23. Harlowe
CHAPTER 23
HARLOWE
“ S leep in here tonight,” Brooks said, as if it were as easy as that.
Yes, I realized we’d just had sex and that was personal as hell, but actually sleeping side by side… I didn’t think it was a good idea. Besides, I’d never actually spent the night with a guy. Not even the guys I’d had sex with because I’d always wanted my space. The closest I’d come had been in Brooks’s guest room.
“I don’t think so,” I told him. “That’s a relationship thing.”
He narrowed his eyes on me and cocked his head. “You don’t think we’re in a relationship?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Yes, yes. Everything is a relationship, but we aren’t in a romantic one. I assume that’s really only something you do when you are.”
“Why not?” he asked, causing my heart to thump in my chest like it was a prisoner trying to escape and the only way out was through my ribcage.
“What?”
“Why not?” he repeated.
“Why not what?” Though I knew what he was asking, I needed him to spell it out for me so I didn’t make a fool of myself.
“Why aren’t we in a romantic relationship? Why aren’t we together?” Well, he had spelled it out.
My mouth dropped open in surprise as I groped for the words to answer him. My palms began to sweat and I wasn’t so sure I was going to make it through this conversation without embarrassing myself. Before I could answer, I got myself off the bed I was sitting on with him. That was too close. Too… intimate for this conversation.
“Because we’re not,” I told him as if it were just that obvious. “That’s not the kind of relationship we have. A physical one now, sure, and we’re going to raise a kid, but it’s not like you’re in love with me and it would literally kill your sister.”
“I don’t care if it’ll kill my sister. Besides, she said she’d be fine, right?” He stood then came toward me still in only his boxers, his thick thighs working the muscles and I couldn’t take my eyes off them until he stopped right in front of me. “If I’m being honest with you, Harlowe, I’ve wanted you for a long-ass time, but I stayed away. Kept my distance. All because of my sister and the fact that I didn’t think you wanted me, so it could get messy to try.”
He pushed a hand into my hair, cupping my cheek as my heart erratically leaped around my chest.
I furrowed my brows. “You didn’t think I wanted you?” To me, it’d been all too obvious and I’d spent so long worrying that Camden would see me lusting after her brother.
“Clearly, you do.”
“Do not,” I said automatically, making me sound like a kid.
He chuckled quietly as his thumb ran over my cheek. “The sounds you were making not five minutes ago say otherwise.”
I sighed and closed my eyes.
This was what I’d wanted for a long time. For Brooks Briggs to want me as much as I wanted him, but now my fear was that this was all because of the baby. He wanted to be a dad. Was he just trying to pull me in so he could do that the way he’d always envisioned?
“Brooks,” I said softly, then I moved away from him. “Is this because of the baby?” I asked what seemed like the obvious reason for him saying all of this. “Is it because I’m pregnant? Because I wouldn’t ever try to keep the baby from you. You’re the baby’s dad.”
“No,” he said forcefully. “It has nothing to do with the baby.” Now that , I didn’t believe and my face must’ve said it because he quickly followed up with, “I feel like I have the opportunity to say it now because of the baby, but no, Harlowe. Wanting you has nothing to do with the baby because I’ve wanted you for much longer than the baby has existed.”
He sounded so adamant that I almost believed him, but the little voice in my head was now going haywire. If I tied myself down to him, would he expect me to give up the things I wanted to do in my life? I’d start all over with Camden because I’d insisted that her brother and I weren’t together then we would be. All due to a man who wanted me because of the baby, though he said that wasn’t true.
My head was all mixed up, but one thing was certain. “I can’t be with you, Brooks, if that’s what you’re asking. I promised your sister today that we aren’t together.”
His face etched with anger to the point that I expected yelling when he spoke, but he kept his voice nice and level. “You’re going to let my sister keep you from what you want? I promise you. She’s fine with this.”
“I never said I want you.” I threw my hands up in frustration, but Brooks’s face smoothed as he raised an eyebrow.
I guess it had been obvious, after all.
“Fine,” I yelled. “Fuck. I do, but I will lose Camden and she’s been like a sister to me most of my life. I lose everything else or hell, just don’t have anything else. I can’t lose her.”
“You’d have me,” he countered. “And you’re having my baby. And she’s. Fine. With. It. You should ask her.”
Most of my life had been spent doing what others had expected me to or needed me to. What they’d wanted me to. I’d stayed out of my parents’ way even when I’d had to live with them full-time, taught myself to keep the house clean and cook just so that they’d see me as an asset instead of a burden they had to stay home with. All in hopes that they wouldn’t resent me. It had all been to not be a bother. I’d started working at Cleats & Kegs because my parents had wanted to lighten their load and have someone they could trust to run the place while they’d been on vacation.
Once I’d been old enough to serve alcohol, it had become all mine. They’d barely participated.
Now, they weren’t even grateful enough to let me buy the thing so that I had a somewhat secure future for me and my baby. They might not have known about the baby yet, but it wouldn’t have made a difference, other than the disappointment it’d bring out of them.
I could’ve gone on, but that was enough thinking for today. Instead, I decided then and there that I was going to take this one thing for myself.
This beautiful man was telling me that he wanted me. I’d wanted him since I had been old enough to know what that meant, so his question was valid.
Was I going to let my best friend stop me from having something I wanted so desperately?
No. No, I wasn’t.
And Camden was getting over the fact that I’d slept with him. But the conversation I had with her was one where I convinced her there’d never be anything between Brooks and me other than this baby. He was saying otherwise but which one of us misunderstood what she’d said?
So I pulled my shirt over my head and undid the clasps on my bra before reaching out my hand and looking up at Brooks’s surprised face. “T-shirt,” I told him. My pajamas were downstairs in my bag and if I was staying here tonight, I needed something comfortable to sleep in.
Brooks leaned down and handed me the shirt he’d been wearing, which was what I’d wanted. He’d only been wearing it a little while since the game and it would still smell like him.
After dropping that down over my head—it fell past my butt to my upper thigh—I pushed my yoga pants off then climbed back onto his bed.
He stood there watching me with careful eyes, like he wasn’t sure what all of this meant.
At least until I said, “Are you coming to bed?”
Brooks launched from where he was over me to land on the other side with a heavy bounce that brought laughter up from me. I couldn’t help it. It was such a kid thing to do honestly and I hadn’t imagined a grown man doing it. It was like he’d been too excited to take the steps back around the bed.
Then he slid down onto his back and pulled me against his side.
“Told you,” he said before he kissed the top of my head.
“Shut up.” I hit his bare chest gently with my hand.
I was lying in bed with Brooks Briggs. The number of times I’d dreamed this very thing was embarrassing and I’d never tell a single soul. He had me wrapped up in his arms so tightly that I wasn’t sure I could say it even if I’d wanted to. Luckily, he did loosen a tiny bit.
“So what does this mean?” I asked. “I don’t mean to go all clingy woman on you, but…”
“It means we’re together. You’re mine. I’m yours. No other people in the equation.”
I tilted my head to look up at him. “But there is another person in the equation. Camden.”
He shook his head. “My sister knows how I feel. She thinks you’re too good for me which is trued but she’s not against us together. If that changes, I’ll handle her. Why are you so afraid of what she’ll think?”
I nuzzled back down so that my head was lying on his strong shoulder. It wasn’t a soft place to lie down, but I didn’t want to move. Parts of my life were hard for me to admit because they made me sound pathetic and I wasn’t pathetic. “She’s my best friend,” I told him. “Maybe guys are different, but typically, if the best friend doesn’t like a guy, it doesn’t work out and there’s a reason for that.”
“Camden likes me,” he countered, but I shook my head.
“That doesn’t mean she’ll like you with me once she actually sees us together.” I swallowed hard. No, Camden didn’t run my life and no, her just not liking someone wouldn’t mean I couldn’t be with him, but it was a girl thing. Her not liking a guy did mean that our relationship would change because she wouldn’t be around as much. If they didn’t get along, it just made my life harder. “Do you remember that guy she dated in high school? Hugh…”
He groaned. “Yeah. That guy was an asshole.”
I nodded. “He was. But she was into him, I think, mostly because he didn’t play sports. That was high on her list our senior year.”
“Why is that?” he asked. “Why does she hate baseball players so much? Fuck, she almost caused problems for Silas, I think, when she said that all players cheat in front of Amity.” He used his thumb and index finger to tilt my head so that he could look into my eyes. “We don’t all cheat.”
“I know.” Though deep down, maybe that was something I worried about. “But I don’t know why she hates players. She’s never told me and if she did, I wouldn’t tell you. See? That could be a problem. I can’t violate her trust because you want to know something. Telling you or not telling you puts me in the middle and that could be a huge issue. That might be what Camden is partly worried about. Though you know her biggest holdup is feeling like people use her to get close to you guys.”
“There’s no way she could think that about you.”
I shrugged. She could technically think anything. People weren’t always rational in their thoughts. Logically, no. She shouldn’t think that because I’d been her friend for a long time without going after one of her brothers. But logic sometimes took a vacation when emotions ran high.
“How about I promise that I won’t get upset if you tell me you can’t say something because Camden told you?”
I furrowed my brows. “What?”
“Like I said. Just now you said you wouldn’t tell me if you knew because it would violate her trust. I won’t ever get upset about that.”
“You say that now,” I said as I started drawing light circles over his chest, not really believing that I was lying in bed with Brooks talking about his sister. “Think of this way… What if Camden started to see one of your or your brothers’ friends?”
He groaned then, the sound of skin slapping over skin echoing throughout the room. When I looked up, I found that he had a hand over his eyes.
“It’s not the same,” he ground out.
I snickered and moved so that my head was on the other pillow, putting myself up eye level once he’d uncovered his. “It’s exactly the same.”
“It’s not.” He turned to me. “Guys usually know a little too much about each other. So I’d know exactly what that former friend would be doing to my sister.”
“And you don’t think women know too much about each other?” I scoffed. “Please. Our talk could way outdo yours.”
“What?” He looked at me seriously.
“Yeah. You think guys have the advantage on so-called locker room talk ?” I dropped my voice to sound like a guy as best as I could. “‘Oh, man. I fucked this hot chick. She was crazy in bed. Had huge tits.’”
He snorted then bit his lips together before saying, “I’ve never in my life talked like that.”
I snickered. “Right. I’m sure you guys didn’t, but you know guys who did. You four were just taught discretion because you grew up with a dad who knew what could happen if bad things got out.”
“That’s true.”
“But women?” I shook my head. “Women will talk, size—length and girth, oh and whether he’s circumcised or not—how long it went, what exact move with his tongue he did that we liked. How he treated us after. If he had a weird mole on his balls. Literally everything.”
His lips curled back in disgust. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “If you have a best friend you’re that close with. It’s not like we’d just tell a room full of women everything. Though some do. Some are very open.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, like I’d just rocked his entire world.
“Exactly, so yeah. I’ll figure it out with Camden, but that’s why I was hesitant.”
“All right. I won’t interfere.”
Which was exactly what I wanted. He needed to let me handle my friendship with his sister after this without interference.
Brooks kissed me slowly. This wasn’t a kiss that was going anywhere, other than maybe a way to say goodnight. I couldn’t believe I was about to sleep next to him in his bed… This was what I’d wanted for years, but also, it scared the shit out of me.
Brooks had said he’d take care of me and the baby. Provide anything either of us needed and I understood it was because he had the money to make that offer, but taking care of me while I stayed home wasn’t what I wanted from him.
Now, if we were together, he’d want to take care of me even more and that part, I was good with. As long as it didn’t mean my independence disappeared.
On the one hand, I didn’t mind him wanting to. It was sweet, even, but a hard brick formed in my stomach at the thought. I didn’t want to be kept with no way of making my own money, but I could see how easily it could happen.
First the baby. Then me staying home to take care of the baby, though I didn’t think Brooks would die on that hill. Once the baby came, I had a suspicion that I’d want to be there as much as possible. With the restaurant, I could’ve taken the baby with me a lot of the time. I’d pictured a little pack and play in the corner of my office.
My mom had always made sure she was available for whatever my dad wanted. What he wanted to do. That wasn’t the life I wanted. My mom couldn’t leave my dad if she wanted to—which she didn’t—because she had no way to take care of herself or me, when I’d been a minor.
I didn’t want to be dependent on a man. Sure my parents had given me a job at a place they owned but everything after that was my work. They would’ve fired me in a heartbeat if I had fucked it up.
Maybe that was what had held me back. He wasn’t my dad, though, and if I wanted to work after the baby, he’d support that… I was pretty sure. If I didn’t, I thought he’d support that too, but it didn’t matter to me what I wanted. I had to have a job that made me my own money.
Brooks’s eyes were closed and he had a hand on my hip, though I wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep.
“Are you still awake?” I whispered.
His eyes opened a slit. “Yeah.” But his voice sounded like he wasn’t totally asleep or awake.
“I’ve had feelings for you for a long time,” I whispered. He pulled me closer to his hard body. “In my mind, you couldn’t ever want me. I’d seen the women you’d dated or been rumored to and there was no way I could compare.”
Now his eyes opened fully as he leaned down to kiss me softly on the lips. “They can’t compare to you.”
It was dark in the room, so I hoped he wouldn’t see the goosebumps bursting out over my skin. I’d reserve comment about that for another time. “But I need to know, Brooks, what this means. My feelings for you mean that moving fast doesn’t scare me, but how do I know if it’s because of me or because of the baby? I know you said it but ugh.” I groaned. “It has me so insecure for some reason.”
“I’ll prove it to you every day, Harlowe,” he whispered as he kissed down my neck. “I’m over the moon that you’re having my kid, but I wanted you way before that. The baby just gave me an excuse.”
Which was exactly what I wanted to hear and while I didn’t know what he meant by saying that he’d show me every day, he started right then and there, though this time, he was so gentle with me. Like I was something precious that he’d always handle with care.
Fuck these hormones because by the time we were done, there were tears threatening to fall. Happy ones. Not sad, but still.
This could cause a lot of problems, but right now, it was just the two of us alone in his bedroom and the rest of the world could wait.