Chapter 12
Steve
I rose at five a.m., just as I had every morning for the last three decades.
But this morning, energy zipped through my limbs, boosting my energy through my short, six-mile run before I lifted some weights and showered, all while fantasizing about Jasmine’s mouth.
In the shower, I let my imagination run wild with her lips wrapped around my dick, her big eyes challenging me to give it to her good.
I wrapped my hand around my aching erection and jerked off.
Her tongue would swirl around me while she hollowed her cheeks. She’d palm my sac and…
I gasped, knees buckling as my release reverberated through my body, and I slammed my free hand against the slick tiles. I needed a minute to catch my breath…and clear my head.
“That was intense.”
And fast. Hell. I hadn’t come that quick or that hard since my early twenties. But Jasmine made me feel young—carefree. I liked the foreign feeling.
I finished my shower and dressed in a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt, then headed to Nash and Aya’s house.
They’d arrived home a couple of nights ago.
I’d avoided seeing them, but my desire for a life with Jasmine outweighed my fears—even those of telling my son I wanted a relationship with the woman he loved like a mother.
By falling for Jasmine Grace, I’d complicated our world. A lot. But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—change it. I’d loved Nash’s mother all those years ago. I loved Jasmine now. Hopefully, Nash could accept that.
I let myself in the back door with the key Nash had given me, surprised to find Nash and Levi at the kitchen table.
Nash had on a pair of pajama pants and a faded, nearly threadbare T-shirt that used to be green. I smiled as I realized that was the shirt Aya had given him before his first performance with Cam.
So much had happened since then, and the two of them were still each other’s pillars of strength.
Levi sat in his highchair, smearing yogurt around his tray and all over his adorable onesie covered in tiny brown bears. He squealed when he saw me, kicking those tiny feet and showing off his deep dimples. This boy was going to be as much of a heart throb as his father.
Nash glanced up at me with bloodshot eyes. Okay, so at this moment he wasn’t looking like cover-model perfect.
“Little dude’s teething, Aya thinks. About midnight, he decided sleep was for pus—er, wimps.”
Nash made it a point not to cuss in front of his son, so the slipup told me how tired he was.
“Well, Levi is not well-informed about this subject. The little dude hasn’t lived long enough to understand the joys of sleep.”
“Doesn’t seem to matter,” Nash muttered. “Aya insisted on getting up with him, but I couldn’t sleep knowing she was so exhausted.”
I hesitated, staring first at Nash, who needed some sleep himself, to my grandson, who shot me a gimlet eye as he raised his yogurt-covered hands and ran them through his hair.
Nash groaned, dropping his head between his arms on the table.
“Go back to bed,” I suggested. “I’ll take care of your little guy.”
Nash hesitated, but his bed was a stronger siren song than his son. At the moment. “You’re sure?”
I nodded, but my belly quivered. I loved Levi, and I was more than willing to hold and cuddle him, but I rarely watched him by myself. Each time I did, I wondered if I could keep the baby safe from the raging monster that lived inside me.
I could. And I would.
The situation with Jasmine had helped me to see that I was looking at my genetics, and my history, all wrong.
My father was an abusive sack of shit, but I wasn’t.
I wouldn’t become one now, and there was no way I’d ever hurt Levi.
Even if he tried to shove his baby finger in my eye while another made its way to my ear the moment I leaned forward to give him a kiss. I shifted back, chuckling.
“He’s getting sneakier. So watch out. And if you have a problem, come get me.” Nash rose and shuffled off, looking older than me as he made his way toward the stairs and his bedroom.
My guess was that Aya would be up soon; she wasn’t a late sleeper. But by the time I’d made coffee and gave Levi a bath, the house remained silent, and Levi was still much too alert to sleep, even after he pulled an all-nighter.
A few minutes later, perhaps because of the warm bath, Levi started rubbing his eyes and fussing.
I scrawled Nash and Aya a note, deciding to take Levi outside before his cries woke his parents, who clearly needed their rest. Once I strapped the kid to my chest in the baby-wearer thing that I’d disdained before, I tucked Levi’s bottle into the backpack Nash used as a diaper bag and headed down toward the creek that ran across the property.
The baby carrier was surprisingly comfortable for both Levi and me, even with the backpack straps also on my shoulders. Levi cooed and kicked his legs, wiggling his arms, as we made our way through the trees toward the creek.
Once there, I took off the pack and removed the kid, holding him like a football in the crook of my arm.
“You hungry? Want to try this bottle your mommy made?” I sat down and pulled out the bottle. Levi’s eyes fixated on it, his arms and legs moving even faster.
I popped the nipple in his mouth and he grunted as the milk flowed. He stared up at me, eyes wide and clear.
“You know, I never got to do this with your dad. Granted, I didn’t know he was mine. Not until he was just about my height and had lived through his own hell. Er…bad times.” I winced. The baby couldn’t talk, but that didn’t mean I should teach him curse words.
“Nash is a better man than me. Let’s hope you’re an even better one than he is.
” A bug tried to land on Levi’s forehead, and I shooed it off.
“I think you will be because you’re blessed with two strong parents.
Parents who love and respect each other.
” While I spoke, Levi’s eyes began to droop, and he sucked much slower.
I smiled.
“Sometimes you need a full belly to feel sleepy, huh? I remember not sleeping much when I was hungry. Those pangs seem so much worse at night.”
Levi’s eyes closed, his dark lashes settling against his plump cheeks. I waited, breath held, but his mouth slid slowly open and the nipple popped out. I chuckled softly.
“Yeah, I get it. You were tired but wired.” I set the bottle aside and rubbed my thumb between his tiny eyebrows, the spot Aya loved to kiss. “Sleep, Levi. You’re safe and you’re loved.”
“You ever wish you did that with me?” Nash asked.
I looked back over my shoulder and found him lounging against a nearby tree.
Though he still had purplish shadows under his eyes, he seemed more awake.
He’d slipped into jeans and his sneakers to go with his T-shirt.
He looked like a college boy, not a multi-platinum performer with a kid of his own.
“Yeah,” I said, voice catching. “The more I do with Levi, the more I wish I’d had that time with you.”
“Hmm.”
I started to rise, planning to offer Levi to Nash and take my leave. He lifted a hand and shook his head.
“You good with him?” Nash asked.
Tenderness filled my chest as I took in my grandson. “Yeah. I enjoy holding him.”
Nash smiled, his eyes soft as he looked at his son. “There’s something about a baby that mellows you.” He glanced up. “You know?”
“Yeah.” My voice was gruff thanks to the emotion clogging my throat. “I never knew that. Till now. I…” I exhaled through my nose, trying to keep my pulse calm. Taking in Levi’s angelic face, so innocent in slumber, helped. “I wish I’d had a better role model. Been a better role model to you.”
Nash settled on the ground next to me, his arms slung across his knees. “Can’t go back.”
“Nope. And I’m trying to let the regret go. I just want you to know that I love you, son.”
The left side of Nash’s mouth lifted in a partial smile. “Glad someone beside Aya does,” he quipped.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“Don’t get so defensive. I know. And that means a lot.”
I swallowed down my disappointment. Nash might never be ready to tell me he loved me. I had to accept that.
“Tell me about your parents,” Nash said.
“Why?”
“Because I want to know you,” he said.
I settled back a little, staring out into the gurgling water while I opened up to him. “I know you think I’m too closed off with you, with Aya…I hope not as much with your boy here.”
I swallowed the painful lump that formed in my throat. It was an amalgam of disgust, fear, and guilt that I struggled with whenever I thought about my mother’s beatings.
“You don’t have to—” Nash began.
I cut him off. “I do. You deserve to know.” I snuggled my grandson closer, his warm, small body a boon against the ugliness in the world.
“My favorite memory of my mother was when I was very young, Maybe four. I don’t know. We were at my grandmother’s—her mother’s house. They sang together, and it was so beautiful. It was for my birthday.” I smiled. “They made me a cake. Chocolate with caramel frosting.”
Nash made a startled noise. I’d never told him that before—that we shared a favorite cake. “My granny died not long after, I think. At least, I don’t have other memories of her.”
“That’s sad,” Nash said.
I bundled the sleeping baby closer. “Not as sad as the fact that almost every other memory of my mom is her bruised, crying…scared.”
I swallowed as sweat trickled down my back and from my armpits.
I’d been punched and kicked by my father; I’d survived firefights with tons of ammunition and close-action fighting.
Never had I needed more courage than now as I looked in my son’s eyes and said the words that made me an utter failure.
“So…you know father beat my mother and me. What you don’t know is that he killed her and nearly killed me. I didn’t—couldn’t—stop him.”
Nash leaned back so that his arms clasped around his knees were taut as he eyed me carefully. “I knew it was bad,” he murmured. “Tell me? About her, at least. Cuz I think I’ve always assumed she was like my mother.”