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“I have ice time before school today.” She makes a show of looking around me into the living room. “I don’t see a blanket or pillow on the couch this morning, big guy.” She cocks her hip and rests a hand against it. “Does this mean you and Mom finally stopped sneaking around?”
I can make a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound lineman my bitch week after week, but the idea of saying the wrong this to this tiny wisp of a teenage girl has me fucking petrified. I look up the stairs, as if Ashlyn is going to come down and save me from this conversation. But I’m not sure my woman is going to be moving much this morning.
My chest puffs up for a second before Madeline catches my eye again, and I deflate.
“Don’t look so scared, Brandon. I told her I was okay with this.” She steals my bagel when it pops out of the toaster, then grabs the peanut butter. “You’re good for her. You make her smile. Mom doesn’t smile enough, but she does when you’re around.”
She sits at the counter and pushes half the bagel my way before slicing a banana and adding it to her half.
“You’re okay with it?” I ask, still caught on that. “If I move in here... you’d be okay with me living here?”
“You’re pretty much living here already. At least this way, you wouldn’t be trying to fit your big-ass body on that little couch.” She chuckles. “But seriously, yes. I like you here. I kinda like the idea of you and Mom together. Do you think you’ll marry her?”
I cough and choke on my bagel. “I never really thought about marriage before,” I admit, laying it out there for a fifteen-year-old. “Do you think your mom wants to get married?”
“She plans weddings for a living, Brandon.” She looks at me as if I’m the dumbest creature she’s ever seen. “Her business is called Ever After Event Planning. Yeah. I think she wants to get married. But I swear to God, if you guys decide to have more kids, I’m not babysitting. That train has sailed. Wait... that’s not right. Ships sail, trains leave the station. Either way, it’s not happening, so don’t ask.”
I sit there, frozen, as Lindy argues with herself.
I hadn’t considered Ashlyn might want more kids.
She’s already got a teenager.
What if she wants more?
Can I do that? Can I give her that?
A car horn beeps, and Lindy grabs a bottle of water and her bookbag from the counter. “That’s Andrew.” She kisses my cheek. “See you after school.” And then she’s walking away, and I’m left staring after her, wondering what the hell just happened, until her voice calls out, “Brandon—”
“Yeah, shortcake?”
“I always hoped it would be you.” She smiles, and my heart cracks wide open. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this kid or her mother.
Something settles in me.
Maybe it’s an acceptance.
A realization that I’ve got something good.
Something I never thought I’d have.
Something I’d fight for.Kill for.Die for.
I walk over to her and wrap an arm around her shoulders, tugging her against me and dropping a kiss on top of her head. “That’s because it was always supposed to be us.”
She tilts her head back and laughs silently to herself. “Just keep the sex quiet. I don’t need to hear that stuff.”
My mouth drops open, and I pray for patience. “You’re fifteen. What the hell do you know about that stuff?” I cringe.Nope. I do not want kids.
“I’m fifteen, big guy. Not five.”
“I think I liked it better when you were five.”
* * *
“You know how to shoot a gun, Brandon?” I stand in Sam and Amelia’s basement, staring stupidly at the Kingston sister who resembles Snow White. Her pregnant belly stretches her tight shirt. She looks like she’s hiding a basketball under there.
I’ve heard the rumors about her. Heard she once killed a woman to save Declan Sinclair’s wife. It was the year before I was drafted to the team. Some stories never stop making the rounds. But seeing her standing here—holding a revolver with the same ease she would a cupcake at her shop—it’s hard to accept the two different versions of her.
