At some point, between handing my phone off to the driver and arriving at my destination, I must’ve drifted off. It was ridiculously stupid and dangerous. I could’ve been abducted, attacked, or worse. I wouldn’t have woken up if the door to the car hadn’t been yanked open by a very angry Hyde Fuller.
The driver handed me my phone back with a shrug. “Your brother told me to bring you here, and he tipped me a fortune for changing the drop-off point.”
I gulped and clutched my phone with a suddenly clammy hand. “He’s not my brother.”
I yelped as I was pulled out of the car by my wrist. I wobbled because I was wearing heels, and because I still had a potent blend of booze and pills swirling in my bloodstream. I slammed into Hyde’s chest and collided with hard muscle. He was thin but still well-built, and just as warm as I remembered from the days I used to hug him whenever and wherever I wanted.
Hyde slammed the door shut and pulled me out of the way as the driver left. He glared after the car while muttering under his breath, “You need to report that guy in the morning. He shouldn’t have changed your destination with the promise of a big tip. Who knows where you would’ve ended up if you accidentally called someone else thinking they were Zowen?”
Stumbling over my own feet as he started to tug me toward the front of his house, I fumbled with my phone and nearly screamed when I saw that I did indeed hit the first number on my call log without thinking about who the last person I talked to was. It was usually either Zowen, Daire, or Bowe. It never occurred to me that Hyde would be back in the mix after his late-night call. It also explained the bossy demands and overt questions about my ability to handle myself. Zowen could be overprotective, but he didn’t usually cast doubt on my judgment.
“Goddamnit. I can’t believe I drunk-dialed you instead of my brother. I’m an idiot.” Hyde caught me again as I almost fell off the front steps of the entryway to his house. I frowned and shook his hold off my arm. “Why did you bring me here instead of letting him take me to my own house?”
Hyde swore and reached past me to shove open the front door. “Because he told me you looked like you were going to pass out, and I didn’t want him taking you to God knows where while you were unconscious. I wanted him to know you had someone waiting for you. Do you do this a lot? Party and then pass out on your way home?”
I huffed out an annoyed sound and bent down to unbuckle the ankle straps of my shoes. I needed to take them off before I fell on my face and made an even bigger fool of myself in front of him. Once I had the heels in my hand, I looked up to meet his concerned green gaze with a guarded one of my own.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business what I do or don’t do. I appreciate you trying to look out for me, but just like I told you when I thought you were my brother, I know my limits. I don’t need a watchdog.” My hair was pulled up on the sides and swept away from my face, which meant I didn’t have the loose curls to play with when I was nervous. If I reached up and touched my hair now, Hyde would know I was fidgeting and desperate to extract myself from the situation. “You go ahead and check on the baby. I’m going to call another car to get me home. I won’t fall asleep this time.” And this was a good lesson to learn. Maybe next time I decided to ignore warning labels and common sense, I should make sure I had a babysitter and a trusted way to get home.
There was no way I was going to drift off again. I felt more awake and alert than ever.
Hyde gave me a hard look, and I could tell he was fighting the urge to demand that I stay put. It was progress that he didn’t. Maybe he knew that the harder he tried to get me to do something, the more I would resist. That was something that hadn’t changed very much since we were young.
“It’s late, and you’ve been drinking. I think it’s a better idea that you stay here or find someone to give you a ride to your place. I would take you myself,” he paused and made a face like he was still adjusting to the fact he was always going to have to put his daughter before everything from here on out, “but I can’t do that with the baby.”
He pushed open the front door in a clear invitation, but in no way forced me to follow him inside.
I stood at the entryway beating myself up for getting into this situation in the first place. I shouldn’t have tempted fate and pressed my unpredictable luck. I shouldn’t have answered the call from the unknown number. I shouldn’t have gone drinking when I was already feeling significant pressure to hold myself together. I smacked my forehead with my phone and begrudgingly took the first few steps into Hyde’s new home.
“I’m not staying because you want me to, just so you know. I’m staying because my feet hurt, and I don’t want to put these shoes back on.” I wouldn’t feel good about myself if I made him worry all night. He already looked like he was short on sleep if the dark circles under his pretty eyes were any indication. I could be stubborn and problematic, but I never went out of my way to hurt someone else if it could be avoided.
And the truth was, I owed the guy a lot.
If it hadn’t been for Hyde, there was no telling if I would have survived my teenage years. He would come without question anytime I called him for rescue. It didn’t matter if I was drunk and needed a ride, or if I was upset because I’d fought with my friends, or if I ran away from home in a huff because I was mad at my parents, or if I was stuck on the roof of an abandoned factory that I climbed onto because of a dare. Hyde always showed up when I needed him. He kept me from getting hurt, and stopped me from hurting anyone else. I owed him, and that meant I could sleep on the couch for one night so he didn’t have to stay up all night being anxious over my whereabouts. It wouldn’t kill me.
The lights flickered on as I closed the door with a soft click. At first glance, it was easy to tell that someone with a far more sophisticated design eye than a twenty-eight-year-old bachelor who lived in on-base housing for the past eight years had decorated the house. It was probably his mom. Sayer Fuller had sophisticated taste, but she was also a bit quirky. I was pretty sure she was behind the high-end finishing, as well as the bright yellow couch that dominated the living room. It was cheery and fun and would totally work as a temporary bed.
Hyde appeared with a comforter and pillow in his arms. His hands were full, so he couldn’t cover up the jaw-cracking yawn that escaped. He blinked weary eyes at me and inclined his head toward the hallway. “You take the bedroom. It’s hardly been used, and you can shut the door so you won’t hear Hollyn crying when she wakes up. I’ve been falling asleep in the nursery most nights anyway.”
“Her name is pretty.” His birth mom was named Halloran. We talked about her a lot when we were younger. He’d mentioned before that he wanted to keep pieces of her with him regardless of how quickly she left him on his own. I thought it was sweet and sentimental that he kept the H theme going and gave his daughter something that sounded similar to his mother’s. I was pretty sure the Y in her name was also a nod to the woman who had raised him as her own and became his second mother. Sayer was an unusual name, and so was Hollyn. I dropped my shoes to the floor with a thump and plopped down on the couch with a petulant pout. “The couch is fine. I’m not going to stay long anyway. Just until my head is totally clear and I can go pick up my car. I’ll have Daire come get me in the morning.”
Hyde grumbled something under his breath I couldn’t make out and tossed the blanket at me, effectively covering me from head to toe in the fabric. “Have it your way. I’m too tired to argue with you. I sleep when the baby sleeps these days.”
He was rubbing his eyes and looked unsteady on his feet when I escaped from the blanket cocoon. My hair was now free from my glittery barrettes and hung in my face. I puffed out a breath to blow it out of my eyes and clutched the soft blanket to my chest.
“Have you figured out what you’re going to do when you go back to work? You sounded pretty worked up over it the other night.” His yawn was contagious, and I felt my mind start to get fuzzy all over again. This time I knew it was regular
sleepiness and not the chemicals in my system.
Hyde shook his head as if to clear it and yawned again. “Actually, your advice helped a lot. I asked my family if they wanted in on the process of deciding who should stay with her, and my Uncle Benny surprisingly said he knew someone he could ask. Apparently, he knows a young couple somewhere out in the Midwest who had live-in help with their kids for years. Some kid who has a bunch of little brothers and was in a bad situation at home. They helped him out, and he kept an eye on their children until they were all old enough to be self-sufficient. If my uncle vouches for him, I know there isn’t a better person for the job. If the guy is willing to move to Denver, it’s pretty much a done deal.” He dragged a hand down his face and gave me a lopsided smile. “And even if Daire had a rough summer and is a bit unreliable right now, I still know she’s a good girl and won’t let me down when it really matters. I asked her to come and keep an eye on the kid for the first few weeks if he takes the job.”
I laughed and wiggled around on the couch to get comfortable. My going-out outfit was not the best for sleeping. “You got a babysitter for your babysitter?”
He nodded, but the action was uncoordinated and sloppy. “I did. I think it’s as close to a foolproof plan as I’m going to get.”
I pulled the blanket to my chin and closed my eyes. I waved a hand in the air and asked him to turn the lights off. I heard the click of the switch and told him, “You might not know it, but asking Daire to help you because you trust her judgment is a huge deal. What she needs most right now is to be reminded she is more than the couple of bad decisions she made. She needs people to believe in her—and it can’t just be those of us who are related to her.” I yawned and snuggled into the pillow that magically appeared under my head. “It seems you’re still my hero, even without trying.”
If he had a response to my statement, I didn’t hear it. Wrapped in the blanket, all cozy and warm, it didn’t matter that my outfit was bunching up and twisting around in uncomfortable directions. And maybe, just maybe, it was the fact I was under the same roof as Hyde and had proof that he still worried about me that had me ready to sleep like a baby. Well, maybe not a baby who woke up crying every hour. Rather, I was going to sleep as well as I did before I had to figure out how to live my life without Hyde in it.
Hyde
I WOKE UP to the sound of Hollyn cooing and a soft voice responding to her. I was groggy and disoriented because, at some point, I’d moved to the white leather recliner that was in the corner of the room for feeding time. I must’ve fallen asleep in the chair, but I had no recollection of Remy coming in and tossing the very blanket I gave to her over me. She’d also shoved a small pillow under the side of my head. Truth be told, it was probably the most comfortable few hours of sleep I’d gotten in months.
I put a hand to my mouth to stifle a building yawn and watched as the little blonde pixie of a woman bent over the edge of the crib and talked to my daughter in a whisper.
“I don’t speak ‘baby,’ pretty girl. I have no idea what you want, but I can try and guess. That sounds like a happy sound, so I don’t think I need to wake your dad up.” She reached out a hand into the crib to touch my baby. She sighed when her finger skimmed the infant’s soft cheek. “Your dad looks like he hasn’t slept in over a week. You gotta take it easy on him. You guys are on the same team from now until forever.” She shook her head and must’ve made a face Hollyn liked because the baby squealed in delight. “You’re going to win together and lose together. And sometimes he’s gonna make a call that’s really, really bad, but you need to have his back anyway. That’s what teammates do.” Remy let out a surprised sound when Hollyn grabbed her finger in a baby death grip and gurgled happily.
I finally let out the yawn and lifted my arms above my head to stretch out my back. The move made an audible popping sound, and so did my neck when I rolled it around to loosen the collected tension coiled there from not sleeping in a real bed for weeks.
Remy let out a yelp of surprise and turned to look at me with wide eyes. They were darker this morning, the brown overtaking the blue that had been so bright last night when she was tipsy and defiant.
“Usually, when she sounds so happy in the morning, it’s the calm before the storm. She’ll start yelling because she’s hungry, or because she needs to be changed, or because she wants to be held any second.” I stepped next to her and rested my forearms on the edge of the crib. “I thought you would be long gone by the time I woke up.”
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She definitely looked like she’d slept in her clothes. Her silky, slinky top was wrinkled to hell, and her tight, black pants were resting higher on one of her legs than the other. She was still barefoot, and her curly hair was a riot of messy corkscrews standing in a bunch of different directions. She had black makeup smudged under her eyes, and her lips were no longer the ruby red they were when she showed up. This version of Remy reminded me so much of the teenage Remy, who always looked a little like she’d barely survived her last good time. I was hit with a wave of nostalgia so big it nearly took me to my knees.
“I was on my way out the door when I heard Hollyn through the baby monitor. I waited a couple minutes to see if you were going to wake up and take care of her. When you didn’t, I got worried. I just wanted to check and make sure nothing was visibly wrong with either one of you before I left.” She made a face as she reached up to push some of her unruly hair out of her face. “It was dumb. I don’t know anything about babies. I couldn’t have helped even if she did need something. Now that you’re up, I’m going to go get my car and head home.”
I caught her arm as she turned, stopping her march to the door before it began. “Just hang out for a little bit. Let me feed the baby, get her changed and dressed, then I can take you to your car. It’s the least I can do for you since you relented and stayed last night even though I know you didn’t want to.” Since I didn’t have to worry about her, I actually managed to get enough sleep that my mind felt relatively clear for the first time in a month. “Stay. Please, Remy.”
She opened her mouth and let it slam shut again. I could see the annoyance at my request in her colorful eyes. She’d already spent more time with me than she wanted. She really wanted to tell me to shove it, but before she could figure out a polite way to tell me to go fuck myself, Hollyn let out a shriek that let us both know she was tired of being ignored.
We both jolted in surprise. Remy shook my hand off her arm and lifted her hands to rake through her wild hair.
“How can something so small be so loud?” She peeked at the baby after she slapped her hand over her ears dramatically.
I chuckled and bent down to scoop up the infant. “I dunno. But doesn’t the same thing apply to you? You’re tiny and tend to make a lot of noise.”
She scowled at me but didn’t disagree. Instead, she followed me to the dressing table and watched as I started Hollyn’s daily routine. My daughter was so small and delicate that on more than one occasion, I felt like my hands were too big and clumsy to handle her. I was sure I would hurt her or not be able to properly get her into her baby clothes. Those damn snaps were so itty-bitty. I was always extra careful when I handled her in any way.
“Why are you sleeping in here with her instead of your own room if you have baby monitors all over the house? Or, why don’t you just put her in a bassinet in your room? Wouldn’t that be more comfortable?”
It was a simple question with a not so simple answer. “When Hollyn was born, she was immediately taken to the NICU. She was injured in the accident and was born premature. They put her in a tiny box, and no one could really touch her for weeks and weeks. At the time, I wasn’t even sure if she was mine, so I had to share any allotted visiting time with the other guy my girlfriend had been seeing behind my back. It was terrible, and I promised myself as soon as Hollyn was out of the hospital, she would have the best of everything, and I would make sure she knew she was wanted and loved. Getting her her
e was so much work, and it took my whole family. I want her to know this is her space, that she belongs here. So, I come to her, and I feel grateful I get to do it. I would’ve slept next to her isolette if the hospital staff allowed me to.” My comfort meant nothing compared to being close and available for the baby when she needed me. I explained the equipment that had kept Hollyn alive to Remy in layman’s terms out of habit. You learned a lot about the NICU when you found yourself there for weeks on end.
Remy watched each step of our routine in utter fascination. It was almost like she’d never been around a baby before. Which would actually be something we had in common up until a few months ago.
“Do none of your friends have kids?” She’d always been a bit of a social butterfly, so I couldn’t imagine no one in her circle had settled down and started a family at this point in their lives.
Remy made a little humming sound and turned to dig through the dresser when I asked her to find something for Hollyn to wear for the day. The baby was still fussy, but just like me, she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the petite woman zipping around her nursery.
“I moved around a lot the last few years. I’ve got acquaintances in almost every state, but my actual group of friends is much smaller. I have a couple of people here in Denver I always kept in contact with from when I was younger, but that’s it for anyone on the outside. Other than that, Bowe Keller and I are super tight, and I’ve always been close with my brother and cousins, but it was hard for me to let anyone in after you left. And you know me, I’m a lot to handle. People get sick of my shit sooner or later. I stopped investing in friendships that were going to fail anyway. Being dumped by a friend can suck even more than being ditched by a lover. So, no. I don’t know anyone with a baby besides you.”
Prodigal Son: A Sexy Single Dad Romance: Book 2 in the Marked Men 2nd Generation Series (The Forever Marked Series) Page 7
