Chapter 16 #3
Hell, she didn’t even know when his birthday was.
Was he a Gemini? Was she dealing with a split personality?
She was done trying to figure it out. If he wasn’t going to open up, she was going to send him a big fat message to either open up or move on.
She could do the single parent thing if she had to.
She didn’t want to, especially not after discovering how nice it was living with someone again, but she could do it.
Because if she was going to live with someone, she wanted to know that person.
If she was going to raise a child with someone, she wanted to know his goddamn birthday and a few other things, too.
She’d had enough. She’d asked him time and time again to open up. To let her in and help her get to know the father of her child, and when he’d give an inch, seconds later he’d pull away and back up an entire mile. She hauled her big suitcase from the closet up onto her bed and opened her drawers.
This thing between them obviously wasn’t going to work. They were just too different.
Sure, they were both stubborn, strong-willed control freaks, but it wasn’t enough. She was bending for him. Relinquishing control. For him. For them. But Brock wasn’t bending at all. At least not enough.
Her bed was scattered with clothes, personal paraphernalia and a snoozing Penelope on a pile of summer skirts when his voice behind her made her jump.
“What are you doing?”
She ignored him. She could put up walls too.
“What are you doing?” he asked again.
She didn’t bother to turn around, but she felt him take a couple of steps forward.
Heat from his big body radiated off him in waves, causing her to practically sway where she stood.
He smelled faintly of sweat, but it wasn’t off-putting.
She knew he was going to look goddamn irresistible all jacked up with ripped muscles and glistening sweat, so she resisted the urge to look at him.
He was beside her now, and his big hand fell to hers, halting her efforts of packing up a pair of jeans. “What. Are. You. Doing?”
She pulled her hand from his and resumed her task. “I’m packing.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going home.”
He grabbed her hands again and tugged, forcing her to pull her gaze from her suitcase and finally take in his face. Confusion streaked across it. “This is your home.”
She shook her head. “I can’t live with someone I don’t know.”
“You know me.”
She shook her head again. Her throat burned and ached from how hard she was trying not to cry. Fucking hormones. “I don’t know you. I ask you about yourself all the time, but you only give me the bare minimum. I’m living with a closed book with glued pages. I can’t do it anymore.”
She pulled her hands from him and turned back to her suitcase. She folded up a shirt and placed it inside. He pulled it out and put it on the bed. She put in a sweater. He pulled it out, along with a pair of jeans, a tunic and three pairs of socks.
She let out an exasperated huff and turned to face him. “This isn’t funny.”
His face was stern. “I agree.”
“Then let me pack in peace, please.”
“You’re not leaving.”
Anger raced through her. She’d also had enough of the bossy fucker telling her what do to. She could bloody well leave if she wanted to. Her mouth pinched into a scowl, and she glowered at him. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do.”
He grabbed the suitcase and dumped everything onto the bed. “You’re not fucking leaving.”
Resisting the urge to haul off and deck him, she planted her hands on her hips.
“I can’t figure you out! One minute you’re chatty and funny and sweet, and then the next minute, you’re throwing up walls and putting on a mask.
I can’t do it. I can’t live and raise a baby with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hides-his-Emotions. ”
He swallowed.
“You need to talk to me.”
His eyes fell to his feet. “I’m trying.”
She shook her head. “Not hard enough, Hart. Because when I see that you’re trying and thank you for opening up, it’s like one step forward and ten steps back. The moment I acknowledge your efforts, you shut down and pull away. What the fuck?”
The muscle along his jaw jiggled as he ground his molars together. “You were right, you know.”
She let out a huff of impatience. “Not very often that I’m not, but go on.”
His lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. “What you said to me in the truck, on the way to your Christmas party. About me wanting people to think I’m big and scary. You were right.”
“Of course I was right. But you don’t scare me, you just irritate the crap out of me.”
A snort rumbled through his nose, and a smile threatened again but ultimately failed. “I’m a different person when I’m with you,” he started. “I don’t recognize myself.” He scratched the back of his neck, and his eyes finally met hers. “I’m happy when I’m around you.”
“And is that a bad thing?”
“It … it’s a strange thing. A foreign thing.”
She nodded slowly.
“But I’m also really confused.”
She shook her head, her own confusion beginning to build. “About what?”
His lips pursed in thought for a moment before he continued.
“When you thank me for opening up or ask me who I am, it makes me question who I am. Because I don’t know which one is the real me.
The man who can’t stop thinking about you or smiling at the thought of you, or the man who keeps the world at arm’s length because it’s just easier that way.
You scare the hell out of me. I don’t know who I am anymore. ”
Her heart lurched inside her chest. Well, if that wasn’t opening up, she didn’t know what was. Gently, she took a step forward, wanting desperately to touch him. “Which man do you like?”
“I like who I am when I’m with you.”
Holy crap.
“I like who I am when I’m with you, too.”
He took a hesitant step toward her. “But I don’t recognize myself or these emotions.
I’m happy when I’m with you, but I’m also terrified.
Terrified of something happening to you or the baby.
Afraid of being a dad and that the kid is going to be as angry as I am.
Afraid that something might happen to me and he or she will grow up without a dad like I had to.
I’m used to living alone. Nobody knows or solves my problems but me.
It’s worked for me all these years. I don’t know how to function any other way. ”
She ate up the rest of the distance until nothing but the baby they’d made, on a cold and windy night, sat between them.
“Then be the you you like when you’re with me. And be the other guy with everyone else. Be who you want to be.”
His throat undulated. “I’m just worried that one day you’ll realize I’m just the angry guy and want nothing to do with me. Or one day, that’s who I’ll become all the time.”
She shook her head and rested her hand on his chest. “Tell me.”
He gripped her hand like a lifeline. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me why you’re so angry.”
Brock’s pupils dilated, but then he let out a heavy sigh and sat down on the bed, bringing her with him.
“It started after my dad died. I was angry at the world. Angry that he was taken from me. From us. The drunk driver who hit us did a bit of time in prison, but not nearly enough. One night, when I was in my late teens, this was shortly after he’d been released from prison, I went to his house.
I stood out front with a baseball bat in my hand and watched through his picture window as he played with his kids in his living room.
I hated him. Still do. He took my father, and yet he still got to have a family, got to watch his kids grow up.
” He looked up at her. “How is that fair?”
She squeezed his hand and inched closer to him on the bed. “It’s not.”
His mouth dipped down into a tight frown. “I wanted to kill him. Smash his head in with the bat. Take his life, just like he’d taken my dad’s.”
Krista’s breath hitched. “But you didn’t.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I couldn’t. Just like my brothers and me, his kids were innocent and didn’t deserve to grow up without their dad.”
Krista let out a ragged breath. She didn’t think he’d killed the guy, but the way Brock was holding on to her hand, turning her fingers blue, made her suspect he’d at least taken a swing at the guy.
“It wasn’t fair what happened to your dad,” she started. “Wasn’t fair at all. Not fair to your dad, to you, your mother or your brothers.”
“But life isn’t fair,” he said softly.
“It’s not.” She shook her head. Her heart hurt for him. He’d witnessed something so utterly horrific and been forced to grow up way too quickly because of it.
“I joined the Navy Reserves just like my dad, hoping to do some good in the world. And I did. But I also saw a lot of evil. Kids dying. Mothers and babies being ripped apart.
“It all just made me so mad. Mad that I couldn’t do more. Couldn’t prevent more people from getting hurt. More people from dying. I felt even more helpless than I did that night my dad died.”
She put her other hand on his thigh. “You were doing so much good. You can’t save everyone.”
He glanced up at her. “I know. But I saw too much. Didn’t save enough people.
Too many people I’d grown close to, friends and civilians, died.
So I retired and went to work for Stewart.
Now I’m protecting people but on a smaller scale.
I know sometimes those people are spoiled little rich girls, but when they’re with me, they’re safe. I can protect them. I can save them.”
“You’re doing a pretty great job of protecting me and this baby, too,” she said. “You can’t stack so much responsibility on your shoulders. You have me now. Stack some of that on my shoulders. I can take it.”
“Don’t move out … please.” That last word was barely a whisper.
“Then let me get to know you. I think I deserve that, considering you’ve uncovered all my secrets, either by asking me outright or snooping via your hacking brother.”