Change of Heart (9 page)

“What? Why didn't he ask me?” Bram bitched, his fingers pausing on my back.

“I don't know—maybe because you're a dick and he doesn't want you running off his conquests?” I laughed and pulled Bram's hair lightly.

“I'm not a dick.”

“You're
such
a dick.” I laughed again.

“So he's gonna be bringing chicks here? That makes a lot of sense,” he grumbled.

“Aw. Are your little feewings hurt?” I teased, leaning up so our faces were close together. “Are you sad your best fwiend didn't ask to stay with you?”

“I think my balls just shriveled up into my stomach when you started talking,” he replied, grimacing.

“And no—he won't be bringing anyone here. He can fuck them at their houses,” I said with a scowl. “I don't want that nasty at my house.”

“He does realize that you have no fucking furniture, right?”

“Looks like we need to do the floors tomorrow so I can get a couch,” I mused.

“Shit,” Bram said under his breath. “I'll rent a sander tomorrow after work.”

“I'll go with you. I need to buy the finish stuff anyway,” I said, pulling away so I could climb off the bed.

I went to the kitchen and made some sandwiches, bringing them back into the room with a couple of sodas.

“Dinner is served,” I announced, meeting Bram's eyes as he leaned back against my headboard.

“Stop,” he blurted, his gaze roaming up and down my nakedness. “I think I'm having an out-of-body experience.”

“Shut up.”

“You're bringing me sandwiches. Naked. You might be the perfect woman.”

“These sandwiches are mine, fuckface. Feed yourself,” I replied as I climbed onto the bed.

“And the fantasy is gone,” he replied sadly, then grunted as one of the sodas hit him in the stomach.

“I
am
the fantasy,” I said as I got comfortable across from him, setting the plate full of sandwiches on the bed between us. “I'm bendy like an acrobat, cook like Julia fucking Child, and can do most home improvement shit myself. I'm the whole goddamn package.”

“Yeah,” Bram mumbled, grabbing a sandwich while he eyed me. “But you also know how to load and shoot a gun—that works against you.”

I snorted and grabbed a sandwich for myself. “What do you think the kids would say if they saw us together like this?” I asked, biting into my sandwich.

“Katie would scream and dance around the room. Shane would walk away without saying anything. Henry would stare at your tits. Trevor would close his eyes and start trying to discuss the situation, and Alex would fucking high-five me,” Bram said with no hesitation.

My mouth dropped open at his very accurate assessment. He was totally right. Katie would be excited as hell. Shane wouldn't want anything to do with the mess. Levelheaded Trev would try to make sense of what he was seeing. Henry wouldn't care except that he'd get to see me naked, and Alex would be stoked as hell that his two best friends were together.

“So you don't think Shane would want a good look first?” I asked after a minute.

“Of course he would,” Bram said mockingly while shaking his head.

“He should be so lucky.”

“Amen,” Bram said, giving me a small smile. “So I'm thinking we'll get the sander and shit tomorrow—then we can take Tuesday off and get the floors done.”

“I can't take any more time off,” I answered, shaking my head. “I just took a whole week, not that long ago.”

“I've got shit on Monday, but Tuesday's pretty clear. You're fine. It's one day.”

“I can't, Bram,” I argued.

“Yeah you can.”

“No, really.”

“No, really, you can. I'll tell Trev and the dads not to let you into the office on Tuesday.”

“I'll junk-punch you.”

“No you won't. You need me to help you with the floors.”

Y
ou're such a fucking pain in my ass,” I barked, stomping toward where Anita was standing in front of the Harris and Evans Logging office Tuesday morning.

“They locked me out!” she shouted incredulously, pointing at the office door.

“I told you I'd meet you at your house.”

“I told you I wasn't taking a day off work!” she screeched back.

“Looks like you don't have a choice.”

“This is ridiculous,” she bitched, shaking her head as she moved toward me. “Who forces their employee to take a day off?”

“You're also family,” I reminded her, throwing an arm over her shoulder and steering her to my truck. “Come on, you can ride with me, and we'll get your car later.”

I glanced up as she was climbing in the passenger seat, and noticed my dad at the glass front door, his arms crossed over his chest and a shit-eating grin on his face.
Crap.
I narrowed my eyes at him and watched him laugh as I closed the door behind her.

“Thanks for doing this,” Ani finally said after almost fifteen minutes of silence.

“No problem. Today would have been a slow day for me anyway.”

“Exactly,” she murmured as we came to a stop in front of her little house. “You could have had a slow day.”

“You need the floor done, right?” I asked, turning off the truck but staying inside the cab.

“Yeah, but—”

“Well, let's get it done then.”

Ani's eyes met mine, and her lips pulled into a shy smile. “You're good to me,” she said softly. “When the hell did that happen?”

Her words made me squirm. Did she think we were in a relationship? It was sex. Fucking great sex, but nothing more than that. We didn't have a relationship; I didn't do relationships. The thought of anything long-term made my skin crawl.

“When you started letting me fuck you,” I said with a nervous laugh.

I pretended I didn't see her smile fall as I climbed out of the truck.

We didn't talk much as I sanded the floor—the machine was too loud for that—but Ani stayed pretty close while I worked, using the smaller sander on the edges and corners of the room. By the time we were done, the room was covered in a fine layer of dust, and we were both sweaty as hell.

“You have the rags?” I asked as I came back in from dragging the sanders to my truck.

“Yep.” She tossed me a rag and went to work, wiping down the walls and windows with her own blue rag.

The silence between us was uncomfortable as I dropped to my knees and started wiping down the floor. I wasn't sure what to say to get things back to the easy way they'd been before. Should I apologize? Somehow I thought that would make it worse.

It was a relief when Ani's phone started ringing in her pocket. I didn't even know her phone could ring—usually when it went off, it was someone's voice telling her to pick up the phone.

“Hello?” she answered behind me. She didn't say something for a long time after that, so I turned to check if she was still there.

Her head was bowed as she held the phone to her ear, but after a moment, she looked up, and her face was completely void of color. For a second, I thought she was going to tip over.

I got to my feet quickly, but before I could go to her, she started shaking her head and lifted one finger to ask me for a minute. When I nodded, she left the room.

I dropped back down to my knees and started wiping down the floor again. I had to make sure that all the dust was completely gone before we could put the finish on, or the entire floor would look like shit and we'd have to start over. My arms still felt numb from pushing that vibrating machine around the room, and I sure as fuck wasn't planning on doing that again anytime in the near future…at least not until Ani was ready to do the hallway and bedrooms.

Twenty minutes went by, and then thirty, and by the time Ani got back to the living room, I'd gone through three rags, and the floor was almost wiped clean.

“What's up?” I asked slowly, coming to my feet as she paused in the middle of the room.

“Uh.” Her eyes searched blindly around the room, then finally came to rest on me. “My sister's having a baby,” she said, shaking her head.

“What? Kate?” I asked in confusion.

“No, my real sister.”

I almost argued about that statement but decided that was a conversation for a different time. “You have a sister?”

“Yeah.” She reached up and scratched at her hair with both hands, making it stand straight up in some places. “She's fifteen.”

My stomach rolled. “Oh, fuck.”

“I have two little brothers too,” she went on. “All still live with my mom. She got her act together, at least enough that CPS didn't step in with them.”

“Jesus Christ.” That had to fucking
kill
her. Alex and I had never dealt with that kind of family shit. Our mom had died when we were little, hit by a car when she was walking to work one day. It sucked big time, but we hadn't been taken from her, she'd been taken from us.

“So yeah, fifteen and having a baby. Mom's doing a fucking bang-up job. Obviously.”

I took a step toward her but froze when she held up a hand to stop me.

“I need a shower,” Ani muttered after a minute, looking down at her clothes. “So do you.”

She turned and left the room, peeling off the tank top she was wearing as she hit the hallway. “You coming?” she called over her shoulder as she paused to shove her jeans down over her ass.

“You wanna talk about it?” I asked after I'd stripped and climbed into the shower behind her.

“Not especially.” She wasn't crying, but her eyes seemed almost blank as she grabbed a bar of soap and lathered her hands.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it is what it is,” she said, reaching forward to run her soapy hands over my forearms.

“I didn't know you had siblings,” I said quietly as her hands moved to my chest.

“Yeah, I found my mom when I turned eighteen. It was stupid to even look for her nasty ass—but I found out then that she'd had more kids. I keep in touch with Bethy and the boys, but they live in Seattle.”

My breath caught as her fingers moved farther down my chest, and I reached out to push her wet hair out of her face. I didn't say anything because I had no fucking idea what I was supposed to say to that.

“They have
B
names,” she scoffed, lifting her hands from my chest and turning to face the spray. “I'm Anita, and they're Bethy, Ben, and Brayden.” She shook her head, her shoulders so tight they were practically pressed up against her ears. “The second wave. Her second goddamn chance—and she still fucked it up.”

I couldn't stand it anymore. She looked so small with her arms crossed over her chest in the spray of water, her back curved inward enough that I could count every vertebra up her back. I reached around her and pressed my hand to her smooth belly, pulling her back against me.

“It's a good thing you got out then, yeah?” I whispered into her ear, wrapping my other arm around her chest. “She didn't get any better. You're the lucky one.”

“Yeah,” she replied hoarsely, resting her chin on my arm as her body relaxed into mine. “But if I had been there, I could have watched out for them—”

“You were a kid, Ani—you couldn't have done shit,” I said flatly.

“She's fifteen, Bram.” Ani sniffled, her whole body shuddering. “Jesus.”

“Come here,” I ordered, turning her in my arms so I could see her face.

Her eyes were red and so was her nose, but she wasn't crying. She was keeping it together for some reason, even though I'd seen her bawling her eyes out before.

“You got out, baby,” I said gently, watching as her eyes closed and her chin dropped. “You're feeling guilty for something you couldn't control. You know how many kids wanna go back to their piece-of-shit parents? But it's not up to them and it wasn't up to you. That wasn't your choice to make.”

“She started over again,” Ani choked out. “Like, ‘oh, fucked up with the first one, better try again.' Who does that?”

My throat knotted around any words I might have said. How long had she been feeling like that and saying nothing? Had she talked to Katie about it? Alex? I wasn't sure if anyone even
knew
that she had younger siblings. I'd never heard anything about them.

“Pieces of shit,” I finally ground out, cupping her face in my hands. “Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and almost brought me to my knees with one look.

“It's her loss. I know that sounds too simplistic. I know that.” I brushed her hair away from her face as I struggled to speak. “She lost out
big
with you, all right?”

Ani nodded and pressed her lips together tightly like she was holding in the words that wanted to pour out of her mouth.

I leaned down and kissed her gently, running my lips over her stiff ones until they softened against mine. Running my hands down her neck, I stopped at her shoulders, pressing my fingers in lightly until the muscles beneath her skin began to relax a little at a time.

“You don't have to be nice to me,” Ani murmured against my lips as I crowded her against the wall, running my hands over her breasts as she slid her tongue over my top lip, then sucked it into her mouth.

I pulled back slightly. “Yeah, I do.”

“I'm already a sure thing,” she argued, wrapping her arms around my neck and lifting one leg so that I'd pull her up my body.

“I'll be a dick to you later,” I assured her as her legs tightened around my waist.

“But what if I want your dick now?” she said with a small laugh against my mouth.

“If you insist,” I grumbled jokingly. “You good?”

“Fine,” she said with a nod, like our entire conversation since we'd jumped into the shower had never happened.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I yelled in surprise a week later, opening my front door in nothing but a pair of white boxer briefs and a huge grin.

“Thought I'd surprise you. You're welcome.”

I took a couple steps back and let my brother inside, barely waiting for him to drop his bag on the floor before I was wrapping him up in a bear hug.

“It's good to see you,” I said gruffly, slapping him hard on the back.

“Yeah, you too, brother,” he replied, tightening his arms around me. “You look like Grizzly Adams.”

We both pulled back at the same time, and I got a good look at the grin that looked so much like the one I knew I was wearing.

“All the kids together again,” I said with a laugh, picking up his bag so I could carry it into my spare bedroom.

“That was the idea,” he said with a nod, following me farther into the house.

“How the fuck did you get here? I woulda picked you up from the airport.”

“And miss the look on your face when you came to the door? No fucking way. I rented a car.”

I smiled as I opened up the spare room and tossed his bag on the bed.

Thank Christ, Ani had already left before Alex showed up on my doorstep. We'd seen each other almost every day for the past week, but she hadn't stayed over and neither had I. She was dealing with some shit, so I left her to it, even though I'd gotten a little used to the overnights.

“How long are you here for?” I asked as we made our way back to the kitchen, grabbing a couple beers from the fridge.

“Week. I couldn't take more than that.”

“Katie, Shane, and the kids will be here in the morning. Henry too.”

“Yeah, I bet Mom's flipping out, huh?”

“Jesus Christ, she's gonna have a heart attack when she sees you,” I joked, grabbing my T-shirt that Ani had left on the counter earlier and pulling it over my head.

“You start cooking in the buff since I've been gone?” Alex joked as he watched me.

“Nah, took it off earlier before I got in the shower,” I muttered, turning to grab a dish towel from the counter and putting it on the handle of the stove.

I knew, if he got a good look at my face, he'd know I was lying and he'd start asking questions, and if he started asking questions, I'd be fucked. Why the hell hadn't I thought of that before? Alex knew me better than anyone—he was going to see exactly what was happening the minute Ani and I got in the same room.

Fuck.

“So I can't decide if I want to show up before Katie tomorrow so Mom can calm down before she and the kids get there or if I should show up right after she gets there and steal her thunder,” Alex said seriously, taking a long pull of his beer.

I met his eyes as I took a drink of my own.

“Steal her thunder,” we both said at the same time, bursting into laughter.

God, I was glad he was home.

“I was wondering why the fuck Henry was staying with Ani instead of me,” I blurted, shaking my head a couple hours later and seven beers in.

“Aw, did it hurt your feelings?” Alex asked with a grin, lying back on my couch with his bare feet propped on the coffee table. That was almost exactly the same thing Ani had said. God, sometimes they were so alike it was uncanny. Like they shared a brain.

Though most of the time I thought Alex was funny and Ani was a bitch.

“It didn't hurt my feelings, asshole,” I replied, making Alex laugh. “It was just weird.”

“Eh, they're buds. I'm not surprised,” Alex said with a wave of his hand. “I am surprised she had room for him—how far is she on the house?”

I shook my head and relaxed farther into my recliner, grabbing a new beer off the floor. “Not far. I helped her get the floors finished in the living room so she could buy a couch for him to sleep on.”

“I have no fucking idea how she's lived there for so long with only bedroom furniture,” Alex said with a small laugh.