A Moment of Weakness

by Brooklyn Skye

  He’d enrolled her in one of the best schools in the city. “Of course not.”

  Shrugging, he started to step past her but then stopped just in front of her. “Then I guess there’s no need to discuss this further.” His eyes grew soft and the intensity in his expression disappeared as his hand reached for her face. She thought he was going to caress her…

  Kiss her…

  Take her into his arms and surround her with that feeling of safety she’d been consumed with last night…

  Rather he swiped his thumb along her cheek and pulled away, showing her a smear of pink lip gloss. Oh.

  “Shae was putting her Barbie makeup on me,” she explained, fiddling with the keys in her grip. Surely the metal ridges were leaving tiny indentations in her palms, considering every single part of her, from her head to her toes, just tensed. “Guess I didn’t get it all off. Thanks.” She forced her body to turn and, with her heart suddenly crowding her throat, started down the hall.

  One step. Why do I get so flustered when he’s near me? Two. And why can’t I carry on a normal conversation with him without thinking of how much he flusters me? Then three, four, five. Without thinking about how much I want him to—

  “Laurel,” he said softly.

  She almost pretended she didn’t hear him just so she could stay in her head a little longer, so he’d have to say her name again. Instead, she spun around and faced him, pretending to be completely unaffected by this man.

  “Yes?”

  He gestured to the keys in her hand. “Are you going somewhere?”

  Right, the reason she’d knocked on his door in the first place. She nodded. “Shae and I are going to get some groceries. We’ll be back in a little while.”

  He answered so fast it was like he hadn’t thought about it at all. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  The wheels on the cart turned, barely clearing the freestanding display of stacked cracker boxes. A millimeter to the left and the boxes would have collapsed. Laurel popped her head down to the cart’s lower rack where Shae was crouched. “Sweetie, I don’t think I’m strong enough to push your big-girl body around the store like this. Do you mind walking? You can help me put stuff into the cart.”

  Through the long frizzed-out hair drifting around her face, the little girl gripped the metal supports and smiled innocently. “Good thing we brought Daddy, then. He’s strong.”

  A gentle hand wrapped around Laurel’s side, fingertips fluttering light as a butterfly’s touch against her waist. She stiffened and tried to ignore the feeling of his hand on her. She tried to focus on the groceries and the aisle and the cart, but Micah’s face was so close to hers, and she could feel his breath on her cheek as he said, “I’ll push it.”

  Every tiny hair along the back of her neck rose. Carefully she twisted from his grip, stepped out of the way, then nodded. “That’s probably a better idea.”

  They cleared two aisles, Laurel adding ground turkey and black beans for tacos into the cart then portabellas and marinara for a new stuffed-mushroom dish she was going to introduce to Shae. At the end of the aisle, as Laurel grabbed frozen fruit for the smoothies, Shae smashed her face against the frozen food case.

  “Daddy, can we get those chocolate popsicles?”

  Micah grinned at his daughter. “Only if you don’t eat them all like last time, princess.”

  Shae giggled. “I promise. Can we get the cookie ice cream too? It’s my favorite.”

  “Pick out anything you want.”

  Shae grabbed both, Laurel just standing and watching. Was he really allowing her to pick out more than one treat? Didn’t he realize the high number of school-aged children who were obese were that way because of their parents not teaching them healthy eating habits?

  “Shae, sweetie,” Laurel said, crouching down to her level, “that’s a lot of junk food. Why don’t you just pick one?”

  Shae’s bottom lip pushed out. “Daddy said I could get two.”

  Right…and who was she to go against her father’s word?

  “Something wrong?” Micah asked, leaning his elbows onto the cart handle. The edges of his sleeves stretched with the movement.

  Laurel shook her head. “No.”

  Micah lifted a single brow. “Have I told you that you’re a bad liar?”

  Yes, he had, right before he’d made her mind explode with pleasure last night. Before he’d said he just wanted to kiss her for a little bit. Suddenly tingles of heat pierced beneath her skin. “I…um,” she stuttered out. She cleared her throat. “I was just thinking that next time Shae asks for junk food, maybe you could take her to the fruit aisle and make it a game. Like ask her to find something sweet and red. That way she thinks she’s in charge of picking out the sweets.”

  “Fruit?” Micah gave her a funny look, as if he had never thought of making his daughter eat fruit. That couldn’t have been it, but it was what it looked like. And it made one thing very, very clear: she may have quit working for Micah, but there was no way she could leave him and his daughter.

  They continued down each aisle, the last containing a variety of school and office supplies. Micah grabbed a few things he thought Shae might need for the start of school: some pencils, crayons, a pink pencil box. Then he told Shae to grab a package of red pens. “For Laurel’s classroom,” he said to her.

  “Actually,” Laurel said to him, at the same time taking the package from Shae and returning them to the shelf, “I’m planning to ban red pens from my classroom.”

  He scratched at his temple. “Aren’t red pens mandatory in a classroom? You know, for grading papers, failing people.”

  “That’s exactly why.” Laurel sidestepped the cart as Micah turned it toward the check-out lanes. “Did you know people, especially children, feel an unmistakable sense of anxiety at that very moment a teacher hands back an assignment corrected with red ink? I read a study in one of my college courses.”

  Micah shrugged. “Seems ridiculous the color of a pen would cause that. Maybe it’s just the anticipation of knowing how they did.”

  Shaking her head, Laurel said, “There’ve been tests done. Blue or green ink versus red. It’s definitely the color.” She smiled over the cart at him. “So no red pens. Not for grading papers, anyway. It’s the least I can do.”

  The glint in her eyes said it all: Laurel wanted so badly to make a difference in kids’ lives—even down to the color of pen she used to check their papers and the way she’d tried to quit her job with him and work for nothing. Being near her and her dreams for the future made Micah both hate himself and want to be a better man.

  No changing the world on his part—not unless he counted increasing alcoholism with bar sales and beating people into paying their debts. He was the complete opposite of Laurel. Like light and dark. And it amazed him that the two of them could even have a connection. However, they did, and it was growing stronger every day. Every time he was with her, near her, feeling her, hearing her, thinking of her…the thought of becoming something more with her invaded him. Scared the living hell out of him. Because how could he be anything to her with the threat of Russo breathing down his back?

  It was the single thought that hadn’t left him the entire night, as Laurel lay with her body tucked against his. He’d listened to her fall asleep. He’d listened to her sigh in the middle of the night. And in the morning he’d kissed her on the head as he’d texted Russo to meet him in the park.

  But one mention to Russo about getting out had landed him five punches to his side: one for knowing too much, one for doing too much, one for being a liability, and another for knowing names. The last was for bringing it up in the first place.

  Micah knew he needed to get out from under Russo’s hand, but…he just didn’t know how to do it.

  “Well,” he said to Laurel, his voice more unforgiving than he’d planned, “I received plenty of tests covered in red and never had any anxiety. Papers too. What would that study say about me?” He didn’t know why he w
as challenging her. Talk of when he was younger, though he’d brought it up, stirred a tornado scratching the inside of his chest. That, and with his admission of being a total fuck up as a kid, was like a double punch to the face.

  A girl like her deserved someone much better than he could ever be.

  From the roundness in her eyes and crimped forehead, Laurel was clearly trying to figure out what his deal was. She folded her arms across her center, pink fingernails that Shae must’ve painted by the mess around the edges glistening in the fluorescent lighting. “I can’t tell if you really want me to answer that.”

  Micah gritted his teeth. No, he didn’t. “I’ll tell you what the goddamn study would say. That no parental support at home leads to no motivation in the student, which leads to failing grades and shit for an attitude.” His hands gripped the cart handle harder. “Changing the color of the pen wouldn’t have done a thing for a kid like me.”

  She blinked up at him, but was smart enough not to argue more of her point. Maybe that idealistic state of mind shit worked on people like her—who’d been raised in a normal family environment. But not him.

  Silence pressed in on them as they checked out and even on the drive home. Shae was clearly aware that Micah was pissed by the way she lightly tapped his arm when asking if she could have another Fudgsicle after finishing the first. “Have as many as you want,” Micah told her.

  Laurel stopped mid-kitchen, a handful of groceries cradled in one arm, head tilted to the side. “Two Popsicles? Don’t you think that’s a bit much? Especially right before dinner?”

  Micah jammed his hand through his hair, unable to control the way every muscle in his body tightened. “Do you really think one more Popsicle is going to make a difference?”

  “Yes.” Laurel lowered the bags to the counter and faced him. “Just like I think giving her everything she asks for is damaging.”

  “Damaging?”

  Laurel nodded. “Micah, I know you’re just trying to show your daughter that she’s the star of your world. And I admit, it’s endearing to watch at times, but I also know that given how you were raised, the motivation behind that might be for the wrong reasons. And, yes, I think it’s damaging. I think you’re setting a bad precedent for when she gets older.”

  “What I think,” he whispered through his teeth, biting against the urge to yell the words he couldn’t quite straighten out in his head. This was his life, his apartment, his goddamn refrigerator full of Popsicles, and he didn’t need someone pointing out the fucked-up decisions he made when it came to his daughter. Maybe Shae shouldn’t be eating two Popsicles; Laurel was probably right about that. But what blurted out of his mouth was something less acquiescent. “What I think is that your opinions aren’t entirely welcome.”

  Laurel reared back, as if his words had actually slapped her across the face. Her lips pinched shut tight and then he saw it—the glisten of tears in her eyes.

  What the fuck was wrong with him? And why did seeing Laurel hurt slam a hole right through his chest? For the last six years, the only thing that had terrified him was failing his daughter. But this—Laurel on the verge of tears—injected him with something entirely new. Something that cut into him like the deep slice of a knife.

  A wrapped Fudgsicle tapped against Micah’s arm, and Shae said, “Maybe you should have it, Daddy. It always makes me feel better.”

  Or maybe he should just leave, free the two of them of all his darkness.

  He snatched the Popsicle then his keys and headed for the door. “I’ll be at the bar.”

  Chapter Twelve

  They weren’t speaking. Hadn’t in a few days, other than uttering whatever was necessary to care for Shae. Micah was a dick, and the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to apologize for what he’d said to Laurel the other day—that her opinions weren’t welcome—only solidified that.

  The words were in his head. The “I’m sorry” and “I’m an asshole” and “I don’t think I’ll never be this way,” but every time he opened his mouth to say them, a vise closed around his throat.

  Don’t ever fucking apologize for who you are. Damn his father’s words. And damn the war they raged inside his head. Because he wanted to tell Laurel he was sorry. He wanted to be back in that place where the two of them could be in the same room without the walls closing in on him. To never be like his father…and to take her in his arms.

  Instead, he watched from the couch as his nanny whizzed from room to room in skin-tight yoga pants and a colorful tank that made the blue in her eyes pop like a Caribbean ocean. Dishes, laundry, dusting… Since when did mundane household tasks turn him on so much?

  The way she gripped the dish brush the same way she’d wrapped her hand around him. The way she stood over a pile of rumpled clothes on the kitchen table, teaching Shae how to properly fold a T-shirt, reminding him of the night he’d stripped her bare and tossed her clothes to the floor with a swell of pride. In that very moment, when they’d fully shared each other’s bodies, they’d shared something else. A connection that had since disappeared.

  As the day passed and chores around the house turned to reading to Shae and then reading to herself, the pang of want grew in Micah’s heart. He’d had her once, and every cell in his body was screaming that it wasn’t enough.

  “You know…”

  Micah blinked and looked up, Laurel standing before him with one hand clutched to her slender hip and the other waving a small wad of twenty-dollar bills. The hard set of her face was more the look of someone carrying out a business transaction. She had a job to do—take care of Shae—even if that meant subjecting herself to more hurt.

  “…I thought we decided this wasn’t an option.”

  He wanted her but couldn’t have her. What else was there to do?

  With a nod of his chin, he gestured to the money he’d left on the kitchen table earlier with her name on a post-it. “If I recall, it was you who decided that. I never agreed to not pay you.”

  She stepped once toward him then stopped, tossing the wad onto his lap. “I’m not taking it.”

  Casually, he leaned forward and tucked the money into the waistband of her pants, staring directly into her eyes. It almost hurt—this sharp tension between them. “And I’m not letting you give it back to me. We both know you need the money to start up your classroom and probably for your first month’s rent when you move out of here.” Besides, paying the money he owed her was the only way he’d have it. “So you can either take it willingly, or I can find a way into your account and I can deposit it there myself.”

  “How could you—”

  “Don’t forget I know people.”

  Laurel shook her head, at the same time letting out a sigh. “Ugh!”

  Micah closed his eyes and a few seconds later heard the door to their tiny back patio open and shut. Damn, why is it so hard to not want her?

  Want?

  Yeah, at this point it was more like crave. Need. Dangerous emotions for someone who’d always required control over everything to keep his daughter safe.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw Laurel and Shae outside, tossing a ball back and forth. His daughter was a pro using the mitt—he’d taught her a few months ago. Laurel, on the other hand, couldn’t maneuver the leather contraption for the life of her. Slipping, twisting…shit, a two-year-old could probably catch better than her.

  The sight tempered the achy swelling in his chest. Reminded him of the day he’d taught her how to hold the bat. Brought about that hunger to put his hands on her. Be near her. Look into her eyes and put his lips on hers.

  This tension between them…he could fix this. He flung himself off the couch and joined the girls outside, settling into one of the plastic Adirondack chairs. “You’re doing it all wrong,” he said to her, his tone gentler than it had been all week. It must’ve caught her off-guard, because her arm stopped mid-throw and she looked at him.

  The softness of her eyes hit him full force, and in that split second of sile
nce something changed inside her. An acceptance. A forgiveness. He couldn’t tell, but then she admitted quietly, “I know. I’ve never actually held one of these before.”

  “Do you want me to show you?”

  Under the swoop of hair across her forehead, her eyes widened. Remembering the bat, too? At least he wasn’t the only one.

  The corners of her mouth turned up faintly, sending warm coils out from his chest. “Sure.”

  Just as Micah stood, Shae’s little redheaded friend from next door popped her head over the fence and asked if she could come over to play.

  “Can I?” she asked Laurel, and Laurel pointed at Micah.

  “Remember when your dad is here, he’s the one you need to ask.”

  “Please?” Shae jumped, hands clasped under her chin.

  Micah smiled. “Go ahead, princess. Have fun.” Shae bolted into the apartment and out through the front door, and once she was out of earshot, Micah turned to Laurel, stepping close and gently cradling her face in his hands.

  “I’m not going to apologize for paying you the money you have earned. You deserve every cent, if not more, for the amazing work you’ve done with my daughter. But I will apologize for being an ass to you.”

  Already, she was shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have judged you for the way you’ve been raising Shae. And I shouldn’t have brought up your past. I know none of that could’ve been easy—”

  “Easy or not, it gives me no right to take it out on you. To tell you that your opinions aren’t welcome. Because they are.” They always will be. He smoothed his thumb over her lips, watching as her blue eyes focused on his and her chest rose and fell with a deep breath.

  He wasted no time pressing his mouth to hers. Claiming her lips and tongue in a kiss that left him dizzy and staggering. Too much time separated the last night they’d kissed like this, and god, the touch of her felt so damn unbelievable. She matched his kisses, running her fingers through his hair, fingernails digging into the back of his neck. The sting was like jamming an electric rod down his spine, yet when the aftershock subsided and the pinpricks dissolved, all that was left was a warm, bubbly feeling. He was so full with her in his arms. Bursting with thoughts of carrying her to his bed and making love to her—