My Way Series: Books 1-3

by H. J. Bellus

Annie flies into action and immediately starts chanting, “Fight! Wrestling verse off, baby!”

  “Your dad is too big of a baby. He doesn’t want to get beat by a girl,” I taunt, knowing full well Cree won’t touch me with Mac in my arms.

  “Pretty big words there for such a small girl, Wils,” Cree prompts, knowing damn well he can whip my ass in a matter of seconds.

  “I’m not scared. You punch like a girl, anyway.”

  Annie, now standing on the counter between Cree and I, pipes up, “Yeah, Dad, you totally punch like a little wussy cake boy.”

  That’s my girl. We’ve been training together now for like six years solid, and she just made me the proudest wrestling training aunt on planet Earth. Throwing my free hand up to give her a high five, Tripp catches me off guard and snatches Mac from my arms, and before I realize what just happened, Cree has me over his shoulder, heading towards the living room.

  The house erupts into a commotion with Annie cheering and screaming me on and claiming to take on the champion of this round. Mac starts squealing, hoping to get a piece of the action, and Milly yells at Cree to go easy. He finally sets me down in the living room, and within seconds has me pinned back on the ground doing a full nelson and all sorts of show off moves. My only hope in ever winning a wrestling match with Cree is my signature neck wrench, which he hates, but that just makes the move all the better. Just like a viper, I always wait for the perfect time to strike. Using my pointer finger and pinky, I make a rocker type signal and then shove it towards his neck and “wrench” it in.

  Finally, I find the perfect moment and neck wrench the shit out of Cree. Just like a charm, it works perfectly and he flies backwards off of me. Getting up to do my victory dance, I’m drug back down, but this time by Tripp. And wrestling verse off round number two begins. I haven’t found Tripp’s kryptonite yet, so he definitely lives up to his Beast nickname during wrestling. It’s only a matter of minutes before Annie is in the mix, taking on Tripp with me. With the distraction of Annie, I weasel my way to the side and prop myself up against the couch beside Cree. We both watch Annie take it to Tripp. The little shit has him pinned down making him yell uncle. We all know that Tripp could easily throw her to the side, but it’s all part of the game we play as a family. Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve been a player in a long time. I’ve been watching from the sidelines and typically yelling at Cree.

  Just like any good player at the top of their game, I take a second to enjoy the feeling of winning. Yes, beating the dark demons inside that control every ounce of my happiness. I lean my head on Cree’s shoulder where it has landed so many times before. His shoulder has always been there from when I was a little girl with a scraped knee and hurt feelings to when we lost our parents. He’s always been there, which has made fighting with him constantly so fucking difficult on my whole being.

  “I miss you, Wils,” he whispers.

  Annie starts squealing and laughing, which catches both of our attentions. Tripp has her pinned down, pretending to strum a banjo across her ribs, and she’s eating up every single second of it. Mac makes his way over to Tripp, and he’s instantly scooped up in Tripp’s arm and put over his leg. Both kids look absolutely tiny when compared to Tripp. He can completely manhandle them at any moment. Annie’s favorite is when he bench presses her over his head. He starts to strum two banjos while both of the kids giggle, and wriggle around to get out of his grip. I can feel Cree’s smile on the top of my head widened to mass proportions.

  Words really can’t describe how it feels to watch your newfound brother playing with Annie and Mac just like they were his own kids. If society hadn’t put boundaries on relationships, you would never know where one started and ended in this family because we all fit together seamlessly with little effort. In my moments of darkness, this fact makes the pain even more real. I feel like I’m tearing apart my perfect family and destroying myself in the meantime.

  “Cree, I’m really trying to come back to you,” I finally whisper back to him.

  “I know, sis. I’m so sorry that I let him—”

  “No, Cree. I have to own this, heal, forget, and move on. He can’t exist anymore. He can’t continue to ruin our relationship. I just can’t find my way.”

  “Wils, just promise me two things. You will never forget what you could have had, and don’t ever give up on finding that man that’s worthy of calling you his, Wils.”

  Mac finally escapes Tripp’s hold and runs to his daddy for safety. He flies into Cree’s arms and buries his sweet little face into the safety of his daddy’s neck. He peeks up every so often to see if Tripp is in hot pursuit or still waylaid by Annie.

  The term mini-me has never been more accurate with Cree and Mac. Their baby pictures are identical, and the only way you can tell the difference is by the women holding them. Milly had both pictures framed side by side and hung in the living room.

  “Jesus Christ! Do I need to go the store and cook for you slobs all at the same time?” Lacey yells from the kitchen.

  “We’re going now,” I holler back.

  I grab Annie’s flip flops and slap them together, signaling her to move her ass before Lacey’s attack gears up a notch.

  “Can I go with you guys?” Tripp whispers as he begs with his hands.

  “Girls only,” I taunt.

  With my words, Mac springs into action and glues himself to my leg.

  “Wee, wee, wee,” he repeats as he tries to climb up my leg.

  “No!” Annie screams.

  I’m about to join Lacey and randomly scream “Jesus Christ” to see if it works to calm the circus down.

  “Annie, your brother can go with us. He doesn’t count as a boy yet.”

  Annie throws herself down to her knees and starts to beg with her hands, “Please. I am begging you to not take Mac. He always craps when we go to the store, and last time P.J. was there. And I’m pretty sure he smelled Mac because he told everyone at school that I crapped myself at Watkins Market in the cereal aisle.”

  It takes everything in me not to laugh out loud at her sincere confession. One day Annie will look back on the stupid story and giggle to herself. The sheer horror on her face is nothing but entertaining. If only we could all go back to our childhood problems.

  I bend over and pick up Mac, placing a kiss on his cheek. “Your brother is going to the store with us. And if anyone is shitting their pants, it will be me. I will take full responsibility for all crapping that happens in a diaper and all panties in the grocery store, and if we see P.J., I will explain to him how it is a family tradition to shit ourselves in the cereal aisle.”

  “Then flip the little pecker the bird,” Lacey adds from the kitchen.

  Tripp roars, “Lacey, watch your goddamn mouth.”

  “Really? Are you two adults?” Cree scolds.

  “If I’m being honest, I have shit myself before in a store.” We all turn to see Miles standing in the doorway with a handful of store bought cookies.

  Good gravy! I just vowed to shit myself in a grocery store and I guarantee the leading man of all my recent naughty dreams heard every single word of it.

  “Annie. Car. Now,” I say.

  I’m not even addressing the fact that the asshole bought cookies.

  “Willow, why are we running?”

  “Just move,” I reply to Annie.

  I get both kids buckled in and climb into Cree’s truck. Annie tries to put up a solid argument about sitting in the front, but takes my short answers as a clue to sit down, get buckled, and shut up. I let out a loud breath of air and rest my head back while the truck runs and AC starts to work its magic.

  “Don’t get mad at me, Aunt Willow, but I’m confused. Why are you kinda mad and acting all weird?”

  “It’s complicated, Annie.”

  “I’m seven. I’m practically a teenager.”

  I laugh at that.

  “Stop laughing. I am.”

  “Annie. It would be like you actually
crapping your pants in front of Hunter Hayes.”

  I watch in the rear view mirror as Annie’s little hands fly up to cover her mouth. Her skin lightens as if she just saw a ghost and her eyes grow to the size of golf balls.

  “That’s really bad,” she mumbles between her fingers.

  “I know,” I reply mindlessly as I start driving.

  “So, he is your boyfriend.”

  “No, not even close. We aren’t even friends.”

  “But he’s your Hunter Hayes?”

  “For the love of God, Annie, I think he’s hot. That’s it. He’s hot, and I’m an idiot.”

  We survive the grocery store with no incidents. Both kids score candy and a toy. Milly and Cree both give me the disappointed parent stare, but they know damn well they would have done the same thing. Mac instantly goes to Milly when he enters the kitchen and grabs for her boob. The boy may look like Cree, but he’s a momma’s boy to the core. Annie prances in with her bags of groceries, sets them down, and makes her way straight to Miles. Let the inquisition begin. I almost feel bad for him. Almost.

  I stay in the kitchen to help Lacey finish the meal while Milly nurses Mac and entertains Rose in her Bumbo. I don’t even ask what we are having because with Lacey you get what you get.

  “So, Willow,” Milly says, as she gestures with her head towards the living room where Miles is sitting and begins to waggle her eyebrows.

  “Sooo,” I reply.

  “Miles tells us you two have been eating dinner together,” Milly says through her proud momma smile.

  “He’s lying. We don’t technically have dinner together. He eats. I eat. We don’t talk much. I hardly consider that dinner.”

  “I think he really likes you, Willow. You should have heard him talking about you.”

  “Oh my God, Milly. You’re worse than Annie.”

  “Well, your brothers really like him and he seems super nice. Give it a chance,” Milly encourages.

  “Yeah, they liked Greyson, too, and look where that landed me,” I snip.

  There I go. Ruined the moment. Crashed the family dinner with the nasty truth, but the truth is just that nasty—always a reminder of my loss.

  “Well, does his carpet match the drapes?” Lacey asks, changing the subject.

  “What?” I have no idea why I ask what because I clearly heard what she asked.

  “I said, does his carpet match his drapes,” she says, as she points to her crotch and then to her eyebrows.

  “Holy shit, Lacey. Seriously, I have no clue.”

  “You haven’t seen IT yet, have you?” Lacey asks.

  “Of course not. Fuck, no. Not even going there.”

  “Well, thank God Tripp still holds the Dick Wars champ title.”

  Milly lets out a little giggle, and whispers, “Only by like an eighth of an inch and I still think you’re lying, Lacey.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about? Dick wars?”

  “Well, you see, one night we were texting each other,” Lacey says, signaling between her and Milly.

  “Long story short, we had competition on whose man had the longest boner,” Milly explains.

  “It was not a boner competition, for shit sakes, Milly. It was to see who had the longest cock and Tripp won. Oh, yeah, baby! Tripp is the motherfucking champ.”

  “Enough. Enough. Enough. Those are my brothers.”

  “Well, you see, Lacey is nervous about Miles. She’s sure that he has the ability to take away Tripp’s title because she has a theory on men with long, lean torsos like Miles.”

  “What are you ladies whispering about in there?” Tripp asks as he rounds the island.

  “Oh you know, baby. Dick wars and the champ.”

  Tripp grabs his crotch and smiles with pride, clearly very appreciative of his title after Lacey claimed he had a small package last year.

  “Bring that over here, King Kong.”

  Clearly with a live porno playing out in front of me, I retreat to the living room.

  I’m not sure that the living room will be any safer, but I never want to be caught in the firing rage of dick wars again.

  Miles is sitting on the floor cross-legged playing UNO with Annie. Oh yes, she’s definitely breaking him in. Annie is the queen of UNO. I swear that girl could play the game all day. We have bought her other card and board games, but she always goes back to UNO. Mac is squatted down watching their game, as if he’s analyzing each play with careful detail. Poor Mac has learned his lesson about interrupting his sister’s UNO games. Cree is sprawled out on the couch watching some shit on the television.

  “Who’s winning?” I ask, scooping up Mac and taking a seat next to Annie.

  “Really? You even have to ask, Aunt Wils?” Annie says, rolling her eyes.

  “Sheesh, Sheesh,” Mac exclaims, flashing his chubby pointer finger at Annie.

  “Hey! Little man, you’re supposed to be on my side. We have to stick together,” Miles says as he roughs up Mac’s dark curls.

  Then the asswipe holds out a fortune cookie for Mac. Mac bounces out of my arms and plops right down into Miles’ lap and starts nibbling on his cookie.

  “Hey Macster, what’s up with that?” I ask, grabbing at his foot.

  Miles looks as if he just won a huge battle with Mac. Pride is covering his face. He handles Mac with such gentle ease that it convinces me has a great deal of experience with young children. He acts as if Mac is a piece of him. This is just one more example of Miles’ easy-going care and lovable aura.

  “UNO!” Annie squeals.

  “Are you kidding me? You just had five cards,” Miles pleads.

  Stretching out, relaxing back on my hands, I watch as this duel plays out, knowing full well that Annie is about to smoke his ass.

  “You know the saying, big man, if you can’t run with the big dogs then stay on the porch.”

  Miles let out a deep, gruff laugh at Annie’s threat. “You are quite the trash talker, little one,” Miles says with a raised eyebrow.

  “Bring it. Betcha ya don’t want to lose the bet, uh?”

  Springing to life, I blurt out, “What bet?”

  “That’s for us to know, Willow,” Miles replies, deep in thought with a sly smile on his face.

  My gut tells me that I want Annie to win, but on the other hand I know how crazy she is. Maybe I want Miles to win.

  Annie turns to me in all seriousness and whispers, “Hunter Hayes. You get my drift. I’m helping you out.”

  Oh shit! I definitely want Miles to win. Annie has him cornered and ready to take him down and she is clearly proud of the prize. I can only imagine what she put on the line for this bet. Hell, the child probably has my wedding lined out and my first house bought with this little UNO bet.

  Miles lays down a WILD card.

  “Are you freaking kidding me right now? You have twenty cards in your hand, and not one Draw Four. Look again,” I panic, and jump in his lap, throwing Mac up into mine.

  With Miles at the bottom of our impromptu doggie pile, I scour his cards for a Draw Four. He has complete shit in his hand. No Draw Fours and only yellows and reds, the man only has two options to choose from when he changes the color in a couple seconds. My stomach rolls at the thought.

  Miles bends down and whispers in my ear, “This little shit came to play. In all honesty, I tried really hard to win, but spending an evening at dance lessons with you and Annie is very tempting. She mentioned something about ice cream after.”

  Now my lower tummy is tingling along with other parts.

  Milly enters the living room and scoops up Mac from my lap. “Looks like the lovebirds need some space.”

  “We’re not lovebirds. Hell, we’re not even friends,” I spit out.

  “That’s right, enemies sit in each other’s laps. I forgot,” Milly replies as she sits with Cree on the couch.

  I look down and realize I’m sitting right in the middle of Miles’ lap. He has his arms wrapped around me with his cards splayed o
ut in front of us. One hand is holding the cards and the other is dangerously riding low on my inner thigh. This realization makes me flush with need and want. On one hand, this is the most comfortable place that I’ve been in, in a very long time, and on the other hand, it is the scariest place I’ve ever landed.

  Miles’ breath silently flirts with sensitive skin on my neck. He leans forward to stare down Annie and his scruff brushes my cheek. I close my eyes and allow myself to dream, hope, and pretend what Miles could make me feel. To be able to feel every piece of this mysterious man. All the what ifs.

  “What color, Willow?” Miles whispers in my ear.

  I turn my head, letting my lips brush past his scruff, and whisper, “Red.”

  “Red,” Miles says.

  “Bam, baby, bam!” Annie squeals as she lays down her final card.

  “You know Annie always keeps red til the end, Wils,” Cree says with smirk on his face from the couch.

  “Really,” Miles murmurs.

  Annie continues her victory dance on the coffee table in the middle of the living room, and like always we watch her shake it. It’s only a matter of seconds before Lacey is up there with her.

  “You just helped Annie win. What does that mean?” Miles whispers while everyone else is distracted.

  Taking advantage of rubbing as much of my skin on his, I slowly turn to him and whisper, “It means I don’t want to buy dinner this week and I just found a dumbass to do it.”

  Chapter 6

  Lip Gloss & Happiness

  Monday. Another encounter with Miles. I haven’t seen him since Saturday night at Tripp’s house. It was actually a great night with my family. It was definitely one of those evenings where everything magically fit together and I was happy. Annie begged Miles for a ride in his hot rod and he put on a show of a lifetime making her beg and do silly dances before he eventually caved in to her. Not only did he give her a ride in his car, he let her drive down Tripp’s lane. Her smile was simply priceless. The conversations were easy and comfortable between my brothers and Miles, just like they were old buddies from high school when actually they were the furthest thing from it.