Chapter 15
Fifteen
MALAKI
Did she just say what I think she did?
Reese’s sister’s laughter fills the tiny apartment.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asks, hardly able to form words.
She turns toward Reese, who is staring at me with those glassy eyes again.
Zoe points at me over her shoulder. “Did he just say you asked him to marry you?”
She has a daughter?
I quickly scan her from head to toe. She’s a mom?
My eyebrow crooks. If so, she’s the hottest mom I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“I need a drink,” Reese mutters.
She struts into the kitchen and flicks the light switch, bathing the small space in fluorescent lights. They flicker a few times before eventually turning right back off. Her shoulders fall, but she brushes it off with a relaxed expression and a quiet “everything’s fine” under her breath.
Zoe follows after her sister as I stand back and observe.
The apartment complex is the nicest on the block, but it’s still a shithole.
Pieces of brick crunched beneath my shoe as I followed Reese after she ran through the doors.
My first thought was how badly it smelled.
A mixture of mildew and cat piss burned my nose, and the elevator had a sign taped to it that had the word “broken” on it, only it was spelled incorrectly.
Reese’s place seems nice on the inside, but if you look close enough, you’ll notice that it’s a trick of the eye.
The colorful woven rugs hide how uneven the floor is, and it’s so small I could jump from the living room and be in the kitchen.
There is an incessant buzzing noise coming from the refrigerator, and when she opens it, there’s practically nothing on the inside.
She swings the door shut with her foot while holding a jug of apple juice in her hand.
“What does he mean you asked him to marry you?” Zoe places her hands on her hips. “What the hell happened? I thought you were going to work!”
Reese places the juice on the counter. “Benedict happened.”
Her sister growls. “That mother fucker.”
I’ve gotta admit, Zoe is sort of terrifying.
I can tell she’s younger than Reese, but I get the vibe that she’s protective of her older sister. I mean, she did just try to hit me with a baseball bat.
“Zoe!” Reese furrows her brow. “Language.”
“Sorry,” she says sarcastically. “I mean…that mother…trucker.”
I chuckle.
Reese’s eyes flick to mine.
Did she forget I was here?
She mutters something under her breath and unscrews the lid to the apple juice to take a swig.
“You do know that’s apple juice, right?” I ask.
Zoe glances over her shoulder at me. “She refuses to drink anything harder than juice.”
“That’s because I make stupid decisions when I drink!” Reese blurts, slamming the jug onto the counter.
I raise a brow. “Well, that’s intriguing."
“She hasn’t drunk a sip of alcohol since being impregnated by Benedict,” Zoe confesses.
Never mind. That’s not intriguing at all.
“One drunken night and now look at me!” Reese exclaims. “A baby, a shitty job, an even shittier apartment…”
“A hot fiancé…” I say, winking at her.
Her cheeks turn red again, and she reaches for the apple juice.
I do my best to keep a straight face, but she’s drinking apple juice while pretending it’s something stronger. It’s amusing.
Zoe and I stand in silence as we watch Reese screw the lid back on. She undoes her long braid and quickly throws her hair into a high ponytail while muttering to herself. Zoe turns to face me and leans back against the counter with her arms still crossed over her chest defensively.
I feel like she’s about to interrogate me, especially with the shitty lighting in this apartment.
“Since my sister is clearly spiraling, I need you to fill in the gaps on what happened tonight.”
I run a hand through my hair. “Uh, well…”
I don’t even know what happened. It’s all a blur. Kissing Reese, then the asshole who was belittling her, the whole “he’s my fiancé” thing, and now to find out that she’s a mom?
Shit, maybe I should ask for the apple juice.
“Benedict showed up.” Reese is staring at the counter. Her hands rest against the top, her ponytail hanging low over her shoulder. “And I panicked.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should carry a baseball bat with you,” her sister retorts.
Reese shoots her a dirty look. “That’d go over well. I can’t even sit inside my car without him banging on the window and threatening me.”
I raise an eyebrow. “He was threatening you?”
She averts her gaze.
“He threatened to take you to court again?” Zoe asks, neither of them acknowledging me.
I know when to keep my mouth shut–though most of my team would disagree–but this seems a little more serious than I originally thought.
Reese’s entire demeanor changes. Her shoulders sag, and her voice quivers. “He was going on and on about how I’m whoring around, picking up random guys at clubs–”
Zoe interrupts her. “Picking up random guys at clubs? Yeah, because you’re an Uber driver!
That’s your job! It’s not like you open your legs for them!
” She huffs. “For fuck’s sake, you won’t even drink alcohol because you’re afraid to step a toe out of line!
As if you’d be sleeping with random men! ”
And just like that, it clicks.
All the excuses, the comment from the other night about feeling shame.
I’m beginning to dislike this Benedict guy more and more.
Once Zoe finishes her rant, Reese continues, “He kept referring to Malaki as my fuck buddy.” She glances at me before biting her lip nervously.
Suddenly, I feel the need to defend her. Us. “We aren’t,” I add.
“Still, I was afraid he’d twist things and use it against me…” Our eyes catch again, and I know exactly what she’s thinking.
When Benedict tapped on the window, we were mid-kiss.
He saw us.
“So…” Reese exhales deeply. “In a desperate attempt to save my reputation and kill any type of proof he has against me that I’m a terrible mother who leaves her kid at home to sleep around…I…sort of…” her sentence trails.
“Sort of what?” Zoe is impatient. “Spit it out!”
I finish the sentence for her. “She told him that I was her fiancé.”
Silence settles in the apartment. Nothing but the annoying buzzing of her fridge cuts through the quiet.
Zoe stares at me with an open mouth before she erupts into belly-clutching laughter again. Her laugh fills the apartment, and as serious as this is, I can’t help but laugh alongside her.
Reese glares at us from the kitchen with a reddening face and furrowed brows. “Stop it!” she stresses. “This is serious!”
“Benedict…” Zoe tries to hide her amusement. “Benedict believed you?! That you two are engaged?”
Reese throws her hands out. “I don’t know! It’s not the first time I’ve used the excuse that I have a boyfriend! He just doesn’t care, so he keeps coming back to torment me.”
“Okay, hold up.” I place my palms face down on the island like Reese, careful to avoid the chipping edge. “Why is he threatening to take you to court?”
Reese moves her attention to the bedroom door. Her lips tug into a frown. “He’s threatening to take Charleigh from me. He wants full custody.”
Oh.
“He doesn’t want full custody,” Zoe argues. “He’s just a fucking asshole who can’t stand that Reese doesn’t want to be in a relationship with him, so he’s using Charleigh as leverage.”
Reese growls. “Zoe! Again with the language.”
I shake my head. “Let me guess…he’s given you an ultimatum?”
He isn’t getting his way, so of course she can’t get hers.
Reese pauses before eventually nodding.
“Ah,” I hum under my breath. “So if he doesn’t win, neither can you. Is that the game he’s playing?”
She exhales. “Yeah, I guess so. He didn’t want her to begin with. He wanted me to terminate the pregnancy, and I refused. I was fine with doing this on my own. But once I had Charleigh, he popped back up, and…” The words fade, and she drags her gaze elsewhere.
She does that a lot.
Shies away from me when things get real.
“And he wanted you back?” I finish for her.
Zoe snorts. “You could say that.”
I stay locked on Reese. Her eyes widen in her sister’s direction, and she gives a little shake of her head.
Now, that’s intriguing. Another secret? What else doesn’t Reese want me to know?
I mean, I am her fiancé after all. Doesn’t she know that her secrets are safe with me?
To take the pressure off Reese, I break the silence. “Alright, so he knocked you up, wanted nothing to do with you, and then he waited until you had the baby to come back and…what? He wants to be a family now, and you don’t? So he’s trying to threaten you into a relationship with him?”
Reese shrugs. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
I reach across the counter and steal the not-vodka from Reese. I unscrew the top and place my mouth right where hers was moments ago and chug.
Her lips curve at the sides a little when I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
Zoe pops up onto the counter, her legs dangling below. She takes the juice from me and gulps it too, as if the three of us are passing around a bottle of liquor. “So now what?” she asks. “Should I start planning a wedding?”
Reese scowls at her. “You’re not funny.”
She laughs. “Yes, I am.”
“I’m going to have to make up an excuse,” Reese mutters, talking more to herself than us. She’s going over a list of excuses, all ranging from calling the wedding off to telling Benedict that I suddenly died.
I press my palms onto the counter and think things through as she aggressively chews on her lip.
“That’s ridiculous,” Zoe says. “You can’t say he died…”
“Do you have a better idea?!” Reese exclaims. “If he knows I lied, he’ll use that against me too! Knowing him, he probably has an entire filing cabinet with information about me. Our past. God, what if he has a private investigator following me?”
She’s pacing now. Her tone squeakier as the minutes pass.
“I have a better idea.”
Reese stops dead center in her tiny kitchen and eyes me.
Zoe stops swinging her legs. “Alright, let’s hear it.”
I stand up tall and cross my arms. My heart beats a mile a minute, and I can’t tell if it’s from excitement or dread.
“We stay engaged. We fool him and everyone else. Either he’ll give up on getting you back, or he’ll follow through and take you to court, where we’ll prove to the judge that every delusion he’s created to tear you down turns out to be just that: a delusion.
It’ll make him look like a desperate man who can’t take no for an answer. ”
Silence cuts through the apartment.
Reese opens her mouth to argue, but nothing comes out.
Eventually, enough time has passed that Zoe jumps off the counter. She walks over to me and pats me on the chest with a cunning smile on her face. “Welcome to the family.”