by Natalie Ann
He did. He knew how to play on her emotions. Unfortunately, he wasn’t playing at the moment. He really felt like he looked. Wounded. “Why is everything so messed up?”
“You shouldn’t have gone behind Aimee’s back and talked to her ex. You shouldn’t have done it without Cade or any of your siblings knowing, if you felt you really needed to do it.”
He didn’t bother to ask how she knew what was going on. She always did. “I don’t need their help. I don’t need their advice.”
She snorted. “Right now you need a lot of things…a swift kick in the ass being one of them. I don’t know why you always feel you have to do it on your own. It’s that stubbornness that gets you in trouble.”
“I’m the leader of the group. I’m the oldest.”
She laughed and he didn’t care for the sound of it. Annoyance mixed in with the look of a mother that said she wanted to slap you upside the head for saying something stupid but instead was going to let you stew on it, just waiting to jump out of her way.
“Being the first one out doesn’t make you the leader, Brody. That was just chance that they grabbed your foot and pulled you out first.”
He cringed, the image of that coming into his head. She liked to say that to them when they were kids so they’d feel sorry for the fact she gave birth to five of them at once. Or several minutes apart.
“Everyone always looked to me for advice. Everyone always looked to me for answers,” he said.
“Not because you were born first,” she argued. “It was because you were strong. You developed your confidence long before anyone else did.”
“I was bigger than them.”
“Not by much. You just had this way about you when you were younger.” She paused and her voice softened a touch. “Everyone looked up to that. That’s why you were the leader. For no other reason.”
“No one does now. No one comes to me for anything. And when I do something, they all get pissed. I make one damn mistake and it’s going to be held over my head for years.”
She reached her hand out and lay it on his. He’d yet to take a sip of his coffee but did now to stop the dry burning in his throat.
“They came to you out of respect as they got older, not so much leadership.”
“So they don’t respect me now?” That was even worse in his eyes.
“No, that’s not it. Now they’re older, too. Now they don’t need you as much. Not because you messed up, but because they’ve grown. You’re failing to see that. You’re failing to see that you grew emotionally and mentally before they did, but they caught up. In some ways they’ve surpassed you.”
Leave it to his mother to get in a dig in some way. “So now I’m supposed to go to them with my problems?”
“No. You can figure it out on your own if you just stop and think for once. If you stop reacting so fast. But they’re there to help if you need it. All you have to do is ask.”
“It’s not easy to do that,” he said. “I didn’t even ask them to get involved with this situation. Cade got involved without me knowing.”
“Because he cares about Aimee. He loves you and he knows how you feel about her, so he stood in for you. The same with Ella and Aiden. I’d be really disappointed in you if you were ticked off at them for standing up for your girlfriend in your absence. That’d be mighty selfish on your part.”
He put his head down, feeling like her booted foot caught him in the ass after all. It was demoralizing how this five-foot-four nothing of a woman could bring him so low. “I’m not mad. I’m just saying I didn’t ask for their help.”
“Brody,” she said, sighing. “You’re annoying the shit out of me right now.” He lifted his head and looked at her sharply. “Don’t look at me like that. You’ve always been the one to hide what you’re feeling the most. Always the one that was afraid to let your guard down. Don’t think I didn’t know how hard it was for you when the rest of them went off to college and you stayed behind.”
He’d never said that to anyone before. “I didn’t like school.”
“You didn’t. Which is surprising, because we know you’re not stupid and you aren’t afraid of social interactions. But I get that you were just ready to move on and be an adult. Your father and I should have forced you to go away, though.”
“Why?” he asked. He would have hated that. He enjoyed working alongside his parents for years. Learning the ropes and going to conventions rather than college. Getting a feel for the real world.
“Because what happened with Craig happened much later to you than it did to your siblings. It has greater consequences as an adult than when it happens in college.”
“I’m the only one that was taken advantage of,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Don’t believe that. Every one of you struggled when you graduated from high school and chose your paths. None of you may have said it to each other, but you all said it to me.” She pointed her finger at him. “And if you tell anyone I said that to you, I’d deny it with my last breath and call you a liar every single time.”
She’d do it too, he had no doubt. “How did they handle it?” he asked, surprised the words came out of his mouth.
“Pretty much the same way you did. Everyone wanted to find their own identity and no one did. Not like you all thought. Not like you all wanted. Don’t you see? Your individual identities are all part of a whole. You all thrive when you’re together, even when you’re trying to be apart.”
That made no sense to him. “Everyone else has friends out of the group.”
“Not close friends. Not like the five of you are all together. Think about it, Brody. Think of everyone’s closest friend. They’ve been accepted by all of you, right?”
He thought for a second. “Yes.”
“And when one of you had a friend and just one of the rest of you didn’t like that person, what happened?”
“That friend stopped coming around. Or they stopped hanging with them as much.”
“Why?” she asked, that stupid knowing look she always had on her face. The smirk that he just realized Aimee hated so much when he gave it to her.
“Because if we all didn’t trust the person completely, something always felt off. Something always went wrong at some point.”
She nodded her head. “Because deep down, the five of you know what the others need in their lives. If just one of you didn’t feel right, chances are there was a reason. Cade was the one who caught onto Craig when no one else did.”
“So you’re saying if I’d listened to him, none of that would have happened?”
“No. Well, yes, you should have, but you didn’t and I won’t hold that against you and I don’t think anyone else is, either. What I’m saying is, you were older and so sure of things, and Cade was just as sure. But he felt deep down something wasn’t right. Now you need to learn from this.”
“I learned to not let him push my buttons or I end up in the Outer Banks staring at myself in the mirror.”
She laughed. “What else did you learn?”
“That I have to trust that they know what’s best even if it pisses me off.”
“Exactly. You guys are a team. You work better as a team than individually. That doesn’t mean you can’t have your own lives, but you aren’t going to be nearly as successful in life if you don’t rely on each other sometimes.”
“Now you’re saying I should go apologize to them?”
“That’s up to you. What I do think you should do is go apologize to Aimee. Maybe get down on your knees and beg if you have to. If you want her enough.”
He did. “Why?”
“Because a relationship is also a team. It won’t succeed or flourish individually. You have to talk and you have to listen to each other. And most of all, you can’t make decisions without the other’s input. Otherwise you might as well book your hotel room,” she said laughing.
Damn her for pointing out almost exactly what Aimee did earlier.
His Girl
&
nbsp; The last thing Aimee expected was for Brody to return, walk in the bar, grab her arm, then bring her upstairs.
“What the hell?” she said when he shut the door. If he thought she was a propeller before, she was a freaking Boeing 747 getting ready to land and he was on the runway.
She whirled around, ready to blast him some more, but the look in his eyes stopped her. Hurt combined with confusion and a touch of pleading. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“For what?” she asked, crossing her arms. She might be holding the throttle back, but she wasn’t turning the jets off.
“For going behind your back and talking to Pick. For going behind everyone’s back and doing it.”
“Why did you?”
“I told you,” he said. “I was thinking of you and Sidney. I don’t want that creep anywhere near my girls.”
She opened her mouth then shut it, unsure which threw her off more. Pick being referred to as a creep or Brody calling them “his girls.” Both hit her hard in the chest, both for different reasons. One pissed her off, the other warmed her heart.
“I get to call him a creep if I want. Not you. I made a mistake with him, you didn’t. Regardless of what I think of him, regardless of the fact I wish I never knew him, he’s still the person who gave me Sidney.” She wasn’t going to say Sidney’s father. In her eyes, Pick was just a sperm donor. “His DNA is a part of her. You better not be thinking she’s a creep.”
“Hang on,” he said, holding his hand up. “Damn, you’re eyes are burning right now. I’m sorry again.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t seem to do anything right today.”
“Maybe you should try a little harder.”
“I’m trying as hard as I can and messing up a lot worse than I thought possible.”
She took a deep breath. She could see he was trying; it was just too bad his trying wasn’t working out in anyone’s favor right now.
“Listen, Brody. I’m ticked. I was ticked when you told me hours ago. The more it festers, the more pissed off I get. I know you didn’t mean anything by what you just said. I also know you had our best interests at heart.”
“Then why are you giving me so much grief?” he asked.
“Because you can’t just do what you want when you want it. It’s not all about you. It’s not all about what you want or think is right. You want me to be in a relationship with you. You want me to move in with you. That means you’ll be parenting my daughter at times. Not fully, but partially. You’ll be an influence on her. I don’t want selfishness to be an influence.”
His face flushed with guilt and anger. “Point taken.”
“What? No argument?” That shocked her.
“No. My mother just lectured me on pretty much the same thing.”
“So you’re apologizing because Jolene told you to?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“No. I’m apologizing because I’m wrong. I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. I can go shout it in the bar if you want,” he said.
She cracked a grin. “I think the whole kitchen knows, so we can leave the bar out of it.”
“I pulled you upstairs to avoid that again. What can I do to make it right? What can I do to get you to trust me? You want me to beg? Get on my knees? What? Say it.”
She frowned. As mad as she was, she’d never want that. She’d never make him do something so completely against his nature. “I trust you, Brody. Probably more than I have any other man before. And you can’t make this right. This can’t be fixed. The damage is done. All we can do is go forward and handle it together. Not you, not me, but us.”
“And my family,” he said.
“I guess.”
“You sound about as grouchy as I do admitting that.”
He pulled her forward and wrapped his arms around her, and she let him. It was hard to cave a little, and this felt like caving a lot. Then she remembered he’d called her his girl. “Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?” he asked, his hand running up and down her back. She cuddled in more, like a scrawny stray looking for a touch of affection.
“That Sidney and I are your girls?”
He laughed. “That’s probably the only thing I’ve done right today, huh? Saying that?”
“Pretty much,” she said, laying her head against his chest.
***
But four days later, she still hadn’t made any move to change her living situation. She hadn’t brought it up to Sidney nor had she said a word about it to Brody. It was a big cloud hanging over their heads. She didn’t think she could move forward with anything until her past was taken care of. Until she was positive Brody was willing to change. That he could change.
So used to being on her own, it was hard for her to even consider living with someone either.
She’d been real close to that decision before Brody took matters into his own hands, then she had to slide back some. She didn’t know what was harder, sliding back or being eager to rush on.
Did she want to move in with him? Into the beautiful house on the water? Letting her daughter run and play on all that land? In all that space inside? Sure she did.
But it wasn’t just that. She’d want to live with Brody even if it was in her tiny apartment above a beaten-up old garage in her stepfather’s backyard.
So if she really wanted to move in with him, she should. She should make that step.
Except making the first step was always the hardest for her. She kept reminding herself of everything that Rick told her about having to both fight for something. About not being selfish. And what did she do? She accused Brody of that. Of being just as selfish as she’d been.
She started to feel like a hypocrite.
Then she remembered what Brody had said Jolene lectured him about. What she lectured him about. Being a team. Working together. Yet she was keeping her distance.
She was in the wrong…this time.
The next morning, she went into work prepared to talk to Brody. To see if maybe he could come to her place after work so they could have some privacy. Or maybe she could go to his. She had a key, but since their fight she didn’t feel right using it.
With more confidence than she was feeling, she walked up to him at the bar, surprised he was there before her. “Why are you here so early?” she asked.
“I wanted to see you,” he said. “Try to talk to you without anyone around.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Well, I was going to see if we could talk tonight some time.”
“Why not now?” he asked, looking around. There was no one there and she could see he’d set up for the day already, giving them at least thirty minutes.
“I guess.”
“Do you want to go upstairs, or can we stay here?” he asked.
She found it funny he was asking and not just dragging her somewhere. Then she realized it wasn’t funny as much as it was sweet. As much as it was considerate. And he was trying harder than she ever thought he would. Harder than she was. He was listening to her concerns. “Here is fine.”
“Do you want to start?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said before she lost her nerve.
“For what?”
He looked confused and she wasn’t sure if she felt worse because he was carrying it all on his own, or better because he didn’t know she was keeping her distance. Then she realized she was being childish, playing games. So yeah. Worse. Definitely feeling worse.
“For putting space between us,” she said. “It was wrong of me to do that. Wrong of me to play games when I told you to stop doing that. To stop thinking of only yourself. Then here I was, doing the same darn thing.”
“Were you trying to punish me?” he asked.
“Not really.” He lifted an eyebrow at her and her shoulders dropped. “I didn’t intentionally do that. In the end, I think it punished me more.”
“How’s that?”
“Sidney is driving me insane, asking for you.”
“Is she now
?” he said, his face lighting right up. It dawned on her it was the first time he’d smiled in days. Or at least that she’d seen of it. When she returned the smile, she realized it was probably the first time she had, too.
“Yes. I said we were a team, but that includes Sidney, too. In the end, she’s confused over what is going on. That’s not right, either.”
“We’ve both said we’re sorry. We both feel like crap. So now what?” he asked. “I feel like it’s a never-ending cycle with us. When are we going to be able to not have this problem?”
“Probably never,” she said, laughing. “We’re two strong-minded people. But if we’re going to live together, we have to figure this out.”
“Are we going to live together?” he asked, smirking at her.
She wanted to wipe the smirk off his face, but instead said, “If the offer is still on the table, then I think it might be a good next step.”
He hugged her tight, kissed her hard, and said, “I never took it off the table. You did with your stubbornness.”
She wanted to argue, but instead kissed him again.
Moral Values
Two weeks later, Brody found himself driving with Cade an hour away for a meeting with Jackson and Pick. He hadn’t felt this much of an adrenaline rush since he was tackling Bobby Ray in gym class after he’d made a sexist comment about Ella. The fact that Ella punched him for doing it before she could handle Bobby herself didn’t stop the rush of it.
“How are things going with Aimee and Sidney?” Cade asked.
Brody wasn’t in the mood to just chew the fat, but he had to do something to take his mind off what was going on. Cade hadn’t told him everything, he was positive.
“It’s good. It’s only been a week, but we’re finding our way around the house together.”
“You’ve got enough space there. It shouldn’t be a problem,” Cade said, laughing. “Why did you buy such a big house? Were you hoping people would just stay with you all the time? Hang out and party?”
