by Holly Jaymes
I shook my head. I didn’t need Mitch knowing more about my family’s issues. “No. You know how banks are. Wanting to make sure we can pay the loan back.”
He nodded.
“How are you? How’s Duke?”
“Duke is spending the day at my mother’s with George. Once I’m done here, I’ll be at Gabe and Sam’s place. They have some sort of home and garden dinner thing, and I told them that since I’d be in the area, I’d watch Annabelle for them.”
My heart broke a little more. He was such a loving man. How I wanted to see him taking care of his niece. It was probably the most adorable thing in the world. Why was he turning his back on having that sort of love for himself?
“Everything okay with you?” he asked me.
“Great. Perfect,” I lied.
“Sorry about that,” my brother said, coming back into the house. “Let’s finish up. I’ve got a date tonight.”
When we finally got all my stuff to Parker’s house and unloaded into the room he was letting me stay in, I was sad the time was over. As hard and awkward as it was, I liked being around Mitch. At the same time, I was going to be glad not to have to keep myself in check. I was sure Parker was going to wonder why I was ogling his friend.
As Mitch went to leave, he gave me a kiss on the cheek. “If you need anything, Hope, let me know.” I assumed he meant about my business, but he’d already given me enough.
He shook Parker’s hand.
“Want to get together soon at the links?” Parker asked. “I’m going to beat your score the next time.”
“You do know that I have a lot of free time to practice my swing and putting,” Mitch teased.
“If that idle leisure life doesn’t work out, maybe you can become a golf pro.”
Mitch thought about it. “That’s not a bad idea.” He waved as he headed out to his vehicle.
“He’s a good friend,” Parker said, draping an arm around me.
“Yes.”
Parker looked at me. “I’m trying not to take it so personally that you look so sad about moving in here.”
Did I? “It’s not that, Parker. I really appreciate this. I’m just tired. It’s been a long few weeks.”
When I woke exhausted and feeling puny Monday morning was when I realized two things: One, Mitch’s comments about helping me if I needed anything were likely his way of asking if anything came of our condom malfunction, and two, I hadn’t had my period as I’d expected. I’d been so sure that I couldn’t be pregnant that I’d pushed it out of my head. But I was at least a week late.
I went to a store and bought a pregnancy test and brought it back to Parker’s house. Thankfully he was at work. In the bathroom he’d assigned me off the bedroom I was using, I read and followed the directions, then I sat on the toilet seat with my fingers and toes crossed that I wasn’t pregnant.
Five minutes later, when I looked at the stick, I couldn’t move.
'PREGNANT'
I leaned back against the tank. This wasn’t a good time, and Mitch was the wrong man. No, not wrong. But he didn’t want me or this. I knew he’d have to know, but since he didn’t love me and had decided to not have a family, was there something I could do to eliminate his obligation? I had no doubt he’d step up, but neither me nor my child needed someone acting out of duty but not being emotionally involved.
I tossed the box and the stick in the trash, and went to my room. I really needed to work on my business, but all my energy was now gone. I decided to give in to it for that day, and then tomorrow I’d start up again. My samples would be done soon, and then I’d need to choose a manufacturer, and assemble my first collection to use to sell to stores. Of course, I still needed the money from the bank.
The next day, I still felt puny and exhausted, but I dragged myself to the work area Parker gave me for an office. The good news that day was that the bank called and they approved my loan. I was sure I’d have to jump through more hoops, so I was surprised, but of course happy.
Wednesday was more of the same. I wondered if I was depressed or if the baby was what was making it so hard to get motivated. I was exhausted all the time. I lay in bed, rubbing my still flat belly.
“We’ll be alright.” I looked down, and it finally hit me what was going on. I had Mitch’s child inside me. All of a sudden, warmth and emotion filled me. He might not want a family, but I did. The time might not be right, and the man didn’t want this, but I was ready. I was thirty, after all. I didn’t have much time left.
When Parker got home that night, we had dinner, then he putzed around the house doing chores. When he was finished, he grabbed a beer and sat with me on his deck.
“What’s going on with you, Hope?” he asked.
“Just working hard on my business. My loan came through, did I tell you?”
He studied me over his beer bottle as he took a sip. “Yes, but you don’t seem yourself.”
I shrugged. “Just tired.”
“Could this have anything to do with it?” He held up the pregnancy test box.
“You’re going through my garbage?” I was incensed.
“I was emptying it.” He wasn’t apologetic at all that he invaded my privacy. “You’re pregnant? How? With whom?”
I couldn’t look at him. “You know how. The who doesn’t matter.”
“It does. He has responsibilities.”
I turned to Parker and took his hand. “This is news to me too, Parker and I need a little time to process it and decide how I’m going to manage this.”
“So, he’s not involved?”
“He will be, I’m sure, but this was an accident. Our lives are different.” I had no idea how I was going to tell Mitch or how he’d react. He’d do what needed to be done, but would he be mad? Apologetic? Happy? No, not happy.
“Who is it?” he asked again. I was glad he wasn’t putting two and two together and figuring out it was Mitch. Mitch was right in that Parker probably wouldn’t take it well. Right now it didn’t even occur to him that Mitch could be the father, even though I’d just spent three weeks living in his house.
“It’s just someone I know. Right now, my focus is on getting my business going, so I can take care of my baby,” I said, hoping he’d accept that for now.
He squeezed my hands. “You can stay here for as long as you need, Hope. I’m here for you.”
“Thank you. Can we keep this between us for now?” I didn’t need the news getting to my parents or Mitch yet.
“Yeah, sure.” He stood and pulled me up into a hug. “It’s going to be fine, Hope. I’m going to be the best uncle.”
I smiled, and for the first time since seeing that positive pregnancy test, I felt like I was going to be okay.
Book 3: Chapter 18—She Loves Me Not
She Loves Me Not
Mitch
I’d never envied my brothers growing up. We each had our own skills and interests. We’d all been popular in school and done well with the ladies.
In particular, I’d never envied Gabe. I’d always thought he was the spoiled baby who was the ultimate slacker. He was the only one of us that never went to college, and yet he was able to parlay his talent for construction into a successful YouTube channel and eventually a top rated DIY TV show and line of tools. He didn’t have the show anymore, but his YouTube channel and tool line still kept him in the billionaire status.
Today, I was envious of Gabe. As I sat in the nursery of the old Victorian that Gabe had renovated for Sam, rocking Annabelle, I was jealous of the life he’d built. Had things gone differently, Gwen and I would be married and perhaps have children, but we likely wouldn’t be happy. Not like Gabe and Sam. Or Nate and Hallie. Watching them together, I knew that I didn’t have with Gwen what they had with their wives.
It was odd that they kept asking about Hope, or Nate saying he could tell I liked her. I did like her. Hell, I was beginning to think I loved her. I didn’t have that “wham” Nate talked about, but I know that after weeks of
her being gone, I still wished she was in my home, taking morning walks with me, and letting me touch her sweet body.
Did I look at her the way they looked at their women? Maybe. But Hope didn’t look at me the way Sam and Hallie looked at my brothers, and therein lay my envy. That and this precious sweet baby in my arms. It was amazing to me how someone so tiny could so completely steal my heart.
“You’re a beautiful baby, did you know that?” I said to her. Her eyes stared up at me as she sucked from the bottle.
This was something I wouldn’t have, and it broke my heart. I had the time and love to give a child, but no one to have one with. For a few days, the possibility of it with Hope existed, but now, weeks later, it was clear she wasn’t pregnant. That probably was my only opportunity, because I certainly wasn’t going to give my heart to another woman again. After Gwen and now Hope, I’d learned my lesson. True love wasn’t in the cards for me.
Maybe I could adopt. Or perhaps foster parent. There had to be plenty of children that could benefit from a stable home. I was single, but I’d heard single parents could be foster parents.
Seeing Hope today had made things worse when I’d hoped it would make things better. I’d hoped that by helping her move, I’d prove to myself that I was getting over her. After all, I was busy, back to the same routine I’d had before she came to stay with me. Sure, she was often in my dreams, and in my head during morning jerkoffs, but I thought I was just idealizing her. I missed her, but at the same time, I was living without her. But the minute she opened the door, I knew I’d been wrong. All I wanted to do was pull her in my arms and hold her. Then I wanted to pack her things and take them to my place, not Parker’s.
She was surprised to see me and clearly not happy about it. She did everything she could to avoid me. When we had a moment alone, she was polite but not overly friendly.
Despite my interest in being a father, the good news was that she wasn’t pregnant. Surely, she’d have told me if not today with Parker there, then some other time. So that was it. Any possible reason for me to see her again was gone. It was time to get over her. Again.
I put the bottle down and moved Annabelle to my shoulder and lightly patted.
“Who’s your favorite uncle?” I said. When she burped, I took that to mean that I was her favorite. I put her in her bed, covering her with a blanket my mother made from all our boys' childhood clothes. Then I turned on her music box. “Good night sweetie pie.”
I made sure the baby monitor was on, and then I turned off the lights and shut the door, heading downstairs to the kitchen. I made a sandwich and then went to the library to read. Except for a few snorts and sounds, Annabelle was quiet.
At ten, Gabe and Sam returned home.
“How was she?” Sam asked.
“Perfect, as always,” I responded.
“I’m going to go check on her. Not that I don’t think—”
“I understand, Sam. I’d check on her too.”
“Come have a beer with me,” Gabe said to me as Sam headed upstairs.
“You don’t need to check too?” I teased him.
“Hell yeah, but I’ll do it later.”
I followed him to the kitchen, where he grabbed two beers and then went to the back covered porch, and out to the yard.
“Where are you going?” I asked following him out into the crisp, chilly October night.
“To the treehouse.”
“Will you ever grow up?” Even so, I followed him up.
“Never.”
We’d had a fantastic treehouse as kids, which Gabe replicated only better in his yard. I suspected Annabelle was conceived there but tried not to think about it as I made my way up the ladder.
“Everything alright?” I asked as I sat on the floor.
“You tell me.” He sat across from me, leaning against the wall and stretching his legs out.
“I’m good.” I sipped my beer worried I was going to get a talk like Nate tried to give me.
Gabe studied me over his beer, making me squirm. “Did you know I let Sam walk away from me twice?”
Shit. He was going to talk about relationships. “I knew about when you moved to Florida.”
“Dumbest thing I ever did. I thank fuck every day that I finally got the balls to tell her how I felt.”
“I can see why.” I took another sip of my beer. Maybe if I finished it, I could leave without the lecture.
“Look, I know you don’t want to talk about your feelings.”
“There are no feelings, Gabe.” I frowned. “Are you and Nate ganging up on me?”
“No. But both of us know the agony of loving someone and thinking you can’t have them. He’s just paying it forward.”
I arched a brow at him.
“I gave Nate a similar talk that finally got him talking to Hallie.”
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you’re wasting your time. It’s not like that with Hope and me. We’re just friends.”
Gabe shrugged. “You can tell yourself that, but we can all see it’s more than that.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I took another long swig of my beer. Almost done. One more and I’d probably be able to leave.
“Why not? She certainly seemed into you at dinner a couple of weeks back,” Gabe said. I wondered if being in love gave him superpowers to see it in others. No, because he thought he saw it in Hope, I knew for a fact it wasn’t there.
“She’s not anymore.”
“How do you know?”
I sighed. “Because Parker asked me to help her move and she couldn’t have been clearer that she didn’t want anything to do with me. It was the same polite but distant way she treated me the first time.”
“First time?” Gabe asked, his expression showing intrigue.
Fuck. I ground the palm of one hand into my eye socket, wishing I could keep my big mouth shut.
“That suggests there was something this time and another time.”
I shrugged. “It’s all done.”
“What is? What will it hurt to talk about it?”
I could think of all sorts of reasons starting with getting razzed about it.
“I told you about Sam. I’m not here to bust your balls,” he said, echoing Nate’s statement.
Maybe if I told him the deal, he’d let it go, and I could leave. “We hooked up about nine years ago. After college graduation. It was a one-time thing that didn’t end well.”
“Why not?” Gabe crossed his ankles clearly settling in for a story.
“I felt like shit for betraying Parker. She took offense to my regret, as she should have. I never should have touched her in the first place.”
“So, why did you?”
I gave him a look.
“There are lots of pretty ladies out there, Mitch. You don’t go around fucking all of them.”
“I may have liked her, but she was Parker’s sister, so I never did anything. Until that night, when she gave me vibes that she was interested, and I was too weak to say no.”
“What about this time? She’s still Parker’s sister,” Gabe said.
I finished my beer, and instead of leaving, I wished for another one. “It was the same. She was there giving me the signals. I didn’t want to say no. We agreed to limit it to the time she was on her retreat at my place and that Parker wouldn’t know.”
“But it bothers you still.”
I nodded. “A little.”
“Enough to let a woman you love go?” His dark eyes pierced mine.
“Did you miss the part where I said she’s not interested?”
“Are you sure? Did you tell her how you felt?”
I scoffed. “I’ve had my heart squashed like a bug enough, thank you. I’m not going to put it out there have it smashed again.” I realized I was admitting to loving her, but clearly, Gabe had already ferreted that out.
“How do you feel right now?”
Like shit. “I’m hanging in there.”
“Would you
really feel that much worse than now if she rejected you?”
“I think so.” I felt sure hearing her tell me she was sorry, but she just didn’t feel the same would hurt me more than when I walked in on Gwen and my partner fucking in my bed.
“How about regret? Will you ever get to a place that you regret not telling her? Maybe when you get a wedding invite to her marrying some schmuck.”
That would suck for sure, but at this point, I probably wouldn’t get an invite. She'd effectively cut me out nine years ago. She’d likely do it again.
“You know, not everyone gets what you and Nate got.” I was feeling agitated all of a sudden like I had chiggers on my skin.
“Why not? Nate and I got it because we had the balls to tell the women we loved how we felt.”
“And they loved you back, which brings me back to the point that Hope couldn’t get me out of her life fast enough after I helped her move.” Having enough, I moved toward the door of the treehouse. “I’ve got to get on the road.”
Gabe didn’t say anything more, which for some strange reason, annoyed me.
Once down from the tree, he finally called my name. “Why don’t you stay here tonight? You’ll just be back tomorrow for Sunday dinner. This way you can avoid the traffic.”
I stared at him.
“I promise, no more talk about Hope.”
I felt like I wanted out. I wanted to be at home, safe in the woods, and alone with my own thoughts and feelings. But he was right. I could save myself the hassle and frustration of driving in Northern Virginia traffic if I stayed.
“Yeah, sure.”
He smiled. “Good. Then we can have another beer, and you can tell me how to fix the blue screen of death on my computer.”
I rolled my eyes but smiled. He’d helped me do all sorts of renovations and projects on my house, keeping his computers running was the least I could do.
Book 3: Chapter 19—Taking Control
Taking Control
Hope
The following week, I pushed through the fatigue to take care of all the details of my business. Luckily, most of the work I was able to do from home over my computer and phone, as it involved researching places I could sell my clothes to once I had my catalog. I’d also need a website. Mitch had offered to help with that, but it would be weird to solicit his help at this point.
