Or maybe it was the way the world had seemed to dwindle. The doctor had been narrating what they were seeing, but Taryn really had no memory of what she’d said. She had been staring at Caleb and him back at her.
Then, after she’d managed to get through the blood draw without fainting, she had vague memories of walking down the hallway on wobbling legs. Her vision blurred, her thoughts swam, and she broke out in a cold sweat. After that, she remembered nothing except the warmth that had enveloped her, putting the solid earth back under her feet. In his arms, for the first time since this whole mess had begun, Taryn had felt safe.
What any of it was supposed to mean, she didn’t know. Nothing, she supposed. They were just random moments in time that stuck out to her.
“I’m glad,” Slate said.
“Thank you for calling him, but you shouldn’t bug him. I could have gone on my own.”
“Ah.” Slate waved his hand, sitting back on the couch. “Caleb doesn’t have enough to do.”
“You keep saying that.” Taryn shifted toward him, curious. “How did he end up owning a bar in Los Angeles when he lives most of the time in the OC?”
“He lives here in LA. Family stuff came up, and that’s why he stays at his mother’s house in your neck of the woods during the week. It sucks because his whole life is here. His friends. His bar.” Taryn could see this was, to Slate, a great injustice. He looked angry and sad on his friend’s behalf. “It’s like he’s been on pause for the last two years. I get why he thinks he has to do it. I really do. But it just sucks.”
Chapter Nine
“Stop fidgeting.” Caleb cast a look at Slate in his peripheral vision, not taking his eyes off the road. “You’ve already met Robin. Melanie can’t be too horrible.”
Slate grumbled and put his feet up on the dash even though he knew Caleb didn’t like that. “I met Robin, but I don’t really know him. That whole day was a blur of . . .” He waved his hands emphatically. “You know? It doesn’t count. It shouldn’t count. First impressions made under extreme circumstances shouldn’t be allowed to count.” He huffed and crossed his arms.
“Count toward what? What are you worried about?”
“Man, what am I not worried about?” Slate slumped down farther in his seat. “I think things are cool between me and Taryn right now, but I don’t know. I don’t know how anything is going to turn out.”
“That’s life,” Caleb said.
“Yeah, that’s life, and usually that’s cool with me. Lately, though, it’s been driving me nine kinds of crazy. The whole just letting life happen thing? It’s not okay anymore. It’s not good enough. Everything feels life or death important, and it’s making me nuts that I can’t be sure about anything.”
“Kids will do that to you. They make you want to make the world into something it’s not. I can see why you’d be concerned about Taryn, but what does it matter if her friends like you?”
“It’s never going to be just the two of us, is it?” He shifted in his seat to look at Caleb. “Friends are important. Maybe more important than parents in some ways. Like take you and me. When she wasn’t calling me back, you said she just needed time. I saw in your face, though, you were thinking the worst. That threw me. I wanted to believe her, but if you didn’t, then I was ready to be mad at her. I’m Patch’s daddy, and she can’t do anything about that, but that doesn’t mean she has to make it easy for me.
“It’s important to me that you like Taryn, so I have to figure it’s important for her friends to like me.”
Caleb reached out to clap his friend on the arm. “They’re going to like you.” He put his hand back on the wheel, looking out at the road. “There are things you can control and things you can’t. You’re a good guy. If they don’t want to see that, well, you’ve got me. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
Slate put his feet back on the floor of the car. “Thanks, man.” He was quiet for a minute. “You like Taryn, don’t you? I mean, if everything went bad, you don’t think she’d give me trouble? Custody battles sound horrible.”
A bitter taste twisted Caleb’s tongue, and he couldn’t answer until he’d swallowed around the tightness in his throat. “At least you’ll have a fighting chance.” He gave his head a hard shake. “And yes, to answer your question, I like Taryn. I don’t think she’d give you trouble, but I haven’t been the best judge of character in that regard, have I?”
A few minutes later, they were in front of Taryn’s place. Before they could knock on the door, it opened. A statuesque woman stood there, taking up the entire door frame with her presence alone. Her eyes glided right over Caleb to assess Slate, looking him over from head to toe. Just as Caleb was about to ask if she had a problem, she grinned and called over her shoulder, “You were right, Rob. Grade A breeding stock.”
Caleb narrowed his eyes in distaste, but before he could speak, a groan came from inside the house. Taryn appeared behind the woman, dragging her back. “That’s gross, Mel. Cut it out and be nice.”
“I am being nice,” Melanie said, hands on her hips as she looked Slate over again. “Between you and Tare, that’s going to be one good-looking baby.” She turned back to Taryn. “That’s the important part, the part you can’t change. If he’s a jerk to either you or my baby, I can chop him into pieces and bury him in the desert. Problem solved.” She offered her hand to Slate. “I’m Melanie Devonshire.”
“Slayton McKenzie.”
Melanie’s lips tugged downward. “Maybe you should make sure you get to name the kid,” she said to Taryn.
“And you’re done,” Robin said, stepping in front of Melanie. He offered his hand and a welcoming smile to Slate. “I’m Robin.”
“I remember.”
“Caleb, by the way,” Caleb said, raising an eyebrow at Melanie.
“Ooh, can I call you Cale?”
“No.”
She threw her head back and laughed, as unperturbed by his bluntness as she had been by her friends’ admonishments. She grabbed Slate by the hand. “Why are we just standing here in the doorway? Come in here. I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Already?”
“There’s something suspicious about a guy who doesn’t have Facebook.”
“What, do you want to Facebook stalk me? See how many pictures there are out there of me drunk off my ass or in a compromising position?”
“Oh, please. I have too many of those kinds of pictures of my own to be looking to judge yours. No. The problem here is we have no picture of you at all so we couldn’t do this.”
They’d reached the kitchen by that point, and she turned a large laptop around to show him the screen. The page she had pulled up was a site where you could put two people’s pictures in the mix and see what a child of theirs might look like.
Melanie had by then pulled Slate over to a mostly blank wall, and Robin had his cell phone out, ready to take a picture.
“Could you guys, I don’t know, ask him first?” At that point, Taryn had given up looking exasperated and looked instead adoringly amused. There was a connectedness about them that made Caleb glad for her. It didn’t seem as though her family of origin was being as supportive as they could have been, but she wasn’t as alone as he’d feared.
“I’m cool with it,” Slate said. His grin at the camera was a lot shier than the one Caleb was used to.
“You know these things aren’t the slightest bit accurate. It doesn’t take into account any of the rest of the family.”
Robin snorted as he snapped the picture. “Thank you, Captain Obvious. I mingled myself with Johnny Depp earlier. The baby came out with a goatee. I’m going to laugh my ass off if your baby comes out with your neck tattoo,” he said to Slate.
Slate smiled at the idea and then looked to Taryn. “Not until Patch is eighteen. I promise. Then I’ll do it myself. If they want it. You know.”
Caleb nearly slapped his forehead with his palm. Discussing their child’s possible tattoos before it was even born was
so Slate.
“Yeah, you’re not getting near my child with a needle ever,” Taryn said, but her look was teasing.
As it turned out, the program did blend in Slate’s neck tattoo. It looked like a giant birthmark.
“Hey, that’s okay,” said Slate. He stroked the pad of his finger over the amalgamation of a child, his eyes wide as though with wonder. “It wouldn’t matter to me. Patch is going to be beautiful.”
“I’m with you,” Melanie said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Beautiful baby. That’s just a given. As long as they don’t inherit Mike’s attitude, Patch will be perfect.”
Taryn sighed and pushed herself off the wall she’d been leaning against. “Mike isn’t that bad, you know.”
“Uh, yeah. He really is. He’s been terrible to you about this whole thing.”
“He’s only telling the truth.”
“I’m sorry,” Caleb said. “I know it’s probably not my place, especially given that I’ve never met the guy, but I don’t think it can be said enough. There is no justification for the nasty names he called you or that he isn’t standing behind you.”
“This guy, I like,” Melanie said. “But let’s forget about worthless siblings before I get myself all worked up again.”
“Ah yes.” Robin clapped his hands together. “Back to the plan.”
“The plan?” Taryn quirked an eyebrow, but Caleb couldn’t help but notice the quiet misery that had spread over her features a moment before when she was talking about her brother hadn’t quite smoothed out.
“Yes.” Robin looped his arm around Slate’s shoulder. “Baby Daddy is going to come with us, and by us, I mean me and Mel, to pick up dinner.”
Taryn narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Because we don’t know what he wants yet. We don’t know his tastes, obviously.”
“And why am I not going?”
“Because you’re too busy gestating right now.”
“Uh-huh, and why is Caleb not going?”
“Because it’s unchivalrous to leave a gestating person alone.”
“I’m alone all the time.”
“Shhh.” Robin put his finger to Taryn’s lips.
Slate looked a little green, but when Caleb pressed his hand to his friend’s shoulder in silent encouragement, he spoke up. “It’s fine. I’ll go.”
“You’ll be fine. Just remember. They can’t kill you. I know they have you,” Caleb said.
When the three were gone a few minutes later, Caleb turned to Taryn. She’d gravitated toward the couch and was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, brooding. Unable to think of anything else to say, Caleb was about to remark how nice her home was, when she spoke. “You shouldn’t judge my brother, you know. He has every right to say ‘I told you so.’ “
Caleb opened his mouth and then shut it again, considering his words. He sat down on the opposite end of the couch. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“In every other conversation, you come across as confident. But when you talk about your brother, you project this whole other image I’m just not buying. You act like you did something horrible.”
“Because I did.” She shifted, looking anywhere but at him. “My baby sister spent most of her life in the hospital. You know that part. Her name was Bailey. Did I tell you?”
He shook his head but didn’t speak at that.
“Michael did everything he could to make it easier on Mom, Dad, and Bailey. He did everything for us when Mom and Dad weren’t there, which was only because Bailey was in the hospital so often. They were with her or working.
“So my parents were trying to comfort their dying daughter, my brother was trying to run a household, and I was acting out. I drank. I did drugs. Nothing terribly hard.” She shrugged and looked down at her shoes. “It was a shitty thing to do, to be so much trouble when it was too much. Losing Bailey was too much.”
“It’s understandable.”
She looked up, pain etched on her features. “How is that understandable? Come on.”
“I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, but you were a kid.”
“I was old enough to know better.”
“Regardless, it sounds like your parents neglected you.” He held a hand up to stop her protest. “I’m not judging them for that. They had a sick baby and there are only so many hours in a day, but just because your sister needed them doesn’t mean you didn’t. Any kid needs attention and affection, even an older teen. Maybe especially an older teen.”
Taryn huffed, worrying the edge of her shirt between her fingers. “I saw a counselor for a few years after I stopped self-medicating. He told me I was starved for love.” She swallowed hard and glanced up at him. “That’s why I took love however I could get it, wherever I could get it.”
It took Caleb a few moments to read between the lines of what she was saying. She must have seen when understanding dawned on him because she nodded and looked away. “So you see?” She gestured to her midsection. “Mike’s been expecting this since we were both still in high school.
“That’s the ironic thing. I was so careful back then. My parents were upfront about sex. They told us they preferred we wait, of course. They told us why we should wait, but at the same time, they made sure we knew where the condoms were early on.
“On top of that, I never mixed my pleasures. It was either drinking or boys, never both. Except the last time.” She grimaced. “Well, I guess the last time before this time. The summer after I graduated high school. That’s what it took to make me stop, you know. Not the fact my family was suffering and I added worry for me on top of all of that. What it took for me to stop was waking up next to a guy I’d never seen before in my life, naked and sore with no idea where the hell I was or what I’d done.”
She shuddered, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I’m a blackout drunk. I know it. I’ve always known it. That’s why I don’t drink. I never know when to stop. So I wake up next to this guy, not a condom in sight, and he was an asshole, too. He wouldn’t tell me where my clothes were. I called Mike, and he had to take me home wrapped in a blanket. The whole drive home he was telling me how stupid I was and how I was probably pregnant. He called me all these names. Worst car ride of my life.”
Unable to keep himself still anymore, Caleb gave in to the urge to comfort her. He scooted closer on the couch, wishing he could take her in his arms. Instead, he let his hand rest on hers on top of her jean-clad knee. “He had no right. Not even then.”
“Why? He was right. I was everything he said. Except pregnant. I wasn’t pregnant. Then. And he’s right now. Once should have been enough. It never should have happened again. Irresponsible and stupid are the least of what I am.”
He caught her hand in his and squeezed. “What you are is human. You made mistakes. Your mistakes don’t excuse his. You didn’t deserve cruelty when you were a kid who couldn’t have possibly known how to deal with your sister dying when your parents weren’t giving you the love you deserved.”
She bowed her head, whimpering as though she was about to sob, and put her free hand over her eyes. “Oh, man. I’m sorry. Stupid mood swings.” She gestured helplessly with one hand. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. Just . . . I hear his voice in my head sometimes. A lot of times. How can I possibly do right by Patch when I would do something so stupid?”
He patted her knee. “That’s exactly why I said his cruelty is a mistake. A big one. Bigger, if you ask me, than going a bit overboard on a night of fun, or at least much more malicious. You had no intention of hurting anyone. Your brother, it seems, wants to hurt you when you’re already in a bad place. That’s not helpful to anyone. Not you and definitely not Patch.
“Look, I don’t know how this sounds coming from me, but I hope you’ll hear me. Parents are only human, and humans do stupid things. Just because you have the propensity to make a bad decision doesn’t mean you’re going to fail at being a parent. What makes all th
e difference is how you’re handling it.” He pressed a finger under her chin, and she raised her head. “You’ve been amazing, you know. Especially with Slate.”
She sniffed and took a deep breath, blinking sporadically in a way that made him think she was trying not to cry. “He makes it easy.”
“He’s a good guy. He tries so hard. Like you that way, I think.”
It was only when she stared at him that Caleb realized his finger had begun to trace the shape of her chin. Clearing his throat, he dropped his hand and scooted backward. They’d been close enough that his leg was pressed against hers. When had that happened?
Before he could apologize for being so forward—they weren’t such close friends he should have been touching her so easily—the door opened, and the missing trio came in, arms laden with bags of food. Caleb looked to Slate and was relieved to see he looked relaxed. All the tension from their drive was gone. Robin and Melanie similarly looked to be in a good mood. Whatever test they had put Slate through, he’d obviously passed.
“Okay, Tare.” Robin put his bags on the table and began rummaging. “How’s tummy doing? We need something small and plain, or are we eating for two today?”
“I could eat a whole hippo.”
Robin reached out, drawing Taryn under his arm when she came to inspect the food. “You’re going to have to settle on three-item Panda Express, Simba,” he said and dropped an affectionate kiss to her temple.
Meanwhile, Slate caught Caleb’s eyes and gave him the thumbs-up, further confirming he’d been properly vetted. Maybe Mike was Taryn’s blood, but Robin and Melanie were the right kind of siblings, and Caleb was glad for it.
Chapter Ten
Dog nose. Taryn was not a fan of the pregnancy phenomenon that was dog nose. Some scents she could smell from across an open air parking lot. In Caleb’s bar, the acrid scent of alcohol mixed with the sweet scent of flavored syrups, cherries, and the sharp twist of lemon and lime threatened to overwhelm her.
One to Tell the Grandkids Page 7
