Mistletoe & Kisses (25 page)

Chapter Ten

I WATCH BRODY as he walks towards me. He stop a few feet away as I flip my hand through my long hair nervously. I am freaking out over what we just did, and I need him to know this isn’t something I do all the time. This is a first for me, and I am feeling extremely irresponsible, especially since I’m carrying a baby.

Licking my lips, I avoid looking at him as I nervously try to find the right words. How do you say this to someone without offending them? “I want you to know this isn’t me. I never do this. Ever. This,” I say, placing my hand over my belly, “happened while using a condom. I wasn’t on birth control, but Jase and I always used condoms. Especially since I knew he was constantly hooking up with other girls whenever we’d break up. Then, just now—we didn’t use protection.” I drop my eyes to my belly as I rub my hand over it. I can feel her rolling around and it helps calm me, focusing on her. “I don’t know you, or know if this is a normal thing for you. I just want to keep my baby safe.”

Brody’s stalks toward me fast, and within a second, he’s only inches away from me. Cupping my face in his large, warm hands, he forces me to look back up at him. His eyebrows are pushed together and his eyes are dark and hooded as he stares down at me. He slowly licks his lips and sucks in a sharp breath of air before speaking.

“I’m sorry. I never should’ve touched you without using protection. My head was telling me walk out that door and go home, but my body was demanding I take you. I’ve wanted you since the moment I found you in my living room Saturday morning. You have nothing to worry about. I’m clean. I know this for a fact, because the only other woman I’ve ever been with is my wife. Since her death, there has been no one else.”

Holy crap.

This is crazy.

Seriously crazy. 

He hasn’t been with anyone but his wife? Well, that is reassuring, but also…that is pretty huge. I thought maybe he’d slept with other women since she passed. I mean, men have needs. I wonder how long it’s been since she passed, and now I can’t stop wondering if I even compare to the woman he was so madly in love with.

“How many years has it been?” I ask finally as I sit down on the edge of my bed. My head is spinning from all the thoughts that are bouncing around inside it.

He joins me on the bed, sitting down beside me. He clasps his hands together and leans forward, resting his elbows on his large, muscular thighs. His head is hanging as he stares at the floor. “She died when Corbin was three months old…fuck.” He runs his fingers into his hair and keeps them there as his eyes stay focused on the floor. “I’ve never opened up to anyone about this. It’s too painful, so I try not to think about it at all, because once I start, it’s all I think about, and it ends up paralyzing me, making it so I can’t think of anything else.”

I gently place my hand on his back and rub it in small circles as I attempt to soothe him. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain he’s in, and to know he’s been raising Corbin on his own for three years breaks my heart. “I’m so sorry, Brody. I won’t bullshit you and feed you a line about how it will get easier, because I know it won’t. You don’t get over losing someone you love. You just learn to live through the pain every day as you try to have some kind of normalcy in your life. When I lost my mother, I was only thirteen years old. My father had abandoned us when I was six, so I had no one, no parent to hold me and tell me it would be okay. The only people I had were my grandparents and my aunt Ella. To know Corbin won’t have what I did makes my heart shatter into a million pieces. At least I had thirteen amazing years with my mom before she passed. Corbin only had three months.”

He lets out a sad sigh as he rubs his hands through his hair and then drops them back between his thighs. He’s yet to take his eyes off the floor, while I can’t take my eyes off of him. “I grieve every day, not just for me, but for Corbin. We were so happy when she found out she was pregnant. I don’t know how everything turned to shit in such a short period of time.”

“What do you mean?” My heart is pounding so fiercely right now I have no idea how it hasn’t bounced straight out of my chest and onto the floor.

He turns finally and looks at me, the sadness is his eyes overwhelming. His beautiful aquamarine irises that were just bright and sparkling with lust are now dark and sad. “Zoe killed herself.”

Tears sting my eyes as I see one fall from Brody’s eye and slide slowly down his cheek. This beautiful, perfect man looks so strong on the outside, but inside, he is sad and broken. My heart clenches as if someone has just reached inside my chest and squeezed it in the palm of their hand.

“Ohh…umm…I’m so sorry. I um…wasn’t expecting that.” I am at a loss for words right now. I am trying to wrap my head around what he just said, but it is impossible. What would drive a woman with the perfect husband and a new baby to take her own life?

“Neither was I. I went to work one day and then got a call from her mother telling me Zoe had asked her to watch Corbin so she could run some errands. After three hours went by, she never came home. I left work in a panic and drove all over town trying to find her. Finally, after hours of searching, I found her car at the spot we use to always go to when we were in high school.” His voice cracks as more tears fall. He doesn’t even bother flicking them away; he just lets them fall from his face onto his jeans.

My overly emotional and hormonal self is falling apart right here beside him. I’m trying to keep it together, but the pain I see on his face is more than I can take. I keep flicking the tears away as soon as they leave my eyes.

He slowly inhales and exhales for a moment, trying to get control over his emotions before he continues. “I found her car and immediately thought of a million scenarios, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what I found. She was slumped against the steering wheel and was so cold. She had to have been dead a few hours. Next to her in the passenger seat was her purse, along with a bottle of pain pills she’d gotten after her C-section. The bottle had been half-full, because she’d stopped taking them. She’d switched to just ibuprofen as soon as she was feeling better, because she said she hated the way the prescription made her feel when she was taking them. So to see every single pill gone from that bottle felt like a brick house had just fallen on top of me. I couldn’t move. My brain was frozen as I stood there staring at my wife dead in the driver’s seat of her car.”

“
Oh my God
. Brody. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must’ve been like for you.”

His shoulders sag as he drops his chin to his chest and closes his eyes. I keep rubbing circles on his back as I try to do something, anything to help ease the pain he’s in right now. I’m stunned by his confession. I know how hard this must be for him to open up to me.

He turns his head towards me again and continues, “All I could think about in that moment was Corbin. He was only three months old and his mother was gone. I don’t know how long I stood there in a state of shock, but the sound of my phone ringing in my pocket snapped me out of my daze. It was her mother calling to see if I’d found her yet. I stood there staring at the phone, wondering how to answer the phone right then and tell this woman her daughter was dead. It was the most fucked up day of my life that lead to years of a fucked up reality. I didn’t know anything about raising a baby. She did it all; I was still figuring it all out, and within one day, I was a widower and a single father. It was too much for me to handle and I ended up having a mental breakdown. I spent six months in a fog, while Janice, Zoe’s mom, cared for Corbin. Finally, after therapy and anti-depressants, I got better and was able to slowly get back to a life of normalcy.”

I move closer to him as I am consumed with the need to help take his pain away somehow. I rest my cheek against his shoulder as I continue to rub his back. “You’re doing great now, and you’re an amazing father. Anyone with eyes can see Corbin loves you, and it’s evident he wants to be just like you when he grows up. He is a little mini-daddy walking around here carrying little logs into the house and helping clear snow with his little shovel.” I laugh lightly as I try to lift the mood and help Brody relax.

“Thanks. I love that little man more than anything in this world. I’m good now; I still have my off days, when it’s hard to get out of bed and continue with life, but he keeps me going. I can’t thank Ella enough for this job. Devin has been my best friend since elementary school. He was right there by my side every day, even when I was the world’s biggest dickhead and treated him like shit. I was toxic for a long time after Zoe died. I tried to push everyone away, but he refused to give up on me. I don’t think Ella knows the whole story. Devin just told her I’d lost my wife tragically, and with a son to care for, I needed a job that was flexible. She gave me my job and a place to live, which I appreciate more than she’ll ever know. I sold the house I’d bought with Zoe. It was too hard to be there after she passed. I needed a clean break and a fresh start.”

“Ella is amazing, and Devin is great. I’m glad he did that for you, and Ella too, because you are a great guy who just got dealt a really shitty hand in life. Corbin is the sweetest kid I’ve ever met. I’m glad I met both of you. I’ve had a lot going on, and playing with him every day has been the perfect distraction that I needed.”

Shifting more towards me, Brody cups my face and rubs the pad of his thumb over my cheek. I can tell from the way he’s looking at me whatever he is going to say next, I’m not going to like. A small part of me wants to tell him just to leave, pretend nothing happened between us, and skip whatever it is he’s about to say. It would be far less painful than being told it meant nothing.

“Thank you for listening. It has been years since I talked to anyone about all of this. I feel like I can breathe again for the first time in months. The holidays are especially hard, because you see all over TV happy families celebrating the holidays together, and then I have Corbin who only has me. It gets to be too much.”

I know there’s a ‘
but’
coming. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know what it is about me that makes it impossible for a man to want me for more than just sex.

“You’re an amazing person with the biggest heart. You deserve a man who will love you and your baby unconditionally, and do everything to give you the perfect life. That guy just isn’t me. I can’t love you and give you the life you deserve if I can barely do that for myself.”

I can’t believe this.

“How can you know that? You haven’t even given us a chance. Hell we just had sex five minutes ago and it was amazing. Now you are dead set on us being destined to fail. What about how I feel? Or what I want?”

“I’m fucked up, Callie. I can’t be the knight in shining armor that sweeps you off your feet and gives you a perfect happily ever after. Hell! Do you know how hard it is for me seeing you pregnant? All I can think about is Zoe when she was pregnant with Corbin and how perfect I thought we were. After he was born, she was different but I assumed her feelings of sadness and being overwhelmed were normal. We had a new baby; it was tiring. I never expected her to develop post-partum depression. It’s nothing against you; it’s me. I’m the one with the issues. I don’t want to bring more pain into your life, when you have enough of your own. I would really like to be friends. Corbin loves you, and I know he would be crushed if you didn’t come back to visit from time to time.”

What does one say to that?
‘Yeah, I’m totally fine with us having some hot ass sex that was the best I ever had, and I am also fine with being just friends. It’s totally not an issue for me at all.’?

Ugh! Why, why, why do I have to be attracted to men who are unable to commit?

I bring my hands to my belly and think about my baby. I try to put myself in Brody’s position and understand where he’s coming from, but it’s hard for me to say I’m okay with this. Yes, in the heat of the moment, I was fine with it being just sex, but now…now, I want more. I can’t have more with him, and it hurts so bad I can’t even find the courage to speak. I can’t be selfish and scream at him, telling him exactly what I’m feeling right now. I settle for saying whatever needs to be said so that he’ll leave.

With my eyes still on my belly, I tell him, “I understand. It’s fine. Really, I’ll come back and visit once the baby is born so Corbin can meet her. For now, I’ll be too busy getting my shop started, so I won’t have any free time to come back to town. I’m sorry you lost your wife, Brody, but you need to realize you deserve to be happy again, and Corbin too.

“I know as he gets older he’ll see his friends with both a mom and a dad and wonder why his mom isn’t here. It’ll be hard, but that is life. It ain’t easy; that I sure as hell know to be true. I had to go throughout high school with my grandparents as my guardians, and it sucked. But I appreciated that I had people who loved me unconditionally. They may not have been my mom and dad, but they loved me just as much as they had my mother.

“That is all a child cares about is having someone to love them unconditionally. They don’t care about blood. I love that little boy with my whole heart. I have since the first day he smiled at me with his goofy little grin. If you think friendship is all this can be, then I’ll accept that, and I’ll even pretend what happened tonight never occurred. I’ll do anything I can to ease your pain, Brody.”

We sit side-by-side in silence for a while, neither of us saying a word until we hear a light knock at the door. “Hey, guys. It’s just me. Corbin was asking for Brody. He said Santa is going to be coming soon, so he needs to get home to put his cookies and milk out.”