BE MY BRAYSHAW

by Meagan Brandy

  When we got there, she was on the porch, bag in hand.

  She knew we’d need a little help in the end, and what she had waiting was perfect for Zoey.

  A strong, white wicker basket, one she could hold in her hand that wouldn’t drag along the floor as she carried it around, the perfect little fit for her.

  It has a purple ribbon that weaves in and out of the edge, and small pink flowers strategically sewn along it. With white grass, a small pink bunny, a chocolate duck, and four tie-dye plastic eggs, it was perfect, as was the look on her face when she found it this morning.

  We never even told her about the eggs we hid outside, she was too happy with the few she got, but after seeing her face hunting eggs out here, I might.

  “Place hasn’t changed at all, has it?” Royce looks around.

  I glance from the food carts to the bounce houses and game stations. There are booths lining the area, vendors selling homemade signs and jewelry, and other random items you might not find every day.

  Every year, as kids, Maybell would bring us here for Easter.

  It’s two hours outside of town and held on someone’s farmland, but there are still a shit load of attendees, while remaining a place free of Brayshaw townspeople. Since I haven’t shared I have a daughter, it’s what we need.

  “I’m going to grab a soda or something,” Victoria says as she stands and heads toward the food carts.

  “Wait up, I’m starvin’, too.” Royce hops up.

  That gains Zoey’s attention, but she doesn’t even have to ask. Royce picks her up and off they go.

  My dad makes his way around the front of the tables then and drops down beside me.

  “How you doin’, son?” he asks, beginning to roll up the cuffs to his button-up.

  I nod, dragging my eyes from my brother and focusing on my dad. “I’m good.”

  He studies me a long moment and then turns away. “You know, you don’t have to do what others think is right, what the world, what our world, said is right? In the end, Cap. You’re the one that has to choose, to decide, if you want this life or not, the decision is yours. It has to be one you can be proud of, not one you wish you could change.” He looks to Maddoc, who stands beside Raven. “That goes for you and your brother. You shouldn’t have to drive two hours just to have a place to take your children to play,” he says, a shadow of guilt crossing his face.

  “So we won’t.” Raven shrugs. “Next time we have something in town, let the kids of Brayshaw come. All of them, not just the ones with a trust fund.”

  Maddoc drops his head, kissing her neck, and when he stands, it’s a little taller than before. He looks our dad in the eye, speaking for all of us as he knows he can. “We decided a long time ago who we want to be, and that’s not changing. It’s time the town catches up.”

  “That’s what I had hoped to hear.” He nods, a smile on his face as he stands, moving back to the side he was sitting on as the others return.

  I raise a brow at Royce, Zoey at his side with a cotton candy twice the size of her on a funnel in her hand.

  “She’s the boss, Cap!” he shouts with a grin.

  I shake my head, looking to Zoey as she tears off a piece and holds it out for Victoria.

  She smiles, taking it right as she steps up, choosing to sit on top of the table, her soda nestled between her legs, feet planted on the bench seat.

  “You don’t have to eat that, you know,” Raven teases.

  Her glare flies to Raven, but then a low laugh follows. “Shut up.”

  Curious, I study her, noticing the creases now framing her eyes as she purses her lips at the candy.

  “You don’t like sweets,” I realize.

  Her eyes fly my way, but she quickly glances down, preparing to stick a piece in her mouth, but I shoot my hand out, snatch it and toss it behind me.

  Victoria’s head tugs back, and Zoey gasps having caught me.

  “Daddy, oh no!” She jumps to her feet and tries to hand Vee another chunk. “More for you, Rora. Daddy can’t have some.”

  “Zoey, did you ask Victoria if she wants more?”

  Zoey frowns, her eyes moving to Victoria who clenches her jaw.

  “Do you want to have some?” Zoey asks while pushing it toward her.

  Victoria’s shoes slide against the metal bench, and she rubs her lips together while keeping a smile on for Zoey.

  She can’t tell her no.

  “Zoey, come look at the butterfly.” Our dad pulls her attention away.

  She runs off, candy-coated sugar still in her hands.

  “We have to tell her no sometimes,” I say.

  Victoria slides her tongue along her teeth, frowning.

  “Have you?” she challenges.

  My glare is instant, and she sighs, looking away with the shake of her head.

  “I can’t,” she admits. “I’ve tried and I just... can’t.”

  “So you eat cotton candy and cinnamon rolls instead, things you don’t like?”

  She shrugs. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  Yeah, for her, she means.

  My stomach muscles tighten, and I slide over on the bench until I can grab her right foot, lifting it up and over my body, so one is planted on each side of me.

  Her wrist curls, tucking her drink into her chest as she pulls the plastic back into her mouth and bites. “What are you doing?”

  “Whatever I want.”

  She chuckles, leaning forward. “And what is it you want, Cap?”

  “I kinda wanna pull a Raven and vomit,” Royce jokes.

  She laughs, and when she attempts to lean away, I grip her by the shirt and tug her right back.

  She smirks, tipping her head to the side, but then her eyes cut over my head, widening in the same second. “Oh fuck.”

  Chapter 23

  Captain

  Panic floods my veins as the color drains from Victoria’s face in a single second. Slowly, she pushes to her feet, standing above me on the bench.

  “Cap,” she warns in a deep, desperate tone.

  I quickly swivel around, only to freeze.

  My blood runs cold, my body numb, and I don’t remember standing, but suddenly I am, and not ten feet before me...

  Mallory.

  Her eyes lock on mine, brows furrowed as she glances from me to the girl behind me and back.

  The worst fucking thing follows.

  Zoey laughs, soft and innocent and way too close.

  Mallory’s eyes fly between mine, and her face falls.

  Slowly, she begins to look around, but my family snaps out of their shock, jumping to their feet to block her view.

  Raven darts forward, but Maddoc grips her by the wrist, forcing her to his side.

  “You have her?” Her whisper is almost silent.

  I dart forward, rage boiling my blood.

  Mallory’s eyes snap over my head to Victoria and hold.

  I growl, getting in Mallory’s face. My body is shaking, dread building like acid in my gut, burning and eating away at everything inside me. “Leave. Now.”

  She tries to see beyond me, but I jerk to the side. “Stop fucking looking. Royce.”

  “On it.” His footsteps pound along the pavement in the same second as he goes to make sure Zoey is taken farther away.

  Away from the girl who gave her away.

  Who didn’t want her.

  How could she not want her?

  My jaw is so tight I can hardly crank it open enough to speak. “Get the fuck out of here before I flip out and scare every person in this fucking place.”

  “Talk to me,” she pleads, her palms on her stomach, where our daughter grew.

  My eyes are glued to the soft pink fabric there, the same color my daughter is wearing today, and I can hardly fucking breathe.

  “Just for a minute, a few seconds even. Please.” Her hands lift, and I follow.

  The wind chooses that moment to blow her hair forward, and it whips me across the face, a scent I know well
and wish I could forget.

  “We can... go the other way, away from...” Her eyes slant, moisture building within them.

  “Your tears won’t work with me, Mallory, but if it gets you away, fine,” I force past clenched teeth. “Turn around and walk until I tell you to stop.”

  Her smile is weak, and she quickly walks backward, her eyes snapping over my head and hardening a moment before she spins and walks away.

  I stand there, heaving, un-fucking-sure and gut twisted.

  I look to Maddoc, who shakes his head urging me not to go, to Raven who glares after Mallory, her hands in fists, but I don’t look at Victoria.

  I can’t, and I don’t even want to think about why.

  I follow Mallory out.

  I don’t yell for her to stop until we’re halfway into the parking lot, but she’s quick to whip around, big crocodile tears streaming down her face.

  “I said your tears won’t work, so turn them off.”

  “I can’t. I just...” Her eyes move behind me.

  I growl, getting as close as I can without touching a single speck on her. “Stop fucking looking!”

  She nods, her blue eyes coming back to mine. “How long have you had her?”

  My chest caves at the question.

  I’m standing here in front of the mother of my daughter, who apparently didn’t even know Zoey was finally where she belonged.

  I should be screaming in her face, telling her what a piece of shit she is, and how she gave away the most precious person in the world, but looking at her...

  The creaminess of her skin, the slope of her eyes, the small peak of her nose and soft crimson cheeks... the golden curls framing her face, and the way she keeps lifting her left hand to move them away.

  Mine flies out, gripping onto her wrist to keep it still, because I can’t take it.

  It’s too fucking hard.

  Too fucking much.

  I’m standing in front of the one person in the world I should hate more than any other, deep in my soul and with every fiber of my being, but looking at her all I see... is my daughter.

  Our daughter.

  Half her and half me.

  Fuck.

  I swallow, my hold on her tightening, shaking. “You’ve got a lot a nerve approaching us like that.”

  “This is the last place I thought I’d see you. I was just… shocked.”

  “I don’t care, you should have run the other way when you did.”

  “You won’t hurt me, Captain,” she whispers, her free hand coming up to wrap around mine. “You’re good, even when you don’t want to be.”

  “Stop,” I rasp through the burn in my throat. “What do you want?”

  She swallows, a small smile lifting the corner of her lips, and she dares shuffle closer. “Can I say hello?”

  “What the fuck?!” My head tugs back. “No. Fuck no. Are you crazy?”

  She ignores me, and my pulse beats harder, the blue in her eyes bright and on mine. “What’s she like?”

  I throw her hand away, yanking back with a shake of my head.

  “Don’t.”

  “Please.”

  “Mallory,” I seethe, dragging my hands down my face before pinning her with a hard glare. “Go. Stay the fuck away from me. From all of us.”

  I turn on my heels and rush off.

  “You don’t have to tell her who I am!” she shouts.

  I freeze, but I don’t turn around.

  “You can say whatever you want. I won’t even speak.”

  When I don’t immediately keep walking—why don’t I keep fucking walking?—she adds, “I can… be a stranger at the store or… something. Anything.”

  I bite into my cheek, squeezing my eyes shut.

  “I just want to look at her. Just once. Captain, please.”

  My pulse beats heavy against my ribs, and my head throbs, an instant migraine forming.

  My vision fogs, my mind is muddled, which must explain the stupidity that follows.

  “You know my number,” I rasp when I shouldn’t.

  She’d never dare to call.

  My phone vibrates in my jeans twenty minutes into the drive, and again fifteen later, but I don’t pull it out.

  Not a single word is spoken on the drive.

  It helps that Zoey fell asleep within minutes of being on the road, but the silence plays as a broken whistle, forever screaming into my ears and threatening to blow the drums.

  Maddoc slid into the driver’s seat, knowing I would need to sit in the back. He keeps trying to meet my eyes in the mirror, but I can’t look away from Zoey.

  My phone beeps again, and my eyes close.

  Goddamn it.

  My brothers’ phones have yet to ring, that can only mean one thing.

  It’s her.

  Begrudgingly and with a grip so tight my knuckles are white, I pull my phone from my pocket and glare at the screen, at the name I haven’t seen glowing across it in years and never wanted to again, but would have given everything for at one point in time.

  When I loved her, and I swore she loved me back.

  One day she was here, and the next she was gone.

  I wigged out, searched for her only to find nothing. The girl I was in love with had vanished into thin air, but as quickly as the worry came, it was replaced with resentment, because in our town, there is no such thing as gone at random.

  To be gone with no trail to follow meant one thing—she made the choice to go, and had help.

  When she popped back up, eleven months later, she was no longer a Bray Girl, but weaseled her way into Graven Prep.

  To turn your back on a Brayshaw was like a stamp of approval, they welcomed traitors to their family with open arms and promises, but by that point, I didn’t care in the slightest.

  That’s because I didn’t know the reason she had left was to hide her pregnancy, to have and discard my child, to try and pretend she didn’t exist and hope I was none the wiser.

  I wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for the documents given to me, sharing the hidden news.

  Victoria.

  My head snaps over my shoulder, to the third-row seat where she’s pushed against the window farthest from me, staring straight out it with a wretched expression, elbow perched on the doorframe, thumbnail sliding across her chin.

  Slowly her eyes make their way to mine and hold.

  A deep, chocolate, brown.

  Not blue.

  Not blue?

  My head flies forward, my eyes closing.

  Fuck.

  My stomach twists even more.

  I shut off my phone, not opening the six-message thread waiting for me.

  “Pull over,” I rasp, and all eyes are suddenly on me.

  “Cap?” Maddoc frowns from the road to me.

  We’re still a good twenty-minute drive from home, but I’m suffocating in this fucking thing.

  “Pull over, man.”

  He does, and I climb out into the fresh air, nothing but a two-lane highway seen for miles. I take a deep breath, ready to close the door when suddenly Royce’s shoes hit the ground beside me.

  I look to my dad, and he gives a curt nod, shifting closer to Zoey’s car seat, so I close the door, and off they go.

  It takes us well over an hour to get home, not a word spoken the entire time.

  That’s one of my favorite things about my brother, his silent support, always there and never pushing.

  As we walk up the steps, he turns to me with tension in his eyes, but he only clamps my shoulder and nods, disappearing inside while I drop onto my ass and look out over the driveway, at the orchard and the long road between them.

  I pull my phone from my pocket, turn it on and read through Mallory’s messages.

  My shoulders fall, and then Zoey’s voice flows through me, her sweet little call, and gentle laugh.

  I look over to find her running my way, Easter basket overflowing with eggs, my dad, Raven and Maddoc trailing her, eggs in all their h
ands, a trail of some dropped behind them.

  I laugh, and it tugs at my insides.

  “Daddy, hu-mon!” She smiles.

  Right then, her little hand lifts, brushing her curls aside.

  Something her mother does.

  Exactly the way her mother does.

  How did I not connect the move sooner?

  How could she share anything with a person she doesn’t even know?

  A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow past it, my eyes falling to my phone again. I hold my breath, responding with a single, two-letter word.

  I turn, set it down and hop off the porch with a smile. “I’m coming, baby girl.”

  Daddy’s coming.

  Victoria

  Two days have come and gone since Easter, and while he keeps me at his side at school, and pulls me close when home, Captain’s lost in his own mind.

  Each night that’s passed, his footsteps pad against the floor, my chest rising with each one closer he grows, only to leave me in knots when they disappear, but tonight, the shadow of him hesitates beneath my door.

  He stands there, right outside, and I hold my breath, waiting.

  He steps inside.

  He doesn’t bother closing it behind him, doesn’t speak, but his eyes find mine in the dark, and slowly, he slides beneath my covers, lying on his side so he can face me head-on.

  His eyes are rimmed with dark circles, proof he hasn’t slept, and his body sags with the weight of the world, but he doesn’t let anyone into his.

  As far as I can tell, he’s held it all in so far.

  Captain reaches out, and I force myself not to frown as his knuckles bypass my jaw when they normally glide along it, but instead slide into my hair.

  My blonde hair.

  He kisses along my jaw, down my chest until his lips are settled on my breastbone. When my legs fall open for him, he climbs between them.

  I run my hands along his skin, letting him take what he needs, feel what he wants and kiss wherever he chooses, wishing he’d finally kiss my lips.

  His fingers slip beyond my shorts and underwear, slowly sliding into my pussy with no hesitation. He pumps torturously slow, nipping at my chest as he pants against it.