by Piper Rayne
I pat him on the shoulder. “He’s good for that. Using his muscles instead of his brain.”
My dig at Owen’s intelligence breezes by the girl but not Owen, who scowls.
“Aren’t, like, all your sisters pregnant?” he asks.
“Jealous?”
He always loved coming to my house because of my sisters. If I wanted to be a real jerk, I could talk about Phoenix being a pop star and Griffin, who’s a popular music producer. The girl would probably abandon Owen and run into my arms, but she’s not the girl I want.
“Poor Liam, Savannah has to be a bear pregnant.”
I shrug. The girl turns to peruse some items on the shelf, and I snag three bags of blue balloons. “Actually, she’s pretty low-key. Everyone’s betting on how soon Liam knocks her up again to keep her that way.”
Owen laughs. “She’s scary.”
I nod a few times and he rocks back on his heels. I lift the bags of balloons. “I’m on balloon duty for their shower, so I should go before one of them calls.”
“Cool.” He shakes my hand.
“Nice meeting you,” I say to the girl.
She turns, and her eyes zoom in on my jacket again. “You t—you’re a Bailey? Like from Bailey Timber?”
Owen groans. He’s always hated that people in our family are held in high regard. I asked him once when his jealousy was at peak level if he’d rather have his parents die for the exchange. He shut up pretty quick.
“I am,” I say.
“Oh. My friend just started working there.”
“Awesome.” I back-step down the aisle, wanting to get away from this conversation.
“She was telling me the sad story about your parents. I’m sorry.”
I shrug as if I don’t care that my parents died. “It was, like, fifteen years ago.”
Then I do the math in my head. It will be fifteen years ago this year. Fuck, Grandma D is definitely going to want to do something big to honor their memory.
“That long? You were young when it happened.”
“I was—”
Owen beats me to it. “He was ten.”
The memory of hiding in his treehouse fills my head. I couldn’t stand to be at my house during those weeks immediately after the accident. The funeral preparations, Austin returning home, Rome and Denver moments away from winding up in jail from all the stupid shit they were pulling.
I smile at Owen, and he smiles back. He’s probably remembering the same things I am.
The secret meals he brought me when his parents watched television after dinner. The sleeping bag and the fact that he slept out there with me even though he was scared to death of spiders. The traps we made for when Austin came to take me home. Even him kicking Austin in the shin when Austin successfully carried me out of the treehouse.
“Go. Maybe we’ll grab a beer next week or something.” Owen nods toward the end of the aisle.
“Yeah. Okay. Good seeing you.”
“You too.”
I head to the checkout, thankful the line is much shorter than when I arrived. Hearing Phoenix sucking the helium out of the tank, I figured she won’t be the only one, so I opt to have them all blown up.
While I wait, I pull out my phone, scanning through Instagram posts until my thumb pauses on one of Stella.
She’s still beautiful. She was at a race for Lupus, the picture of her crossing the finish line of a 5k. Which is huge for her since she hated all exercise when she was younger.
Her smile is contagious, and I smile involuntarily at seeing her happy. It’s a stark difference from when she’s around me. When she sees me, the past comes back and reminds her of what transpired between us. A time she’d like to forget, which sucks for me.
I click the heart button but don’t comment. After shutting off my phone, I pocket it and grab the balloons to celebrate my family’s happily ever afters. One day I need to move on and stop comparing all women to Stella, but today isn’t that day.
Seven
Rome
I pull the truck to a stop in front of the hangar and see that Harley’s minivan is already parked.
“She’s not supposed to be here,” I tell Colin.
We climb out of the truck, and he opens the back doors to unload all the food we prepared.
“Dada!” Phoebe spots me first and walks out of the hangar, but Dion runs faster and makes Phoebe lose her footing, falling onto the gravel parking lot.
“Dion,” I sigh.
The boy never knows who’s around him or what he’s destroying. I catch him in my arms and walk us over to Phoebe, who’s now on her bum, crying.
I place Dion down on the gravel. “You have to keep an eye out for your little sister.”
Dion nods and throws a football to Maverick, who’s also out front.
“Hey, Maverick,” I say, picking up Phoebe.
Her small arms wrap tightly around my neck. I’ll never grow tired of this stage. The one where she thinks her daddy is her savior. Calista is like a six-year-old turning sixteen lately. I see her gravitating toward Harley, intrigued by her makeup and playing dress-up.
“Hey, Uncle Rome.” Maverick tosses the football back to Dion without any gusto. Sports just aren’t the kid’s thing.
“Don’t forget, Dion, you have to do something Maverick wants to do too,” I say.
Dion nods, but it’s never gonna happen.
“You okay, sweet girl?” I run my hand down Phoebe’s back while I enter the hangar.
She wiggles to get free when she spots her uncle Denver filling buckets with water. “Wawa,” she yells and runs to Denver.
“Ladies.” I bow to three of my sisters, Harley, and Cleo when I find them all sitting at a table. “I see the set-up has stalled.”
“We’re waiting for the blue balloons from Kingston,” Juno sneers.
The woman’s mood lately is like a cat’s. One minute she’s all loving and sweet, and the next she’s hissing and swatting with her paws.
I find my way over to Harley. She looks rundown, but I’m not gonna say anything. The other morning, she bit my head off when I asked her to pass the pepper.
“Hey babe,” I say, kissing her cheek.
“Hey.”
Yeah, I think I’ll just bring in the food.
“Cleo, where did they deliver the fridge?” I had a fridge delivered here for the party because I won’t have people get sick from spoiled food.
Cleo is staring at Denver pretending to dunk Phoebe in the water. My daughter giggles uncontrollably every time he lowers her closer.
“Cleo?” I ask again.
She glances at me but seems to have no idea what I asked.
“The refrigerator?”
She smiles and nods, standing. “We had them put it by the storage locker.”
She leads me to the other side of the hangar, her eyes continuing to stray toward Denver and Phoebe interacting. Maybe someone has baby fever. God knows Denver will think of it as a competition whenever they do get married and start trying.
Colin walks in with the trays of food.
“You’ve done amazing.” Harley snags a Caprese kabob off the tray and eats it, grabbing one more before Colin can get away.
“Hungry?” I ask, chuckling.
“No time to eat,” she mumbles around a mouthful of food.
I slide my arm around Harley’s back and pull her to me. “Tomorrow I’ve got the kids, so you can sleep in.”
It’s been crazy with the restaurant. We’re opening a second location in Anchorage, which has meant me traveling every day. Once it’s open, it will be worth it. I’ll lose Colin at the Lake Starlight location so he can be the head chef in Anchorage, but it’s all part of the plan to secure the future I want for my family.
“Look!” Calista interrupts us.
I look down to see that my daughter has stuffed a balloon up her shirt. Harley laughs and I knock the balloon out of her belly.
“Dad!” she whines. Lately she’s mixed the dad and
the daddy. I fucking hate it, but Harley tells me it’s all part of her growing older. I still hate it.
“You’ve seen your mom pregnant. It’s not fun, is it?” I look at Harley, whose smile drops. Not like she’s pissed off at me or anything, but she’s not happy either. “Ask your aunts today how great they feel. They can’t even see their swollen ankles.”
Harley grips my arm so hard, I have no choice but to tear my arm out of her grasp. She stares at me as if she’s telepathically telling me how to handle this situation and I’m doing a piss-poor job.
What am I supposed to say? Pregnancy is fucking fantastic. Just count down the days until you too can carry a baby in your tummy? Fuck no. This is my daughter. Then my mind descends into thoughts of how she would get pregnant, which means she has to—
I rub my temples. “God help me, the next one better be a boy.”
Calista picks up the balloon, puts it back under her shirt, and holds one hand to her back, extending her stomach, and waddles over to her aunts, who all laugh.
“We’re having more?” Harley asks.
I shrug, not really sure. We haven’t talked about it, but then again, we didn’t talk about it with Dion or Phoebe or Calista.
“Last week you were talking about getting the big V,” she reminds me.
That’s because our house was all screams and tantrums like our children had been possessed. All I wanted was some Sunday morning sex with my wife and Dion was banging on the door because Calista had changed the television channel, which woke up Phoebe.
I shrug. “I was pissed.”
“And now?”
“Do you really think I should have a procedure that would permanently stop us from having more? Wasn’t it just six months ago when my sisters announced their pregnancies that we were having sex like crazy so you could be pregnant with them?” I laugh.
The one and only time we couldn’t get pregnant was when we were actually trying.
“Yeah, but Sunday morning sex isn’t going to happen all that often if we keep having babies. Birth control doesn’t work for us. Maybe we need to talk about what we want.”
Her face is serious with no hint of a smile. I know she’s been tired and frustrated lately, what with not being able to take on as many massage clients as she wants.
I slide my arms behind her back and pull her toward me. “Okay, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she says.
There’s something off with her. I think it’s time for a date night.
Eight
Denver
After I set up all the games, I go back to my office, open up the last drawer on the right, and dig behind a pile of papers I know Cleo would never go through. It’s safer than the house for sure. She can be nosy.
The diamond sparkles under the fluorescent light. I’ve thought of a million ways to ask her to marry me. Take her up into the mountains, back to the first place we stayed overnight together. I could drop to a knee in the middle of the ice cave. Or when we’re alone in a tent where no witnesses can capture our most precious moment.
None of it seems right. None of it fits us.
The door from the outside opens and I slam the box shut and drop it into the bottom drawer.
Cleo walks into the office. She hasn’t been herself all day. She’s done what’s been asked of her in regard to hanging streamers and opening the tables and chairs we rented. But she has no enthusiasm for it.
“Come sit on daddy’s lap.” I slide out my chair and pat my leg.
She rolls her eyes. See what I mean? Back in the day, she would have just scolded me, but she would’ve come over.
“Come on.”
She slowly walks over to me, and when she gets closer, I capture her so she falls into my lap.
“Talk to me.” I move her hair off her neck, kissing her.
Her back sinks into my chest. “It’s just all the changes. Three babies at once.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing else?” She squirms to get away, but I hold her firm around her stomach. “It’s me. You can tell me anything.”
She’s silent.
“Cleo?”
“I have to go help with the shower. I just came in to get my phone.”
“Babe?”
She wiggles and I release her, so she goes to stand at her desk across from me.
“Okay, fine. I can take a hint. Maybe you can talk to one of my sisters then.”
She says nothing, fiddling with her phone.
Nothing grates on me more than silence and Cleo knows this. If she doesn’t tell me, I can’t fix it, and I don’t want to celebrate tonight with her being grumpy.
“Just tell me!” My voice comes out louder than intended.
She looks up at me from the phone as a tear slips from her eye.
I stand and walk around to her side of the desk, taking her in my arms. “Why are you crying? What’s the matter?”
She sobs into my chest and I soothe her as much as I can without knowing why she’s crying in the first place.
“You have to tell me now.”
She shakes her head. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Nothing should be embarrassing with me. I wore a bright green Speedo that my dick didn’t fit into in front of you. Remember that?”
She laughs.
“How about the time I forgot the flint when we went on that excursion and it took me two hours to start a fire with two sticks? That was aired on national television and I’m supposed to be a professional survivalist.”
Her laugh increases.
I place my forefinger under her chin, forcing her to look at me. Her eyes are red and swollen from the short stint of tears. She shakes her head.
“I don’t care what it is. Just tell me.”
Her forehead falls onto my chest and her arms lay limp at her sides. “I feel like we’re stalled,” she mumbles, but I catch it.
“Stalled?” I sit on the edge of her desk and hold her out in front of me so I can see her.
She shifts her weight from side to side, staring at her feet.
“What do you mean stalled?”
“Like everyone’s life is moving forward and here we are.”
“The business is great. We booked more clients this year than the previous ten. The show is starting its third season and they’re talking about renewing us for another three.”
She nods. “I know business is great.” She peeks up at me through her eyelashes.
I’m always a little slow on the uptake. Damn it. She’s questioning my commitment. I knew I’d waited too long to propose. I didn’t want to scare her off by doing it too early and now I’ve done the opposite. Of course she’s upset.
“Are you saying you want more?” I ask.
She chews on the inside of her lip and peeks up again. She shrugs.
“Cleo?”
“This is so embarrassing. And now you’re going to propose just to keep me even though you don’t want to marry me. We’ll get married and have kids and in five or ten years, whenever that itch comes, you’ll wake up and realize I pressured you into marrying me…”
She rambles on, and I allow her to because her pacing allows me to walk over to my desk and open up the drawer.
I wanted to make this magical, special, a story she’d tell our children. Me in a suit on bended knee in the middle of some garden, the ring box open as she walked in wearing a dress that I’d bought and had delivered to her. But that’s not us. We were business partners before we were best friends and best friends before we were lovers.
She’s my confidant and the only one I want standing by my side. This business is what brought us together in the first place, so why shouldn’t it be now?
“Cleo,” I say to stop her, dropping down on bended knee.
She catches a glimpse of me from the corner of her eye. “Get up!”
I chuckle. “No.”
“Yes. Get up! You are not proposing to me after I just rambled on like some lunatic. I know we ha
ve it good, I do.”
I don’t get up. “Cleo Dawson?”
She breaks the distance and tries to pull me up by my arms. “Don’t do it, Denver. Not now. Don’t!”
I can’t stop laughing at her. “Will you—”
Her hand lands over my mouth. “Nope. Don’t say it.”
“Will you marry me,” I mumble under her hand.
Her hand drops as she falls to the floor in front of me. “Denver…”
I take her left hand. “I’m not doing this because of what you said. I’m doing this because I’ve tried to plan the perfect time to propose but this is it. It should be here, where it all began. I love you, Cleo Dawson, and I want you to be by my side for the rest of our lives. It dawned on me just now that I can’t give you the perfect proposal because our life is going to be far from perfect. We’re going to fight, and if you’re still with me in fifty years, I’ll be just as surprised as you.”
“But—”
I place my finger in front of her lips. “It’s impolite to talk during your proposal.”
She giggles. Thank God. I’m not bombing at this.
“You’re it for me. You’re the lucky lady who gets to be Mrs. Denver Bailey.”
She knocks her shoulder with mine and shakes her head.
“I meant I’m the lucky bastard who gets to be Mr. Cleo Dawson Bailey.” She smiles, and I say, “But you have to say yes first.”
She puts her hands on my cheeks, staring into my eyes as though there’s a truth there. “How long have you had that ring?”
“About six months.”
“You really want to do this?” she whispers.
“Since when do you know me to do something I don’t want to do?” I take the ring out of the box and bring her left hand between us. “Cleo Dawson, will you completely ruin your life and marry me?”
She laughs, and her forehead falls to mine. “Yes.”
I slide the ring onto her finger. It’s not nearly as big as I’d love her to have, but one day we’ll upgrade. “I promise I’ll give you a happy life.”
“Denver?”
“Yeah?”
