51. Lex
Chapter fifty-one
I’m smiling like a dork, and I don’t care. Caleb and I are chopping vegetables for dinner while he tells me all the reasons why he’ll never offer to take Tiny for a walk again.
Namely, because Gage’s sixty-eight-kilo Great Dane was the one who took Caleb for a walk. For a good forty metres. Through the mud.
“If we ever get a dog, Siren, it needs to be small.”
“You’d want a dog?” I ask while I sprinkle the chopped capsicum over our pizzas.
“I can see us with a dog,” he says, the words casual, yet confident, as if it’s something he’s already thought about in depth.
Imagining our future. My stomach is a mess of bubbles, and I feel like I could float.
They’re filling and popping to the point where they can’t be contained, and the only way out is through fits of giggles.
“I think a dog would need a yard, though,” I say, looking around Caleb’s penthouse before I reach for the tin of pineapple pieces. I walk over to the sink to drain out the juice and then rejoin Caleb at the bench.
“Are you having pineapple on yours?” I ask while sprinkling almost half the tin onto my pizza base.
“What else would you want?” Caleb asks.
My brows drop. “I’ll have a little of the mushroom, please. ”
“No,” he chuckles. “In a house. A yard for a dog, but what else?” A hesitant curiosity hovers in his question.
When I meet his eyes, the things unsaid are written all over his face.
He asks because he wants to make these things happen.
Anything I could possibly want, he wants to give me.
But all I’ve ever wanted, all that’s really mattered to me in life, is family. Feeling that sense of belonging.
So that’s what I tell him.
“As long as you’re there, I don’t mind.”
A boyish grin erupts on his face, and he leans over to kiss me.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I’d love a big outdoor area like what my grandparents have. I love family dinners, so I’d want space to keep doing those sorts of things.”
Of all the things a billionaire could want in the world, it’s sharing time with his loved ones. I literally couldn’t wish up anything better myself.
“I love that. A big backyard for a dog and our families.” I smile.
“How many bedrooms do you think we’d need?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Most houses have like three or four, right?” I drop a few mushroom slices on my pizza and then sprinkle on the cheese so it’s ready for the oven.
“Would you want to fill all those?”
My skin prickles as his question sinks in. “You mean with children?”
“Yes.”
I dust my hands off over the chopping board, then spin around to face him. “I’ve never really thought about children. It felt so far away compared to the things life was throwing at me in the present.”
I can tell it wasn’t exactly the answer he was hoping for.
It’s not that I don’t want children, I just didn’t expect the reality of discussing them with a partner would happen so soon.
Not in a relationship, but in life. When my dad died, life was about surviving and looking after my grandmother.
Then it was studying and supporting my brother in his aspirations and making his dreams my own.
Relationships were the last thing on my mind, especially when my own mother’s abandonment caused me such self-doubt.
“I would like them, though. With you.”
“Me too.” He smiles, and the way his cheeks pink with the sincerity of his answer is quite possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
“I wouldn’t mind being married first.”
“Not a problem,” he says quickly, his usual confidence back in full swing.
We pop the pizzas in the oven to cook, and Caleb tops up my wine glass while we wait.
Kisses are trailed up my neck, and each little one feels like a silent thank you.
He’s always so generous with his affection, and it’s the exact kind of love that I need.
To be reassured that he’s in this with me.
I wish I could give him that feeling back.
I hope that I love him hard enough that he knows what he means to me.
My phone rings on the counter. I try to pull out of Caleb’s arms, but he pins me down for a moment, nuzzling my neck harder before letting me go.
I smile when I see my brother’s picture on the screen.
“Hey, Dyl.”
A fractured breath echoes through the line, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. “Dylan?”
“Lex.” He sounds so exhausted, lost even. “Shit.”
“You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” With those words, Caleb rushes back to my side, his face hovering in front of mine, looking for any pain he can erase.
I pull the phone away and put it on speaker so Caleb can hear.
“I don’t even know how to say it,” Dylan breathes .
I turn my face to Caleb, and mouth, what the fuck? He brings a hand to my back, rubbing up and down, allowing me to lean into his side and absorb his reassuring affection.
“I’m gonna be a dad.” His voice breaks on the last word, and my mind splinters, trying to piece together the meaning.
“What?”
“There was this girl a few months back, we hooked up, but she was just a tourist passing through.”
“I think we can skip that part, Dylan.”
He blows out a breath. Maybe he needs to say the whole story out loud to himself so he can understand how he got here as well.
“She came back into the tavern tonight. She’s pregnant.”
Caleb waves his hand in front of my face to grab my attention, then points at himself, I guess asking if it’s okay for him to be listening in. He points down at my phone and then to himself again, and I realise he wants to say something, so I nod my head.
“Dylan, it’s Caleb.”
“Oh. Hey, man.” There’s a slight sigh of relief in his response.
“Hey. I have a little experience with being handed this news, so maybe I can help. First things first, you need to ask for a paternity test.”
“She already offered that. She’s certain it’s mine, but she understood I’d probably want to be sure.”
“That’s great. Take her up on that. What else did she have to say, anything about her expectations?”
“She’s not from Australia. She’s travelling from Baltimore on a twelve-month visa.”
“Okay, I’m going to have my friend Anna contact you first thing in the morning. She’s a lawyer.”
The line goes silent before Dylan speaks in a hushed tone. “She’s staying in my guest room.”
“Do you get the sense that she’s got a different angle other than letting you know you’re both expecting? ”
“I don’t think so. She just seems surprised. A little jumpy.”
“Okay, keep things friendly, but don’t overpromise until we get the paternity test results. I’m going to try to call Anna now.”
“Thanks, man.”
My eyes well at the gesture. The way Caleb stepped right in for my brother to offer his help. He starts to step away, his phone in his hand, but I pull him back and quietly press a kiss to his lips in thanks.
He winks at me, then leaves the room.
“It’ll work out fine, Dylan. Don’t worry.”
“Yeah.” With everything that’s happened with Gage over the last few weeks, and now this, I’m missing my brother more than ever.
I’ve also been feeling unsure about moving back to Killara Bay full-time.
I could manage doing all the admin from the city and then go down for a few days every fortnight.
Dylan’s managed the tavern on his own since he was twenty, and we were always going to hire more people once the distillery expanded.
But now I might be an aunt, what about my niece or nephew?
I want to be there for my brother. I need to be.
How the hell do I do that when I’m two hours away from him?
“Okay, Anna will give Dylan a call first thing tomorrow. I’m sending her his number now,” Caleb says as he walks back into the room, typing on his phone.
“Did you hear that, Dyl? A woman named Anna will call you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he sighs. “Shit, I gotta go. I’ll call you later,” he whispers before the line goes dead.
I wrap my arms around Caleb’s middle, resting my head on his chest. I hum as I drag in his honey and citrus cologne. “Honey.”
He kisses the top of my head. “I love when you call me that.”
“Did you know, in the story of Odysseus and the sirens, he instructed his sailors to stuff their ears with beeswax so they might resist the song of the siren. ”
“I didn’t know that,” he says softly.
I prop my chin up against his chest, smiling as I stare into his green eyes. “Maybe we were a siren and a sailor in another life.”
His hand comes up to glide his fingers through my hair, then he cups my cheek. With his thumb brushing over my lip, he whispers, “Will you find me again in the next one?”