Chapter 57
Erica
A s I’m about to walk into my apartment, I blink back tears.
I’ve already cried enough tonight, and now it feels worse knowing Marco isn’t here to wipe them away.
It’s like I can still feel the warmth of his hand against my face and I miss it desperately.
I wish he would have come up, but I know having my brother here just makes things awkward.
I know that Marco is hurting. And why shouldn’t he be?
The confusion I’m causing him. It’s unfair, and I hate myself for it.
I unlock the door and step inside, hoping my brother isn’t right there to see me like this.
I’m relieved to see he’s not in the living room, but I can hear his laughter from Josie’s room.
I walk down the hallway, trying to compose myself along the way, and find them on their backs on the plush ABC rug in the middle of her room.
He’s reading her the penguin book that Marco bought her.
Of course, he is. Just another sign of his absence in my life.
“Hey,” I say, meeker than I intended to.
Troy looks up at me and gives a knowing smile that says he’s onto me.
“How was your meeting ?” he asks, emphasizing the final word.
“Fine.” I nod a few times, trying to avoid his gaze as he looks at me from upside down on the floor.
“Mama!” cries out Josie. She rolls onto her tummy and crawls toward me. I kneel to the floor and pull her into my lap.
“Hey, Josie girl!”
She looks troubled as she looks past me toward the door. “Mah-coooo?” she asks.
I clear my throat nervously. Of course, she’s wondering where he is.
“What book are you two reading?” I ask, trying to get her mind off the fact that Marco isn’t here.
Troy pulls himself to a sitting position and looks at me knowingly. I can tell by the look on his face that he’s already worked out what’s going on.
“Oh, it’s the penguin book!” I say enthusiastically, ignoring him.
“Erica…” says Troy somewhat sharply.
I look up at him warily and see his arms are crossed and his eyebrow is arched in an accusatory position.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Does your boss usually come over at night for meetings?”
“He’s a busy man. You know how it is.”
“I didn’t realize you were his assistant again…”
“I’m not. But I’m head of the paper now. Remember? That’s why you came over with champagne. We’re celebrating! Should I go get it?” I realize how nervous I sound by how high my voice gets with each sentence.
“No, how about we don’t bring a bottle of champagne into my niece’s nursery, and you tell me what’s really going on.”
I sigh and rest my chin on Josie’s head. “I think you know…”
“It wasn’t hard to put it together. Josie looks just like him. I was totally freaked out when I opened the door to see the male version of her staring back at me.”
I can’t help but laugh, even though this is serious. The one secret I’ve been keeping from my brother this whole time is now exposed.
“So your boss is the father…” he says skeptically, like he doesn’t quite understand how this happened.
“Yeah,” I say sheepishly.
“How the hell did that happen?”
I go on to tell him about the night we met at The NY Daily News party, when I thought I was going to get my big promotion.
I told him how there was a rumor The Shark was there, but I didn’t put two and two together when I ran right into him.
I cringe thinking about how I made him spill his drink all over his nice suit.
It’s a wonder we ended up together that night with how nervous I felt upon first meeting him.
I tell him about the jazz club and how we spent the whole night talking and getting to know each other, just not enough to figure out who each other really was.
It sounds stupid, even as I say it. I skip over the part where I practically tell him to take me home, to spare my brother the uncomfortable details of my one-night stand.
His face looks contorted as he tries not to imagine what happened next.
“And then I found out I was pregnant.”
“Thanks for sparing me the details on how that happened.” He sticks out his tongue.
I pick up a nearby pillow and throw it at him playfully.
Josie laughs and claps her hands. “Mo! Mo!”
She might get her wish if Troy makes any more faces. There’s plenty of pillows in here.
“So, you knew who he was the whole time?” asks Troy confused.
“Yeah. I found out he was the Marco Vallejo when I was in the doctor’s office and I saw him on the news.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me? Or Mom and Dad? You pretended you didn’t know who it was. Mom was appalled.”
“Ya think?” I ask, rolling my eyes, thinking back to that night.
“Well, why didn’t you? You knew that night.”
“Because Dad would just make a mess of things. He’s not exactly amicable. He would go after Marco and take him to court and it would be all over the news.”
Troy looks thoughtful for a moment. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
“I didn’t want Josie’s life to be tainted by a crazy lawsuit that would make headlines.
Plus, I didn’t want to face being rejected by him.
I didn’t want her to be rejected. That would break my heart.
To go through this whole legal process for him just to claim he has no interest in her.
That would follow her all her life, and when she gets old enough to ask questions, she could just look him up and see everything. ”
“I get it now. I do, but…” Troy looks off in the distance and I can see he’s hurt.
“But what?” I ask softly.
“You didn’t tell me. ”
“I know,” I say, shaking my head regretfully.
“I’m your big brother. Your best friend most days…or I was.”
“I was just scared. I thought you’d let it slip or maybe you’d go big, bad brother on me and go after him yourself.”
“Well, I’m not happy with the guy…” says Troy, proving my point that he’d be the protective older brother.
“He didn’t know! You can’t fault him for that.”
“True. But he does know now…Right?”
“Yeah, he does.”
“Does Josie?”
“She’s not even one, Troy. I don’t think she comprehends that. But she feels something. The bond between them was instant. He’s so good with her. And she’s obsessed with him. I’d almost be jealous, if it wasn’t so cute.”
“How long has he known?” asks Troy pointedly.
“A few weeks?” I shrug.
“You kept this from him that long? Even while you were working alongside him?” asks Troy, his eyes wide.
“Yes,” I say sheepishly.
“You’re like a ninja. A spy. A master secret-keeper.”
I laugh and put my hand to my head, thinking about everything I’ve done. It does sound ridiculous.
“So, how did he find out?”
“He saw her on my phone. He knew right away she was his,” I say, remembering the morning and how upset he was. It was one of the worst days of my life.
“Yikes. I take it that didn’t go well.”
“No, not really. Especially since we had just slept together. Again.”
“Erica!” Troy says loudly, making Josie jump slightly in my lap.
“I know,” I groan.
“And I thought my life had been a mess…”
“It was. Your ex-wife tried to kill your new girlfriend,” I say, reminding him of his own hell not too long ago.
“Don’t remind me. I almost lost everything,” he groans with a shake of his head.
“I’m sorry.”
“So what are you two now?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Nothing. We’re just co-parenting.”
He shoots me a look.
“What? We are,” I say more insistently.
“Oh, come on, Erica. I could cut the attraction between you two like a knife earlier.”
I look at him and my mouth falls open in surprise. Are we that obvious? My brother just barely met the guy and somehow can see that there’s something going on between us. Something that I may have just ruined.
“Is it really that obvious?” I ask.
“That you love each other? Yeah.”
“Love each other?” I laugh.
Troy narrows his gaze knowingly and gives me a smile that says he’s right. I bite my lip and think about what he’s saying. Love . That’s a big word. Is it possible I love Marco? Is that why I’m so scared? Could he really love me back?
I think back to his hand on my face in the café just before this, how tenderly he looked at me as I welcomed his touch. How he wiped my tears away, like they physically pained him to see coming from my eyes.
I go back further to our nights here in this apartment. In this nursery. The way he danced with Josie around the room, making up silly songs and glancing my way every so often. The way my laugh filled the room in a way only he could pull from me.
I go back even further to the night the two of us danced, tipsy from champagne and the thrill of finally giving in to our desires without caring who saw.
We were the only two in that room, just like we were in the jazz club all that time ago.
It’s like I can still feel his hands around me as we swayed, leading us to falling into his bed, desperate to uncover each other.
It hits me now that I love him.
I love Marco.
It took revealing everything to my brother, of all people, to see that the secret I’ve been keeping from myself all this time is that I’m in love with Marco.
I think I have been from the moment I spilled my drink on him on that rooftop.
Which makes the fact that he just now left with that sad expression on his face even harder.
I just hurt the man that I loved, and have been unintentionally hurting him for too long now.
My thoughts must be plastered across my face because Troy gives me a smile.
“I can stay with Josie,” he says.
“Wh-what? Stay with her?” I ask, confused.
“So you can go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“Go tell him you love him, you idiot.” He throws a pillow at me this time, careful to avoid Josie who is sitting in my lap curiously listening to our conversation.
I set her on the floor from my lap, and stand up unsurely.
I look to my brother, who still has that know-it-all expression on his face.
I feel bad for leaving Josie with him. Again.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“I’m a dad, remember. I know what I’m doing.”
I nod. Right, of course he is. He’s been a dad longer than I have been a parent. I don’t think that’s what is stopping me right now. I’m about to tell Marco I love him, and freefall into the unknown, just hoping he loves me back. That’s what is stopping me.
But I know the longer I wait here, the bigger chance I have of losing him after what we talked about tonight. How I hurt him. I need to get to him now to fix everything.
“Thank you,” I say to Troy. “For everything.”
I turn and leave the room, my pace swift as I walk to the door, like I’m running out of time. I quickly open it and stop in my tracks when the person I was going to see is right here in front of me. Marco is here.