Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
R odney and Becky got up one other time in the middle of the night to feed the babies.
He knew that it would make more sense if one of them did the nightly feedings every other night so one of them got to sleep through the night.
But he liked getting up when it was dark and quiet and still, he liked murmuring with Becky and the cozy feeling of being the only two adults in the world, with their babies and them being in this dark cocoon together.
He loved holding her, and after they fed the babies again, they snuggled in the same way.
He knew he shouldn’t. This was where he got into trouble before. This was why he had a woman messaging his lawyer, demanding money.
Not that he was afraid Becky would do that.
He was afraid that he would step outside the bounds of what was right.
It was better to have guardrails up to keep himself from doing anything even remotely wrong in the first place.
One of those guardrails for him was he didn’t stay overnight in a woman’s house. Ever. For anything.
Except when he made a promise to her dying sister on her deathbed that he’d take care of the sister’s twin babies with the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about, couldn’t stop loving, no matter how hard he tried.
Yes. He was in a mess. And he couldn’t just leave. He had not explained to Becky why he couldn’t stay all night anymore.
He was awake at six o’clock with Kevin, who was fussing, and he managed to get out from underneath Becky without her waking up and then pick up Kevin and walk the floor with him a little bit.
By seven, he had a message from his lawyer.
Again, a message this early in the morning couldn’t be good news, so he shifted Kevin in the crook of one arm, settled him down a little bit, and opened the message.
The woman who is trying to extort money out of you by saying she has a child by you said that she would agree to your terms, but you had to meet with her.
I have the agreement her lawyer sent over, and I looked over it.
It says what she said it was going to, that you owe so much money, and as long as you pay that, she’ll give up all rights to the baby.
The only condition she has is that you meet with her first. If you agree to this, you can sign the agreement, send it back, and I will facilitate the meeting.
Wow.
Rodney took a deep breath; he wasn’t sure what to say. That was…maybe easier than what he thought it was going to be, but he felt bad. Why was she so easily giving up her rights to the child? Was his son going to be upset about that? How would he feel about not seeing his mom again?
There was no way he was going to know unless he met with Stella. So, it was a no-brainer.
Thankfully, he had to bring his printer from the office to print some other things off, so he had it set up on the counter.
He hit print before he realized that it might wake the girls up.
As it printed, Becky stirred.
He thought about canceling the print job, but it was almost done. It was a simple agreement, only two pages long, and by the time he got it back up on his phone to cancel it, it was done.
Kevin had fallen asleep in his arms, so he set the agreement on the counter and then walked back over to the car seat and set him inside.
“Good morning,” Becky said sleepily, smiling at him a little.
He couldn’t resist. She had pushed up, and the place where he’d been all night was empty, so he glided around the car seat and sat back down, putting his arm around her and pressing his lips to her forehead.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
He heard her breathy chuckle, and her hand came over and wrapped around his stomach.
His muscles clenched involuntarily and then relaxed. It felt good to have her touch on him. He wished she did it more.
“I could get used to snuggling with you all night,” Becky said softly.
“I could get used to it too,” he said simply. He wanted to tell her that it was up to her, because he was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that they were never separated again. He wanted marriage, which was what he always wanted with Becky..
“I’m sorry I was holding everything against you. I realized last night that I was basically expecting you to be perfect and was allowing one little mistake to stand between us.”
There wasn’t just one mistake. But she didn’t know that. “It was a five-year mistake.”
That is true, and she would agree.
“But it’s not really, you know? I’ve probably made mistakes that people overlook, and that made it so that I was able to get past them.
But they could have snowballed. Like, for example, when I ran away from that first foster care family.
If you hadn’t been willing to take me in, if you hadn’t helped me eat, it could have been a mistake that changed my life for the worst. I could have fallen in with the wrong kind of people, you know?
” She took a breath. “If you had been a different kind of person,” she said softly.
He assumed that she was saying that he could have taken advantage of her.
“You were pretty little those first few years, and I just thought you were a kid, but I noticed when you started to grow up. That was part of the reason I needed to leave.”
There had been so many years between them that it would have been dangerous for them to have been together. Illegal.
She stretched and yawned. “It’s pretty early for you to be doing business, especially considering that you told me that you weren’t going to be doing much business anymore. What’s on the counter?”
Her hand went around his waist again, and she snuggled her head into his shoulder, curling herself up against him, and he closed his eyes, wanting to growl in frustration.
Now? Now was when she was going to ask him?
He ran his hand down her hair and another one over her shoulder and down her arm, finding her fingers and threading them together.
“There’s one other thing that I’ve been hesitating telling you about, because I was afraid you would hate me even more than you already did.”
“I never hated you. And I can’t imagine that there’s anything you could tell me that would make me hate you.”
She might not hate him, but she would be really, really disappointed in him.
But she asked. And he told himself that when she asked, he was going to tell her. It seemed like now was the time.
“When everything imploded, I lost it all. I declared bankruptcy, I told you about it.”
“Yeah. I remember. It’s okay. No one would have thought less of you.
So you took a risk. So you lost. It’s like a quarterback taking a risk in throwing to the receiver with double coverage, who’s got a straight shot to the end zone, rather than the single covered receiver that has two defenders behind him. Both of them are risks, I suppose.”
“Wow. I didn’t know you knew so much about football.”
He was distracted for a moment, or maybe he just was putting off the inevitable.
“Rick made me watch a couple of times. He was mostly into trucks and motors and that type of thing, but he did spend some weekends in front of the TV set screaming at guys running around chasing a ball, and I figured I ought to try to understand it a little more than just rolling my eyes at grown men caring so much about where a ball was.”
He laughed. Leave it to Becky to talk about football like that.
He wanted to procrastinate, to change the subject, but he needed to face this. It was a relief in a way. “Anyway. I told you I lost my lease on my apartment because I couldn’t pay.”
“Yeah.” She said that easily, like it didn’t bother her at all.
Now, he wished he would have just told her. It would have kept this next part from happening. But what happened next was part of his past. And it would always be that way.
His stomach knotted, and he felt his hands sweating, although he didn’t let go of her fingers. He didn’t tighten his grip though. Because he figured she would be pulling away shortly.
“I told you I stayed with a friend.”
“Yeah.”
“That friend was a girl.”
He could feel the change in her. Feel that she kind of had an idea now. Feel her pull in, just a bit. He continued before she could say anything.
“That girl, Stella was her name. She had a one-bedroom apartment. She told me I could sleep on the couch. I was grateful to not be on the street, because that’s where I thought I was going to be.
Anyway, there were men who moved in and out.
She hooked up pretty often, I guess is what you call it.
And I was on the couch. One weekend, she didn’t have anyone to hook up with, and she… hooked up with me.”
That was a disgusting way to say it, but it was the truth.
Becky had gone completely still, and even though her hand still lay in his, it almost grew colder as he held it.
“You gonna say anything?” he asked.
“I’m waiting for the rest of the story. Is there more?” she asked, and her voice was small, and it sounded like it hurt. Like there was pain that was coming from her bones and oozing out her voice.
“I guess there were two other times where she didn’t have a date, if that’s what you call it, and she turned to me.
I…had zero experience, and I couldn’t have been a good hookup in hindsight.
But I went along with it. I guess I just felt bad about myself, whatever.
There’s no excuse for it. By the third time, I knew it was going to continue unless I did something.
That’s when I found that apartment that I told you about.
The cheapest thing I could find, in the worst and most dangerous section of Chicago.
Anything to get out of there. That’s what I did.
I didn’t have much, just three suits and some T-shirts and jeans.
I took them with me and moved out. And I thought that was it. ”