He’s confused again and I realize that I haven’t ever seen him so out of his depth before. “Uh, down the hallway. Third door on the left.”
Smiling up at him, I grab his wrist, shocking him further. Shocking myself too.
I tug on his arm and maybe it’s the shock of things but he goes easily.
He comes with me where I take him as I walk down the hallway to the third door on the left. When I open it, Reed hits the switch and floods the most beautiful bathroom that I’ve ever seen with light. It’s all glass and white marble, polished and wintry, and yet when I step inside with bare feet, the floor is warm and cozy.
Sort of like him, isn’t it?
My gorgeous villain.
I let go of his hand and open the bathroom cabinet and thank God, what I want is right there.
The first aid kit.
I bring it out and set it on the marble sink and open the tap to hot water, adjusting the temperature of it.
“What are you doing?” he asks from behind me.
I look at him in the mirror, standing tall under the overhead light, looking beautiful even with the nasty bruises. “Something that I thought I’d never do again.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Cleaning your wounds.”
His wolf eyes sparkle with memories. That time when I was so eager to clean his wounds that I locked him inside the storage closet of the auditorium.
I never thought that I’d tend to him again. I never thought I’d want to.
But here I am.
“It’s fine.”
I knew he’d say that. “I know. It always is.”
“So —”
“And I know that my brother is fine too.”
“What?”
When the water is to my liking, I turn around and walk up to him. “You didn’t fight back, did you? When Ledger came for you last night.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I’m asking you.”
“He’s fine. I spared him.”
“Like you did two years ago,” I say, studying his damaged face. “When he came for you for breaking my heart.”
The harsh lines of his face become harsher. “It wasn’t anything I didn’t deserve.”
“I know that too,” I whisper, swallowing. “But you didn’t deserve this.”
He scoffs. “I —”
“Because if you deserve to be punished for her.” I press my hand on my belly and as always, he glances down. “I deserve to be punished too. You didn’t do this alone.”
His chest contracts and I hear him breathe out. “I’m not interested in talking about who did what. And as I said, I’m fine.”
I feel the flutters under my palm. “And as I said, I know. But I’m doing this for later.”
“For later?”
“Yeah. It’s still dark out so maybe my brothers don’t know I’m missing. Not yet. And I also know that no matter how many times I tell you, you won’t put me in a cab. You’ll bring me back yourself. Because for some reason, you’re weirdly protective of me.”
He shifts on his feet. “What’s the point?”
“The point is that when you do bring me back yourself, they’ll only beat you up again. This time for kidnapping me. So I want to clean your wounds before you get new ones.”
Reed studies my face and probably sees the determination in it. Because I’m not budging.
If we’re pointing fingers about who did what then I should be the one to blame. It was my spur of the moment plan. I wanted to move on so badly that I misled him. So if we’re blaming someone, it should be me.
But we’re not.
Because he’s right.
It doesn’t matter how she came into existence and it doesn’t matter that this is going to be so difficult. Because she’s not a mistake, and I’m not going to blame or point fingers when I have her to think about now.
When we have her.
He says gruffly, “Fine.”
With that, he goes to the closed toilet seat and sits down on it and my breaths scatter for a second. I know why he did that. I know why he took a seat.
Because of the stark differences in our heights.
Because last time when I did this I had to get up on a stepstool to tend to his wounds.
So he’s made it easier for me without me having to tell him first. He’s even got his hands resting on his thighs, his veins all taut and thick under his moon-kissed skin. Like he’s ready now and he won’t stop me if I want to clean his cuts and scrapes.
And so I go to do that.
I walk up to him as he sits there like a king.
No, like a criminal. A thug. A villain.
All bruised up and battered and I’m the girl he’s chosen to tend to him tonight. The girl who’ll take care of him.
I clean them up as I try to control my breathing, my heartbeats. As I try to control this rush, this warmth in my chest at the onslaught of memories and the fact that he’s being so… good.
So docile.
For me.
But his eyes tell another story. His eyes are thrumming with currents, with pulses that makes me think of our one night together.
Don’t, Callie. Please.
When I’m done and I go to put everything back into the cabinet, I notice something.
Something I hadn’t before: colorful little boxes stacked on the top shelf.
With trembling hands, I take one out — a hot pink one — and face him. “Why do you have these?”
He’s standing now, his face still battered but at least he’s got bandages and his cuts are clean. He looks at what I have in my hand and replies, swallowing, “Because you probably didn’t have a chance to get these. Not in the dorms. Not yet.”
He’s right.
I haven’t had a chance. “I was going to go get one this weekend while I was home. But you…” I glance back at the cabinet. “You bought like a ton.”
Just like when we were talking about the book, his cheekbones sport a slight flush. “I didn’t know which one would be best.”
I know what he means. Because there are so many. I Googled them at school.
Rapid detection. First response. Early detection. Digital countdown, whatever that means. And I was so dreading it.
I was so dreading going to the pharmacy all alone and getting myself a pregnancy test. I was dreading walking down the aisle, standing there and picking out the best one among hundreds.
And then I was dreading taking the test. All alone.
But I don’t have to now, do I?
I don’t have to buy the test all alone. I don’t have to take the test all alone either.
Because he already bought me one and he’s here.
I blink as I feel tears filling my eyes again.
God, I have to stop this. I get emotional about everything, on the littlest things.
But then, this is not little, is it?
Nothing that has happened here today is little.
Because somehow there’s an us.
“Thank you,” I whisper, hugging it to my chest, hugging it right where my heart is spinning.
He watches me for a few seconds and then throws out a short nod. “I’ll wait outside.”
With that he leaves.
And I do the very first thing a girl does when she finds out she’s pregnant: take a pregnancy test.
The door is thrown open as soon as we get there.
The door to my house, I mean.
We live in a decent neighborhood, not too rich and not too poor, where all the houses pretty much look the same. All the front yards look the same too, mostly with slightly overgrown shrubs and messier grass — people don’t have a lot of time to tend to their gardens or the money to hire regular help so they do the best that they can — and more often than not cracked cement driveways.
It belonged to my mother. I’ve lived here all my life. All my brothers have lived here all th
eir lives too.
And despite being a house full of rowdy boys, who have been parentless for the last fourteen years, this is the first time a noise of this level has erupted out of our house.
An explosion, followed by the brother who’s closest to me in age marching out of the house, bounding down the stairs before I’ve even gotten out of Reed’s Mustang.
The sky is slowly lighting up and dawn is breaking.
After taking the pregnancy test, which basically confirmed that I’m pregnant — that dark pink line was really hard to miss — I was ready to leave. I was ready to race back home because I knew my brothers would be up and I knew they would’ve somehow figured out that I wasn’t home.
I knew that they wouldn’t have been able to sleep all night after the news I gave them and they would be worried sick.
But as it turned out, Reed’s scent could only hold off my morning sickness for so long. Because as soon as Reed pocketed the test — he’s keeping it, and when I told him that was gross, he simply looked at me and said that he didn’t care — my nausea won the battle.
I spent the next hour alternately heaving and dry heaving in his toilet bowl.
While he was right by my side, holding my hair back and God, he wouldn’t go away.
No matter how many times I told him to.
Although I will admit that I didn’t want him to leave. I liked being held by him. I liked that he was rubbing my back and making soothing noises.
I know I should guard myself better.
I should care about not getting too close to him now that we’re doing this together.
But my nauseated self, my scared self from the past week ever since I found out that I’m pregnant, liked his nearness, his support, his strength. And the fact that he didn’t let me leave that cozy house without having some tea and saltines. The fact that he cared.
But now we’re here, in front of my house, and the reality is setting in.
The reality that Reed is not the guy for me and I can’t trust him again. But I’m pregnant with his baby.
And that my brothers hate him for a reason.
My belly flutters with nerves, with her, and I jump out of the car before it’s even completely parked to go intercept Ledger before he gets to Reed.
Reed, on the other hand, is completely relaxed, or was relaxed until I made the crazy dash out of his Mustang. Now he’s glaring at me as he emerges.
But before he can say anything, which from the looks of it he was going to, my brother reaches him and grabs the neck of his hoodie.
“I should’ve killed you last night,” Ledger growls, shaking Reed and pushing him into his Mustang, making the car shake.
“You should’ve,” Reed breathes out, his mouth tight with fresh pain and the pain from the already-inflicted wounds. “But then no one would’ve been around to do your job last night.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means what the fuck were you doing, letting your sister run around town in the middle of the night last night?” Reed snaps, grabbing Ledger’s fisted hands on his hoodie. “Do you have any idea what kind of condition I found her in? She could barely stand.”
“I’m going to —”
“Stop, Ledger. Let him go,” I speak over my brother as soon as I reach them.
I even grab Ledger’s arm and try to tug it away and Reed snaps, “Get the fuck back, Fae.”
I don’t.
I can’t.
Everything is happening so fast. Everything is just spinning out of control and we haven’t even been here for more than five seconds and I need it to stop.
I need them to stop fighting.
So I keep tugging on Ledger’s extremely strong arm, which hardly budges. “Ledge, please. I don’t want you guys to fight right now. Can we please just talk?”
My brother looks at me then, his dark eyes made even darker with fury. “You spent the night with him?”
“Ledge, please.”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” I reply. “No. I mean, it wasn’t my intention, Ledge. I was just —”
“Yeah, got it,” he snaps and jerks out of my hold so easily.
As easily as he did last night.
But maybe last night I was more in control of my faculties, which is a surprise given how nervous I was. Right now though, I’ve been rendered so weak from my morning sickness and my absolute dread that I stumble back, dizzy and suddenly so faint.
I think I’m going to fall or throw up or both, but then I feel a strong arm going around me and my body clashes with his.
I know it’s him.
I know he’s here to catch me again.
The guy who broke my heart once.
And an absurd thought flashes in my mind that he’ll always be here to catch me. When I fall.
Pulling in his calming scent, I grab his hoodie at the chest and blink up at him. “Thank you.”
His brows are drawn together and under the orange sky of dawn, his bruises look on fire. “I told you to stay back.”
“But I was —”
“Calls, fuck. You okay?” Ledger says, concern evident in his voice and on his face as he comes to stand beside me.
I’m about to answer him but Reed snaps, his arm going all tight and possessive around me. “Get away from her.”
Ledger’s chest pushes out on a sharp breath. “She’s my sister, asshole.”
“And if you hurt her again, you’re really going to regret not killing me last night.”
“Yeah, you’re one to talk. After what you did.”
“Please. Stop,” I burst out. “Both of you. Just stop.”
They do stop.
But I’m not sure if I’m the one responsible for making it all happen, because that’s when my oldest brother emerges from the front door and climbs down the porch stairs, his presence and his voice commanding.
“Ledger, that’s enough for now.”
Ledger’s jaw clenches in protest and anger. But he does obey Con and stand back.
However, he doesn’t stay quiet. “It was him. He took her last night.”
I move away from Reed then as I speak out. “He didn’t take me. He didn’t.” I feel Reed move beside me and I know he’s going to say something but I don’t give him a chance. “It was me. I went out last night after you guys went to sleep. I just needed some fresh air.”
Con has finally reached us now.
We’re still standing on the sidewalk and my oldest brother takes in the scene with his inscrutable dark blue eyes.
Ledger is standing with his legs far apart, in a battle stance, his fists clenched at his sides, his eyes screaming murder at Reed. And Reed is standing much the same way, only his face is all messed up.
I can’t help but think that Con has seen this scene play out a hundred times on the soccer field. Reed and Ledger, his two star players, facing off against each other.
“Are you okay, Callie?” Con asks me and my heart squeezes at the concern on my brother’s face.
“Yes, I am. Con —”
“You brought her home,” Con says, his gaze moving away from me and stopping on Reed, his tone measured and controlled.
“She shouldn’t have been out that late.”
Con throws him a short nod. “I agree.”
“She looked distraught,” Reed continues. “She had no idea what was going on around her.”
Con’s face goes tight. “It’s on me. I might’ve been a little harsh.”
“Yes. You were,” Reed tells him and my brother’s eyes harden for a second.
Again I jump in, addressing Con, trying to keep whatever peace I can. “You weren’t.”
Con’s eyes settle on me and he grinds his jaw.
I see regret on his face and my heart squeezes with so much love for him. So much adoration and respect and also regret at bringing this upon him.
At hurting him again.
&n
bsp; I approach my brother with all the love in my heart.
I come to stand in front of him and say, “You were not harsh, Con. You’re my brother. You were worried about me and I gave you the worst news in the world. I get that.” I swallow, blinking back tears. “I get that I hurt you. I keep hurting you and I’m so sorry for that. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know how to make it up to you and maybe you’ll never look at me the same way as you did before. Before everything, and I don’t blame you.”
I turn to Ledger then.
He’s at last looked away from Reed and even though his stance is still the same, wide and battle ready, his eyes are liquid. His features are rippling with pain and I want to go hug him.
But maybe he’ll reject me now after what I’ve done and I don’t think I can take it.
So I keep standing in my spot as I address Ledger, “I don’t blame you for being angry and for hating me, Ledge. I actually wasn’t even expecting you to forgive me the first time. But you did and I’ll never forget that. You were there for me, that summer. You and Stellan and Shepard, and I’ll always, always, love you for that. You guys are the best brothers a girl could ask for and so I’m going to be a good sister to you and tell you that you don’t have to forgive me this time.”
I turn to Con again. “You don’t have to forgive me either. You can hate me, Con. It will hurt me but I’ll take it. Because you never asked for this, for this kind of disappointment and burden from your sister.” I swallow again. “You’re the only father figure I’ve known and you mean more to me than you can ever imagine. You’re not just my brother. You’re the guy who brought me up. I wouldn’t be here without you. You’re my everything.
“And I wish that I could give you what you want, Con. But I can’t.” I cradle my belly. “I can’t kill her. I’m sorry. I’m not capable of killing her. She’s mine now and maybe she’s only a bunch of cells right now and I don’t even know for sure if she’s a she but I can’t. Please, Con. I’m sorry.”
After I’m done, it feels like Con studies me for the longest time.
For the longest time, he doesn’t say anything.
And as I said to him just now, it hurts.
It hurts that my brothers might never forgive me. That one decision, the most important decision that I’ve ever made, is going to tear us apart.
A Gorgeous Villain Page 36
