Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-six
Mazzy
Barb and Kylie were waiting at Ben’s when we got home from the hospital. They’d cleaned, brought food, and most importantly, had loaded Ben’s freezer with ice cream.
Ben and I were utterly wrung out, and Katty was a cranky mess. But as soon as we walked in the door, Barb took over, coddling her, giving her everything she wanted. No matter how sassy and demanding Katty was, Barb didn’t even blink.
It was pretty perfect.
Ben and I collapsed on his couch, watching Barb spoon-feed Katty ice cream.
“I felt bad she didn’t have a grandma, but I kinda think she does,” he said.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “And now she has eyes in proper working order, a daddy, uncles, and cousins. She pretty much has everything.”
His head fell on my shoulder. “Me too.”
Kylie plopped down on the armchair across from us. “Awww. Look at you two. So cute. I hope you know this is all because of me.”
I wanted to argue, but couldn’t. “I guess you’re right.”
Ben folded his arms over his chest. “Chances are, with us living in the same city, we would have crossed paths.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. If Mazzy had spotted you, she would have dived behind the nearest piece of furniture to avoid your stupidly chiseled face.”
He rubbed his jaw. “What I’m hearing is you think I’m incredibly handsome. Thank you, Kylie. I appreciate the compliment, but I’m taken.”
She flipped him off, then her eyes darted toward Aunt Barb to make sure she hadn’t seen. Thankfully, all her attention was being poured on Katty at the moment.
“If you were on the women’s rugby team, I might be interested.” Her eyes raked over him, and she sighed. “Alas, you’re…you. Mazz can keep you as long as I get to give a toast at your wedding.”
I scoffed. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself.”
Ben leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You can give a toast, as long as you mention the first crush you had on a man was me, but you had to let it go when you saw how perfect Mazzy and I are together.”
She finger-gunned him. “Sure, buddy. That’s exactly what I was planning on saying.”
Barb walked into the living room, Katty tucked in her arms. “This little angel is going to take a nap. All of you need to keep your inappropriate conversations down.” She kissed Katty’s curls. “My brave girl deserves a peaceful rest.”
I started to get up. “I can put her down. You don’t have to.”
Barb pinned me with a glare. “Don’t even think about it. You deserve rest too. At least for today.”
Ben tugged me against him, pressing my head to his chest. “You heard her. Katty’s in good hands. This is your chance to take a breath and relax, so why don’t you take it?”
“What if I can’t?” I whispered.
“I’ll just have to make you.” He touched his lips to my forehead. “Relax, Mazz. Everything is taken care of. Even you. Our baby is safe and well, school’s out, and we have ice cream. What more could you need?”
“When you put it that way, I can’t really think of anything.”
I started to snuggle deeper into his arms when Kylie reminded us of her presence.
“Awww, so cute,” she deadpanned. “I guess I could probably say one or two nice things in my toast.”
I laughed against Ben’s chest. “Thanks, Kylie. You’re the best.”
“I know,” she singsonged. “Aren’t you lucky?”
At the moment, I felt like I was. After all, she was right. If she hadn’t attacked Ben at the Mountain Lions stadium, I wouldn’t have him. And that would have been very unlucky indeed.
By the following day, Katty was back to herself again. Her eyes were red and a little puffy, but if it bothered her, she didn’t show it. She was too busy chasing Jonah around his house.
The rest of us—minus Ben, who I’d shoved on a red-eye so he could join his team—were on Roman and Shira’s sectional, revved up for the championship.
As grateful as I was Ben had been willing to miss this for Katty and me, I had been utterly relieved when he got on that plane.
He’d needed to be with us yesterday. Today, his team needed him more.
Katty and I were fine. We had Barb and Kylie on standby, and Ben’s family had folded us in with them.
It was comfortable being here, with Shira and baby Ruby right beside me, Roman to her right, and Nate and Adrian on my other side.
Everyone was relaxed, Adrian’s feet kicked up on the coffee table, Shira and Roman snuggled together, Nate keeping an eagle eye on the two kids running in and out of the room.
On the screen, the Mountain Lions were driving hard down the field. Ben cut left, breaking through a tackle in a burst of pure muscle and momentum.
Roman sucked in a sharp breath. “There he goes,” he murmured to himself. “Look at him move.”
Ben vaulted over the line, the ball slamming down into the end zone, and the guys erupted.
“Yes!” Adrian half shouted. Immediately remembering the baby in the room, he clapped both hands over his mouth. Nate punched the air silently. Roman whispered a victory curse under his breath, and Shira laughed, bouncing tiny Ruby as if she had just cheered too.
“Attaboy, Benny,” Roman said, pride thick in his voice.
Across the room, Jonah skidded to a stop, eyes wide. “They score?” he asked, looking between the TV and the adults.
Katty barreled into him, grabbing his hand. “They’re winning, Jo-Jo, because they’re the best. Let’s watch my dad.”
They darted closer to the screen, standing still for all of five seconds before taking off again, their laughter weaving through the commentary like the best kind of background music.
I watched all of them. Cousins who’d been strangers not long ago but had quickly become best friends.
Nate relaxed with a bottle of beer balanced on his thigh.
Adrian, intensely focused on the screen, his elbows resting on his knees.
Roman and Shira huddled together, regularly passing Ruby back and forth, playfully fighting over who got to hold her.
Something swelled in my chest so fast, it almost hurt. “This is what you’ve been missing,” a quiet voice inside me whispered. It was beginning to feel like mine.
Shira glanced down at me, brow furrowing. “Are you okay, Mazz?”
I nodded, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “Yeah. Just”—my gaze swept around the room again—“it’s a lot, in a good way.”
The smile she gave me was so tender and soft, I felt it deep.
Then I remembered she and Roman had gone to a sex club, and I cursed Ben for giving me that information. I’d never be able to look at her without blushing again and wondering…
“I had to get used to it too.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, sweet as could be. And I felt even worse for wondering what she’d gotten up to in that club.
“Are you an only child too?” I asked.
“Mmmhmm. I am. My house growing up was very, very quiet.” Something dark passed over her features, but Roman squeezed her hand, and she moved on, her smile returning. “Now, when things are too quiet around here, I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Well, I’m glad both of us only-lonelies have been absorbed into this wild bunch.”
She laughed softly. “That’s a great way to describe us.”
During a commercial break, I hopped up to grab a drink. On my way, there was a knock on the front door. I glanced back. Shira and Roman were busy with Ruby, so I decided to leave them be and answer the door myself.
I swung it open, finding an older woman on their porch.
She startled at the sight of me, her hand flying to her chest. “Oh, hi. I’m not sure if I’m at the right address.”
“You might be. Who are you looking for?”
Something about her niggled at the back of my mind.
Her frail frame was tucked inside a thick, puffy coat, completely wrong for June.
The silk scarf wrapped around her head. The way she held herself like she was afraid of being blown over by a strong breeze.
It was the eyes that finally did it, though.
Wide, brown, familiar in a way that made my stomach drop…
“Is this Roman Wells’ house?”
Instead of confirming, I asked, “Who’s asking?”
She straightened her spine and raised her chin in a tired show of dignity. “I’m his mother.”
A beat of silence stretched between us. A hundred reactions flashed through my mind. Slam the door. Curse her out. Demand to know where the hell she’d been. I never got the chance to pick one.
Adrian’s presence filled the space behind me. He stepped around me, gaze sharp, face already gone cold.
“You have no right to be at this house, Louise,” he intoned.
“Adrian.” Her voice quivered, shoving every ounce of emotion his words lacked into his name. “You’re here. Oh, it’s so good to see you, darling.”
His fingers dug into the edge of the door so hard the wood creaked. “What are you doing here?”
She placed her foot in the doorway, desperation pouring out of her. “I had to see you. My boys. I’m—” Her eyes shone wild as they bounced from her youngest son to me then further into the house. “I’m dying.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and took this woman in fully.
Her sallow skin and sunken eyes. The pleading behind them.
The way her knees flexed, like they were barely able to hold her up.
I believed she was telling the truth, but Adrian’s balled fist and the fury emanating from him like heat waves was all that was needed to say it didn’t matter to him if she was or not.
It took moments for the other two Wells brothers to show up in the foyer. Adrian and his mother simply stared at one another, locked in a silent, awful standoff. She looked at him like she was memorizing every detail.
Roman took charge as soon as he saw what was happening, gently moving Adrian back a pace.
“Ben!” his mother cried, blinking hard.
She couldn’t tell her own sons apart? It shouldn’t have surprised me. It had been years since they’d been in the same room, but she was their mom. Sheesh.
“Wrong kid,” Roman said.
Her shoulders slumped, but her smile slid higher. “Of course you’re Roman. I knew that. It’s just, you’re all grown up.” Her gaze swung to the others. “There’s Roman and Nate. Sweet Nate. I’m so happy you’re together. Just as close as ever. Is Ben here too?”
Adrian’s jaw flickered with tension. “Now you’ve seen us, you can go.”
Her foot was still wedged in the doorway, and Adrian’s stance screamed he would not hesitate to slam the door shut, taking her toes with it. Roman clearly caught the same thought. He shifted in front of Adrian, shielding both him and her from that choice.
Roman crossed his arms. “Showing up at my home is completely inappropriate. If you have something you need to say to us, you’re welcome to make an appointment with me. Otherwise, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“I understand.” She reached for him. When he flinched, she let her hand drop. “I would have gone through formal channels, but you see, time is of the essence.”
Adrian let out a humorless, broken laugh. “You’ve had our whole lives, but now time’s important? Fuck off.”
He turned on his heel and marched off without giving her a second glance.
She took a deep breath, gathering herself. “I deserve that. There were circumstances…” Her watery eyes found Nate. “You might understand. I’m afraid you inherited my…affliction, which I regret so much.”
Nate shook his head, staring at the ground. “Only thing you ever gave me was brown eyes and a chemical imbalance.”
“I’m so sorry, darling.” She raised a shaking hand to her mouth. “I know you all think it’s too late for me to show up here. Maybe it is. But I’ve nearly run out of time, and if I don’t try to make things right with what I have left, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Not our problem,” Roman bit out.
I wished I could send all the brothers away and handle this myself. They didn’t deserve this. Not any day, and especially not today, when they were meant to be celebrating Ben and his team. We’d all been so happy a few minutes ago. Her showing up was like dropping a bomb right in the middle of it.
Their long-lost mother nodded solemnly. “I know you might think that, but one day, you might wish you had closure. If I could give you that, I—”
“We closed the book on you two decades ago,” Roman stated, ever the protector.
“None of us is interested in knowing you. I’m sorry you’re unwell, but frankly, that’s not any of our problem.
We don’t know you, and we don’t want to know you.
Now this is the last time I say it, get off my porch and don’t come back. ”
Carefully, arguably far more gently than she deserved, he used the toe of his shoe to nudge her foot away from the threshold before pushing the door shut with a solid, echoing thud.
“Christ,” Nate muttered. “Holy shit.”
Roman exhaled, scrubbing his hands over his hair as if he could shake her out of existence. “Are you all right?” he asked, glancing between Nate and me.
“I’m fine. Are you okay?” I swung my gaze to Nate. “Are you?”
“I don’t know.” Nate’s head tipped back, and he blinked at the ceiling. “She really looked like she was dying.”
“She did,” Roman agreed. “Not our problem.”
“No.” Nate dropped his chin to his chest. “It shouldn’t be.”
Adrian stalked back into the foyer, his expression implacable, all his feathers smoothed and unruffled. How had he managed to do that? Was it a magic trick, or did he really not care?
“Now that that’s over, come back in the living room and watch the match,” Adrian said.
Roman studied his brother’s face for a long second before giving a slow nod. “All right. We’ll talk about it later.”
Nate murmured his agreement, and Adrian shook his head.
“There’s nothing to talk about. We’ve wasted enough of our time on that…topic.”
We filed back into the living room and took up our original spots, like we were trying to slide ourselves back into the moment we’d lost. The crowd noise from the TV swelled, the announcer’s voice filled the uneasy quiet, and the kids resumed their chaos like nothing had happened.
But everything had shifted.
Roman’s jaw stayed too tight. Nate’s leg bounced when it hadn’t been before. Adrian’s focus was glued to the screen a little too intensely. And worry crawled under my skin. Not just for them, but for Ben, out there on that pitch, unaware a ghost had just knocked on his family’s door.
On the screen, he took another handoff, lowering his shoulder as he charged forward so strongly he was unstoppable.
If there was a storm coming, it wouldn’t touch him. Not today.
Today, Ben was flying.
And we were going to finish watching him win.