skills were strong enough.”
I laugh, because, Star Wars. I add that one to my mental notepad of shit I’ve gotten wrong about her.
The bottle begins to run dry and I look from Liam to Lydia, pulling it from his mouth.
“Here, you take him and I’ll see if the force is strong with this one.” It’s her turn to laugh at me. She steps in front of me and takes him, our fingers getting tangled in the exchange. We look at each other, trying not to fumble in our awkwardness. She steps back a little as I move to stand up, and the same feeling of rightness from the sidewalk yesterday as I helped them into the car creeps into my chest.
Like a caged animal, I want to lean down and take her lips. I want to pull her to me and hold her, even if Liam is between us because I can picture a future never seen in my mind.
I want to be the best instead of always doing things that make me the worst.
And something in her eyes tells me she wants me to be good for her, too.
Pushing the button on the handle of the stroller, I open it from its collapsed state, proud that it seems like I’ve put it together correctly.
“What do you think?” I look up at Lydia, who beams in approval.
“I think you did it.” She takes the handle and rolls it around the main room, zipping the weatherproof canopy up and down, checking all the parts to ensure the quality. “Considering I haven’t gotten to run in days, I think this thing is going to be my new favorite toy.”
“Why don’t we take it around the block then?”
She looks out the window and I follow her eyes, noting how dark it is. I guess it’s later than I thought. I look at the clock on the wall.
“Ah, yeah, it’s already eight. I didn’t realize.”
“How about since it’s so late, we go first thing in the morning? Then we can actually go to Lake Shore and get a run in.”
It’s a better idea. I’m sure she’s as beat as I am anyway.
“He’s out, I’m going to go put him in his crib.” She turns and heads down the hallway, Bruno at her heel, following her into the nursery.
She comes out and I don’t know why I expect Bruno to be behind her, especially since he’s just as wrapped up in her as I am.
“He holding down the fort?” I ask.
“You know it.” She smiles. “Listen, I don’t want this to sound too forward, but you’re welcome to stay and sleep on the couch. I mean, if we’re going for an early run, you may as well.”
I’m sure she sees my eyes widen, even though I try my best to keep it hidden.
“Thanks, but I’m pretty sure we’ve taken up enough of your time. I just wanted to come by and check on you guys.”
“Please, you being here is nice. You have a way of making me feel…safe.” She looks away from me for a moment before looking back. Out of everything she’s said to me, this resonates. It strikes a chord. It means a lot. “I mean, I understand that you have your own places to be and things to do, so don’t let us interfere,” she says, walking into the kitchen.
I follow her, needing to be close and needing her to hear me. She has her back to me at the sink and I step close behind her, noticing the way her head lift just so, looking straight ahead rather than down at the bottle she rinses under the water.
She doesn’t ask me to leave, doesn’t move away. I take another step, the slightest brush of my chest to her back. The bottle drops to the sink basin and her hands go to the edge of the counter, gripping it so tight I can see her knuckles flex white. It reminds me of the night she drank tequila from my lips and how hard it was to show her she could trust me by not taking her mouth with mine, so firm and fucking possessive like I wanted to.
“Today I realized I want to keep you safe, that I want to be here because I don’t like the thought of you doing this by yourself,” I speak soft, determined into her ear, and she turns her head just slightly toward me. “But how long do you think we can do this before I’m begging to be inside you again? Before you let go of the restraints keeping you from letting me?”
She swallows thick, lips parting just enough for me to hear her breath escape.
She shuts the water off, turning her body to face me but looking at my chest instead of my eyes because she knows what she’ll find in their depths. I gently tilt her chin up so her eyes meet mine, and for once I don’t see reservation or unsubstantiated fear, I see the same dark waters there. I place my arms on the counter’s edge on either side of her.
“How long, Lydia?”
“Not long enough,” she answers on an exhale. We stare at each other, unmoving, involved in a standoff of will and desire.
“I’ve never wanted to just kiss someone, but right now, I really need to kiss you.” I search her eyes for rejection, but find none.
“Then kiss me. Please kiss me.”
Although the savage in me wants to disassemble every part of her to fit with me, the man she makes me want to be takes over and I close the distance between our lips.
Kissing first her top then bottom lip slowly. She lets me take my time, linger, breathe her in and focus on the pure and blissful taste of her on my tongue as I invade her mouth.
Her hands run up my arms, exploring, appreciating each ridge of them with her fingertips before holding the back of my neck and pulling me to her inch by excruciating fucking inch.
When our bodies meld together, my hands falling to her ass, lifting her up to sit on the counter, I know if I take her, the way I’ve never wanted to take another woman before, I’ll regret it.
Not because it’s not what we both want, but because I know I want more with her. And I know if I’ve ever got a chance at having her, truly having her, I’ve got to prove to not only her, but myself, that I can be what she deserves. And even more, for reasons I don’t understand, I need to hear her say that she wants me for more than what this started out as.
I slow our kiss, clasping her face in my hands and kissing the corner of her mouth, the rise of her cheek, and pulling back to look at her, praying that she can somehow see it for what it is. Her forehead presses to mine.
“Do you not want me?” Her voice is pained and I close my eyes to hide the pang of guilt I feel.
“Right now, I want you too much. I want to be careful with you—do right by you. Let me do that.”
She nods against my forehead. I lean away and let out a sharp whistle, hearing Bruno’s paws against the hardwood almost immediately.
Before I have time to change my mind, I press my lips to hers, before turning quickly and exiting the room.
When I get home, my mind is filled with questions, and even more, confusion as to who the man looking back at me in my bathroom mirror is.
Not ever have I felt the need, or wanted to change myself or my lifestyle for anyone or anything. I’ve made sacrifices for my brothers, for Celia and Jerry. But that never required change. I’ve always been me and I’ve never questioned that.
Instead, I’ve always stood firm in the things I value about myself and the man I’ve become despite being thrown obstacle after fucking obstacle. But just like with my business and my level of success, it never seems to be enough. Even back when I was neck deep in the underground, I made sure I won every fight, no matter the cost or what it took to get there. I didn’t just want to be the best, I wanted it known that I was the best.
And now, all of that seems so insignificant on the grand scale, at the moment, the only thing that matters to me, is being the best for Lydia and showing her that I do deserve her.
But what happens when she finds out that I’m taking this fight? That I’m mixed up in whatever game Joseph fucking Cameron is playing? Family is family and I have to do this for my brother. It’s my duty and part of a commitment that I made to him long before he even knew what a commitment was.
And at the same time, I already want to commit myself to Lydia, and if God forbid Madison doesn’t come back from this, Liam too. I want to be part of whatever Lydia’s life consists of, and if Liam is a part of that, then I’ll grow to be a part of his too.
If she’ll have me.
If I can prove myself to her.
If there’s one thing I know about relationships, even though I’ve never had one and stayed far away from the fucking possibility, I know that trust and commitment are the foundation. So how the fuck can I look myself in this mirror and say that I want nothing more than to build a relationship with her if I’m already keeping shit from her?
She knows something, but I don’t know how much. Maybe she knows about the fight and that’s why she keeps just enough distance. Maybe she knows about the fight and is waiting to see if I pull out before she lets her walls down. Or maybe she doesn’t know anything but she trusts me enough to tell her the truth without questioning me.
I splash water on my face and pat it dry, flipping the light off and falling back on the bed. Soft snores come from Bruno at the side of the bed and I lean over to look at his big ass flat of his back, sleeping like a baby. No doubt he’ll be the only one getting sleep tonight.
Sliding my phone from the nightstand, I double check my alarm is set and then click onto mine and Lydia’s text thread.
Pick you up at 6?
I press send, noting the time is almost ten and wondering if she’s awake. My questions answered when her typing a response is indicated on the screen.
Okay. Message me when you get here.
There’s nothing about her response that speaks irritation or hurt, but I feel it in them. Whether it’s in my head or even if it’s not, I feel the need to say more.
I don’t play games, Lydia. I meant what I said tonight. Believe that.
She must’ve known I’d have more to say because her response is immediate.
I’ll believe you until you give me a reason not to. See you in the morning.
My gut twists and I close my eyes briefly before typing out my last response.
Goodnight, goddess.