Page 36 of Turning Back

“So?”

“So what if you leave? Where will I be then?”

“Why would I leave, Rochelle? I’m the guy who never complains. I’m the guy who sticks around. I’m the guy who makes it work, no matter what.”

Right. Back to the game he’s playing. I should run away right now. Never look back. Because Bric is always playing. He’s always got a motivation. And that motivation has nothing to do with me. Or Quin, for that matter. As much as he likes to play up that tight friendship the three of them share, it’s just a screen to keep the world from knowing who he really is.

“And you don’t want me. You want us.”

“Right,” he says. I’m boring him, I can tell. “Which is why I don’t see the problem.”

But I do. I see it very clearly. As long as I want them both, we’re fine. But the minute I don’t want Bric, we’re right back to where we started last year when I told Quin I loved him.

“You want me to bail out, Rochelle?”

“No,” I say. I don’t want him to bail. I need him to keep Quin.

“Good. Because I like that baby.”

“What?” I laugh.

“I’m serious,” he says. “She’s so fucking cute I just want to squeeze her. She had her little fingers all wrapped around my hand while I was feeding her today. God, I can’t stand it. We make good babies together.”

“I have no idea what to say to that, other than you don’t know for sure that you’re her father.”

“Doesn’t matter. I like her. I’m digging that little pumpkin and I’m gonna spoil her rotten.”

“That’s what I call her,” I say, laughing a little. Feeling maybe just a little better.

“She’s like a little chubby pumpkin. Did she trick-or-treat this year?”

“She was five months old, Bric. No.”

“Good. Next year will be her first time and I’m gonna pick that costume out.”

“Whatever.”

“Holy fuck, you know what I just realized?”

“What?”

“Christmas is coming up. OK, I gotta go. I have so much shit to do. See you tonight and kiss that pumpkin for me.”

He hangs up before I can respond. Again.

What a strange turn of events. Never in a million years would I have pictured Elias Bricman as a doting father.

Maybe he’s not so bad after all.

At five-thirty Quin knocks on my hotel-room door with a bellhop and a luggage cart. Ten minutes later we’re downstairs packing all my things into Quin’s Suburban. I’ve been telling him about my car since he appeared at the door, but he waves me off and pays the hotel to have it driven over to wherever we’re going.

Our destination is a building on Wynkoop Street, near Union Station. I know where we are before Quin even pulls into the garage.

“This is Bric’s place, right?”

“Is it?” Quin asks, shutting off the truck and taking a look around.

“He brought me here that first time we met. I was telling him about how much I loved the new lofts near the station and he started bragging about his new place. So he brought me here to show it off.”