SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  I can’t! Can’t get married. Not ever. I don’t do commitment. Just thinking about it makes my heart throb so hard that I feel my head swim. I like Alex—love her, even, in a way—but I am not marrying her, and I told her that very clearly before I turned on my heel and ran like a scared little bitch.

  “She told me that she wouldn’t marry me if I were the last man on Earth. She said that she’d rather pretend to be married to a fucking coconut, because, according to her, ‘at least it’s got the shape of one ball, while you, Chilli, have none,’” I tell them, some of my panic deserting me at the memory.

  Because, with Alex having yelled those words at me, I’m off the hook. I don’t have to stand here and defend myself against something that she herself said. We aren’t suited for each other, and she doesn’t want me. That doesn’t make me feel all that great, but I’m so relieved not to have to think about this anymore that I can’t let myself focus on it right now.

  “Let me get this straight,” Ares says, speaking up when Adonis and Zeus gape at me. “You went to Alex’s apartment to confront her about sleeping with some other guy, even though you didn’t want her after you two were together. Then, you basically accused her of being a cheater and sleeping with Nate while he was dating Mindy. And now, you’re standing here telling me that you either don’t believe that that baby is yours, or that you’re not willing to step up to the plate, even knowing that it is.”

  “I didn’t say that! Of course I believe her about the baby,” I groan, an odd sense of horror and joy filling me. “I just don’t see why we should get married.”

  “Huh. That kinda sounds a little too convenient to me, man. No offense, but demanding that she marry Nate when you thought that he was the father, and now completely three-sixtying your demands, sounds to me like…” he tapers off, his peaceful expression in no way helping to lessen the insults.

  And of course Adonis, at no pains to show any tact, finishes the statement for him.

  “Cowardice. Only a man with no honor would let the mother of his child live without his name and give birth to that child out of wedlock!” he roars, coming back to his feet only to be pulled down by Zeus, who stands, walks closer to me, and shoves his hands in his pockets.

  He’s growing a beard now, the thick black fuzz filling in fast, thanks to our genetic disposition for profuse manes. It makes him look a little older than Adonis, but, to be fair, I could be seeing it that way just because Zeus has always struck me as a formidable man. He’s fair, he thinks out his answers, and then he takes action, but he can be hard, too, and I see that now, when he faces me and puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it affectionately.

  “You’re not thinking clearly right now, and I don’t blame you. You’ve just been told something that must be quite a shock to you, and we all get that,” he says, giving Ares and Adonis a look before meeting my eyes again and holding them sternly. “We’re going to give you some time to think about this, Chilli—to process your feelings and to consider the realities. You’re going to be a dad, and whether you and Alex get married or not, you will always be there for your kid. That’s already set in stone. But while you’re taking this time to think, if I were you, I’d think about how you treated a woman who wasn’t only your friend, but also someone who loved you. Whatever you do, and whatever choices you and Alex make, you owe her an apology,” he says, the message clear.

  Make things right, or we will fuck you up.

  Adonis grunts his agreement and stands, while Ares just sighs, stands, and comes over to clap a hand on my back.

  “We’re going, I guess. Cleo’s baking some fudge bar things, or whatever, and you’re not invited unless you want to be eating dessert with a butcher’s knife lodged in your spine,” Adonis says, grinning as he embraces me and slaps my back. “Make things right, okay? It’s hard enough to deal with the bullshit of normal life, handling my woman, and also working on a case that has more dead ends than paths.”

  I nod, not knowing what else to say, and walk them to the door before closing everything up and making my way out onto the deck. There, I open up a case of beer, whistle to Chica, the little puppy I found out here a few days ago, and lean back against the lounger to drink, think, and figure out what the hell I’m going to do.

  It’s not that I don’t want a kid. I love kids, and, since the addition of little Seth to the mix, I can honestly say that the thought of a baby of my own isn’t as bad as people seem to think that I think it is. And it’s not Alex herself, because I’ve already said that I miss her like crazy and want her back in my life.

  It’s the commitment part that scares me shitless.

  To commit to another person means giving up freedoms that I haven’t ever considered giving up. I’d have to be responsible toward that person and accountable for my actions and whereabouts. I don’t need to screw a different woman every night, and I don’t need to date up a storm. I can be with one woman just fine, and I even considered it for a while after Adonis met Cleo. I liked the way that he smiled all the time, and how happy he seemed knowing that she was there. I thought about what it would be like to have someone to go home to, knowing that she would always be there for you, waiting to catch you if you fell.

  And I liked that. The thought of it was—and is—enticing, and I’ve had my fair share of coming home alone at night and feeling lonely when I sink into bed, the other side empty and cold.

  It’s not the day-to-day stuff that gets to me; it’s the permanence.

  I see the permanence now with Adonis, who calls Cleo a minimum of six times a day, and with Zeus, who is always arguing with Rosetta and muttering under his breath, even as he smiles and blows her besotted kisses. That…sameness makes me antsy and drives me to seek even more freedom than I already have.

  But Alex…shit, man, how can I not be with her when I know that she needs me? It’s apparent to me from the way that she’s handled things that she’s not dealing well with everything that’s happened. Is she not happy to be having my baby? I ask myself, a kernel of hurt developing from the thought that she’s so miserable that she’s been hiding away and pretending that it isn’t real.

  The fucking flu, my mind yells, as the absurdity of her measures—and the lengths that she’s willing to go to in order to live in denial—hits me.

  Jesus. She must be really upset about this, and here I am, waltzing into her apartment and attacking her. And then leaving, for God’s sake, without another word, and making it all that much worse.

  Shit!

  Leaping up from the lounger, I unsettle Chica enough that she barks and whines as she falls back onto the deck. I need to go back and see Alex, and I need to make this right. I don’t know how I’ll do that, but I do know that I have to. I’m going to be a dad, and the very least that I can do for Alex is be her friend. If she’ll let me.

  Alexandria

  “Would you please just go out there and talk to him? If he keeps banging on your door, Nate’s likely to shoot him,” Rosetta grouches, her smile belying her concern and hinting at a glee that makes my lips twitch.

  “Nate and Mindy left to go visit her parents. Chilli’s knocking on an empty door,” I muse, shoving another cookie into my mouth because day-um, ever since I fell back down to Earth and reconnected with reality, my appetite is back in full force.

  I’m eating everything in sight, which is one of the reasons that Rosetta just threatened to kill me and almost kicked me out of her apartment. Not to mention the fact that I think that she and Zeus were trying to have sex when I picked the lock and came in here, alerted by the doorman that Mr. Hart was on his way up again.

  Okaaaay, so maybe they were in the middle of sex when I barged in, and maybe I saw Z’s ass, testicles, and extremely large dick. My question here is: how the hell does he walk around with that thing attached to him? But that isn’t the point. They were having sex, I watched for an indecent two minutes—although, in my defense, I was spellbound by the faces that they make while screwing—and then I ref
used to leave, because by that time, Chilli was already hammering on my door.

  Speaking of hammering…I want sex. It’s not fair that everyone else gets to have it while I don’t. The problem is, the ape hammering on my door seems to be the only ape that my stupid body wants. Go freaking figure.

  “Would you just leave so that I can finally come?” Rosetta shrieks, her high-pitched voice causing Zeus to wince and then grin, because she’s stamping her feet, throwing a tantrum, and practically kicking me out so that she can get off.

  Meh.

  “Why don’t you and Z go to your room and have sex? I’ll just hang out here,” I tell her, as another cookie falls victim to my savage hunger.

  Geez Louise, if I didn’t know better, I’d say this kid was eating for two.

  “He won’t do me while you’re here! He says that he feels all guilty and stuff about leaving you alone to mope on the couch while listening to his pathetic brother whine outside. Go talk to him!”

  “Why don’t you go talk to him, since you seem to be on his side?” I hiss, shoving the last donut in my mouth despite Rosetta’s attempts to stop me.

  The woman is currently in midair, being held in her husband’s arms while kicking and screaming and reaching her clawed fingers out to me, clearly with violence in mind.

  “I’m not on his side, you asshole. I’m on my side. Mine. On my side, where those donuts and cookies are mine! On my side, where I get to have sex with my husband so that I can finally get pregnant and have an excuse to eat all day. On my side, where I don’t have to babysit a pig while her asshole of a man bangs on her door and whines about his feelings!” she screams, clawing at Z’s arm to get at me.

  I flip her off, not caring about what she wants, though I do understand where she’s coming from. In life, there is only one side—the side you’re on—and all people are basically on their own sides. Me, I’m on my side, and that means that I am not going out there and talking to Chilli. Nate is gone, and his guns are all locked away, which means that I’d actually have to talk to Chilli. And since my mouth wants to do only one kind of talking with him—namely, the kind that involves genitals and orgasms—I think that staying right here is the best choice that I can make right now.

  “Just get over yourself, and be nice for once in your goddamn life. Face reality, you said. So, guess what? I did it! I told him about the baby, and he walked. Now I need some time to think about things—”

  “What’s there to think about? He knows that he’s the dad, the two of you are going to get married, and that’s that! End of story.”

  “Um, yeeeah. That isn’t going to happen. Nothing says ‘swallow your pride’ more than marrying a man who lost all color in his face when I told him that he’d have to marry me if he was really so interested in my baby’s father stepping up to the plate. You should have seen his face, Rosetta. He went so pale that you’d have thought that he was bleeding out when he finally realized that the baby is his. Can you really imagine me talking to him right now, knowing that he’s horrified?” I ask, watching her face morph from being consumed by selfish demands to offering a soft, nearly human grimace.

  When she’s finally calm, Zeus sets her down, helps her into a chair at the kitchen table, and brings over some tea for me, gently but determinedly removing the sugary treats. Yeah, I have had enough, I guess.

  “He was horrified?” she asks, her eyes turning soft when I gulp and nod.

  “Not that I blame him. It must have come as quite a shock to him to discover that I am actually not the whore of Babylon, spreading her legs far and wide,” I sigh, a sense of acceptance settling over me.

  “Are you defending that piece of—”

  “Babe. Chill out on the insults, okay? Chilli is being a little idiot, but he’s still my brother,” Zeus says softly, turning his kind eyes my way. “Drink some tea, Al. You need to dilute the three gallons of sugar that you’ve just fed those kids—”

  I’m in the process of doing just that when I spit boiling hot tea in their faces, coughing and choking as they open their eyes, grimace, and exchange a look.

  “Kids?”

  Oh, God. God, no. I just got used to not thinking of my unborn kid as the viral fucking flu! Kids? No way. Uh-uh. This is just…

  “Dammit, Z! Alex, just don’t start screaming—she’s screaming now! Are you happy?” Rosetta yells over a soul-rending wail that starts to emerge from me, the sound a low screech that starts in the pit of my stomach and exits my mouth on a continuous whine.

  “Sorry! It just slipped out. But honestly, look at the size of her!” Zeus mutters, turning my wail into a scream of fury that keeps going even when I feel my face turn red from a lack of air.

  Two? No way. No. I can’t have two kids. I can barely look after myself. I eat frozen dinners a lot because I’m too lazy to cook. Last night, I fed myself and Nate bread, peanut butter, and a jar of pasta sauce that may or may not have been here when I moved in. I can’t look after two kids. I just can’t. That would mean having to give two baths a day, and changing two stinky butts, and feeding two hungry mouths. I only have two tits, and I was planning on saving one of them from the mutation of feeding so that I’d have one good one to look at when I shower. Two kids means that I’ll have to use both tits, and so I won’t have any good ones left, and who will want to marry someone with two hanging bags of stretched-out, wrinkled flesh—

  Slap!

  Rosetta sideswipes me and jumps back, her eyes so wide that I think I see the backs of her eyeballs.

  “Jesus, your head don’t work right,” she breathes, while Zeus sucks his lips in and tries to keep himself from laughing. “Saving one tit? That’s twisted. But a good idea. Make a note of that, Z. I’ll save one good boob for you to play with,” she tells him, and watches him type it into his phone, fast. “As for you, you need to calm the hell down. Two babies, Alex. That’s like winning the freaking lottery.”

  Her words come out softly, and I see Zeus close his eyes before he rises to go to her, whispering something in her ear. Their kiss, soft and filled with love, makes me feel like hell, because it’s becoming somewhat clear to me that they aren’t conceiving, even though they’re obviously trying.

  It doesn’t make me want to leave so that they can go back to trying, though. Not when I hear Chilli resume his banging on my door and begging me to talk to him.

  There is something really wrong with me that I am enjoying his misery.

  “I suppose,” I grumble.

  My mind, though, keeps going to this picture in my head of two kids hanging onto my tits by their teeth, while I slob around in an untied robe, looking unwashed and ready to drop. And that will be the reality for me, I think. If I’m alone, then it’ll be just me with two babies. When will I sleep? How will I manage to look after two fragile little beings who are going to count on me for everything? I don’t even have clean laundry right now, for God’s sake. The only reason that I look even semi-decent, in a pink shirt and clean jeans, is that I stole the clothes out of Mindy’s bag after she and Nate left.

  I’m not even wearing underwear, which kinda makes me giggle a little, because I can just imagine Mindy’s confusion when she smells the crotch of the jeans after I return them to her. Unwashed.

  “You suppose. Look, babe, let’s get real here for a second. You fucked Chilli, and God gave you two babies. That’s a reality that you can’t run from. You need to get your head on straight and find a scrap of goodness in there somewhere. Kids are a blessing. Count your blessings, and move on. And go fucking talk to Chilli already, or I’m going to shoot him!” Rosetta hisses, dragging me up by the ear and shuttling me towards the door.

  She practically tosses me out and then slams the door, the sound of her squeal meeting my ears seconds later, followed by a groan that I do not want to hear again. She and Zeus really do look and sound weird when they have sex. Gross.

  “There you are!”

  Oh, God.

  Chapter Nine

  Achilles />
  I stare at the coffeepot and then eye the kettle, wondering if I can just shove a tea bag into the coffee maker and add water. I haven’t ever made tea before in my life, but according to what Alex said as she let me into her apartment, she can’t drink coffee. Then she walked away, slammed her bedroom door, and turned the shower on seconds later.

  So here I am, as nervous as hell and trying to figure out something as simple as making tea, when my phone rings.

  “You fix this things, Achilles Lindsey Hart, or Mama will no be happy!” I hear as soon as I answer, my head thumping crazily at the sound of Ares’ laughter in the background.

  Tattletaling little shit.

  “Ma…”

  “Don’t you ‘Ma’ me, little boy. Your brother tell me you not talk to Alex about the baby. Talk now. I choose lavender and white for wedding colors!” she barks, letting me know that she means business here.

  That’s the thing with Ma. She says it like it is, and woe be to anyone who naysays her plans. The fact that she’s barking orders at me in a broken Greek accent, laced with an undertone of Georgia drawl, is as amusing as heck, but that’s the thing with Ma—she only gets this weird-sounding when she’s highly emotional. Or trying to annoy Pop.

  “Ma, I’m trying, okay? But she isn’t exactly talking to me right now. She let me into the apartment, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten, so give me a chance to try here. As for the wedding, she isn’t going to go for it, so don’t waste your time,” I sigh, eying the box of tea with a frown. “How the hell do you make tea, anyway?”

  “You make for Alex?” she asks, cooing when I answer in the affirmative. “Just take the bag, put it into the cup, and add boiling water from the kettle. Let her put sugar,” she tells me, giggling on the other end while I struggle with the stovetop kettle, find a mug, and then somehow get the tab off the tea bag without ripping it.