Brother to Brother: The Sacred Brotherhood Book I (7 page)

“You didn’t come here pregnant did you?” he demanded.

“What? No!” I cried.

“Good, I don’t mind takin’ care of Grind’s kid, but I ain’t springin’ for any other man’s child.”

I felt tears begin to mist my eyes and stood, “I’m just self-conscious is all, I’ll be right back; I’m going to grab my robe…”

“Sit
down
, Mel. Eat something. You ain’t got nothin’ to worry about; leastways not from me.”

Perfect, just epically perfect,
I thought and felt even worse when a tear snuck free. Noah’s little gaze was on me, his small face solemn.

“Mamma sad,” he said and I wiped at the tear before Archer turned around to look.

“Mamma’s fine, Baby,” I told Noah, “Eat your dinner.”

“Take your own advice, woman,” Archer said.

“Just not very hungry I guess,” I muttered but put some food on my plate anyways. I nibbled at it and spent more time pushing it around than actually eating it.

“That’s too bad, it’s good stuff,” he said chewing a bite of his own. He’d relinquished the spoon to Noah and was watching him eat like a hawk. I realized he was afraid Noah might choke, which was something I feared too, and watched my son with the same careful eye as a result.

“Thanks,” I murmured and that was pretty much it in the way of conversation.

I was clearing the table when Noah called “Momma! I stinky butt.”

Archer heaved himself off the couch and went for Noah at the same time I tried to round the table to go to him.

“Go on, I got it. Changing diapers is a hard one to forget, it’s like riding a bicycle…” he said and I nodded carefully.

“Uncle Archer’s gonna take care of your stinky butt, okay?” I asked Noah.

Noah looked at Archer with trepidation, but he was already laying Noah on the floor, pulling apart the snaps on the legs of his romper. I watched carefully while Noah fussed and cried a little while Archer wiped his bum.

“Does he have a rash again?” I asked.

“Looks like a little bit of one is starting,” he called back over his shoulder.

“The cream for it is in the pocket of the diaper bag there,” I pointed and Archer dug through a pocket. “Next one over,” I directed.

“Prescription shit?” he asked.

“Doctors seem to think he has some kind of allergy to his own poop or pee, he gets it
really
bad sometimes, so they prescribed that. Am I almost out?”

“Naw, you got a ways to go.”

“Okay,” I closed my eyes and counted backwards from ten until the feeling of anxiety abated. I had no insurance, I had no way to refill the prescription without them finding out where we were… I didn’t want to have to go to a doctor, not yet.
Damn it, why hadn’t I thought to grab the extra tubes?
Because I’d been in a hurry, that’s why.

“Hey, you okay?”

I opened my eyes to realize Archer was asking me, not Noah.

“I’m fine. Just not sleeping well, new place I think.” I looked at my cheap watch but Archer was already ahead of me.

“Okay, Little Man,” he said, lifting Noah to his little feet, “All done, but if I’m not mistaken, it’s bedtime for you.”

He took Noah over to his crib and my little guy
was
tired. He went into it with a minimum of fuss and was out inside ten minutes while Archer channel surfed for a few and I finished wiping down the kitchen. After a little while he switched off the TV and stretched.

“I’m going to work, lock up after me and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay, what do you want for breakfast?”

“The kid likes pancakes,” he said and I nodded, “Then pancakes, if you’ve got the stuff for it.”

I hazarded a smile and said, “I bought mix, but forgot the maple syrup, so is butter and jam okay?”

“I’ll get some, we got some twenty-four hour places around here that’ll have it.”

“Far cry from where we come from, where the sidewalks roll up at eight.”

He grunted in agreement, “You ain’t lyin’, now get over here and do as I say, lock the door behind me.”

“Of course,” I said and he went out. I dutifully shot the deadbolt and twisted the little tab in the doorknob, too.

I went in to lay down, listening to the rap music thump and bump up through the floor. A car pulled up outside and was equally as loud. Laughter, shouting, a glass bottle breaking somewhere out in the parking lot… After an hour and a half of trying to sleep, I got up and peeked out the front blinds.

There was a glossy black, fancy new Dodge Charger with ridiculous looking rims on it down there, parked in the middle of the lot behind a bunch of other cars, all four doors open and the system pounding out into the night. I went back into the bedroom and hoped it would end soon, but I think I was just so tired that eventually it didn’t matter. I fell asleep, albeit a fitful one. I must have been woken a half a dozen times during the night. Once by a man shouting down to the Charger from right outside the living room window – which woke Noah up causing him to fuss.

I got him back down, and tried to go back to sleep, but I heard Archer come home when his second job was through.

“Hey, Little Man, what you doing up, huh?” I heard him say to my son, but I really wanted Noah to go back to sleep, so I stayed put. Maybe it was really because I was upset… I was
so tired
. I was so tired I couldn’t sleep, so tired my eyes watered, the moisture slicking down my temples as I lay on my back in the dark. It was incredibly frustrating, but what could I do about it?

I think I fell into a light slumber, but it was shattered by my phone going off, the alarm I’d set so I could fix Archer breakfast before work, shattering the exhausted moments of calm I’d found. I got up, slipping into my flowered kimono-type robe, a deep blue with bright bursts of pink peonies on it. It’d been a gift from Grinder once upon a time… I felt a deep stab of loss borne of a longing to see or have something you would never have again but I stuffed it ruthlessly down.

I had a child to take care of. A son who was everything to me, and who I wouldn’t trade for the moon
and
the stars, let alone the world. I couldn’t dwell on what could and would never be. I just couldn’t.

I stopped in the doorway to the bedroom and let myself fall into the doorjamb, my shoulder propped against the poorly painted wood as my eyes fell on my boy. He was sprawled over Archer’s chest, his little cheek pressed against Archer’s worn, light blue tee, his little thumb in his mouth. Archer’s lashes formed crescents against his much lighter skin, the last year or so out of the Arizona heat greatly diminishing his once golden-bronze tan. He had one hand on Noah’s butt so my child wouldn’t slip but both of them were fast asleep. I couldn’t help but indulge myself in the moment for a little while.

This is what I had wanted, so badly, for my son. For him to have a father, a man to look up to and who would look out for him. I thought that Grinder would have come around. I thought that his father would be that man eventually, but Grinder hadn’t come home and when things got so bad, and I’d gone to find him… I felt my eyes mist, but not from loss this time.

I could put up with Archer’s cold, his hatred of me, his caustic dislike… I could put up with being single and alone for the rest of my days, as long as he treated my son like he was now. I could do this. I could do this for as long as it took, for the rest of my life, as long as Noah had men to look up to. As long as my son had every idea of what brotherhood and family was
supposed to be
.

For the first time since arriving here, in this strange town, so very far away from anything and anyone I’d ever known, I knew no fear and had no regrets. I stood in the doorway of Archer’s bedroom and drank every detail of this morning in. The light growing, and casting lines across the man and my boy through the slats of the blinds.

You can do this Melody. You have to… for him.
I thought, and as I ever did, took strength from it, I took a picture, and I did what every mother before me had likely done… I went into the kitchen, forgot my tired, made coffee, and started breakfast like it was just any other day and I hadn’t just seen something that profoundly changed me, or mattered to me.

Chapter 10

Archer

I woke up with the boy on my chest and to the quiet sounds of Mel moving through the kitchen. My stomach growled and I looked down, but the boy was still out cold. Kids. They could sleep through a nuclear holocaust and this particular kid was no different.

I sat up slowly, carefully, and got up, taking Noah to his crib and laying him down. He didn’t so much as stir. Might as well have been comatose. When I turned to look, Mel was watching me over the stove, spatula in hand. I raised an eyebrow at her somber, almost sad, expression and realized – she looked like shit. Like she hadn’t slept in a fucking age. I didn’t comment on that, I just waited her out because it looked like she had something to say.

“You can treat me however you’d like,” she said softly, flipping the pancake she had going in the skillet. “As long as you don’t do it in front of him and as long as you treat him the way you just did, always… Am I clear?”

I frowned, “Where the fuck did that come from?” I asked.

She shook her head, “Never mind that, I just need to know, am I perfectly clear on this?”

Truth be told, her intensity was kind of freaking me out, so I nodded and when she raised her eyebrows I realized she wanted to hear it, or maybe
needed
to hear me say it out loud… “Yeah, Mel. You’re clear, I get you…”

“Thank you,” she uttered and flipped the pancakes she had going in the skillet onto a plate after a few heartbeats more.

I just wanted to get off this super fucking weird bent she was on, it was seriously creepy as fuck, so I asked, “Is there coffee?”

“Absolutely, still take it with cream and no sugar?” she asked and again I blinked. I hadn’t realized that she’d ever paid that much attention to anything that weren’t my brother Grinder’s dick.

“Yeah.”

She made me coffee, she served my food and I was glad I’d remembered the syrup. Of course, when I said I would do something I did it. I was a man of my word. Maybe that was why she’d been so adamant about whatever the fuck it was that put a wild hair up her ass the minute before.

“Wanna tell me what that was all about?” I asked, shoveling some pancake drowned in syrup in my mouth. My curiosity winning out more than my desire to let it lie.

“No,” she murmured.

“Suit yourself,” I said with a shrug. I let it go, I didn’t want to pursue it that fuckin’ bad. Females, who the fuck knew why they did half the shit they did?

I ate, and she watched me, sitting at the opposite end of the table from me, her hands wrapped around a fresh, steaming mug of coffee, huddled in on herself like she was cold or something. She had on this thin cotton bathrobe with the wide sleeves, like something outta China or something. It looked good on her. Suited her color, or whatever, but I’d be fucked if I’d tell her so. I didn’t need her going back to primping and fucking with makeup in a mirror forever like she had when she’d been nailing my brother. I needed her to take care of her boy, and maybe get a job if that’s what she wanted.

“Get any of them applications in?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said with a worried frown.

“What’s that look for?”

“With as much as you work, I don’t know how I’m going to…”

“What do you mean?” she gave me an exasperated look and it pissed me off some so I told her, “Quit lookin’ at me like I’m stupid or some shit and spit it out.”

“Who’s going to watch Noah?” I asked.

“Mm, I’ll figure it out.” She stared at me wide eyed, her mouth very nearly hanging open. “What?” I demanded.

“Nothing, I… I just…” I pinned her with a look, what, didn’t she fuckin’ trust me? Jesus Christ, I took her and the kid’s ass in, didn’t that earn me a little bit of trust? She was saved from answering me, and I was stopped from saying anything else because right then was when the boy chose to stir, pushing himself into a sit and rubbing his eyes.

“Good morning!” Melody said, and her worried expression was just gone – poof, just like that; like it hadn’t been carved into every line of her face just a second before.

“I gotta get to work,” I grumbled, and took my ass into the bedroom. I grabbed like a five minute shower, a cold one to wake up that really had absolutely nothing to do with Mel and that little robe of hers. I redressed quick in a fresh shirt, fresh pair of boxers and the same pair of jeans from the day before. I grabbed a fresh pair of socks and sat on the end of the bed to put them on.

Mel was talking to Noah and I watched her for a minute as she interacted with her boy. She was different than the girl we’d all left behind in Arizona. More mature, more grown up.
I think the word you’re looking for is
responsible
, you dick.
I thought to myself and it sounded suspiciously like Grinder’s voice in my head.

I knew it was all me, though. I didn’t believe in ghosts or any kind of afterlife. You died and that was it. It was like turning off a television set. The picture went out, the screen went dark and that was that. I also believed that you only got this one life. That there weren’t any do overs. There weren’t no such thing as heaven and if there was a hell? Well we very surely was livin’ in it.

“You okay?” Mel asked and I snapped out of it, shaking my head a bit, to clear it.

Blinking a few times, I answered her, “Yeah, just deep thinkin’ I guess.”

“You’re going to be late,” she murmured.

“Don’t nag me, woman,” I said and I meant it in jest but all it did was make her blanch.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way… I’ll keep my mouth shut,” she uttered and I frowned.

“Yeah, okay.” I got up and went over to the couch pulling my boots on. “See you, same bat time, same bat channel, you be good for your mom, Kiddo,” I told Noah.

“Unca Atcha, bye-bye,” Noah said and opened and closed his little hand in a wave. I felt myself smile in spite of myself and waved back at him.

“See you later, Squirt,” and with that, I opened up the front door. “Lock up after me,” I ordered Mel and she nodded, rising gracefully from her seat in that way that only women could.