“I’m with you,” I said quietly.
“Yeah, Tess, you’re with me.”
I held his eyes for a moment then closed mine and did a face-plant in his chest.
The fingers of his hand at mine curled around tight.
“This is free,” I heard growled. I opened my eyes and turned them in the direction the words came from and saw Vance’s infuriated gaze locked on Brock. “No marker. This I do for your woman.”
I felt my belly tighten with shock as my fingers wrapped hard around Brock’s at his shirt.
“I work that angle too,” Hector announced and my eyes shot to him to see he, too, had his furious, dark eyes locked on Brock.
“Uh…” I mumbled but they were on the move.
“You see to your woman and your boys,” Vance declared. “We’ll get to work.”
Um.
Wow.
I didn’t know them, like at all, outside of the fact they were hot. But I liked them.
“Appreciated,” Brock muttered.
They tore their eyes from Brock and looked at me.
“Tess, next time, hope it’s better circumstances,” Vance said to me.
I did too.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
Hector, who didn’t know me either, wasn’t done being pissed on my behalf and therefore he scowled at me. Then he jerked up his chin at Brock and they moved to the steps. Brock let me go to start moving with them.
“Uh…” I called. They stopped and looked back at me. “I, um… own Tessa’s Cakes in Cherry Creek.”
They just looked at me.
“Uh, well, you boys look like you aren’t cupcake eaters”—more like rib eyes grilled blue—“but, you know, if you’re ever in the mood, come in, anything you want on the house for, like, eternity.”
It was lame but then again, my cakes were really good. Maybe they wouldn’t think it was lame.
They didn’t. Vance’s handsome face split into a shit-eating grin. Hector’s dark eyes melted, his lips twitched then he gave me a glamorous white smile.
Brock chuckled.
“And, uh…” I started to add, “whichever one of you is on that bike, that bike is hot but be careful. Snow’s coming.”
“Will do, Tess,” Vance murmured.
I got more chin lifts and they headed back out.
Moving on!
I headed to the fridge and was perusing options for dinner when I heard and felt Brock come back.
Determinedly setting the mood that what had just passed had passed and now we were going to get back to regularly scheduled programming that did not include bitchy, manipulative ex-wives or vicious, nasty, territorial ex-husbands, I stated, “Dinner choices, steak and potatoes, pork chops and rice, or hamburgers.”
I pulled my head out of his fridge, closed the door, and turned to Brock.
He was leaning his hips against the counter, hands to his sides, palms to its top, studying me.
Then he gave me my play and answered, “Pork chops and rice.”
I nodded, opened the fridge, and pulled out the package of pork chops. I dropped it on the counter and opened the cupboard to pull out the box of seasoned rice.
“What’s with the bags?” Brock asked as I tilted my head down to study the directions on the rice.
“Christmas presents,” I answered. “The boys get here tomorrow and the area under the tree is a little barren. Tree skirts are not meant to be barren, especially in a house with two boys aged ten and twelve. So tonight I’m wrapping and tomorrow they’ll get here and see presents under the tree.”
“Babe, how much did you buy them? There’s gotta be twenty rolls of wrapping paper there.”
“Something to learn about me,” I muttered to the box. “I have a weakness for wrapping paper and not just the Christmas kind.”
This was met with silence.
Until, “Babe, forgot to tell you something.”
I looked from reading the directions on the box of rice to Brock to see he had hauled himself up on the counter and was sitting on it.
“Yeah?” I asked hesitantly.
“Coupla weeks ago, you gave me a fuckin’ sweet nightie and words I loved hearing.”
I felt my entire body go still as I held his eyes.
“Forgot to mention I feel the same,” he stated and my insides hollowed out.
“What?” I breathed.
“Put down the rice and come here, baby. I wanna tell you I love you when you’re in my arms.”
I didn’t move. I stared at him, my internal organs gone, but still my body managed to produce tears that gathered in my eyes and promptly and silently slid down my cheeks.
Brock watched this for about two seconds then he whispered, “Tess, darlin’, come here.”
I went there. He opened his thighs and reached out to me when I got close. He pulled me between his legs, deep into him, one arm tight around me, one hand cupping my head and pressing my cheek against his chest. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on.
He dipped his head so his lips were at the top of my hair and whispered, “I love you, my sweet Tess.”
A soft sob hitched in my throat. I held on tighter and pressed deeper.
“Jesus, my girl, so fuckin’ sweet,” he murmured against my hair.
Another hitch and I tilted my head back, his came up, and I pulled an arm from around him, lifted it, curled my hand around his neck, and pulled his mouth down to mine.
Then I kissed him as hard as I could, trying to show him how much his words meant to me.
I was guessing this worked when he tore his lips from mine and muttered, “Maybe I don’t love you. Maybe I just love your mouth.”
I grinned up at him.
“And your cunt,” he went on.
My grin got bigger.
“And your cupcakes,” he added.
I started giggling and he smiled.
Then he whispered, “No, it’s just you.”
I stopped giggling, stared into his quicksilver eyes then dipped my chin and did another face-plant in his chest.
He held me close, arm around me, hand at my head becoming fingers sifting through my hair.
After a while, I sighed, lifted a hand to my face, swiped away the wet, and muttered, “Let me go, baby. I gotta feed my man.”
His hand stopped sifting through my hair and both arms wrapped around me tight.
Then he let me go.
I moved away and got down to the business of feeding my man.
* * *
I sucked back the dregs of the hot cocoa and then moved on my hands and knees across the floor, dragging boxes with me to arrange the newly wrapped presents under the tree. Then I cleaned up paper scraps, put away scissors and tape, bunched up and folded bags and tucked them away, and stowed the rolls of Christmas wrap, ribbons, and bows in the hall closet.
Through this, Brock lay on his back on the couch, head to a pile of toss pillows, one hand behind his head, one resting on his abs, eyes on a game on television.
I approached the back of the couch, put my ass to it, turned, whipped my legs over while straightening, and, at the last minute, announced, “Incoming.” Then I dropped full body on his.
He grunted and his body jerked on impact then his arms wrapped around me.
“Jesus, babe,” he muttered, humor in his tone, that sweet hum filling the air.
I slid off, my back to the couch, my front pressed to his side. I rested a cheek to his chest, arm around his abs, and settled in.
Brock moved a hand back to his abs but his other arm stayed curved around my waist, hand at my hip.
I watched football I didn’t give a shit about but I did it contentedly because it was late, I was tired, my mind needed to shut down, and the beautiful man who loved me who I loved back was stretched out beside me.
At a commercial, I heard and felt Brock rumble, “What’d you get ’em?”
Hmm. Apparently the game took all his attention, considering the fact that I spent the
last forty-five minutes on the floor right in front of him wrapping presents that I did not in any way try to hide.
“Nerf stuff,” I answered.
“Nerf stuff?” he asked.
“When you were out running before we went to look at trucks that last Sunday you had them, I asked them to write a letter to Santa and they did,” I informed him.
“Babe, hate to break this to you but they’re ten and twelve. They know there’s no Santa Claus.”
I lifted my head and looked down at him. “Yeah, I know. But they aren’t stupid. They humored me because they know I have a credit card.”
Brock’s body shook slightly and pleasantly against mine with his chuckle and I smiled at him.
Then I settled back in.
“What do you usually do for your nieces and nephews?” I asked the TV screen.
“I give their moms fifty dollars for each kid and they put my name on a card.”
My head jerked up as my eyes shot to him.
Then I asked a horrified, “What?”
“You think fifty dollars is too much?” he asked back.
“No. I think their uncle should buy them presents that he’s put some thought into.”
“Darlin’, the last time I walked into a mall was two presidents ago.”
I stared at him in shock.
Then I asked, “Is that even possible?”
“I got a dick and I was single so, yeah, it’s possible.”
“So how do you buy the boys presents?”
“Four options, give a wad of cash to Mom, Jill, Laura, or all three.”
I stared again.
Then I asked, “Where do you buy clothes?”
“I don’t. I got a mom and two sisters. I get them for Christmas and my birthday.”
“T-shirts?”
“I don’t get my tees at a mall, Tess. No decent tee can be bought at a fuckin’ mall. A good tee is bought during an experience.”
I had to admit, this was true. When I went the way of tee and jeans just months ago, I’d done copious research with Brock’s tees as my guide and I’d found no tee in any store that was even close to the cool tees he owned.
“Boots?” I kept at him.
“Harley store, babe, doesn’t count.”
This was also true. The Harley-Davidson store was one of those rare and exceptional experiences where women and men could go and enjoy but in entirely different ways. Therefore, considering it was an experience, it was acceptable to buy tees there.
That and Harley tees were freaking awesome.
“And, Tess, sweetness,” he went on, “before you get any ideas… you wanna shop for my family, have at it. But I’m not breakin’ my streak.”
Hmm. Dylan, Grady, and Ellie, no problem, especially Ellie. The adults, again, not a problem.
There were only two problems.
“I barely know Kalie and Kellie,” I reminded him.
“Kalie, anything with fringe, a peace sign, or a fair trade logo. Kellie, don’t bother with anything other than a gift certificate unless it’s the absolute trendiest shit among teenagers,” he advised.
Well, he didn’t shop but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be thoughtful.
Brock continued, “Keep the receipts, put both our names on the card, and I’ll pay you back.”
“I—” I started and his arm gave me a squeeze.
“Receipts. Payback,” he grunted.
It was in that moment I got what Elvira said weeks before about Vic at Ada’s party.
Vic needed to man up.
If a man had a line you didn’t cross, he told you. He did it straight out, honestly, and made his point clear, like Brock just did.
Clearly, Gwen and Cam had men like that and, now, I had one. Brock wanted Christmas to come from us. He was fine with me buying it and wrapping it but he was going to pay for it. I knew by his tone that this was a point I didn’t argue. For whatever reason, it meant something to him. And for that reason, whatever it was, it meant something to me to give it to him without mouthing off about something that, in the end, was a decent trade-off.
Therefore, I whispered, “All right.”
He held my eyes. Then his went to the TV while his mouth twitched.
Whatever.
I settled back in.
Twenty minutes later, the game ended, Brock’s arm tightened and he rolled us both. Stretching out an arm, he tagged the remote on the coffee table. The TV went blank, he dropped the remote then he settled back in but pulled me partially onto his front and up so my face was close to his.
Mm. It appeared we’d arrived at my favorite part of the day.
“You good?” he asked and I blinked.
“Sorry?”
“Earlier, all that shit, you good?”
Damn. It appeared we hadn’t arrived at my favorite part of the day.
“Yeah,” I told him.
“Okay, babe, no,” he said, his face serious. “I get why you want to make that play and you were raw earlier so I let you make it then but you gotta know, I don’t like that you’re makin’ any play. Olivia is gonna be in our lives and I don’t like that for me, so I really don’t like it for you. Not to mention, full custody is a fuckuva lot different than joint. That works out for me, it means you get me and two boys. I gotta know you’re cool with that.”
“Brock, I’m cool with it.”
“Convince me,” he ordered and I stared at him.
Here we go again. This was important (obviously) and he told me straight out. No game playing, no lies, no avoidance, no subterfuge. This meant something to him (again, obviously) and I had to share.
So I told him, “I wanted kids.”
It was then he started staring at me.
Then I shared, “Around the time we were ready to go for it, Damian started hitting me.”
Brock closed his eyes.
I kept speaking.
“He thought I went off The Pill. I hid it from him and kept taking it.”
Brock opened his eyes.
“You’ve got two great sons,” I said softly. “And I lost my shot. So I’m never going to be a mom. I came to terms with that a while ago. Not easy terms but I had no choice. Something else I allowed Damian to take away from me. But this keeps being as good as it is, I have the shot to be a damned good stepmom and if that comes with four days a month or every other week or every day, I don’t really care.”
I settled deeper into him and kept sharing.
“I had a good stepmom, honey, so I have a good role model. Donna was awesome. She and Dad didn’t have any kids because he was sick. He never knew for sure where that disease would take them and he didn’t want to leave Donna alone to raise a child and he didn’t want to do that to a child because he watched my sister and me deal. So she poured the love she’d have had for her kids into my sister and me. I love her. We’re still close. She means the world to me. So, if my life with you comes with them, since I love you and I’m falling in love with them, however that comes about, it makes me happy.”
His hand slid into my hair, his eyes got soft, and his mouth murmured, “Tess.”
“Convinced?” I asked.
One side of his lips tipped up. “Yeah.”
“Good,” I whispered.
I studied his relaxed face and took in a soft breath.
Okay, since we were having a serious conversation, I decided we might as well continue to have it and also address something Brock and I had not addressed since it happened.
In preparation, I slid my hand up his chest to his neck, wrapped my fingers around, and relaxed my body fully into his before I asked softly, “Will you tell me about Bree?”
His fingers tensed on my hip and he asked back, “How much did you hear?”
“Not sure, but at a guess?” He nodded. “Most of it.”
He stared at me. Then he muttered, “Right.”
“It wasn’t cool to eavesdrop it was just—”
“Babe, with Levi, fuck, with my entire family
, you’d hear it one way or the other and bein’ with me, you’d learn it eventually, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I won’t eavesdrop again,” I promised and his hand gave me another squeeze.
“Darlin’, we get to the point where we’re keepin’ anything from each other, we got problems. This is not me and Olivia, where she’d go shoppin’, hide shit in the closet, and I wouldn’t find out we were maxed on our credit cards until I got the statements and learned she was dedicated to the mission of memorizing every square foot of Cherry Creek Mall. And this is not you and that ass clown where you gotta protect yourself by hidin’ somethin’ as important as takin’ birth control. This is you and me. Eavesdropping is not an available option ’cause to make this real and make that real rich, it’s gotta all hang out.”
I liked that. A whole lot.
So I whispered, “Okay.”
“Okay,” he whispered back, then said, “I asked Bree out the first day of her freshman year, my sophomore year of high school. She said yes and we were tight from that day on. She was tight with me and she was tight with my family.”
I nodded.
Brock kept talking.
“I got a scholarship to U of A to play baseball. She followed me down there. But she was close with her family and mine and her friends up here. She didn’t last. She hated Arizona, not because of Arizona, because she missed home. Her sophomore year, she transferred to UC. We thought it’d be cool. We survived the long distance thing my freshman year in Arizona; we figured we’d make it a couple more years. We didn’t. By Christmas, I’d met someone else and realized I was not the kind of man who was not going to taste the variety of flavors life had on offer. Because of that, I also realized what I had with Bree was more about history and friendship than what it takes to make the long haul. I came home, talked to her about it, she was not in that place and wasn’t happy about it but she had no choice. I was done.”
Oh man. Harsh.
Honest, but harsh.
I pulled in a breath but kept quiet and Brock continued.
“I went back after Christmas and so did she. She got it about a month later.” He grinned. “I got good taste and she was seriously fuckin’ pretty. Available for the first time since she hit the dating game, she had ’em eatin’ out of her hands. She enjoyed the fuck outta that. She connected with me in the summer when we were both home and told me she got it. I was pleased as fuck. She was a good friend and I missed her. Our relationship changed and it got better ’cause, like I said, she was a great friend and she was damn fun to be around. We had good times. We still had each other’s families. It worked.”