Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) (8 page)

              “Do you have any proof she actually is pregnant?” Ava asked.

              He dug the sonogram from his back pocket and slid it across the table.

              Ava frowned at it. “I’d want to talk to her doctor. This could be anything.”

              “She had the paperwork, the positive test results.”

              “Still–”

              “She’s really knocked up, Ava, okay?”

              She sent him a sharp look. “You know even better than I do how easy it is to fake stuff these days. She could be lying. You need to go with her to an appointment, find out for sure–”

              “Why? She’s getting rid of it.”

              Ava’s lips compressed; she glanced over at Mercy. “She’ll have to have your consent to put it up for adoption. If one of the parents wants the baby, they get first dibs.”

              “Dibs?”

              “Do you want her to give it up?” Mercy asked. “Or was that just her idea?”

              “Guys,
calm down
.”

              “You tell us you got your girlfriend pregnant,” Ava said, “and you wanna be all ‘calm down’ like I’m the irrational one?”

              “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said through his teeth.

              “Oh, and that makes it so much better.” She rolled her eyes, but snapped back to serious before he could retort. “You need to think about some stuff. Some heavy stuff. And you need to do it fast, because babies don’t wait.”

              “What’s there to think about?”

              “Bro…” Mercy said carefully. “I think if you were all settled in your head, you wouldn’t have wanted to talk to us about it.”

              “If you wanted her to get rid of it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Ava added.

              “I…” It crashed over him again, as fresh and painful as it had been when Tonya told him that morning. “She’s awful,” he muttered, wiping his hands down his face. “She thinks she’s better than everyone in the world. It isn’t that she can’t take care of the baby – I could forgive her that. It’s because it’s mine, and it doesn’t fit into her rich world.”

              He lifted a helpless glance to his sister. “She’s just like my mom.”

              Right before he closed his eyes, Ava’s face transformed with tenderness and sympathy. And then his lids clamped down, because he was pretty sure if he didn’t screw them shut, he’d start blubbering like a pussy.

              He felt her skinny hands on his shoulders, squeezing ineffectually. “It’s alright.” She kissed the top of his head. “We’ll figure it out.”

              Mercy’s callused palm closed over his wrist, and he was overwhelmed by the knowledge that, whatever happened, he had the two of them. He didn’t deserve them, but here they were, and he was going to hold tight.

~*~

He didn’t remember drinking, but the bottle of screw-top, cheap-ass red wine he’d bought on the way over was more than half-empty, so he must have been putting the stuff away as he sat here. The guy at the desk had snootily informed him that Mr. Byron was “out for the evening,” and that if Tango wanted to wait, he’d have to do so in the parking garage. Guess they didn’t want a guy with twelve earrings and countless tattoos hanging out in their lobby and throwing off the posh elitist vibe.

              He didn’t blame them.

              The wine he hadn’t intended to share – he would never offer something so pedestrian to Ian – and he’d parked his ass on the concrete step by the elevators, resigned to wait.

              His head weighed a hundred pounds by this point, and his vision fuzzed and faded his surroundings like an Instagram filter.

              He heard Ian before he saw him, the distinct beat of his stride, the sharp clip of his dress shoes on the tarmac. The shiny Ferragamos came into view, saddle-colored and spotless; then the slender, tailored pants, dove-gray. The long legs, the narrow waist, the perfect cut of the shoulders, and finally Ian’s angular face, its corners tweaked with worry, as Tango let his head fall slowly back on his neck.

              “Having a bit of a sit-down?” he asked.

              Tango took a long, messy swallow of wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, fingers trembling.

              Ian turned and said something to Bruce, his bodyguard, and the giant thug moved a few paces away, giving them some distance. Then Ian dusted off the curb with a pocket square and sat down beside Tango, close enough so their elbows touched, close enough for his expensive cologne to fill Tango’s nose. His knees were at high angles, his legs too long for sitting on the ground like this. His wide blue-green eyes glittered in the dim security lights.

              He said nothing, only waited.

              “Ghost knows about us. You told him,” Tango accused. Sadly, all his ire had been muddled by the wine, and all he really wanted to do was lean against the man, rather than yell at him.

              Ian’s lips compressed, expression one of careful regret. “I didn’t tell him, no. But I asked a favor of him. One that involves you.”

              “What favor?”

              Ian’s slender white hand was cool and smooth against his forehead, as he brushed back the unruly forelock of his half-shaved, half-ragged rockstar ‘do. “One that would be good for you.”

              Tango meant to knock his hand away…but it felt so nice, stroking back through his hair, that tender, almost-maternal affection he’d never had before. Before the club, before his ailing aunt had tracked him down, Ian had been the first of so many things – lover, caregiver, protector.

              “I don’t need any favors,” he heard himself say, voice faraway, unconvinced.

              “Of course not, darling. But I want to provide them anyway.”

              Tango stopped fighting his impaired balance and slumped sideways into the Armani-covered shoulder beside him; let his face fall against Ian’s neck, grateful for the hand that cupped his head, held him close.

              “I’m taking some time off,” he mumbled. “A few days.”

              “Wonderful.” Ian sounded truly happy. “Come upstairs, beautiful. I’ve missed you so.”

~*~

“Is it nice there?” Mercy asked as he folded the quilt down.

              On the other side of the bed, Ava glanced up at him, expression startled. “Nice where?”

              “Wherever it is you’ve gone in your own head.” She rolled her eyes and he grinned. “How many guesses do I get?”

              “One.” She sat down on the side of the mattress and folded her legs beneath her, gaze moving away from his, notch forming between her brows. “I just don’t want him to have any regrets,” she said, and he knew she meant Aidan. “And if I’m totally honest, I don’t like the idea of having a niece or nephew out there somewhere.” She gestured toward the room, the city, the world.

              Mercy sat down beside her, their hips nearly touching in the center of their bed. “What if he or she had really great parents, though?”

              “And what if he or she always wondered why her real parents didn’t love her enough to keep her?” she countered, giving him a sad, thoughtful look. “I think adoption is wonderful, and I don’t want to diminish the people who take on someone else’s child as their own…”

              “But?”

              “But I want
Aidan
to make the decision about
his
baby. Tonya’s had her say. Now he needs his.”

              “And lemme guess. You and Mags are gonna make sure he gets it.”

              “Well, yeah.”

              He smiled and put an arm around her, pulled her in tight to his side. “You, Madame Lécuyer, are in real danger of becoming one of those crusaders people talk about.”

              She snorted. “You want me to stop?”

              “Not even a little.”

~*~

The apartment Aidan had shared with Tango the last handful of years was in a mediocre complex in a nothing-special part of town. The renters ran the gamut from complete degenerate cokeheads to young families with larger aspirations.

              Their unit was up on the third floor, and Aidan’s headache seemed to worsen with each stair he mounted. By the time he reached the landing and unlocked the door, it was like someone turning screws through his temples.

              Ava wanted him to take the baby. Take, and do what? Bring it home to this? Tattered, cigarette-burned furniture, a console TV serving as the base for the flat-screen TV? The sink full of dishes and overflowing trash can? The place was a sty.

              And how was he supposed to take care of a baby? He hadn’t breasts to nurse it, nor songs to sing it, nor funds to hire a nanny full-time to look after it while he went to work.

              The headache radiated through his body, latching onto muscles, bones, driving him down into the plaid recliner. He dropped his face into his hands, felt the tenderness just beneath his skin, the complete and total manifestation of pain.

              Through the floor, he heard the downstairs neighbor watching the Braves playoff game at an obscene volume. Heard music from somewhere else, a low pulse. But the apartment around him was silent. Tango wasn’t home. Probably off to see Ian again.

              His life, Aidan realized in that moment, completely sucked.

              The only bright spot in an otherwise shitfest of a day had been seeing Samantha.

              And because he’d done everything within his power to ensure his life sucked, her brightness was so far out of reach, it was a kick in the gut to think of her now. To think about what might have been…if he wasn’t so damn stupid…

Six

Tango woke to the smell of coffee. Expensive, imported coffee, and the softer undercurrents of tea, because having the ability to choose between the two was more important than drinking either, Ian liked to say.

              He opened his eyes and found them rusty, full of grit. He lay on his stomach, the covers pulled up over his head, face mashed into the lush Egyptian cotton sheets. He didn’t remember undressing or getting into bed, and he had the wine to thank for that. His head throbbed, and his stomach rolled. But the coffee was a great inducement, so he flipped the quilt back and forced himself upright.

              Ian’s apartment was a study in gray, white, and delicate touches of black and burgundy. The finishes were perfect, the housekeeping impeccable. Exactly the sort of place you’d expect to find a wealthy drug lord.

              Exactly the sort of place they’d talked about having, in their teenage dreams, between stage shows and private appointments.

              Ian was at his chrome and glass kitchen table, robe open down the front of his bare chest, paper spread before him, teacup held daintily in one hand. His hair shone in the pale early light.

              “You’re up earlier than expected,” he said, lifting a smile to Tango that was, with little lines crinkled at his eyes, filled with genuine warmth and affection. That was the thing about Ian – away from outside distractions, he truly was Ian, and not the Shaman persona he’d created for business’s sake.

              “I smelled coffee.”

              “Turkish. Also there’s crumpets, fresh butter, and berries with clotted cream.”

              Tango dragged out the chair across from Ian and fell into it. “I really shouldn’t stay.”

              “Nonsense. You said you were taking some time off. Where else would you go?”

              “I…” Words failed him in the fall of Ian’s bright gaze.

              With a few deft movements, the Englishman folded the newspaper away, and cleared the table between them, an open patch of glass available so he could reach across the distance and cover Tango’s hands with his own. “Listen to me, Kev,” he said quietly. “I want you to spend a little time away from your club, and think things over.”

              He was too hungover to be sharp. “What things?” he asked, frowning, but didn’t pull away.

              “Think about what you want. What you really want. I think…I think that might not be the club.”

              Again…he didn’t pull away.

~*~

“Come by the house on your way in,” were Ghost’s only words before the line disconnected. Aidan stared at his phone a long moment afterward, inwardly cursing, knowing exactly what awaited him at Casa de Teague.

              What a way to start the morning.

              When he pulled up to the house, he spotted Ava’s truck and Mercy’s bike, and didn’t know if it would be better or worse having them present. Better, he decided, when he walked in the back door and was met by the chaos of breakfast with the babies. Everyone was at the table. Maggie held Cal and sipped coffee with her free hand. Ava helped Remy eat what looked like mashed carrots. Ghost and Mercy sat beside one another and were in conversation about the open bike magazine on the table between them.

              Slowly, the noise slackened, then ceased altogether, four pairs of eyes glancing his way with a variety of sentiments.

              “Hi, sweetie,” Maggie said, giving him a gentle, motherly smile.

              Aidan looked to his father; his was the corner from which judgment and hatred would come. Ghost would be the one who hated him for this.

              Right on cue, he said, “So did you forget to buy rubbers, or what?”

              “Kenny!” Maggie hissed.

              “Dad,” Ava said. “We talked about this.”

              Ghost leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, poker face secured, gaze unreadable. “I guess we shoulda expected it earlier, if we’re honest. All you worry about is partying and fucking.”

              “Kenneth,” Maggie said, “we are
not
here to beat him up.”

              “What are we supposed to do, then? Congratulate him? Congrats, Aidan,” he said, coldly, “for not listening to a damn thing I’ve ever tried to tell you.”

              Maggie started to reprimand her husband again–

              And Aidan took an aggressive step toward the table, years’ worth of anger and frustration boiling in his gut, fueling the venom in the back of his throat. “You’re unbelievable. This is
my
mistake,
my
problem, and you’re worried about…what? That I didn’t listen to you? That this makes
you
look bad or something?”

              “Aidan,” Mercy said.

              But Ghost just stared.

              “You don’t give a damn about what this means to me. You worry about your son looking like a fuckup loser, isn’t that right? You worry about you looking like you couldn’t teach me anything.”

              Maggie made a distressed sound.

              Mercy stood. “Guys, let’s take a breath, and talk this out.”

              “So he can insult me some more?” Aidan asked. “I know that’s his favorite pastime.”

              A muscle in Ghost’s jaw ticked. “How did you think this was gonna go?”

              “Exactly like this.”

              “You’re thirty-two, damn it, when the
hell
are you gonna grow up?”

              “Grow up and be like you?” Aidan bit back. His throat ached, and his chest constricted, and he hated what he was saying…almost as much as he hated having to say it. “All I need to do now is go on a bender, ignore my kid, and knock a teenager up, and I’ll be right on schedule.”

              “Oh shit,” Ava murmured.

              “My dad the role model,” Aidan sneered. “Popping high school girls’ cherries and dumping his kid on them. What a guy.”

              Ghost started to lunge up from his chair, and Mercy caught him by the arm, pinning him down as if he were a child, seemingly without effort.

              “That’s enough!” Maggie snapped, tucking Cal into her chest as he started to cry. “Stop it right now before either of you says something else you can’t take back.” When she turned to Aidan, her eyes were shiny, and it hit him then, like a punch: the cracks about teenagers were more hurtful to her than anyone.

              He was an asshole.

              “You are not,” Maggie continued, “two idiots at a bar somewhere. You’re family. You’re father and son. And family doesn’t let family face challenges alone.” She looked at her husband, cradling the baby close. “Understand? This isn’t about ego, or undoing what’s already done. We need to be supportive of Aidan. All of us.”

              In a quiet voice, Mercy said, “We’ve all done things without thinking them through first. All of us, even if we’d like to think we’re smarter than that.”

              Cal’s wail became a high banshee shriek, and Ava reached for him. “Way to go, Dad,” she said as she stood, hand cradling the back of Cal’s head.

              Aidan had no idea what to say…

              So he left.

~*~

The very first time Sam ever laid eyes on Aidan Teague, she was fourteen, and he knocked the breath right out of her. He’d been slouched up against a wall in the cafeteria, honing what would become his trademark aura of mischief and insolence, and she’d known fourteen-year-old boys shouldn’t have looked like that. Shouldn’t have stirred unspeakable longings in virgin freshman girls.

              That impression of him had stayed with her, had held him captive in her fascination longer than any man she’d met as an adult – girlhood had a way of sharpening fascination to something dark and deadly.

              Normally, nothing about that mental image intruded upon her daily life at work.

              “So how would you characterize Prince Hal at this stage of the play?” she asked her eleven a.m. Shakespeare class.

              She was in one of the smaller classrooms, old-fashioned desks all crammed in together. It was a windowless and uninspired space; she always left the door open so a little natural light could stream in from the hallway. Of her forty-two students, only a handful were looking at her; the others had their heads turned toward the door.

              “Anyone?” she prompted, her smile fading. She died a little inside when no one participated. Shakespeare was her favorite,
Henry IV, Part I
a special favorite.

              One of the girls in the front row, Jamie, pointed to the door.

              Sam turned, and was struck dumb a moment as the past smacked into her. If he’d been breathtaking at fourteen, Aidan Teague at thirty-two was…she was without words.

              It was the same picture, him leaning back against the wall, his hair wild, his jeans dirty, his cut too obvious. But in so many ways it was different – the lines on his face, the scars on his arms, the complete lack of mischief in his eyes.

              She wet her lips. “Hi.”

              He started to smile, and it caught a little. “I wanted to see if you wanted to get coffee or something.”

              “Uh…” Her mind didn’t know how to process his request. He wanted to have coffee with her?
He
…wanted to have…coffee…with
her
. “Well…”

              “Say yes,” one of the girls said in a stage whisper. “He’s
gorgeous
.”

              Muffled laughter rippled through the students and Aidan glanced their way with an amused, proud little smirk.

              Sam gathered herself with a firm internal reprimand. She was done with him, remember? She’d made that decision. And she was sticking to it.             

              “I’m teaching right now,” she said. “Class lets out in ten minutes, but my break isn’t very long.”

              He shrugged. “That’s fine. Mind if I wait?”

              “Let him wait,” Jamie said, smiling shyly.

              Kyla Davies shoved her backpack off the empty desk beside her and patted it. “You can come sit here,” she said to Aidan, batting her eyelashes dramatically, drawing laughter from her classmates.

              Aidan’s high cheekbones colored; Sam couldn’t remember him ever blushing, but he was for sure doing it now. “Thanks, but…” He dropped into the spare plastic chair beside her podium. “I’ll just park it here.”

              Kyla groaned. “Aw, man…”

              Hiding her smile poorly, Sam cleared her throat. “Just a few more minutes, guys. Let’s focus. Specifically, I want to talk about Hal’s swiftly changing attitude toward Falstaff, after that epic dialogue with his father…”

              Habit and her ingrained understanding of the play were all that pushed her through the last ten minutes of lecture. The awareness of Aidan sitting beside her was like a fever, flaring beneath her skin, prickling up and down the back of neck, tightening the skin of her scalp until her hair felt too heavy. All the logic in the world couldn’t fight the physical pull of him.

              It was senseless, she told herself. He probably wasn’t even that good in bed, and all her goosebumps and shivers were wasted on him.

              Yeah right.

              Either way, her head and her body were at odds with one another. Aidan was a mistake she’d stopped wanting to make. But her hands wanted to smooth up the rough texture of his scarred arms, and her mouth wanted to know the feel of his.

              At a minute ‘til, the students started packing up, the rustle of their bags and papers drowning out her final thoughts.

              “We’ll pick up Thursday talking about the battle, and move on to
Part II
,” she said, raising her voice. “Bye, guys, have a good afternoon.”

              A few smiles and “bye, Miss Walton”s were thrown her way as the students filed out, but Aidan was the one earning all the attention, the curious glances, the winks, the stares, the slightly envious glares of a few of the boys. In Knoxville, it didn’t get much cooler than a Lean Dog. No matter how respectable, composed, and preppy a college boy, there was always that streak of envy when it came to the MC, that curiosity and fascination. What must it be like to be all James Dean and Steve McQueen in your leather and denim? Not giving a damn about anything?

              Judging by the shadows under Aidan’s eyes, not as cool as outsiders might think.

              “I don’t have time for coffee,” she said, turning to him when they were alone. “But we could walk down to the vending machines.”

              “Yeah. Sure.”

              As they stepped into the hall, he said, “So what were you talking to them about? What’s up with that Hal and Staffy guy?”