Breathe Again

by Rachel Brookes

  “What are you laughing at, crazy girl?” A smile finally appeared on Blake’s face. He even smiled like Tate. How had I not recognized this?

  “I fucked brothers!”

  Blake’s eyes shot open and he bit his lip nervously. “I probably wouldn’t joke about that around Tate. I don’t think my face can handle any more run-ins with his fists.”

  My mood instantly dropped and my laughter ceased. “I’m sorry that happened.”

  “It’s not your fault, Sav. I deserve everything that Tate releases on to me. I miss my best friend, but I know I completely fucked it up. I don’t expect anything from him, but he deserved to know. I am sorry if you felt that I used you to get back at him. I promise that I didn’t. You were something else, Sav, and I know we had our moment but that’s done now. I see you as my, well, brother’s partner now and I want Tate to know that. You will always be one of the most beautiful girls I know but we are entirely platonic now.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and I couldn’t help smiling at how shy and awkward he was acting. “I wouldn’t have gone there if I known Tate was my brother.”

  “I am entirely and utterly in love with Tate. He owns my heart, my soul, and every part of me, so platonic would be great. It can’t be weird, especially when we will be spending holidays and such together.”

  Now it was Blake’s turn to laugh. “Savannah, you really are a comedian, aren’t you? I highly doubt I’ll be spending holidays with you. I will be lucky if Tate talks to me.”

  “Just leave it to me, Blake. I have ways of making Tate see things clearly. He is really hurt at the moment. He is emotionally bruised and he is freaking out. But if I know Tate like I think I do, he will open up to me and we will talk.”

  “You’ll have to be a miracle worker,” Blake scoffed and shook his head. Little did he know that I already had plans in motion in my head.

  I WATCHED Blake as he sauntered towards a cab before heading off to his apartment. The fact that he had turned up at my apartment building in the early hours of the morning made it clear that he wanted redemption when it came to his past. My eyes were transfixed on the fading tail lights. The peace and stillness of my surroundings made me feel somewhat comforted. The night air of Los Angeles caressed my bare arms and a shiver ran up my spine. What a day.

  As I walked through the empty foyer and entered the elevator, my mind jumped through the events while my hands rested on my protruding stomach. I’d be meeting my little one in a matter of months. How my world would change. How my world had already changed! One thing I was growing very accustomed to was the unexpected. I never knew what to expect when I woke anymore. I was never a planner, but I did always like having a routine, an idea of where I was heading, but that had been shot out of the water when I arrived in Los Angeles. Men, fucking, parties, and living the LA lifestyle had been my plans for my new life in Los Angeles. However, fate had had something else awaiting me. A fate that now saw me living with the love of my life, expecting a baby, surrounded by a brand-new family and a somewhat calm and peaceful life. Life had played a weird set of cards with me.

  The moment I walked through the door and made my way into the apartment, my body shivered as I sensed Tate. I always sensed him. The television projected a soft, dull hum through the still air and the light from the screen bounced off the walls, creating creepy shadows, only lighting the room momentarily. My eyes adjusted to the light as I stood by the kitchen bench. My breathing was echoing out of my chest, my palms were sweaty, and my heart was beating erratically.

  Tate sat motionless on his favorite grandpa chair, the chair that had been the first thing to be moved from his apartment to what was now our apartment. His head was downcast but I knew he wouldn’t be asleep. He never slept if I wasn’t beside him. He would wrap his body around mine so tight, as if he feared I would escape during the early hours of the morning.

  I quietly put my handbag on the kitchen bench and walked along the polished wooden floorboards towards the living room. A loose floorboard squeaked beneath my bare feet and finally he looked up at me. Our eyes connect instantly and I cringed inwardly at the shattered man looking back at me. His perfect blue eyes were circled with red from the tears he had shed in the loneliness of our apartment, his face lined and pained from the emotions that had drained from every pore of his wounded body. My strength was broken. Tate had and would always be my strength, but as I stood in silence, I was witnessing my strength fading. Now I was taking on that role. A role I didn’t know if I was strong enough to take on.

  “Lucas got home about twenty minutes ago,” Tate said softly through fractured speech. I nodded, slowly walking towards him. His head dropped as I stood before him.

  “Look at me.”

  Slowly he lifted his head and we stared at each other in silent conversation. Words that needed to be said were spoken in longing looks, comfort provided in the furrow of a brow, love given in the biting on our bottom lips. Words escaped me. What could I possibly say to a man whose world had been upheaved only hours earlier?

  “What can I do, Tate?” I asked, finally finding my voice, my words a squeak, showing no confidence. I crawled on his lap, wrapping my arms around his broad bare shoulders. How had I not noticed that he was shirtless? Pulling him close to my chest, I silently begged him to fall into my body. His face dropped into the crook of my neck and his warm breath danced delicately, almost soothingly, over my skin. My eyes fluttered shut under the sensation.

  “I don’t know.”

  My arms encased him as I begged for comfort from my arms to engulf him. We sat mostly in silence, the sound of our breathing and the soft hum of the television the only sounds in the air. Shifting in his lap, I straddle him as best as my protruding stomach would allow. My hands skimmed gently along the ridges of his sculpted chest, my fingertips moving to his tattoo like magnets. I loved that tattoo. I had since that very first day in his bedroom.

  I felt his eyes boring into mine as I concentrated on his tattoo, the intensity around us increasing with every silent second that passed. I didn’t know what I could do. The feeling of Tate’s fingers running through my hair, undoing the braid that had taken me an hour to do this morning sent shivers down my spine. My hair loosened and flowed down my back, the scent of my strawberry shampoo taking over my senses. Without a word, I lifted my hips slowly before sitting back down, grinding on the increasing bulge I felt swelling below me. His lips found my neck, sucking, licking, and kissing my favorite spot. I couldn’t stop the moan from escaping my parted lips.

  “Lucas is just in there,” Tate mumbled against my throat.

  “It’s our apartment,” I suggested with a wink. “I need you in me, Tate. I need you to feel me and I don’t care who hears.”

  Tate

  MY FATHER—or the man I now affectionately called ‘sperm donor’—had been trying to call me for the past week, and now it was getting to the point where I was either going to throw my phone against the wall, hoping it would be obliterated to a thousand pieces, or have to be an adult and change my number. How many times would someone call before they gave up? After over a hundred unanswered calls, you’d think he’d get the point.

  “Are you going to answer your phone?” Jack asked from the front bar. The shrill of my phone ringing through the bar had grabbed his attention.

  “Nope.”

  “Well turn the damn thing off then,” Jack spat and turned his back to me.

  I walked to my office and fell into my chair. My moods were volatile and completely hostile. I was like a firecracker, an atomic bomb just waiting to detonate. One minute I was fine, happy, content with everything, and the next I was snapping at people and being thrown into the black abyss of my thoughts. This was getting to be beyond a joke.

  My poor Savannah was getting the brunt of this whole fucked-up situation too. I was working all hours of the day and night, pulling eighteen-hour shifts. My mind needed to be active because the moment it stopped I would think of him. Savannah was hurting because o
f this. We had barely spoken this past week. It had only been last night that it had finally blown up.

  “Tate, you need to tell me what I can do. I can’t keep wondering whether you are going to come home or I am going to get a call from some random bar where you have decided to drown your sorrows. This isn’t healthy. You can’t keep shutting everyone out,” Sav grasped, my arm halting me to a stop as I walked through the apartment. It was three a.m. Why the fuck was she up?

  “Why are you even awake?”

  “Because my boyfriend is worrying me sick, because I never seen him anymore, and because I am scared something is going to happen. That’s why I am awake.”

  I shuddered under her touch, a reminder of the effect she had on me. Our bed had been a place of pleasure for so long, but this week it had been a scene of awkwardness. What the fuck was I doing? Grabbing her hand, I led her to the couch, encouraging her to take a seat. Collapsing beside her, I felt exhaustion swamp me. I had barely slept a wink this week.

  “Savannah, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Tell me what you are thinking. I am a lot of things, but I’m not a mind reader.”

  “You want the truth?” Taking a shaky breath, I unleashed my deepest thoughts to the one person who needed to know. “I feel like my whole life has been a lie. I feel like I am going to go down the exact path of my father. I feel like I can’t trust anyone anymore. And I feel like this is all going to blow up in my face. I want nothing more than to be the guy you deserve. You are a fucking goddess, Savannah, an enigma, and I want desperately to be the guy who loves you forever and a day. I want to be that guy, I desperately need to be that guy because there is no one else, Savannah. You are it for me, but I’m terrified I’ll be my father. My track record is fucked up. I am more like him than I could even imagine.”

  My chest tightened and my cheeks suddenly covered with salty tears. Her arms surrounded me with an honest security I craved. My head fell to the crook of her neck and I breathed in her scent. I despised showing weakness, but now, as I lay in the arms of my future, I was the weakest I had ever been. She scooted out from under me and moved up the couch, and my head was soon lying on her lap, her fingers soothingly running through my hair.

  “Do you want my truth, Tate?”

  I finally looked at her, her eyes begging for me to let her speak.

  “The thought of being in a relationship scared me. It terrified me. The thought of giving my heart to someone was something I never wanted to imagine. That was until you. I want to give you my heart, my soul, my love, my life. There is no one else for me, Tate. Whether you are going through your darkest days or experiencing life-altering highs, I want to be by your side. I need to be by your side. I will not let this destroy you. I will not let your father take you away from me. I will not let your father make you feel like you are anything but the best partner a girl could ask for and the best father our Jellybean can have. I will not allow that.”

  The sound of my office door creaking open distracted my memories. Looking towards the door, I saw a furious-looking Jack walk in without an invitation. I closed my laptop and sat back in my chair, awaiting his assault.

  “You gotta snap out of this and quickly.” His arm folded across his chest, his eyes narrow and his voice direct. He wasn’t kidding around. “I know you found out shitty news, but you know what? You have the best fucking girl in the world at home waiting for you. You have a beautiful baby that is going to be arriving in a matter of weeks, you have a family that adores you, and you have a best friend that is sick to death of watching you torment yourself. Fucking snap out of it and do something about this.” Jack glared at me but then his eyes softened. “Go to him, tell him everything you want to say, and get it off your chest. If you don’t, I honestly don’t know if your relationship will survive this.” He turned and stormed out of my office without another word.

  He was right. I had been a prick this past week. Last night felt like it had been the boiling point, the point of no return. Sav loved me. She loved me with every piece of her being and I had been slowly trying to destroy that because of my fears. This had to stop. I deserved this kind of happiness. Fuck it—I had earned this happiness. I fumbled through the paperwork on my desk, locating my phone and hastily typing in a text. Change begins now.

  Come to Red Velvet when you are free.

  Satisfied, I sighed in relief and placed my phone back on my desk, leaning back in my chair. Let’s see if I get a visitor.

  BLAKE’S DEEP voice bounced off the walls of Red Velvet no more than thirty minutes later. He’d actually turned up. I hadn’t seen him since his face had met my fist, so to be honest, I was surprised he had shown. Swallowing hard, I pushed back from my desk and stood, stretching high and looking towards my closed door. You can do this, Tate, I chanted to myself.

  Taking confident steps, I made my way out of my office and out into the empty bar. Standing by the main bar, Blake and Jack were in conversation. Blake looked across at me and nodded in acknowledgment. Okay, Tate. One foot in front of the other. I moved through the bar, my eyes dodging all over the place.

  “Hi, Blake. Thanks for coming in.”

  “Sure thing. What’s up?”

  Jack watched both of us before making an excuse about having to call Tanzi.

  “Want a drink?” I asked with a nod towards the bar.

  “Sounds good.”

  We walked towards the main bar side by side and my nerves quickly made their appearance. I just needed to get through this conversation and then I could go home, wrap my arms around my beautiful Sav, and start my life again. I slipped in behind the bar, moving towards the row of my best liquor. My eyes scanned the shelves until they landed on what I was after. Ahhh, my prized scotch.

  Grabbing the bottle and two glasses, I placed them on top of the bar with a clink and held it up to Blake. “You still like scotch?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t drink anything else.”

  I dropped my eyes and watched the amber liquid swirl in the glass as I poured, and I knew I had the beginnings of a smile on my face. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I’d expected. “Good to see some things haven’t changed. Many of my hazy memories growing up include you, me, and a bottle of cheap scotch.”

  “I’m surprised I still have a working liver after the abuse I gave it with you.” Blake laughed and took the glass I held out to him.

  “Remember the time you tried to hook up with that Sally chick and your dick got jammed in your zipper? Fuck, that was the funniest shit ever.” I roared with laughter as I was taken back to when I was nineteen.

  Shaking his head, Blake grimaced. “I couldn’t fuck for weeks.”

  Our laughter meshed together as we were both lost in the memories of a time where life seemed to be all about drinking on the beach, surfing, and picking up girls. A simpler time—a time when we were just two best friends, who were about to take on the world, one surf and one chick at a time.

  “Look, Blake, I know shit has been cr—”

  “Tate?”

  What the fuck? My eyes moved from Blake and looked over his shoulder. What the hell was he doing here? Blake looked at me with questioning eyes, and the glare on my face spoke a thousand words. He twisted on the stool and looked towards where our father stood by the main entrance. The moment our father realized who he was looking at, he clutched a seat to steady himself. I bet he hadn’t thought he’d see both sons when he’d decided to barge into my bar unwelcome and uninvited.

  My eyes pointed at him as my anger increased with every passing second. “What the hell are you doing here? I suggest you turn around and leave now.”

  “If you answered your phone, I wouldn’t have had to come here. Why are you not answering my calls?”

  Was he serious? A billion responses echoed in my head; a billion images appeared in my thoughts. I heard Blake scoff beside me and the sound of his glass slamming down on the wooden top of the bar. I followed his lead, swallowing the strong scotch down my throat bef
ore turning back to face my father.

  “I don’t have anything to say to you. I got what I needed, and now I suggest you leave.” I felt my hackles rise on the back of my neck and the panic flood me. My comfort wasn’t here. The calming waves in my life weren’t here. Sav wasn’t here.

  “I am your father. I deserve your respect.”

  What the hell had this guy been smoking? Respect? He could piss off as far as I was concern. Respect is earned. It was an honor to be respected, and I wouldn’t piss on him even if he was on fire, so he could jam respect up his ass.

  “You lost all opportunity to be respected by me the moment you put your dick in another woman’s pussy and left my mother.”

  His eyes narrowed on me. “Watch your mouth, son.”

  “I’m not your son,” I sneered. “You are not my father. You lost the right to call me your son the moment you abandon your children, Blake included, so get on your fucking high horse and fuck off.” I shot a look at Blake, who looked on silently. I saw the vein in his neck pulse dangerously and knew any minute he would unleash his own assault of words.

  “So what, you can’t talk for yourself, son?” he spat, moving his gaze to Blake with a smirk on his thin pathetic lips.

  Blake stood from the stool and moved beside me in a show of brotherly solidarity. “I’ve got nothing to say to you. You left before I was born so why the fuck should I give you the pleasure of speaking with me? You are a pathetic waste of space. The only thing you did right by me was give me a brother and sister, and as far as I’m concerned, you aren’t even alive. So that’s what I want to say to you. Fuck off out of our lives. You are neither wanted nor needed.”

  Props, little brother! I turned and gave Blake a look of satisfaction before turning back towards our father. His demeanor had changed and he knew he was quickly losing the battle he had waltzed in here trying to start. What had he really expected? If a person doesn’t answer your hundreds of calls, it clearly means they want jack shit from you. Now it was my turn to let loose, and the pleasure of facing him ran rampant with me. I stood face to face with my past, a past that, from this moment on, would not affect my present and would be forgotten in my future.