The Cad and the Co-Ed

by Penny Reid

  Bryan turned a confused, questioning, and still hazy gaze to me. “I am?”

  “You are.” I nodded, grinning at his expression. “So come on, time for bed.”

  In a daze, Bryan let us pull him to his feet and steer him towards my room. Once there, Patrick very solemnly pulled back the blankets, motioned for Bryan to climb in, then covered him back up.

  “Good night, Bryan,” Patrick said, kissing him on the forehead. “Sweet dreams.”

  A dreamy smile arrested Bryan’s features as he gazed at our son, but his tone was a little rough as he responded, “You, too.”

  Patrick then tugged me out of my bedroom and back to his. I cast a longing glance at Bryan, who was watching us go with equal parts amusement and mischief as he lay lazily on my bed. The sleepy tired look on his face was incredibly sexy.

  Once I had Patrick all tucked in, lights off, bedtime hugs and kisses at an end, I mussed Patrick’s hair and asked, “What do you think if Bryan spends the night more often?”

  “How often?” Patrick asked between a yawn.

  “A few times a week, maybe.”

  “Why doesn’t he just move in? We could get bunk beds, and he can share my room.”

  Laughing at his adorable antics, I gave him one last kiss and shut off the light. “Sweet dreams, my love.”

  “Sweet dreams, Mummy.”

  Leaving his door cracked, I tip-toed down the hall back to my room, not wanting to wake Bryan if he was already asleep.

  But when I entered the room, I found he wasn’t asleep. In fact, he was up, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for me.

  “Hey,” I whispered as I closed the door, a surge of excitement and happiness—and also horny expectation—rushing through my veins.

  “Hey,” he said, standing. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “About what?” I asked, pulling off my shirt, my eyes moving over his as I wondered why he would still be wearing clothes.

  Bryan hesitated, his eyes dropping to my chest and then back to my eyes. “Am I . . .?”

  “Are you . . .?” I tugged off my pants, removing my earrings and placing them in a dish on top of my jewelry box.

  “Am I spending the night?” he asked, still looking confused.

  “Of course,” I grinned, but then paused, “Unless you don’t want to sp—”

  I didn’t get to finish, because Bryan was up and on, his mouth crashing onto mine, his hands roaming over my body. I trembled at the feel of his rough palms against my bare skin. How I’d yearned for these hands. Thinking I might never feel his touch ever again had been agony.

  “Christ, I’ve missed you.” He pulled away just long enough to say, “I’ve missed you so fucking much.”

  I tilted my head to the side, offering him more of my neck as he trailed biting, hungry kisses from my jaw to my shoulder. The sensation of his stubbly jaw and hot, wet mouth moving over my skin sent pinpricks of awareness racing in every direction.

  But mostly south.

  “Forking,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “You’ll get used to saying forking instead of fucking.”

  “I don’t care what you call it—forking, sporking, ducking, fucking—as long as we’re doing it.”

  A laugh bubbled up from my chest, which he cut off with another searing kiss, his fingers sliding down my ribcage and into my panties.

  I gasped.

  “I need you, Eilish.” His voice was rough, his strokes were skilled. Perfect. “Let me make love to you.”

  “Yes,” I answered on a sigh, my nails digging into his shoulders.

  He bent as though he were going to pick me up, and I stilled his movements, holding him in place. “No, not on the bed.”

  His eyebrows jumped. “Not the bed?”

  I shook my head, grinning, then turned, facing the dresser and bracing my hands on it. I found his eyes in the reflection of my mirror and grinned.

  “Well then,” he also grinned, removing his belt, his gaze blazing a trail over my body, “let’s give ourselves a show.”

  * * *

  Later, much later, after we’d spent some measure of our exuberance at being reunited, Bryan and I lay in bed wrapped around each other. He was trailing his fingertips along my arm, up to my shoulder, then down my back, raising goose pimples wherever he touched.

  “You know,” he said, his voice roughened and sleepy, “this is the first time we’ve been able to lay together, afterward.”

  I snuggled against his chest, enjoying the feel of his legs—his luscious legs—tangled with mine.

  “We’ve cuddled before,” I said absentmindedly, too relaxed to think better of my words.

  “We have?”

  “Yes. The first time.”

  His movements stilled and he stiffened. And that’s when I realized what I’d said.

  I lifted my head and gave him a bracing look. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No. No more apologies.” He rolled me to my back and hovered over me, stealing a kiss, then running his nose along mine. “You should be able to speak about it without feeling guilty, and I should be able to hear about it without feeling guilty. I want to know, and I want you to tell me.”

  I smiled at that, warmth suffusing my chest paired with a sense of weightlessness, like a burden had been taken from me, one I didn’t know I’d been carrying. I lifted my hand and tousled his dark hair.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being wonderful.”

  A grin bloomed on his face and he wagged his eyebrows. “Wonderful? Or impressive?”

  “Both,” I laughed lightly, tilting my head to the side. “I want to talk about it, I want to tell you. Because—for me—it was an amazing night. You were wonderful, and impressive,” I quickly added, causing his smile to widen further, “and I’ve always treasured the memory of it, even though I had a hard time separating the guilt. But I’ve always felt . . .”

  “Go on,” he encouraged, rapt with interest.

  “Like my treasuring it, my wanting to remember and think fondly of that night, made me a weak person. Or a daft person. One or the other.”

  He was shaking his head before I’d finished. “No. Absolutely not. I am so jealous of your memory.” His eyes drifted over my lips, nose, and forehead. “I wish I could remember. But I guess I’ll have to settle for listening to you tell me instead.”

  “Are you sure you want to hear about it? I was pretty naïve.”

  “Yes,” he replied firmly, shifting to his side and propping his elbow against the mattress, his head in his hand. “Start at the beginning and leave nothing out.”

  Seeing he was serious, I tried to recall the evening, the night I’d thought about so many times and, just as many times, tried to bury. Tried to hide from myself.

  “We danced.”

  “I remember a bit of that. What happened after?”

  “You took me to the garden and kissed me.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “It was.” I grinned at the memory.

  “What happened next?” Bryan palmed my breast, rubbing a light circle around the peak with his thumb.

  “You said I was beautiful, and then . . .”

  “And then?”

  I looked at Bryan, studied the image of him next to me, right then, as we were in that moment, and I realized the story I was about to tell him was more fantasy than reality.

  Though I would always think back on that night with a twinge of some unknown emotion, what we had now was real.

  And the reality of us, of our son, of our life together, the unknowns, the ups and downs of our past, and the ups and downs yet to come, were far superior to any fantasy.

  Epilogue

  @THEBryanLeech to @ECassChoosesPikachu: I love you.

  @ECassChoosesPikachu to @THEBryanLeech: We’re in the same room you nutter. And I love you, too <3

  *Bryan*: ~Several weeks later~

  “It’s going
to be fine,” Eilish reassured me, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze.

  I glanced down at her, so much love for this amazing woman, and gave her a tender smile. I wasn’t usually lacking in confidence, but today was different. Today we were going to tell Patrick I was his dad. So many nightmare outcomes ran through my head.

  Patrick bursting into tears at the news.

  Patrick shouting, “You’re not my daddy!” at top volume.

  Patrick shutting himself in his room and refusing to see me ever again.

  I knew it was all in my head, but I couldn’t seem to stop thinking the worst would happen.

  “What if he gets upset?” I asked, fretting.

  “Are you serious? He loves you, Bryan. At this point I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t even notice if I was gone for days so long as he could spend time with you.” She chuckled affectionately.

  I shot her a soft look, running a finger down her cheek. “That’s not true, and we both know it.”

  “He adores you.”

  “He adores his buddy Bryan who comes to play rugby with him and lets him find Pokémon on his phone. I’m not so sure about Daddy Bryan who tells him he has to go to bed early and that he can’t have a second serving of ice cream after his dinner.”

  “My God, you’re adorable.”

  “I am not adorable. I’m brooding and sexy and masculine,” I said, effecting a manly expression. It was all in the brow.

  “Oh, yes you are. I never expected you to be so nervous to tell a little boy you’re his dad. A little boy who’s already head over heels in love with you. You, Bryan Leech, fullback, reformed party boy, who shows no mercy on the rugby field, are nervous, and it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

  I scowled at her. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

  She went up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the underside of my jaw, smiling widely. “Yes, I am.”

  I exhaled and ran my hand seductively down her back, pressing firmly into the base of her spine. “I fucking love you.”

  She shivered a little but quickly shook it off, those bright blue eyes of her sparkling. So much for delaying the inevitable with sex.

  “I love you, too. Now let’s get this over with. Pull off the Band-Aid.”

  I met her gaze and steeled myself. “Pull off the Band-Aid. Okay.”

  We went inside the living room where Patrick was sitting on the floor playing with his Legos. I’d gotten him a kid-sized version of my jersey and he was wearing it. I knew that was Eilish’s doing. She was trying to bolster my confidence, and seeing Patrick in my shirt definitely helped. This kid was mine. Mine. I might have missed out on his early years, but I was determined to be there for him every single day from here on out. I was determined to be there for both of them. And Mam, too. I’d finally managed to get her into a rehabilitation clinic. As soon as she was better, I planned on introducing her to Patrick. I knew how much it meant to her. I knew his existence was half the reason she was so determined to get sober.

  “Bryan!” he exclaimed when he saw me, jumping up and running at me full force. I plucked him up before he could crash into my legs and swung him around in my arms.

  “Hey buddy,” I rasped. My chest felt heavy with the words I was about to speak. He was always so happy to see me. I hoped that didn’t change once he learned the truth.

  “Bryan and I have something we’d like to tell you, baby,” said Eilish, her calm, sweet voice soothing my nerves.

  “Are we going to Disneyland?” he asked, and I chuckled. This kid. Such a chancer.

  “No, we aren’t going to Disneyland,” Eilish replied with an indulgent smile. “But if you behave for the rest of the year we might think about going for your birthday.”

  “Deal! I’m going to Disney for my birthday,” Patrick yelled with glee, and I chuckled. I was well aware of his Disneyland fixation by now. He’d been asking to go for weeks, ever since he saw an ad for it on TV.

  “I said might,” Eilish warned. “Only if you’re good.”

  “I’ll be good,” he promised, but the shine of mischief in his green eyes said otherwise. My green eyes. It was still hard to get used to how much he looked like me.

  I carried him over to the couch and sat, placing him on my lap. He started fiddling with the collar of my shirt, and his comfort with me, his familiarity, warmed my heart. From the very first day we met there had always been this comfort, this sense of destiny, like we were meant to be in each other’s lives. Eilish came and sat down next to us, and for a moment I relished the three of us being so close. A family. My family.

  Eilish reached out and affectionately stroked Patrick’s hair back from his face. He needed to get it cut. I made a note to ask if I could start taking him with me to my barber each month.

  I was constantly making note of the things we could do together—father and son things.

  “Bryan has something he’d like to tell you,” she said in a gentle voice.

  Patrick’s big, expectant eyes met mine and my throat ran dry. Of course I’d choose this exact moment to forget how to speak. I’d never felt so jittery. Not even when I was coming off alcohol. Cold turkey had nothing on this.

  “You . . .” I paused, and cleared my throat. “You know how your mates Jack and Harry sometimes get picked up from school by their dad?”

  Patrick nodded. “His name’s Carl. He drives a tractor.”

  “Yes, that’s because he owns a farm.”

  “I’d like to drive a tractor someday. Do you think Carl would let us borrow his?”

  I chuckled, unable to keep up with how his mind jumped from one subject to the next. “We’ll see. But first, how would you like me to pick you up from school some days?”

  “Like Jack and Harry’s dad?”

  “Yes, just like Jack and Harry’s dad.”

  I glanced at Eilish. She made a “keep going” gesture, and I knew I was beating around the bush. It was hard to pick the right words.

  Patrick fiddled with my collar some more. “Okay. Could we go for ice cream afterward?”

  “Maybe.”

  Patrick’s expression turned stern, disappointed. I relented. “Okay, but only on Fridays.”

  I heard Eilish exhale a long, exasperated breath. At this rate it’d be Easter before I actually got around to telling him. She shifted closer and lifted Patrick so he was sitting half on her lap and half on mine. I brought my arm to rest around her shoulders and squeezed while she gave Patrick a kind, motherly expression.

  “How would you like it if Bryan was your daddy, just like Carl is Jack and Harry’s daddy?” she asked softly, and Patrick’s eyes went huge.

  “But . . . how can he just become my daddy?”

  “Well,” Eilish started, then hesitated.

  “I can because I am your dad,” I said, my voice uncharacteristically croaky. “I’ve always been your dad.”

  He furrowed his small brows, confused. “You have?”

  I swallowed and took his hand in mine. I couldn’t get over how tiny he was. If he took after Eilish and me, he was going to be as tall as a house when he got older. I mustered a smile. “Yeah. It just took me a while to find my way back to you.”

  He went quiet while Eilish emitted an odd watery sound. I knew she had to be feeling just as emotional as I was. Patrick stayed quiet for a long few moments, his brain working overtime to make sense of what he was being told.

  At last he said, “Is that why we have the same hair?”

  And just like that my nerves evaporated. I let out a scratchy laugh and answered, “Yeah, buddy, that’s why we have the same hair.”

  “Not to mention the same eyes,” Eilish put in.

  Patrick went back to mulling things over. I rubbed my thumb over the inside of his soft palm and asked, “What do you think, buddy?”

  I was surprised and disappointed when his mouth dipped down in a frown.

  “B-b-but you’re my best friend,” he exclaimed. “You can’t be my daddy and my best
friend, can you?”

  What was that sound, I hear you ask? Just my heart cracking in two. No big deal. His earnestness really did a number on me.

  “Yes, I can definitely be your dad and your best friend,” I answered, choking up a little. Okay, choking up a lot.

  Patrick started bopping up and down in our laps excitedly as his smile returned. “Then yes! I want you to be my daddy. This is awesome!”

  Eilish chuckled, at the same time moisture filled her eyes. “Hey! I thought I was your best friend.”

  Patrick made a face like the idea was preposterous, and I couldn’t help chuckling. This kid really was too much sometimes.

  “Does this mean you’ll come to Disneyland with us?” he asked, looking back at me now.

  “I only said maybe,” Eilish reminded him.

  “And I said I’d be good. That means we’re going.”

  Eilish sniffled and laughed, shooting me a dry look to cover her emotion. “He gets that from you.”

  I plastered on an innocent expression. “What?”

  “The brazenness. I can’t imagine what he’ll be like in a few years’ time.”

  I tightened my arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Oh, whatever. You love it.”

  “See?” said Eilish. “Brazen.”

  I flashed her a confident smile, not arguing. We stared at each other over Patrick’s head, and I didn’t think I’d ever loved anyone as much as I loved the two people sitting in my arms. They were my whole world. I knew they always would be.

  “Can I go play with my Legos again?” Patrick asked, looking up at me with wide, guileless eyes.

  “Yeah, go play. But I’m here if you need to talk or have any more questions.”

  He started sliding off our laps and when he casually replied, “Thanks, Daddy,” I welled up all over again. This day was determined to see me bawling like a baby. It just felt bizarre to have imagined so many nightmare scenarios and then have him take it all in his stride. But he was young. I guess the world was much simpler when all you had to worry about were your friends at school and catching Pokémon.