Chapter 63 We Do Not Sleep with Our Baby Daddies! – Briar
WE DO NOT SLEEP WITH OUR BABY DADDIES!
brIAR
Pacing my apartment for what is probably the thousandth time today, I glance up anxiously again at the kitchen clock. Lily and Remi are coming home today. Or, well, they were supposed to be home—an hour ago.
Lily texted a little bit ago, warning that they’d hit traffic coming into the city, which is really not a shocker, but I’m stuck in pause mode. Unable to do anything else until they walk through that door.
After everything that happened last night, I need to hold my daughter in my arms, but most of all, I need my best friend.
Koen and I spent the night together, and most of the morning. We didn’t sleep. What we did, instead, felt like crossing a line that can’t be uncrossed. And when he finally dropped me off at my apartment, I hated how much I didn’t want to get out of his car.
Koen has an important meeting today that’s supposed to keep him away all day. I have rehearsal tomorrow, but he’s supposed to pick me up after. We’re supposed to go out to dinner. Our very first date. And I—I am going to tell him everything.
I can’t keep going like this. It’s not fair to him; it’s not fair to me; and most of all, it’s not fair to Remi.
Koen isn’t the cold-hearted mafia king I thought he was. He deserves to know he has a gorgeous, sassy daughter who looks just like him.
I wring my fingers together as I pace the apartment some more. After tomorrow night, the truth will be out and, hopefully… hopefully… Koen can forgive me.
A few more painfully long minutes later, the doorknob jiggles violently, which may have been scary if it weren’t the exact way Remi attacks the door before you can get your key through the lock.
I rush for it, throwing it open wide.
“Mommy!” Remi squeals, dropping the many stuffed animals she’s carrying to leap into my arms.
I pull her tight, inhaling her sweet scent, before planting kisses everywhere I can reach.
“No kisses!” Remi screeches, trying to twist out of my arms.
“Nope!” I squeeze her tighter, increasing my kiss rate across her cheeks. “You’ve been gone too long. I demand my right to kisses.”
My daughter lets out a sound of dissent but stops fighting, accepting my bout of kisses until I’m ready to release her. “Mom…” she grumbles, wiping at her cheeks like she can wipe them away.
“I missed you. I’m sorry,” I shrug before pointing at the floor. “Do you want help with those?”
At my prodding, Remi suddenly remembers the armload of stuffed animals she walked in with. “No, I've got it!” She snatches up the lot. “I’m going to put them in my room.”
“No running!” I call after her as she sprints down the hall, far too chaotically for my taste, seeing as how she can barely see over her haul.
“I think running is her default speed.”
Smiling, I look back toward the door, finding my best friend shoving their two suitcases over the threshold.
“I would have helped you with those!” I chide, reaching out to grab both bags from her.
“It’s fine,” she huffs out, collapsing onto one of the island’s stools, out of breath and clearly not fine. “I needed the workout.”
“It’s five floors.”
Lily recovers quickly, and I notice how her eyes dart around the tiny space. “Is he here?” Lily whispers, looking curiously around the apartment.
“No,” I whisper back, checking for Remi before continuing. “But one of his guys is probably parked outside.”
Lily bolts for the window, peeking excitedly out.
I scramble for her arm, trying to drag her back. “Don’t look!”
“Why?” she asks, pressing her nose up against the glass to better see the street. “Where is he? Is he hot?” She scans the street quickly, spotting the blacked-out SUV on the corner.
“Lily, for god's sake.” I toss my hands up, giving up. “I don’t know whose rotation it is… Mac, maybe?”
Koen does have an exceptionally good-looking group of guys in his crew. “I wouldn’t say any of them are your type though…” My voice is teasing, and it gets her attention, drawing her away from the window.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Koen’s guys are seriously scary, and you like ‘em pretty and helpless.” I wonder for a minute if my comment is a little too harsh, but she lets out a laugh.
“I know. But seeing how well that’s been working out for me, maybe it’s time for a change.” She grins, leaning back slightly to peek out at the street again.
Shaking my head, I set about unpacking the bags littering the tiny foyer space, hearing the telltale sound of Remi’s racing feet coming back down the hall.
“Remi?” I call out, craning to see her past the island blocking my view.
“Just getting a snack!”
“Hold on, I’ll help you.”
I’m in heaven for the rest of the afternoon, playing games with Remi, and listening to Lily catch me up on all the hometown drama with her brothers.
“Okay, so don’t hate me…” Lily side-eyes me as she drinks her mug of hot chocolate from the batch we all made together.
I narrow my eyes because that’s never good.
“We took Remi to Dash’s hockey game, and she’s been begging to play ever since. Dash and Sam took her out on the lake, and I’ve never seen her so happy.”
I know this. Remi and I have talked a few times about hockey over the phone.
“She still wants to play?” I ask, sighing. Part of me hoped she would have lost interest. I don’t know anything about hockey. Lily bites her lip and nods. “I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how she is.”
Remi gets free dance lessons at the studio since I work there, but hockey… “Hockey’s expensive, isn’t it?”
Lily’s wince tells me everything I need to know. “I checked around, and the Edge Arena has a learn-to-skate program starting up soon. A hundred bucks for the lessons, and it includes the gear and skates.”
I sigh. It’s doable… but I worry about how her asthma would handle the cold arena air. She’s done okay in ballet, but cold air makes her wheezy.
Doing the bedtime routine with Remi is a kind of therapy I didn’t know I needed.
I missed her so much. I make the most of it, drawing out the time in the bath, and adding a few extra stories.
She falls asleep almost instantly at my side, but I stay next to her for a while.
Just staring at her, gently running my fingers through her long blonde hair.
I have to tell him.
Walking back out into the living room, I find Lily perched on the sofa, television on, watching another video on her phone, a carton of ice cream in her lap.
I wander into the kitchen. Pulling open the fridge, only to stare into it for a minute, before shutting it again without taking anything out.
I exhale deeply, pacing the kitchen before I even realize I’m doing it again—running circles in my mind and in life.
I keep turning over the same impossible question—what the hell can I possibly say to Koen that would keep him from hating me?
“Briar?”
Lily’s voice pulls me from my head. I glance over, seeing her watching me, head slightly tilted. “What are you doing?”
My thoughts are still a jumbled mess, so I run a hand through my hair, not really having a good answer. “I, uh, was just looking for a snack?”
Her eyes narrow, and I realize I framed it as a question.
“You’re acting weird.”
“Am I?” I reply almost absently, my mind drifting back to the need to tell Koen the truth.
“And you’ve been acting weird.”
“Well, I mean, it could be the daily threats to our lives and that sort of thing…” I reply ruefully.
But she shakes her head, her face uncharacteristically serious.
“No, that’s not it…” I feel her scrutiny and shift uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact.
“Oh, my god, you slept with him!” Lily’s eyes widen and her face lights up with both shock and excitement.
“Briar Elizabeth! We do not sleep with our baby daddies!” she chastises.
She’s so loud.
I shush her, rushing closer, glancing around quickly to make sure Remi didn’t get out of bed, but her bedroom door is still shut tight.
“Shhh, she could hear you!”
Lily rolls her eyes, waving me off. “Please, that kid could sleep through the end of the world once she’s out.”
It’s true.
“I didn’t—sleep with him,” I wince.
“Briar,” she frowns, “you are the worst liar the world has ever seen. Now, go get a spoon from the kitchen, and then get your fine ass back over here so we can discuss how you totally slept with Koen!”
My head drops back, looking to the sky for help before spinning around, giving up, and following her instructions. Plopping down on the couch next to Lily, I dig my spoon into the ice cream carton and scoop out a mouthful, while ignoring her wickedly annoying grin of glee.
“Okay, I want all the tea.” She settles in deeper into the cushions, ready for a full debrief. “Spill!”
“I don’t even know where to start…” I grumble between bites.
“How about when you fucked him?”
“Lily!”
“What?” She just blinks innocently at me, and I shake my head.
“Which time?” I slip my spoon back into my mouth, smiling slyly.
“Briar! You little slut!” She leans forward, slapping my arm teasingly. “Was he good? As good as you remember?”
I cover my face with my hands. “I am so not giving you a play-by-play.”
She rolls her eyes again, with irritation this time. “Ugh, you’re such a prude!”
“Am I a slut, or am I a prude?” I tease. “I’m pretty sure I can’t be both.”
“Shut up. You have to give me something!”
“Fine,” I relent, quickly giving her the PG-13 version of what went down at the ballet studio the other night, and then again and again at the gala. I leave out the part about Koen shooting a guy in our apartment.
“Holy shit,” she whispers when I’m finished. Dropping the ice cream carton down on the coffee table, completely forgotten. “You’re falling for him,” she says softly.
The words land heavier than I expect. My chest tightens, and suddenly it isn’t fun anymore. “I don’t know what I feel.”
She softens, the amusement on her face fading. “Hey. That’s okay. But, babe, sleeping with your baby daddy isn’t exactly casual hookup territory. It means something. Even if you’re not ready to admit it.”
I sit back against the couch cushions, blowing out a breath while hugging a throw pillow to my chest. “It’s complicated.”
Lily stays quiet, letting me work through my thoughts.
“What if it was a mistake?” It shouldn’t have happened.
I shouldn’t have let it… I release a shaky breath and hug the pillow tighter against me like it alone might hold me together.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen. One second he’s being his usual grumpy, irritatingly bossy self and then…
I don’t know. It was him, it was me, it was—everything.
And it felt…” My voice catches, breaking the word in half.
“It felt like more than it should have.” I chew my bottom lip. “It’s a bad idea; he’s a bad idea—”
“Stop trying to convince yourself of all the reasons you two shouldn’t be together. Putting everything else aside, how does Koen make you feel?”
“He makes me feel…” I think about it for a second. “He makes me feel safe, protected, and when he looks at me…” My heart warms in my chest and I bury my face in my hands again, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. “I know what this sounds like...” I trail off, cutting off my stream of crazy.
“It sounds like love,” Lily says, and I look up, meeting her eyes.
I shake my head, looking back down at my feet. My stomach twists. I don’t want to say it. But the truth is there, raw and impossible to deny. “I think I’m falling for him. And it terrifies me.”
“Because of his connections?” Lily asks, her voice careful as she brings up Koen’s line of work.
“Because it’s not just about me,” I whisper.
“He doesn’t know about Remi. And every day I don’t tell him, it gets heavier.
He deserves to know. But if I tell him and he hates me, or if he doesn’t care at all…
If he walks away again…” My chest caves in.
“I don’t know if I could survive that,” I admit quietly.
“I thought I was protecting her, protecting me…” The image of Koen I’d curated in my head all these years, the constant reminders I gave myself that who he was that night had just been an act, and that the news reports and the word on the streets detailing the cold, ruthless leader of the Irish mob was the real Koen O’Rourke.
But now, having spent the past couple of weeks with him…
“I think I got it wrong.” Tears sting the corners of my eyes, and my lower lip quivers slightly before I bite down hard on it to get it to stop.
Lily, not one to miss a thing, lunges forward.
“Oh, honey,” she breathes out, wrapping her arms around me in a tight hug.
She squeezes me again. “Then maybe it’s time to stop running.
Secrets like this… they don’t stay hidden.
And if he really loves you back, he won’t walk away. He’ll fight for you. Both of you.”
“We’re supposed to go out tomorrow night after rehearsal. I’m—I’m going to tell him.” I look up at Lily. “I’m scared.”
“It’ll be okay,” she sighs. “And if it’s not… we’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.”