Chapter Seventeen
Ben
As soon as Mazzy and Katty were safely locked in their car and driving home, I stumbled to Roman’s house and rapped on the door. It didn’t matter I was still pissed off at him. Or that he’d royally messed up something monumental—purposely or not.
He was my twin. My other half.
And I needed him.
Roman was who I went to when I was off-balance.
When I was victorious. When I heard something funny and needed him to laugh too.
The last couple weeks keeping my distance had been as unnatural as trying to breathe underwater.
All my spare time being spent with Kat and Mazzy was the only reason I hadn’t cracked.
Shira opened the door, her brows raised in surprise. “Fancy seeing you here.”
My sister-in-law was a tiny person, but she managed to carry my brother’s massive babies like she was made for it. She still had a couple months to go, and her belly was like a missile poking out from her middle.
Of course, seeing her made me wonder what Mazzy had looked like pregnant. Which made me unbearably sad.
“Is Rome around?” I choked out.
Shira’s humor fell away, her small hand clutching my arm. “Of course he is. He’s putting Jonah down. Come in. It’ll only be a minute.”
“You’re so nice.” I swiped at my eye with the back of my hand. “Sorry to get emo on you. Just having a lot of feelings lately.”
“No need to apologize. Come here.” She opened her arms as soon as I closed the door, and I folded around her, wrapping her in a gentle hug.
A foot and a half shorter than me, it was no easy feat, but she was warm and smelled like fresh laundry.
I let my eyes close as she patted my back and murmured soft, comforting words.
A throat cleared nearby, and my head reluctantly popped up. My eyes connected with Roman’s, and I kept my arms firmly around his wife. To be fair, Shira only moved away from me a little, keeping her arm wound around my back.
“Look who’s here,” she chirped.
He folded his arms, doing his best to seem disgruntled.
The man was jealous of anyone so much as laying eyes on his wife.
It killed him to not be the only person entitled to hugs from her.
Fortunately for us all, he mostly kept his green-eyed beast at bay, but it was easy to see it chomping at the bars of its cage.
“I see him,” Roman grunted. “If he needed a hug, I could have given him one.”
Shira rolled her eyes. “You can still give him one.” Slipping free from my hold, she crossed the living room to press herself against Roman. He dipped down to meet her lips, giving her a kiss that, quite frankly, was a little inappropriate. But who was I to judge?
“I’ll be upstairs.” She waved at me over her shoulder. “Good night, Ben.”
“Night, Shira.” I padded into the living room and flung myself down on their sectional, my head falling back on the cushions with a sigh.
When Roman didn’t move to sit beside me, I groaned.
“Relax, man, I’m not out to steal your woman.
I’m here because—” I had to swallow the relentless knot in my throat before continuing.
“Because Mazzy wants to tell Kat I’m her dad. ”
That got him. He took a seat next to me, twisting his frame to face me. “That’s a good sign. Amazing. Things must be going really well.”
“Yeah.” I shoved my fingers through my hair, giving it a hard tug. “They spent the evening at my house. Katty fell asleep in my arms and took a nap in the guest room, which…I guess is her room now. It was…like, surreal. Really. All of the past week was pretty damn surreal.”
He nodded like he understood. And in some ways, I supposed he did. Shira’s pregnancy had been a huge surprise, but the moment Roman found out, he dove straight in. I would have done the same for Mazzy if I’d known. But…yeah.
“You’ve rolled with the punches like a champ.”
“There’s been no time to stop and think.” I sucked in a shaky breath. “I don’t want to waste another second I can be spending with her because I’ve already missed too much.”
His chin dropped to his chest. “I’m so damn sorry.”
“I know you are. Doesn’t mean I’m not still angry. But since that doesn’t get me that time back and I don’t know how to navigate fatherhood without you, I’m going to try to get over it.”
He shook his head. “I’ll help you navigate this, even if you’re mad at me forever. You know I’m here for you.”
I did know that. My entire life, Roman had been the one constant.
My brothers had been there too, but Roman was the person who’d taken care of us all.
Even before our mother had walked out, Roman had been our leader.
And when it became four boys in a big house with little support from the man who was supposed to be our father, Roman took charge.
Signed permission slips. Ordered groceries. Learned to cook. Was our shoulder to lean on through heartbreaks and setbacks. Cheered us on and pushed us to work harder. Made sure we all were okay while having his own problems to contend with.
Even before he had kids of his own, Roman had been a caretaker. Without him, Nate, Ade, and I would have crumbled. I couldn’t even contemplate where we would have ended up.
So yeah, he’d screwed up in an unforgivable way, but I was going to forgive him anyway. Without Roman, there would be no me.
I couldn’t do this without him.
“I need you to tell me how to be a dad.”
He reached for me, clamping down on my shoulder. “Ben…you know. You know. You’re doing it. Showing up is the single most important thing you can do—and you’re doing it.”
“It doesn’t feel like enough. I feel like I’m floundering, and when we tell Kat I’m her dad, she’s going to know what a failure I am.”
“Do you think I knew what I was doing when Jonah was born?”
“Yeah, but he was a sentient blob the first few months. Katty has spent the last four and a half years with a mom so competent, the kid probably didn’t miss having a dad for a single second.
And that’s great. I couldn’t have picked a better mother for her.
But unlike newborn Jonah, Katty’s aware. She’s going to know I’m a screwup—”
“Ben,” he barked, cutting off my spiral at the knees, “there is no way in hell you’re going to screw this up.
Sure, you’ll make mistakes. You’re human.
But that doesn’t constitute a failure. And from what Nate said, Katty already thinks you hung the moon.
I truly doubt that little girl is going to be disappointed to find out you’re her father. ”
My heart lifted. “Nate said that?”
“Yeah, he did.” He squeezed my shoulder. “He called me a while ago about work, and we talked some about him meeting Katty and Mazzy. He had a lot of good things to say about them both.”
“Makes sense. There’s nothing bad about either of them.”
He chuckled. “You know Nate. He’s not as bad as Ade, but he usually takes a while to come around to people, and he talked about Mazzy like they were old friends.
She told him all about how you guys met—how you saved her.
” He paused before adding, “He also mentioned Murphy was all about her and asked for her socials.”
I jerked upright. “Murphy? As in my teammate, Murphy DeSota? What did Mazzy say? Did she give him her info? Was she charmed by that dillweed?”
I’d never thought of Murphy DeSota as a dillweed until that very moment, but it suited him.
Sure, he was, in general, a standup guy.
My brother-in-arms. Literally, my wingman in the scrum.
I regularly trusted him with my physical safety, but hitting on Mazzy, as if she was a regular fan, ripe for the picking, when he knew damn well she was there for me?
Murphy was dead to me.
Roman smirked. “I don’t know the answer. Nate mentioned it offhandedly. He didn’t confirm Mazzy’s reaction to Murphy’s attention.”
“Why was he giving her that kind of attention anyway?”
Roman shrugged, like this wasn’t anything to get up in arms about. “Why shouldn’t he? I’ve seen her pictures. She’s a pretty woman.”
“A beautiful woman,” I corrected. Facts were facts, and Mazzy was a hell of a lot more than pretty. I’d thought so from the second I’d spotted her in the airport, and the ensuing years had only magnified it.
“Of course. She’s a beautiful woman, and as far as I know, she’s single. Is it so outlandish Murphy might be interested? I’m sure she gets that kind of attention all the time.”
I flipped him off. “Murphy’s not going to be Katty’s stepdad. He can go to hell.”
Roman tried to cover his laugh, but there was no hiding his shaking shoulders. For a man on thin ice, he sure was treading heavy. Laughing at me in my time of need? Some brother he was.
I groaned. “Christ, I hadn’t even considered Kat might have a stepdad one day. That’s…I can’t—”
Roman got ahold of himself in order to get ahold of me. “Don’t do that, Benny.” He cupped the sides of my neck. “Focus on what’s in front of you. The next step is telling Kat you’re her dad. Conquer that, then move on to what comes after. This, though? This is a huge deal.”
I closed my eyes, slowly exhaling. “It is a huge deal.”
“You ready?”
“Yeah.” No hesitation. No doubts. “More than ready.”
I wasn’t ready.
I had to be, but I wasn’t. Except Katty and Mazzy were staring at me expectantly.
I’d put this off the last three nights, and I was pretty sure Mazzy thought I was going to back out.
That wasn’t it, though. I’d been thinking, reading, planning.
Coming up with the right words. An explanation where no one was the bad guy, so Katty would understand I would have been there if I could have.
“Go ahead,” Mazzy whispered.
I looked at her. Her face upturned, watching me keenly.
So far, we’d had a really good night. Mazzy had let me pick Kat up from preschool and bring her home.
To most people, it might’ve been a little thing, but seeing Kat’s face light up when I walked through the door had made me feel ten feet tall.
Not to mention, I got to side-eye that Declan kid. He looked like a real troublemaker, all gap-toothed and adorable.