Be My Hero

by Linda Kage

  Glancing at him as he slotted the money drawer into the cash register, I tried to gauge his mood. Thank God he didn't emit any heartbroken vibes. He'd seemed pretty melancholy after his confrontation with the cougar. I hoped like hell his girl hadn't dumped him, because then he certainly wouldn't give me any information about her cousin.

  But tonight, the man looked pretty damn perky. He was whistling some tune I couldn't name under his breath. So I opened my mouth to ask what had him in such a good mood when Ten made a gagging sound behind me.

  "Dude, what the hell is that on your shirt?"

  Hamilton appeared next to him a second later, grimacing as he stared at my back as well. "Looks like someone puked down your back."

  "Shit." I grabbed the shoulder of my shirt and tugged at it while I craned my head around to see. And yep, Julian had lost his supper all over me before I'd taken him over to Mrs. Rojas's tonight. "My kid must've spit up on me."

  Ten's jaw fell open. "Excuse me? Did you say kid? Since when do you have a kid?"

  I frowned, still trying to twist a glance over my shoulder to see how bad the damage was. "Since about three months ago."

  "Shut the fuck up." Ten kept gaping stupidly. "Why the hell did you never tell us you were a dad?"

  I stopped twisting and shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't figure stories about diaper changings and crying spells were something you cared to hear about."

  "Well, no, but . . . " He shook his head, still dazed. "Damn, man. Did you forget to wrap it up or what?"

  I sighed, realizing how long it was going to take to explain my situation—for which I'm sure Ten would raze me for taking on someone else's kid—when Jessie, our boss until her dad recovered from his heart surgery, strolled out from the back hall that led to her office.

  "Good. You're all here." She clapped her hands together gleefully. "Wait." She paused as she glanced at the four of us. "Where's Gamble?"

  "Sick," Ten hissed at her. "Leave him the fuck alone."

  "Damn." She chewed on her bottom lip. "I was going to have you do an auction night since we hadn't done one in a while, but if there's only going to be four of you working—"

  "We can handle it," I was quick to speak up. Auction nights brought in a shit ton of cash, and I could always do with more cash, especially since I was going to be spending more on a babysitter now.

  "Well, then . . . handle it." Jessie waved a hand in my direction, which basically told me I was in charge. Then she turned away and marched toward the exit, leaving us to 'handle it' by ourselves.

  "What's auction night?" Mason was the first to ask after she was gone.

  "Oh, baby, are you in for a treat." Ten rubbed his hands together gleefully. "The customers have a little bidding war—only on a ladies' night, mind you—for some lucky woman willing to pay the most to have the bartender of her choice personally cater to her for the rest of the evening."

  "The best part is the guy who's chosen gets fifty percent of the take," I told him.

  Mason's eyebrows furrowed and he glanced over at Quinn, whose eyes had grown to twice their normal size.

  "We're going to auction off . . . ourselves?" Quinn sounded scandalized.

  "Hey, it's fun." Ten knocked him in the shoulder, roughing him up a little. "All you have to do is flirt and talk to the broad until closing and make sure her drink never runs out. All the chicks dig it."

  "And you get fifty percent of the haul," I repeated.

  But neither Quinn nor Mason seemed all that enthused by the idea.

  "Dude." Ten pointed at my back and shook his head. "You might want to clean that shit up. No woman's going to choose you with baby crap on your back." Then he shook his head and muttered something about me being a dad before he loped off to finish rearranging the tables.

  But, shit, he was right. I pulled my phone from my pocket, hoping Tristy would be willing to run a new shirt down to me. No way did I have enough time to go home, change, and hurry back before we opened. Except she must've already taken advantage of her freedom for the night. She didn't answer the apartment phone, and I'd never gotten her a cell phone because I just couldn't afford one for her too.

  "Dammit." I disconnected. After shoving my phone back into my pocket, I grabbed the back collar of my shirt and ripped it off over my head so I could see just how bad off I was.

  "I'm going to try to rinse this off," I told whoever was willing to listen. But when I looked up, it was Mason I caught staring.

  "Whoa," he said, gaping at my bare chest. "You have the words Tinker Bell and Skylar tattooed over your heart."

  I slapped my hand over the tat, protective of it. I think I would've rather listened to him bash my nipple ring than mention that specific tattoo.

  "Yeah," I said, furrowing my brow and ready to kick ass if he made one disparaging remark about the family I'd always craved but was starting to realize I'd never get. "What about it?"

  "Nothing." He shook his head but kept staring at the area I continued to conceal. Lifting his gaze, he finally added, "It's just . . . strangely ironic. I mean . . . " He squinted slightly. "Isn't Tinker Bell what you kept calling Eva the other week when she was here with Reese?"

  Fuck.

  My mouth went bone dry as I stared back at Mason. But how the hell had he remembered that? He should've been preoccupied with that cougar claiming she was carrying his kid.

  "E . . . Eva?" I croaked, frowning as if I had no idea who he was talking about. "She was the pregnant blonde, right? Your . . . your girl's cousin or something like that."

  Damn it, now I was being overly stupid. He was going to know I was faking it. And yep, he narrowed his eyes, probably wondering what the hell was up with me.

  I shrugged. "She had Tinker Bell on her shirt. What else was I supposed to call her?"

  "Nothing, I guess. I don't know." Mason waved a hand. "Ignore me. It was just a shock to see that name on top of Skylar, that's all."

  I crinkled my brow, totally confused. "Wait. Why? Who's Skylar?"

  Mason let out a breath before saying, "No one. I mean, not yet. That's what Eva's going to name her daughter when she's born."

  "What?" I plopped onto a stool and gaped slack-jawed at him. But, no. No, no, no. This couldn't be happening. My vision went momentarily black. I thought I was going to pass out, but all too soon, I blinked Mason back into focus.

  "Hey, are you okay?"

  "I . . . " I patted my chest a few times. "Yeah," I finally choked out. "I'm fine. Great. So . . . she's having a girl, huh? Eva?"

  He nodded slowly, eyeing me funnily. "Yeah. Actually, she refused to tell anyone the name she chose, but I caught her sewing it into something last week and she swore me to secrecy."

  "Swore you to secrecy?" I scowled, still pressing my hand to my chest, trying to keep all the broken pieces inside from falling out, because shit . . . Tinker Bell was really having a little girl named Skylar. And I had nothing to do with it. "If she swore you to secrecy, then why the fuck did you tell me?"

  Mason pulled back in surprise at my barked question. "Uh . . . probably because I didn't see how it'd matter if you knew. I doubt you'll ever cross paths with her again."

  God, did he have to rub that into my face quite so hard?

  Clearing my throat, I glanced down at the shirt in my hand. "Yeah," I said, my voice hoarse. "Good point." Waving my pukey clothes, I started away, needing to escape. "I'm going to see if this'll rinse out."

  I don't remember the walk down the hall to the bathrooms. I don't even remember turning on the water in the sink. I just knew I suddenly looked up from the shirt I was scrubbing under the freezing running faucet and saw my own reflection in the mirror while I lost it.

  "Fuck," I muttered and threw the slopping wet shirt at my image. "Fuck."

  Backing up until my spine hit the wall, I gripped my pounding temples and slid down until I was sitting on the floor, holding my head in my hands and resting my elbows on my knees as I tried not to hyperventilate.

  How could t
his be happening to me? Julian, Tinker Bell, and now Skylar all ended up being real people and none of them were fucking mine. Not my woman, not my children, not my anything.

  They were supposed to be mine, damn it. My family. My happily ever after. Jesus . . .

  Madam LeFrey hadn't been lying when she'd said she'd given me my hope back. For ten years, I'd blindly yearned for all these things, things I wasn't even sure I wanted. A wife? Children? That wasn't really my style, but I'd still craved them with every breath I had because I'd craved the way I'd felt in those glimpses. I craved the rush of love, the pride of accomplishment, the tenderness of being adored by others, of finally having somewhere and someone to belong to. And now . . . now there was nothing. No love, no happiness, no satisfaction.

  My hands began to shake and I squeezed my eyes closed. I had gotten by for a full decade, banking on the mere hope that maybe those stupid glimpses might come true. I'd kept my nose clean, which was no small feat where I came from. It took a goddamn lot of effort to be good when you lived where I'd lived, where everyone around you cheated and stole to get ahead. It would've been so easy to follow that path. But I wanted to be a good person, a person who would eventually deserve my Tinker Bell.

  Except there was no way in hell I'd ever be near good enough for that rich, pampered girl I'd seen on Facebook. Not that it mattered. She already had someone else. And the fucking prick had put a baby in her; he'd put Skylar in her.

  My Skylar.

  Throat closing over, I lifted my face to bump the back of my head against the wall. After concentrating on pushing air through my lungs, which beat the nausea away, I crawled back to my feet and fished my wet shirt out of the sink, soaking my hair when I slopped it on.

  I had a shift to begin and an auction to win. My happily fucking ever after certainly wasn't going to come to me, so I guess I'd have to keep working my ass off to make up one of my own.

  Chapter 8

  EVA

  "Okay, so I know I should totally be working on my final World Masterpieces essay tonight, but ugh, I'm too brain-dead." Reese plopped onto the couch beside me. "Let's watch a movie instead."

  Leaning across me where I was working on my newest craft project to make a diaper holder to hang from my crib, she snagged the remote. "So what're you in the mood for? Jake Gyllenhaal, Channing Tatum, or Zac Efron? I'm voting for Zac since he looks the most like Mason."

  Wrinkling my nose, I paused on the chunk of fabric I was hacking away at with a pair of scissors. "Mason looks nothing like Zac."

  "Excuse me? They're both hot. That's close enough." Settling herself down, Reese tossed her legs over the armrest and used what little space was left of my lap as a pillow. I totally envied her for being so flexible. Someday, I'd be able to move like that again too . . . as soon as I got this extra thirty pounds off my waistline.

  "They still look nothing alike." I went back to chopping, giving the fabric a ragged, fringed look.

  "Fine. Then which actor do you think Mason most resembles?"

  Ugh. I didn't care who Mason looked like. Ever since she'd gotten engaged¸ Reese had been even more annoyingly in love with him than usual. It was beginning to drive me batty.

  "I don't know," I said. "Maybe a young Tom Welling, Tyler Hoechlin, or ooh . . . Danny off Baby Daddy."

  "God, yes. Danny is hot. Mason could definitely be a Danny."

  "I wonder what his real name is," I pondered aloud. "Danny, I mean." Poor guy probably got tired of people calling him Danny when he was actually someone else.

  "Who cares," Reese announced. "He's hot, that's all I know. Though he seriously needs more shirtless scenes on the show."

  Finished with my cutting task, I set the cloth and scissors in the bag beside me and snorted. "He's shirtless in, like, every episode."

  "I know." Reese aimed the remote at the television and started flipping through channels. "It's totally not shirtless enough."

  With a laugh, I put my project on hold for a while so I could enjoy this quality time with my bestie. Lifting a chunk of her dark hair and beginning to braid it, I realized that soon we wouldn't have these moments together anymore. She'd be married to Mason, and I'd have Skylar. We were headed in entirely different directions. Better, but different directions. All the same, I'd miss the hell out of her.

  "Hey, what about this one?" Having found a movie on Amazon Prime, Reese waved her remote at the television screen to gain my attention.

  I lifted my face only to frown. "That doesn't have Jake, Channing, or Zac in it."

  "But it's got Chris Hemsworth. So . . . same thing. We're watching it."

  "Okay, Sweet Pea," I agreed, using the name Mason called her. "Whatever my adorable, precious bride-to-be wants."

  But as soon as she pressed play, her cell phone rang.

  Reese leapt off me with the agility only a non-pregnant girl could accomplish and jogged into the kitchen for her phone. "It's Mason," she called, only to answer with a low, seductive, "Hey, most handsome man in the world. How're you doing?"

  After listening for a moment, she paused and sent me a significant glance. "Oh, he does, does he?" An ornery grin spread across her face. "Well, sure. Eva and I would just love to deliver Pick a new shirt."

  At that name, I sat up straighter, paying rapt attention as my blood raced with interest.

  Reese met my gaze, and arched an eyebrow as she kept talking into the phone. "'Kay. Sure. Love you too. Bye." When she disconnected, her smile was a little too smug. "Well, well, well."

  "What?" I demanded, needing to learn whatever little scrap of information I could about Mason's coworker. "Why are we delivering Pick a new shirt?"

  "I knew it!" She snapped her finger and pointed at me, crowing, "I just knew it. You're totally into him, aren't you? Aren't you? Yes, you are!"

  My face flushed as I ground my teeth. "Give me a break," I muttered. "I'm seven and half months pregnant. The last thing I want is any kind of involvement with some guy."

  Except maybe that guy. Ugh, why couldn't I get him off my mind? We'd had one brief encounter weeks ago, and that was it.

  "I don't know," Reese murmured, tapping her chin idly as she studied me. "Becca said she'd never been so horny in her life as she was when she was pregnant."

  I scowled. "Yeah, except there's something seriously wrong with your sister." Though maybe that was my problem. My freaking pregnancy hormones were making me horny. But why had Pick been the only one to set them off?

  "He is pretty hot," Reese said as if answering my unspoken question. "I mean, not as hot as Mason. But there's definitely some notable steam rolling off him. The tattoos and piercings make him seem all wild and uncontrollable."

  "Whatever," I snapped, sending her an incredulous glower. There wasn't a single thing wild about him. And besides, "He's way hotter than Mason."

  Crap, I'd totally just admitted I was attracted to him, something I shouldn't even be thinking about. I didn't want guys on my radar. Even considering men and relationships when I was a little preoccupied with become a single, first-time mother was just plain ridiculous. What was wrong with me?

  Reese didn't seem to notice the panic on my face; she was too busy choking on her disagreement. "Not even possible. No one—I mean, no one—is hotter than Mason."

  I patted her hand sympathetically. "Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, sweetie. Now, what happened to Pick's shirt?"

  I was dying of curiosity over here. Had some female customer ripped it off him? Not that I'd blame her. I was curious to know what he looked like bare-chested, too. He was probably more of a Jake Gyllenhaal lookalike . . . with more tattoos. Yum.

  "Well, apparently, your lover boy came to work tonight without knowing he had dried baby puke running down the back of his shirt." When I pulled back in surprise, she arched an eyebrow. "Did you know he had a baby?"

  "No." I shook my head, feeling almost betrayed, which made absolutely no sense because I was carrying around thirty extra pounds of my own kid over here. "Keep t
alking."

  She rolled her eyes, but complied. "Anyway, he doesn't have any time to run home and fetch a fresh clean one, so Mason wanted to know if I—but I'm including you in this errand too because I love you and know you want to see him—could grab one of his shirts and speed it down there for his friend to wear."

  "Of course, we will." I struggled to get off the couch, feeling like a freaking beached whale that couldn't move as my arms floundered for help.

  Reese had mercy and took my hand, tugging me upright.

  I smoothed my shirt over my bulging waistline and gave a breathless, "Thanks. I just washed and folded laundry today. I think there's a nice clean shirt sitting at the top of the pile in the basket on the washer."

  As I hurried into the hall to fetch it, Reese followed me. "You really do like this guy, don't you?"

  With a snort, I snagged the shirt that would soon be pressed up against Pick and brushing against his naked skin. Oh, le sigh. But I kept pretending I wasn't affected for Reese's benefit because frankly, I was still freaked out that I was affected.

  "I don't even know him." I just wanted to know everything about him.

  She smiled and lifted her eyebrows as we started for the front door. "Oh, don't think I've forgotten how he flirted with you that night. Big time. I mean, 'don't eat those nuts, Tinker Bell. Let me get you a fresh batch.'" When she drew out a dramatic swish of her hair and fanned herself as she tried to imitate what he'd said, I snorted and rolled my eyes.

  "You are so lame."

  "Whatever. I might've been temporarily preoccupied by wicked bitches from Florida flying in on their broomsticks," Reese went on, "and then getting engaged to Mason, and—oh my God, I still can't believe I'm really engaged. It's really happening, E. Mason and I are getting married."

  With a happy squeal, she stuck out her left hand so she could show off the ring I swore she hadn't taken off since Mason had put it on there, probably not even to shower.