Chapter Twenty
Nero
The crackle of the baby monitor and Oscar’s cries startle me out of sleep. He’s thrashing around in his crib. Taylor moves back and makes a surprised noise as I jump out of bed and grab my pants, tugging them on as I run down the hall.
He’s screaming and rolling from side to side his hands up in the air. “Fuck,” I rush over and try to lift him but he starts batting at me. What the hell? My heart is thrashing in my chest as he rolls over, his eyes are half open, but he isn’t awake.
“Noah.”
“Not now,” I try to reach him again.
Taylor grabs my arm and pulls me, I almost lash out at her but stop myself as she drags me backward.
“He’s having a night terror,” she takes my face and tries to turn it, but I can’t stop looking at Oscar as he cries and shouts. “You have to let him come out of it on his own.”
“What the fuck are talking about?” I snap at her.
She doesn’t shrink away keeping tight hold of me. “He won’t recognize you, he isn’t awake and if you try to bring him out of it, he will not let you comfort him, he’ll fight you because he won’t know who you are.”
I’m still desperate to get to him but her words sink in. She’s right, that is what happens. Even Jesse says Oscar fights him when he tries to wake him up. I look down at her. “Night terrors?”
“Yes, my friend’s daughter has them. They’re normal in kids this age.”
“There is nothing normal about that,” I cry out, watching Oscar.
“Just give it a moment, Noah, trust me.”
I want to, but fuck. I drop down on my knees beside the crib, Taylor lowers with me, still holding my arm.
“He will need you when he wakes up.”
“This is fucking impossible,” I force the words out past all the emotion ripping through my chest.
“He’s soothing himself, Noah, he’ll wake up soon.”
She’s right, the thrashing has stopped, his cries are becoming less out of terror and more out of upset. He rolls over and his eyes open. Taylor finally lets me go and leans back.
“Dada.”
“Jesus,” I stumble over my own feet to get up and lift him out of the crib. He’s crying more in his usual way now and he clings on to me. I press my lips to the top of his head and hold him tight, whispering that he is okay.
In my peripheral I see Taylor getting up. Sometimes I forget she is a nurse, but kids aren’t her specialty as far as I know.
My heart is still thrashing, the adrenalin taking longer to wear off than it is for Oscar. He’s settled against me, his face snuffling against my chest.
“Does he have a favorite comforter or bear?” she asks.
I nod and bend down to pick up Oscar Two. The little shit of a puppy has replaced his other favorite bear. Oscar instantly reaches for it.
“Read him a story, reassure him but you have to let him sleep.”
Usually I’d bring him to my bed, with her here, that’s not possible.
But I don’t have to leave him. She walks out before I have a chance to say anything.
We go over to the chair where I used to feed him, and I lift the blanket, sitting down and wrapping it around us.
The book he loves is within reach so I grab that.
As I read, he makes little noises, sometimes he says the words but after a while, his eyes drift shut again. I keep reading until I know he’s asleep, carefully setting the book down.
Fuck that was one of the scariest moments I’ve ever experienced. The shit I’ve done in my life and this is what nearly broke me.
If it was safe I’d hold him like this all night but the risk of falling asleep and dropping him scares me more than not holding him. He goes down in the crib and rolls over without a care in the world and I lean over and stroke his hair.
It’s going to take me a long time to get those images out of my head. Sitting down beside the crib, I watch him, no idea how much time goes by.
When I’m sure he is okay, I get up and head back down to my room. Taylor is in my bed and I stand in the doorway and watch her. If she wasn’t here tonight, I could have made everything worse.
How do I not know how to deal with this?
What kind of father am I? My phone is on the night stand so I sit and pick it up, searching for night terrors.
Everything Taylor told me to do is the right way to deal with this.
If anyone else had told me how to take care of my son, I would have told them to get the fuck out.
“Is he okay?” Taylor rolls over and her hand touches my back.
“Sleeping.”
After a beat, she asks, “do you want me to go?”
“No,” I set the phone down and turn around to her. She is still wearing one of my T-shirts which she must have grabbed when she followed me to Oscar’s room. “Everything you said… If you weren’t here.”
“You would have dealt with it,” she reassures me. “You’re his dad, he would have eventually come out of it.”
“You said he wouldn’t recognize me.”
“He would have, he knows your scent, your voice and that you bring him comfort. It might have taken longer than normal but you wouldn’t have hurt him, Noah.”
How the fuck she knew those are my thoughts… I shake my head, not that I don’t agree with her, she’s right. She’s amazing. She slides back as I get into the bed but I move toward her, dragging her into my side.
There are no more words, just emotions I’m not used to. Her hand gently strokes over my chest and after a moment, I take it in mine and hold it still over my heart, which eventually slows to a normal beat.
Sleep is a long time coming and I spend most of it staring down at her. It might be wrong to let her get under my skin but it’s too late to stop it. And I don’t know what the fuck to do with that.
She finds us downstairs in the morning, hovering in the doorway in my T-shirt and a pair of my shorts. I’m hardly going to complain about it, given her clothes are in the corner down here.
Oscar looks over at her. “Who dat?” he asks.
I can’t help the smile. “This is my friend, Ch.. Taylor.” I correct myself and wink at her. “Taylor this Oscar.”
Those words sound really fucking foreign but Taylor comes over and crouches down, reaching out a hand. Oscar stares at it, then lifts his and she gently shakes.
“Nice to meet you, Oscar. And who is this?”
“Oscar Two.”
“His name is Oscar as well.
“Oscar Two,” he repeats.
“As in Oscar number two,” I explain. Taylor smiles and nods.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asks and I shake my head.
I’ve been too busy practically smothering him, to the point he told me to back off. That made me laugh. He’s been listening to me and Jesse too much. “I’ll make some pancakes,” I start to get up.
Taylor tells me not to, to stay with Oscar while she makes them.
Something about this is oddly welcome, but foreign too.
She heads off to the kitchen and starts looking for the things she needs.
What should be happening is me telling her to go, instead I make sure Oscar is okay and walk into the kitchen.
“I’ll leave when they’re ready,” she says. “I needed to get my clothes.”
“Stay,” I say, surprising myself as much as her. “Have breakfast with us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I glance back, then take her panties out of my pocket. “You’re going to need to borrow a pair of my boxers.”
Her cheeks flush when she sees the torn fabric. When we came into the room this morning, I set him down and gathered up our discarded clothes, finding her shredded panties and shoving them in my pocket.
“I don’t need to do that,” she says.
“The thought of you wearing a pair of my underwear is kind of hot.”
Taylor stares at me then shakes her head like I’m crazy. Maybe I am but something about her in my clothes is making me fucking crazy. Our stare off is interrupted by a little body grabbing my leg and holding up his arms.
“Hungry dada.”
“Taylor is making some pancakes for us,” I lift him up and how him.
“Mmm pancakes.”
“You like pancakes?” Taylor asks him as she pours batter into the pan. “My dad used to make me pancakes when I was little. But he did this really special thing.”
She grabs some fruit from the fridge. Jesse’s doing. As the batter starts to firm, she drops two blueberries in for eyes, then uses the end of a spoon to make a mouth. It’s cooking fast enough that the batter doesn’t spill back into space.
“A smiley,” Oscar laughs.
My eyes are locked on her as she makes happy pancakes for my son.
And I sit back after setting him in his high chair and she makes a smaller pancake for Oscar Two, which has Oscar so happy it’s like last night never happened.
While Oscar rips into the pancake, I walk over and wrap an arm around her waist.
“Do I get a happy pancake?” I arch a brow.
“If you give me coffee,” she taps my shoulder with the spatula.
“Think I can manage that.” While Oscar is distracted, I cup her chin and press a kiss to her lips.
If my brothers could see me now, I know exactly what they’d say. It starts with P and ends with whipped.
Fuck if I don’t care.
While she makes more food, and Oscar has spent most of his time chatting away to Taylor, I call Jesse to check on him and whether he is okay to come over. He agrees, sounding better than he looked. Shit if he has been dealing with these night terrors and not telling me, I’m going to break his arm.
We eat together and I go get dressed then come back to find Taylor rolling a ball for the puppy and Oscar bounces along after it, pretending to fetch.
She looks up at me and instinctively knows. She tells Oscar she needs to go, and he pouts asking when she is coming back.
“Soon buddy,” I tell him. “Uncle Jesse is on his way.”
“Yay!” he shouts. “Bye Taylor.”
“Bye Oscar,” she grins as she comes over. “So fickle.”
“Uncle Jesse is his favorite,” I sigh. She cocks her head but doesn’t comment.
She is already dressed, and I did make her put on a pair of my underwear and told her I was keeping hers. Her response was so long as I don’t wear hers, which made me snort and tell her that shit will never happen.
We go to the front door and finally, fucking finally I get to put my hands on her. She falls against me easily as I press her into the wall and kiss her, my tongue touching hers until she is panting and my hand has slid up to grab her tit.
The door opens and Jesse stands there, staring at us. Taylor shifts back and my hand drops but I don’t step away from her, just stare at him. He knew I had her checked out, and he wasn’t happy about that. He is even more surprised when a little rocket comes hurtling towards him.
He picks Oscar up and looks from me to Taylor, knowing I’ve let her around my son says more than words ever can.
“Good to see you, Taylor,” he tells her and moves past us.
“Oh shit,” she whispers, watching after him.
“It’s fine,” I kiss her again, less like I’m fucking her mouth and more like I’m saying goodbye and don’t want to. “I’ll explain to him.”
Her expression says she wants me to explain it to her too, but I put a hand on her back and guide her to the door. Can’t explain what you don’t fucking understand. Once she’s in her car and pulling away I head back inside.
Jesse has set Oscar up with the plastic laptop he is convinced will teach him to read even though it doesn’t have a real screen, just letters on the fake keys. It makes fucking irritating noises too, and was hidden at the bottom of the toy box. Who knew he could be a petty little fucker?
“Are you out of your mind?” he asks coming into the kitchen.
“It’s not what you think?”
“Having your hand on my nurse’s boob and your tongue down her throat is not what I think,” he widens his eyes. “She stayed the night?”
“Boob?”
“Fuck off, Nero.”
Point well and truly fucking taken. “She’s different,” I tell him.
“Of course she’s different, she isn’t one of your club girls, or the strippers and women who want to fuck you because of the patch you wear.”
“You done insulting me?”
“Noah, Jesus. She’s my nurse.”
“You think I don’t know that. You’re the one who brought her here.”
“Don’t put this on me,” he shakes his head. “What is it? You getting what you want out of it.”
“She met Oscar.”
“What does that mean? You don’t know do you? You don’t know how to handle it, but you don’t want to stop. Have you even thought about her. About who you are.”
“She knows Jesse.”
He stops ranting at me and his brow furrows. I explain everything that’s happened over the last few weeks and how this isn’t something either one of us were planning. He’s shocked she was attacked and mentions the arrests, eyeing me but not asking anything else about that.
“So she knows what you do, about your son, what happens next? What are you getting out of this, besides sex,” he adds eyeing me.
“Like you said, I can’t explain it.”
“Oh shit, you have feelings for her?”
“Shit.” We both turn to Oscar who is standing behind us. “Shit,” he repeats.
“Fuck,” I groan.
“Fuck,” Oscar says. I smother a laugh as Jesse admonishes my two-year-old for saying grown up words. “Fuck, shit,” he repeats.
My laugh gets harder and Jesse kicks me. Oscar is laughing now too and Jesse is trying real hard to be strict.
At least he’s taken the focus off me and Taylor. Kid deserves to say a couple of bad words for that assist.