Wreck (Bareknuckle Boxing Brotherhood Book 2) (11 page)

“I can read,” he mumbled.

“I know that. I just have to take the piss out of you once in a while so I’m not overwhelmed by your manly beauty,” she said, leaning over his shoulder and planting a kiss on his cheek. He ruffled her hair affectionately.

“We need to talk,” Shea said.

“Oh my God, are you pregnant?” Zoe squealed.

“No but you’re the second person to ask me that. I’m never wearing this shirt again. I’m burning it later. Do I LOOK pregnant in this?” she demanded.

“No, no of course not!” Zoe said, “I just got excited. Sorry. What’s the news?”

“Not a baby. More like a bouncing baby nine-year-old that’s mine,” Kyle said miserably. He pulled up the picture on his phone and held it out mutely as explanation.

“You’re just finding out now? God, she looks just like your mom!” Zoe said, passing the phone to Aaron.

“This is bullshit. How do you even know it’s your kid? What does this woman want from you? Did she see the Vegas fight and think this was the money train? Goddammit, Kyle!” Aaron said, dropping the phone on the couch and pacing across the room. He raked a hand through his hair and visibly tried to calm himself.

“She’s my daughter, Aaron,” Kyle said forcefully. “Her name is Olive. She’s mine, and I’m glad to have her in my life. She’s also your niece, so you’d better get used to it. She’s going to be around here a lot.”

Shea felt tears spring to her eyes. She hugged him, unable to resist a quick kiss on his mouth as well. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, even after she tried to pull back. He needed her support; she could feel it in every tense muscle in his body. She flattened her palms against his back, trying to tell him that she was there for him, would stand by him.

“Congratulations,” Zoe said finally. “When do we get to meet her?”

“Thursday, I hope. I get to pick her up from school. She’s in the art club and she plays soccer,” he said with a smile. Aaron still stood with his back toward them, looking out the window.

“We have some news, too. We’ve been looking for a place of our own,” Zoe said, “And we think we found somewhere. It’s a little crowded around here, and since business has picked up, we’re going to get an apartment. It’s not far. Just a one-bedroom, but it’ll be ours.”

“Watch out; she’ll have raspberry pink paint on the walls before the sun sets on your lease signing,” Shea warned Aaron as she hugged Zoe.

“Is this because I broke the mirror?”

“It’s not about your Angry Young Man routine, Kyle. You know we love you. We just need our own place now,” Zoe said.

“So maybe I can make that bedroom a room for Olive,” Kyle said thoughtfully. “Will you help me shop for stuff for her room?”

Shea nodded. “Goodwill uptown has good stuff. I got a Pottery Barn comforter there once. Good as new,” she remarked.

“It was PLAID,” Zoe said with disgust.

“So what? It was soft,” Shea grouched good-naturedly.

“Okay, ice cream time. Who’s in?” Kyle said, “It’s on me, since I brought the family secret to the party.”

“No thanks, we have a lasagna,” Zoe said. “You two go on.”

Out on the pavement and hand-in-hand, Kyle and Shea walked a couple of blocks in total, uncharacteristic silence.

“I’m glad you told him.”

“He’s mad at me.”

“I know.”

“Time was, he would’ve taken a swing at me,” Kyle shook his head. “I think I’d rather be hit than have him mad and quiet like that.”

“Hitting gets it out in the open, but it’s not a good answer for settling family conflict. I worked the ER. I know too much about it.”

“I grew up in it. ‘Til I was ten and the bastard finally took off for good.” he released her hand and cracked his knuckles.

“I’m sorry. I know a little about that,” she admitted.

“It’s not his fault. That I’m like this, that I’m a boxer. That I hit people and throw phones and—act up,” Kyle said.

“I wasn’t giving him credit for the man you are.”

“My brother told me once that when he was in the ring, he was always fighting our dad, that was who he wanted to hit. It isn’t like that for me. I just like to win,” he shrugged. “I guess Aaron’s the deep one. He used to get drunk and beat on us. Same goddamned story behind about half the doors in that building, I bet.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier on you.”

“I figure if I made it through that, nothing can touch me, you know. It made me stronger. What doesn’t kill me or something like that.”

“That’s a song, I think. You would’ve been strong without that. You’re strong because of who you are. The same way your mom is strong. It’s not from experience so much as you just know your own power, like she does. You don’t doubt yourself…except for that time Ashley ripped into you.”

“I’m not sure why that bugged me so much.”

“She said you’d be a shitty dad and that got under your skin, I’m guessing,”

“I thought you weren’t my shrink.”

“No, I said I wasn’t your
confessor
.”

“I thought you were my bitch mitten,” he teased.

They ordered their ice cream. She was fighting the drips on her mint chocolate chip and stealing bites of his strawberry when his phone rang.

“It’s Olive,” He said. “Here, hold this.”  So Shea balanced two dripping ice cream cones while he answered the phone like an excited kid. “Hi, hey, yeah, it’s me. What’s up?” His smile faded instantly. He covered his other ear to listen, took a few steps away, listening intently. Then he looked back over his shoulder, nearly in a panic.

“Shea!” he called.

She was frantically licking ice cream and trying not to eavesdrop, but she joined him. He hugged her to his side and kept saying, “I’ll be right there. I’m coming. I’m coming. Wait there,”

When the call ended, he looked in Shea’s eyes. His expression was so shattered that she dropped the ice cream to the pavement and threw her arms around him.

“What happened?”

“She’s at the police station.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s shook up. One of her teachers reported them to DFS, and a social worker found—found a meth lab in the home, Shea,” His voice sounded broken, but shot through with rage.

“That would explain why Ashley was so hot in the cold restaurant.”

“You told me. You mentioned it. I didn’t want to believe it could be true,” he said. “We have to get there. They wanted to take her to respite care, but she—she kept saying she had to call her dad.” There were tears in his eyes, a muscle in his jaw bulging as he struggled for control.

Shea hugged him again, tears on her face, and they ran for her car.

While Shea was telling him who they were and demanding to see Olive, Kyle hadn’t heard a word the police sergeant said to him. They were in some kind of little room with no windows, grungy linoleum and just the one bench. It was nothing but the roar of blood in his ears, the thrumming of adrenaline as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, unable to contain the restless energy, the rage to get to his daughter. He had made himself turn the knob slowly so he wouldn’t rip the door off the hinges in his haste.

Olive was sitting on a bench, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. One of her thumbs looked like it had been bleeding from where she had bitten the nail too deeply. When Kyle entered as quietly as he could, not wanting to startle her, she looked up and burst into tears. He dropped to his knees and opened his arms.

She sloshed the coffee onto the bench and vaulted into his embrace, sobbing. Every sob that racked her skinny form was like a bolt of agony in his chest. He wanted to kill whoever had done this to her—the parents who made meth in her home, the authorities who separated her from her mom, anyone and everyone he could blame. This was the worst—he knew how to throw punches but not how to comfort, how to even ask what he could do for her.

He raised his eyes to appeal to Shea. Surely Shea, being a nurse, knew how to deal with crisis. She hung back and shook her head.

“They took my mom,” she wailed, her sobs so raw that it hurt his throat just to hear them.

“I know, baby, I’m so sorry,” he said.

“I want to see her!”

“I don’t think you can,” he faltered.

“Please? Please?” she cried. He felt something twist in his chest, and tears came to his eyes.

“I’ll go ask,” Shea offered, leaving the room.

“Olive, I don’t think they’re going to let you see her. She has—stuff she has to do right now. Like, be booked and searched and—shit, I’m not good at this. I got arrested before when I was in a dust-up and broke some guy’s jaw back in high school. It’s not great, but it’s not as bad as in the movies, I promise. There was a lot of sitting around waiting for stuff to happen and the food was bad,” he tried to explain.

“Are they hurting her?” she hiccupped.

“No. They won’t hurt her. They’re not allowed to hurt her at all. They have to check her in and get her a lawyer to talk to,” Kyle said.

Shea came back in with a shake of her head. “You can’t see her now, but tomorrow we can bring you back, and you can talk to your mom,” Shea said.

Olive launched into a fresh volley of wrenching sobs. Kyle looked helplessly at Shea as he held his heartbroken daughter. After a few minutes of unrelenting tears, Olive curled up on Kyle’s lap, still crying pitifully. He picked her up and carried her back out to the front desk.

“She signed it,” the officer on duty told him, holding out his copy of the short-term guardianship form that Ashley had signed, giving Kyle temporary custody of their daughter.

“Thanks,” he said, pocketing the form and shifting Olive’s weight to his hip. Her legs were long and gangly, but she drooped against his shoulder like a baby.

By the time they reached Kyle’s apartment, Olive was asleep in the backseat. Unfastening her seat belt, he carried her up the stairs and settled her on the couch.

“We can’t get in their apartment to get her stuff because it’s a crime scene. I’m going to get her some pajamas and stuff,” Shea said.

“Thank you,” Kyle said, handing her his wallet. “All she has is her phone. She’ll need shampoo and shorts and tops and underwear and socks and—a hairbrush. She has a lot of hair,” he said with a ghost of a smile.

Shea stood on her tiptoes and kissed him softly. “You were amazing,” she said.

“I’m scared shitless.”

“I know. But you’re handling it well.” She left.

When she returned with the bags of stuff, she found Kyle on the couch beside his daughter. The TV was on—some sort of adolescent comedy on Disney—and sticky, half-full cups of hot cocoa were on the coffee table between their feet. Olive lay in the crook of his arm, asleep. Shea kissed the top of his head, dropped the bags, and made to leave, but he caught her hand and shook his head. Easing out from under his daughter and settling Olive’s head on a throw pillow, he covered her over with a blanket and motioned for Shea to join him at the table.

“Cocoa?”

“No, thanks, it’s summer,” she said.

“She wanted hot chocolate, and it turns out we have milk and stuff. Zoe does the shopping.”

“So what are you going to do about food when Zoe and Aaron move out?”

“I’ll have to start making a list, I guess. She wanted yogurt, but we didn’t have any. I don’t know why anyone buys that stuff. It’s goop,” he said.

“Girl food. I bet she also wanted cereal. Women eat that for supper all the time,”

“Really? Supper is meat and potatoes.”

“Maybe back home in Ireland, Danny Boy, but around here, it’s cereal or frozen egg rolls.”

“So I’m not to count on you for the cooking?” he teased.

“Nope.”

“I’m glad you came with me today.”

“I didn’t do anything but drive,” she protested.

“You were there. It made a huge difference to me.”

“Okay.”

“I want you with me all the time, Shea.”

“I have a job,” she said, looking down at her hands uncomfortably.

“I know that, and I do, too, but if you lived here…”

“I don’t—Kyle, that’s not—I can’t,” she stammered.

“I thought…I guess I thought, when you came and found me after I went off the rails and you didn’t give up on me, I thought you were all in,” he said.

“What does all in even mean?”

“It means we’re together and we stay that way.”

“I’m not a fan of defining the relationship myself, but, Kyle, your life just made a big shift. You went from single to being a surprise dad to being a custodial parent. Now’s not the time to make more changes and move me in. I don’t—”

“I don’t want a live-in babysitter, lass. I can deal with my own daughter. We’ll learn as we go. I want you, have since you stood up to me in that class and argued and then stomped my foot. You made me bring my A-game. You didn’t put up with my shit, and you like me. I can tell you like me, so don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I love you, Kyle. That’s the problem. I’m not going to be the Band-Aid that holds this little drama together until Ashley gets out of jail and your kid goes back home and you look up and realize I was just a convenience. Someone to have around during a rough time.”

“I’d want you if there wasn’t a daughter, wasn’t a short-term guardianship paper in my pocket. I was going to ask you anyway. As soon as Zoe said that they were moving, it felt perfect to me. The whole meth-lab thing wasn’t in my plan. It’s more like something I have to sell you on. Like, hey move in with me! It’ll be fun and we’ll have lots of sex! Or, we could have a nine-year-old who’s going through trauma, so move in with me anyway and eventually we’ll have fun and sex,”

Shea smiled, and Kyle felt something tight in his chest uncoil a bit, a loosening.

“Tell me that’s a yes,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said.

“It’s only fair to tell you, though—and you can’t back out now, no way—that I don’t want Olive going back to live with some meth-head, even if her mom’s charges are dropped or something. I want custody. This isn’t going to be temporary. I’m not going to be her temporary dad,” he said.

“I can respect that. I’ll even help. Look, I got her ponytail holders and a cotton candy LipSmacker. I used to love those things,” she said. “We need to get her some nutritional supplement shakes and make sure she drinks a lot of water.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you, Shea,”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” ahe said in an excited whisper that came out squeaky. It made him laugh.

“Shhh, don’t wake her! She’s had a hell of a day,” Shea whispered.

He kissed her, and she smiled against his mouth. “I’m glad you didn’t tell me no,” he said.

“Has any woman ever told you no?”

“I wouldn’t have made it,” he said seriously.

“Why? You can let people beat your head in but you couldn’t handle a no from me?”

“It would’ve hit me harder. Ever since I was a kid, I knew nothing could hurt me, nothing was a big deal. Ma always told me how strong I was, how I’d faced down my own father, so I guess I felt like I was bulletproof. Today I found out I’m not invincible. It took a kid crying in a police station to teach me what can undo me. I’ve got two women in my life now, and you both could destroy me,” he said with a rueful shake of his head.

“Kyle Dolan, I’ll never destroy you,” she said, winding her arms around his neck.