Epilogue
Jai Archer Blue
A man firmly on the path.
The right path.
Right?
The mechanical bull is wearing a diaper.
A massive, white cloth diaper, pinned with safety pins the size of trumpets.
I stare at it, swirling my melting smoothie, trying to recover my center.
It isn’t easy.
The Brass Monkey is trippy at the best of times, under a cover of darkness, with a shot or two of hard alcohol to soften the rough edges.
On a stone-cold sober Saturday afternoon, with the bizarre, animal-themed décor modified for a baby shower, it feels like I’ve wandered into a surreal theater production.
Or one of Dante’s levels of hell.
Probably the “gluttony” level.
I may be sober, but most of the people here aren’t.
The rest of the Voodoo is making the most of the fact that we don’t have practice again until Tuesday morning by getting utterly blasted.
Torrance has told everyone he loves them—twice—Jean-Louis did a strip routine to Elly’s karaoke song that made the very pregnant Elly “nearly pee her pants,” and Makena and Parker are giggling maniacally at the bar as they spoon lumpy food into diapers for a baby shower game, like a pair of unhinged elves.
But they’re happy.
Very happy.
I’m happy for them. I don’t judge them for being unhinged. I simply can’t afford to live my life that way.
I really can’t.
I make accidental eye contact with the taxidermied raccoon above the bar. “Is that so?” it seems to query. “If you ask me, you doth protest too much.”
I doth.
It’s right.
I sigh as I force down another sip of my Virgin Diaper Genie, the shower’s signature drink. The mixture of chocolate liqueur and banana puree isn’t bad, but it leaves an odd aftertaste lingering on my tongue that reminds me a lot of regret.
I haven’t tasted regret in years, but I remember it all too well…
“You okay, man?” Nix slides onto the stool next to me.
He looks happy. Relaxed. A man in love who has no idea his best friend did things a best friend should never do.
If he knew, would he punch me? Lash out with his fists the way he used to before Charlotte? I don’t know, but if he did, I wouldn’t fight back.
I deserve whatever he might decide to dish out.
“Fine,” I say, nodding.
He arches a brow. “You sure?”
I nod. Once.
Nix laughs, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Got it. Not in the talking mood today. No worries, just wanted to check on you. And to thank you for introducing Bea to Clover. They’re having such a great time since she moved in.
I think it’s been really good for her to live with a friend instead of going straight to solo life after the breakup. Catch you later, okay?”
I nod, lifting a hand in farewell as he moves to rejoin Charlotte.
They are also deeply in love, but not in an unhinged way. In a profound way. Theirs is the kind of love that spans lifetimes, eternities. It’s the kind of love that strips you naked in the dark and makes you realize nothing else really matters.
It’s even more dangerous than the unhinged kind.
I knew the second I laid eyes on Beatrice that she was dangerous, the kind of woman who…
I nip the thought in the bud.
I refuse to allow that thought pattern to dig a pathway in my brain.
Mistakes were made, but they won’t be made again. That’s the end of it. No more storytelling about the situation required.
Unfortunately, my resolve has zero time to harden before a peal of feminine laughter jerks my gaze toward the row of video games by the bathrooms.
And there she is.
Beatrice.
Beautiful, forbidden Beatrice in a loose, brown and yellow floral sundress and combat boots…
She sips what looks like a club soda as she watches Clover, the bass player I introduced her to, laugh over an old video game. Torrance looks on from Clover’s other side, clearly trying to flirt. Sierra broke up with him a few months ago, but he doesn’t seem to have done much to process the loss.
He’s too busy running.
Running into too much drink, too much exercise, too much casual sex…
Clover won’t touch him—she has her shit firmly together—but she doesn’t seem to be bothered by him, either. She laughs at something he says and appears unconcerned when Beatrice touches a hand to her shoulder and walks away from the game.
I watch her go, her hips swaying the way they did that night three weeks ago.
But she wasn’t walking away then. She was walking toward me across my small kitchen, climbing into my lap, reaching for my belt, and then…
Well, then it all goes fuzzy. Hazy.
Unconscious in every sense of the word.
I was not inhabiting the highest plane of my Self that night, when Beatrice showed up at my door, drunk and sad and wondering if she’d always be alone.
She was happy for her brother and Charlotte, but lamenting the fact that she’d been single for nearly six months and couldn’t even get laid, let alone learn anything new about love.
Or lust…
I tried to make her a grilled cheese. A glass of mint tea. Tried not to notice how fucking beautiful she was, with her hair wild around her bare shoulders and a dress that clung to her in ways I’d wanted to cling to her since the moment I met her.
I thought I’d tamed my baser urges.
Then I met Beatrice Nix.
Then I fucked Beatrice Nix on my kitchen table, wild and raw, tearing at each other’s clothes, so desperate for each other’s skin, we didn’t even think about protection until it was over.
Until my come was leaking down her legs as she rode me a second time—this time on my couch, her shins braced on my thighs because she couldn’t comfortably straddle me.
She’s too small.
Too petite.
As poor a match for my giant body physically as we are in every other way.
Especially socially…
Nix would kill me if he found out. Dead. Dating a teammate’s little sister is a massive “do not cross” line. Having unprotected sex with her, then letting her leave my apartment, while she was still a little drunk, is…
It’s a sin. I know it. I felt it the moment Beatrice scampered down my front steps to the car waiting for her at the end of the drive.
I felt it again the next day when she called to talk, to explain why she ran, and I insisted we couldn’t be more than friends.
Not ever.
That night was a mistake we couldn’t repeat.
So why am I setting my glass down and following her across the room?
I don’t know. Even as I weave through the crowd, past the screaming laughter of the people gathering for the baby food game, past the video machines, past the diapered bull, down a long hallway to the bar’s back door, I don’t know.
I’m a moth to a flame.
A stupid, spiritually weak moth…
I push open the back door and step out into the heat. It’s almost May, and New Orleans’ spring is definitely giving way to summer. The back lot is relatively clean, but ripe in the heat, the scent of the dumpster and old cooking oil from a restaurant nearby filling the air.
There’s no reason for Beatrice to be out here.
No reason other than the fact that she knew I would follow her…
“Hey.” She waits for me, leaning against the brick wall, her arms crossed. “How’s it going?”
I nod.
Her brows lift, but after a beat, she nods as well.
“Okay, I thought we had a different…” She sighs.
“But whatever… I clearly thought a lot of incorrect things.” She stands, her arms falling to her sides as she moves away from the wall.
“First of all, I want you to know that this doesn’t have to be a big deal.
I mean, it’s obviously a serious thing, but not the kind of serious I’m worried about.
Or afraid of. And it’s nothing I can’t handle alone. Still, I thought you should know.”
I already know.
I think a part of me knew as I watched her go that night.
Knew that neither of us would escape my loss of control without life-altering consequences.
Still, the moment she says, “I’m pregnant, and I want to keep the baby,” hits like a body check.
The kind that knocks you flat on the ice, leaving you gasping.
I literally can’t speak, can’t draw in enough air to respond.
But she seems to understand.
At the very least, she doesn’t sound angry or frustrated by my silence when she says, “We don’t have to figure things out now.
We can talk later. When you’re ready. Just know that I’m open to whatever, as much or as little as you want to be involved.
” She moves closer, tilting her head back to hold my gaze as she adds in a softer voice, “And if you don’t want to be involved, we don’t have to tell anyone you’re the father.
We don’t have to ruin things. I know your friendship is important to my brother. ”
I nod, confirming that it is.
It’s not as important as her.
As this baby.
But that doesn’t mean I should be a part of the child’s life in any way aside from the financial. There’s a distinct possibility this baby would be better off without me and all my baggage. I thought I’d left the uglier parts of my past behind, but the way I behaved that night with Bea.
And after…
It proves I’m not the good man I thought I was. I might very well be the kind who can only be “good” in a bubble. Let me out of the bubble, let me get too close…and you’ll be sorry.
So, will I.
“Okay, well, let me know. I’m around, whenever you’re ready.” She presses up on tiptoe, dropping a quick kiss to my cheek before she whispers, “I’m sorry that I’m not sorry. But I’m not. I want this baby, your baby.”
Then she turns and walks back into the bar, leaving me alone in the alley with the garbage, the ghosts, and the knowledge that life as I knew it is over.