by Ward, Tamryn
She hadn’t been thinking about Bobby, that was for sure.
Why hadn’t she been? If she really cared for him, shouldn’t he have popped into her head at some time?
Shit.
She had to stay something. She still hadn’t explained. “Maybe we aren’t there yet, but…”
Bobby shook his head. His lips pulled into what was probably meant to be a smile. It wasn’t. “No, really. You don’t have to say a word. It’s making things worse, if you want to know the truth. So I’m going to go back into my room, find my work keys and head back. And you and…him…can carry on.”
“We’re not…I’m going to work too.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Bobby’s door shut a little louder than normal.
She stood there, staring at his door for a handful of seconds.
What was she doing?
What the hell was she thinking?
She’d gone out on a date with Bobby. A nice date. Things had gone pretty well. Kind of. And then she’d ended up having sex with Aeron. All in the span of a few hours.
She had given her virginity to a guy who didn’t want her.
How screwed up was that?
“What is wrong with me?” she muttered, letting her head fall forward.
Aeron had tried to talk her out of it. But she hadn’t let him. She couldn’t blame him for anything. The shame she felt now, at having given herself to a man who didn’t deserve it, was hers alone.
She had let the fantasy of being with a man who looked like her fictional hero sweep her away. How stupid was that?
I’ll talk to Bobby later. I’ll own up to my mistake. I’ll apologize. And we’ll see what happens.
Feeling horrible, guilty, and disappointed in herself, she went to the bathroom and cleaned herself up. In the shower, she washed all the evidence of what she’d done away. The scent of Aeron’s skin. The smell of sex. The lingering tingle of his touches.
When she got out of the shower, she toweled off and slipped her robe back on. She wasn’t ready to face Aeron. What if he wanted to do it again? She couldn’t. She was already overwhelmed with regret.
Hoping he had left, she padded to her door and pushed it open. The hinges creaked. Stupid hinges.
He was still there. In bed. His head popped up.
Great. He was awake.
He blinked at her. “Are you okay?” he whispered, eyes flicking to her chest.
She glanced down. Was that her hand clutching her robe closed so tightly? Yes, it was. That was her hand, curled into a white-knuckled fist. “Um. Yeah.”
He sat up, back resting against the headboard. “Come here.” He patted the mattress.
Reluctantly, she went around other side of the bed. Her hand trembled as she reached for the pillow, to fluff it.
“You’re shivering.” He lifted the covers. “Let’s get you warmed up.”
She climbed under the covers. It was warm under there. Nice and toasty. But it didn’t stop the shaking. That was because she wasn’t shivering from the cold. Making sure to keep some distance from Aeron, she wriggled deep under the covers. She felt him watching her. But she couldn’t look him in the eye.
“You’re upset,” he stated.
“I’m just…” What? What could she tell him? He’d told her he would stop. But she was the one who insisted. She’d practically begged. Oh, who was she kidding? She didn’t practically beg. She literally begged for him to have sex with her. If she said anything to make him feel crappy about it now, that would be so unfair. “I’m fine. Tired. I…didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Okay?” From the tone of his voice, she could tell she wasn’t fooling him.
“Really. I’m okay.”
“You showered. Are you in pain?”
“It’s not bad. The warm water felt good.”
He grumbled something she couldn’t quite make out.
Finally, she found the strength to look at him. “Really, I’m okay. This is a big deal. I’m a little emotional. But I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
His jaw ticced. “I told you—“
“Yes, you did. I was the one who insisted on…on doing it.” Her face warmed at the embarrassing confession. “So I’m not upset with you. I promise.”
He lifted his arm. She knew where it was heading—around her shoulders. Inside, she wanted to lean away. But if she was going to sooth his guilt, she couldn’t do that. She had to let him comfort her, even if it wouldn’t give her any comfort at all.
Scooting down as he moved, he pulled her against him and settled on his back. She turned on her side, her head resting on his chest and closed her eyes. His heartbeat. She could hear it clearly. A deep, slow and steady thump-whump. It was warm. And it felt good, having him hold her. Maybe she would be able to fall asleep for a little while.
Maybe…
An hour later she woke up. She was alone. She could tell.
It was cold. The sheets. The bed.
Aeron was gone.
Their time was over.
Over. Forever.
Unable to even think about love, let alone write about it, she pulled the covers over her head.
She could smell him still. In her bed.
She would stay there. All day. And all night. This was all she had left, the lingering sweet scent of his skin. She didn’t need to get up. Not yet. Not until three forty-five. That gave her over five hours.
Five precious hours to remember.
Eighteen
The morning traffic report was screaming from her clock-radio.
Morning. Shit.
Already?
It had been almost twenty-four hours since Aeron had made love to her. To be exact, it had been twenty-two hours. Twenty-two painful, agonizingly lonely hours.
She’d heard nothing from him since he left yesterday.
Bobby kept his word. He brought home pizza, which Logan devoured. Bobby dumped a couple of slices on a paper plate and shut himself in his room. He didn’t come out the rest of the night. So much for her birthday.
That evening, Jenny pushed through her normal evening routine with Logan, doing her best to hide her sadness from him, and then buried herself under her blankets and cried.
And cried some more.
This sucked.
She was…she was in love with Aeron. Her heart was aching so bad, it hurt to breathe. But she couldn’t just lie in bed all day again. She had roughly forty-five minutes to get Logan up and ready for school. To Logan, this was just another day.
To her…it wasn’t.
She didn’t smell coffee as she took care of the essentials in the bathroom and hopped into some warmer clothes. She scurried over to Logan’s room, pulled some clothes out of his drawer and set them on his bed, next to his head. “Logan, buddy. Time to get up for school.”
Logan groaned and blinked open his eyes. “Isn’t it the weekend yet?”
“Nope. Sorry. It’s only Thursday.”
He rubbed his eyes. “You woke me up just when I was going to talk to Mom and Dad.” Scowling, he stuck out his lower lip.
“Sorry about that. I didn’t know.” She stroked his hair back from his face. It was getting a little shaggy, his bangs flopping over his eyes. “Looks like it’s time for a haircut.”
“No. I want to grow it long. Like Aeron’s.”
“But you can’t see.”
“I can see just fine.” Logan shoved his hair out of his face and blinked big, wide eyes at her. “See?”
“Okay. But if it becomes a problem, we’ll have to cut it. At least the bangs.”
“It won’t be a problem. I know.”
Jenn couldn’t be so sure about that. But she loved the certainty she heard in her brother’s voice. Despite the dream he’d been having—which hinted at the grief he was still struggling with--he sounded more confident lately, less frightened of the world and everyone in it. She was grateful to Aeron for his part in her brother’s healing. At least he’d done that much for her brother. If she had to
give her heart to a guy and have it crushed, at least she’d chosen a good guy. “Okay, well you get dressed and come down. I’ll make your breakfast.”
“Okay.” He shoved the book lying next to his pillow out of the way as he sat up.
She glanced at the cover.
Another book about angels. Yes, her brother was still grieving.
He glanced at her then at the book. “Aeron said someday an angel named Samael will send a guide to me, and he’ll tell me when it’s time to go to heaven with Mom and Dad.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yep. And I’ll know the messenger. It’ll be someone I trust. A friend. So I won’t be afraid to go with him.”
“That’s nice, Logan.” Her eyes jerked to the red glowing numbers displayed on his clock. “Ohmygosh! You’ve got to get moving. We have twenty minutes and you haven’t eaten yet. Hurry up.”
“Okay.”
She rushed downstairs. No sign of Bobby. She put the coffee on and poured her little brother some cold cereal. He came down before she’d finished her first cup…with his shirt on inside out. And backward. “Let’s fix this first,” she suggested, tugging it over his head as he rounded the kitchen table.
“I don’t care which way it goes,” her brother argued. “Nobody does.”
“Well, I do. I don’t want anyone at school thinking you aren’t being cared for.”
“If anyone said something like that, I would punch them in the face. You’re a good mom. Almost as good as our mom.”
His heartfelt words warmed her insides. She couldn’t help smiling, despite the lingering pain of her heartache. “I’m sure our mom wouldn’t have let you go to school with your shirt inside out and backward either.” She poured milk on his cereal and headed out to the living room to put his lunch in his backpack.
“You didn’t say anything yesterday. Did you have fun on your date?” Logan asked a few minutes later, sporting a very white milk mustache.
She wiped it off with the sleeve of her hoodie. “I had a nice time, thanks.”
“I like Bob okay, too.” Logan said as he shrugged into his winter coat. “Not as much as Aeron. But he’s pretty nice.”
“I’m glad you like him.” She plunked his boots down and motioned for him to step into them.
“Are you going to marry Bob?” he asked.
Her nerves zapped. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation. “Marry him? Oh, I don’t know about that. Right now we’re friends. That’s all.”
“But wouldn’t it be good to marry your friend? After all, Mom and Dad used to say they were best friends.”
She looked into her brother’s eyes. “You remember that?”
“Sure. It wasn’t so long ago.” He blinked up at her. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something but then closed it. “Gotta go.”
She gave him a quick hug, which he tolerated. Barely. “Be careful, kiddo. I’ll see you later.” After grabbing his backpack, she opened the front door.
“Jenny, I forgot to tell you. I got an A on my science project. On the bug project.”
“That’s great! I was wondering about that. You haven’t brought it home.”
“Yeah. Well…” he glanced down. “I sorta ripped it apart after the teacher graded it.”
She helped him strap his backpack on. “Ripped it apart? Why? You did such a nice job on it. I thought you might like to keep it.”
“But I had to bury them. What if their friends saw them like that—stuck to a board? With a pin jammed through their bodies? It would be terrible.”
Her eyes burned. This child. How special was he? To think about the families of those insects? “Oh, yes. I suppose it would terrible if they saw that. Good idea.”
“I buried them where all their friends can come and visit them. By the big trees in the playground.” He stepped outside. Paused. Pointed. “There’s someone here. A car.”
Oh God.
Jenn’s heart jumped.
Was it Mrs. Tate again? Already? Did she have some information about the filing? Or was she there to take Logan away?
Peering around Logan, she checked the car, idling on the street, directly in front of their house.
It wasn’t black.
It wasn’t Mrs. Tate’s. Unless her car had died and she’d rented one from Rent-a-Wreck.
The car outside sputtered and backfired. The engine conked out. A woman got out, opened the passenger side and bent into the vehicle.
“I wonder who that is?” Logan asked.
“I don’t know.” She shooed her brother off the porch. “Probably someone visiting one of the neighbors. You’d better hurry or you’ll be late for school.”
He jumped down the steps and, watching the woman, who was still busy with something in the car, scampered down the icy sidewalk.
Convinced the woman wasn’t coming to her house, Jenn closed the door and locked it.
Time to get to work.
Today she had a sex scene to write. For the first time, she was writing one with the firsthand knowledge of what it felt like.
A tiny quiver buzzed up her back.
The tingles. The heat. The pulsing need, throbbing in her core. It was going to be easy writing this scene with yesterday so fresh in her memory, even with the guilt and regret tugging at her heart. Her body loved what had happened. Every stroke. Every kiss. Everything. And, as she started describing the experience in words, it responded. Heat gathered deep inside. Her heart started thumping harder. Her face flushed hot.
Someone knocked on the door. The sound ripped her out of the moment. Flustered and a little confused, she set her computer aside and went to see who was at the door.
It was the woman from the car.
She opened it.
“Is Bob here?” the woman snapped. She was young, Jenn realized, now able to get an up-close look at her. Young but rough. Her sandy-blond hair was gathered in a messy ponytail, wisps whipping around her face. Her coat was unzipped, flapping in the icy wind. Underneath she wore a dingy hoodie and some yoga pants. On her feet were soggy, stained running shoes. And in her arms was a little girl with brilliant green eyes. Her hair was a mass of copper ringlets. Her skin a smooth, perfect ivory. “Well? Is he here?”
“Um, he’s at work…I think.”
“Shit. I told him he had to take Gwen today. I have something to do.” Scowling, the woman glanced over her shoulder, as if she was looking for Bobby to come rolling up in his car.
“I’m sorry. Was he supposed to babysit for you?”
The harried woman rolled her eyes. “Babysit? She’s his fucking daughter. Is that what they call it, babysitting?”
Daughter?
Bobby had a daughter?
Jenn focused on the child’s face. She was young, but not an infant. Most definitely older than a few months, maybe older than a year.
That meant…she’d been born before…before her parents had died…before Bobby had broken up with her.
He’d cheated?
He’d fathered a child?
And he hadn’t told her?
Suddenly she didn’t feel so guilty for having sex with Aeron. Hell, if Bob could fuck girls and get them pregnant, and not even tell her about it, then her little misstep was nothing to him.
“I’m sorry,” she told the girl’s mother. “He won’t be home until later.”
“Shit.” The woman jerked another look over her shoulder. When her gaze snapped back around, her eyes were pink. And watery.
Jenn’s heart lurched.
“I have to be at court in an hour. The bastard knew all about it. He said he would take the day off. If I don’t show, the judge will issue a bench warrant for my arrest.”
To top it off, it seemed he’d picked a girl with major problems to have his child with. And now she was trying to make her problems everyone’s problems.
It was kind of working.
“Wow, I’m sorry,” Jenn said, feeling a little sorry for her. “Maybe he couldn’t get the day off work?�
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The little girl wriggled and the woman began bouncing her on her hip. “He didn’t call me to let me know he couldn’t watch her. You would think he would do that much, right? No, he just forgot. Or he decided he didn’t give a shit. That sonofabitch. He knew I had to go to court. But he didn’t care. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
“I’ll keep her until he gets home.” Jenn heard herself say the words before she realized she’d spoken. Why had she just done that? Why? It wasn’t because she felt guilty for anything. No. Not because of that. Maybe because she felt a little sorry for the girl, who looked so desperate and lost. And probably because she wasn’t thinking straight. Her mind was whirling round and round like a merry-go-round.
He has a kid?
He has a kid.
He has a kid!
And he didn’t tell me.
The frantic mother jabbered a bunch of stuff about nap times and food allergies and favorite blankets, shoved the child into Jenn’s arms, dropped a backpack full of baby supplies at her feet and ran to her junky old car. Before Jenn had gathered her thoughts, the car had rumbled down the street, out of sight.
She looked at the little girl.
The little girl looked at her.
The child blinked once, twice and then opened her mouth.
The wail could probably be heard for miles.
Nineteen
It took hours to settle little Gwen.
Jenn tried food.
She tried juice.
She tried the pacifier.
She tried the child’s favorite stuffed bear.
Finally, as a last-ditch effort, she put on the radio, loud. It blared Lady Gaga.
Turned out the child liked Lady Gaga. She bounced to the beat. A big smile spread over her face, her curls springing up and down.
Relieved, Jenn sat on the couch and pulled her laptop onto her lap to try to get some work done. Unfortunately she couldn’t get a single word written. For one thing, she discovered fairly quickly that writing a sex scene while a toddler used her as a living jungle gym was awkward to say the least. And secondly, the child kept jabbering, and tugging on her, and demanding her attention with requests for food and juice and toys. It wasn’t until almost three o’clock that the little girl’s eyes started to look a little less sparkly and her constant grins turned to pouts and frowns. Jenn hauled the child upstairs, settled her on Logan’s bed, with her favorite toy and blanket and shut the door, praying for a small miracle.
