Chapter 13
Thirteen
Briar
My talk with Frankie doesn’t go well.
My little girl is sad and hopeful and scared and mad…and I’m right there with her. My emotions are at an all-time high, and then add in the lovely guilt I’m carrying around about West and—
Fun. Fun.
Anyway, I debated keeping Frankie home from school today, both of us playing hooky and basically keeping her captive until she let go of her stubbornness and talked to me.
But I wasn’t joking with Colt earlier.
She gets that recalcitrant streak from me.
And battering against it doesn’t work.
Heaven help me when she’s a teenager. I’m going to have my hands full as a single—
I still, my hands clutched tight on the steering wheel, and drop my forehead to the leather circle.
Thank God, I was late dropping Frankie off and my car is the only one in the preschool’s lot.
No one to see me have my existential crisis.
Because I’m not a single mom any longer.
Because Colt is back.
Because Frankie knows the truth of him being her dad and that secret I carried for nearly five years is coming out.
I groan, eyes stinging.
I want to sit here, to sit in my misery, to keep beating myself up.
If I’d told them earlier then I wouldn’t be worrying about protecting Colt from my four brothers wanting to murder him for daring to touch their little sister, for daring to do a lot more than just touch.
They are going to flip out.
I know it’s going to be like the scene in my kitchen, that it might even be worse than that.
And I know I’m out of time, that the truth is out of my control, that me wanting to think and think and think about the best way to approach this, about all the possible outcomes, both negative and positive, isn’t going to be possible.
I need action.
I need words.
I need a goddamned plan.
And I need it fast.
So, I only have one choice.
I need to call a meeting of the Gamebreaker Girls—maybe someday I won’t be in a panic and will be able to come up with something cute and pithy that can rival the guys and their Gamebreakers monikers, but I’m functioning on too little sleep and too many emotions and the existential dread that my brothers are going to kill the man I love—
Loved.
“Fuck,” I whisper, guilt surging to the top of those swirling emotions.
Because I need to talk to West.
I need to sort out my head.
And my heart.
God, do I ever.
So, I do the only thing I can—I stay in that parking lot but lift my head from the steering wheel so I can send a text…and then a bunch more.
And the next thing I know, I’m driving to Banks and Aspen’s house.
And the girls are all going to meet me there.
Thirty minutes later, I’m holding Maisie in my arms, not above soothing myself with the adorable nugget that’s my niece.
Especially since four women I love and respect are staring at me.
Waiting for me to spill my guts.
And I don’t know where to start.
Maisie burrows into the crook of my elbow and my eyes start to burn.
Frankie used to be this little.
And Colt missed it—missed all of it.
“Briar, honey,” Willow says gently, breaking the silence. “You wanted to talk?”
I nod, smoothing my fingers through the peach fuzz on the top of Maisie’s head. “I do,” I agree softly. “I need to. I just…I don’t know where to start.”
“Does it have to do with Colt?” Aspen asks, her tone pitched toward careful.
Extremely careful.
As though, one wrong word is going to set me off.
I frown, start to open my mouth, but Lily beats me to the punch.
“You think?” she says dryly.
“He did reappear from the dead,” Jade says, clearly lightening the mood.
But Lily—as usual—is not to be swayed. “Do you all not have eyes? Of course, this has to do with Colt.”
A furrow appears between Jade’s brows. “What do you mean?”
“The eyes, the hair, those lashes.” She pushes up out of the armchair she occupied and comes over, stealing Maisie from my arms, the stink, and she doesn’t miss a beat when she does on, “The anchovies on the freaking pizza?”
Jade’s eyes go wide.
Willow nibbles at the corner of her mouth. “Are you saying—?”
“That our little Thorny and big, bad Colt did the nasty and that nasty resulted in our adorable but extremely beautiful and smart, like her mama, and fierce and brave, clearly like her daddy?” She pauses, gently swaying back and forth in that instinctively motherly way that many women seem to adopt around babies—and God, when she and Atlas get around to having kids, she’s going to be a natural.
“Yeah, sweetie, that’s exactly what I’m saying. ”
Willow’s eyes are wide, and they drift to mine.
Jade looks surprised but also not as surprised as I would have thought—like somewhere in the back of her mind, she expected this.
Aspen…well, I can’t get a read on her.
At least until she says, “Well, one good thing is that Banks and I already kind of knew, months ago, but we figured that was your business to share so we didn’t say anything or push.”
“What?” we all say in unison.
“Briar, honey,” she says, gently tugging Maisie out of Lily’s arms and cuddling her baby close. “We knew you had your reasons for not sharing, and while Banks wasn’t thrilled when we put the pieces together, he also understood. He always said you two had something special.”
“And you held out on sharing that piece of juicy gossip with the rest of us?” Lily accuses.
“Lily,” Willow begins.
“Seriously!” Jade chimes in. “I agree with Lily! This is something we should have known.”
“No,” Aspens says firmly. “We shouldn’t have. It was Briar’s business and right now she’s asking for our help.”
Lily scowls.
And Jade is right there with her.
Willow seems halfway between concern and scowl, something that would have normally amused me.
If I wasn’t worried about my brothers murdering the father of my child.
“Right,” Aspen says, sinking down onto the couch but letting Jade commandeer Maisie. “The first thing I’ll do is let Banks know that we all know, so that’s one less that you have to worry about.”
“Frankie’s upset,” I whisper. “And Dash and Atlas couldn’t even look at him.”
Lily sighs. “You know Atlas will come around, sweetheart.”
“I hope so.”
“And Frankie’s bound to be upset,” Jade says.
“But she also has her mama’s big heart, so we know it won’t be long before she comes around.
Give her time, maybe talk to a therapist—I’m sure Royal’s can give us a recommendation as a starting point.
And we’ll all be patient and encouraging without putting too much pressure on her. ”
I nod because I know she’s right.
It’s just…
“What if they hate me?” I blurt. “I mean, me having been with Colt.”
“What does that mean?” Willow asks, her tone far fiercer than I’ve ever heard it.
“I was a nerd in high school, glasses and frumpy clothes and thirty extra pounds. I didn’t have a boyfriend, didn’t go on a date until college.
I didn’t even kiss anyone—not until I got laser eye surgery and tamed my hair and lost the baby fat.
Not because I didn’t want to, but because no one gave me the time of day to have that. ”
“Honey,” Willow says, taking my hand.
“And Colt,” I whisper. “He was their beautiful, gorgeous friend and he treated me the same before and after I made the transformation from ugly duckling to a woman finally comfortable in my own skin. We always joked and bantered and talked about everything and nothing and all the stuff in between. He always saw me”—I thump a hand against my chest—“and then finally, finally for two days and one night, I had him, had the fantasy of him, of us, had the plans we made for a future together. And then…I lost him.”
Willow’s eyes are glassy. “You lost someone you loved, but you also lost your dream.”
I nod.
“They won’t hate that you had that, sweetheart,” Jade says. “Because that’s the most beautiful and saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Willow brushes a tear away and nods in agreement.
“I think we could write a few platinum songs and an Oscar-winning film to boot with all of that angst,” Lily says dryly.
“Lily!” Jade snaps.
She shrugs. “You know I’m not wrong—hell, you’re already probably writing the lyrics in your head as we speak.”
The slight flush on Jade’s cheeks tells me that, indeed, Lily isn’t wrong.
“It’s okay, you guys,” I say, bravely soldiering on. Because I’ve had too many years of doing just that to stop now.
And anyway, the truth is out.
They know where my head was back then—and is now.
“But we still need to find a way to tell the rest of the guys without it ending in a brawl. Colt is still recovering, and he doesn’t need to land back in the hospital.”
“Unfortunately,” Lily says. “I do think that Atlas is angry enough to throw a punch.” A beat. “Or ten.”
“I’ve never seen Hudson as mad as he was last night,” Willow groans.
“Royal took the news okay,” Jade says. “But he’s so protective of you and Frankie. Hearing that Colt…” She trails off and nibbles at the corner of her mouth.
“It’s going to be fine,” Aspen says.
And I’m not the only one whose mouth drops open as our gazes go to hers.
“I have a plan,” she tells us. “We have a new bourbon rep coming to the Sapphire Room. Banks and I will tell the guys they need to come in for a tasting since I can’t while I’m breastfeeding—”
“Didn’t you just get drunk off your ass like a few days ago?” Lily asks.
Aspen smirks. “All I have to do is mention my breasts and some female bodily function and Royal and Dash will forget all about that.”
“And Atlas?” Jade asks, and for the record, she doesn’t argue Aspen’s point.
I don’t either.
Because my brother may be tough, but female stuff scares the shit out of him.
“You think I’ll ask Atlas for help and he’ll turn me down?” she says. “Especially with Banks out of town with the Vipers?”
Lily glances over at me. “Oh, she’s good.”
I nod.
Because Lily’s right.
The only problem…
Now I’ll have to tell my brothers the truth.