Walk On The Wild Side (18 page)

An image of fifteen-year-old Brady cradling his infant nephew flashed in her mind. He would have looked exactly like Jordan did now. Tall and a little gangly, his face boyishly handsome.

“It wasn’t too bad. Jordan was a happy little kid. Fat, smiley.”

His lips curved into a half smile and Molly felt her heart roll in her chest at the almost wistful look on his face. “Anyway, it was good training for when I eventually have kids of my own. I won’t be totally clueless.”

Considering what she’d learned about his relationship with Jordan, hearing him say it shouldn’t come as such a shock. Nevertheless, her body jerked in surprise. “You want kids?”

He frowned at her. “Sure. Doesn't everybody?”

“I guess so,” she said. Now the image in her brain morphed to an adult Brady, in all of his grown up big bad assed-ness, holding an infant with that same wistful expression. She felt a twisting sensation low in her core and was pretty sure she’d just ovulated.

She gave herself a mental smack. Brady’s revelation that he wanted kids someday should not be turning her insides into a warm pile of goo. “Knowing you, you’ll be one of those guys who holds out until he’s seventy and then knocks up a twenty five year old.”

He gave her butt a playful swat. “Just like there’s such a thing as being too young to have a baby, there’s such a thing as being too old. There’s something fucked up about a parent going back into diapers just when your kid is getting out of them. I figure I need to have them while I can still run them down if I need to.”

Molly forced a laugh, trying not to think about Brady and his future children and why the thought of the future mother of his children in particular made her feel a little sick. “Speaking of too young,” she said, forcing her mind onto a less nauseating topic, “how old was your sister when she had Jordan?”

“Two years older than me. Seventeen.”

“What about Jordan’s dad?”

She felt the muscles of his chest flex as he shrugged. “She never said who it was—I don’t think she even knows.”

Molly’s brow furrowed. “How could she not know?”

His laugh rumbled out of his chest. “Because, goody two shoes, when you sleep with half a dozen different guys in a week, it can be hard to pin one down as your baby daddy.”

She felt her cheeks heat. “She could have gotten a DNA test—”

Brady cut her off. “The guys she was doing were a bunch of losers who wouldn’t have done any better than she did.”

She was quiet for several seconds. “He’s lucky he has you.”

He sighed. “I don’t know about that. I haven’t been around as much as I should have been, but…”

“You don’t like to go home.”

He didn’t say anything for several seconds, and she started to think that was the last glimpse she was going to get into Brady’s life before Big Timber. “No. I haven’t been back since I left for basic. I’ve only seen Jordan a handful of times since when I could afford a ticket and convince his mom to let him come visit.”

“But you went back in August,” she said. “Why then?”

“Jordan needed me,” he said simply.

After a long moment of silence it became clear he was going to offer no further details. “Then you shouldn’t beat yourself up so much for not being around. You did what you could, and when it came down to it, you were there when he needed you, and you’re here for him now. You do a lot more than some people,” she said. A hazy memory of her father, standing on the front steps with his arms folded as Adele drove Molly and Ellie out of his life crept into her head.

His lips quirked in a half smile, his expression uncharacteristically soft. “You let people off the hook too easily.”

She pursed her lips ruefully. “Probably because I learned early on to have low expectations of everyone but myself. Or because I’m so scarred by my father’s abandonment that I’m afraid if I challenge people they’ll leave me.”

“You challenge me all the time.”

She smiled, but her throat felt oddly tight. “It’s different with you.”
I know better than to have any expectations.

His silver gaze narrowed but he didn’t probe further.

Her thoughts drifted back to her father. “It’s weird. I barely thought about my father before my therapist brought him up.”

He stiffened against her. “You have a therapist?”

“Sadie thought it was a good idea, after everything with Josh went down. She’s probably right—anyone who clings to a relationship for ten years when the other person is barely interested clearly has issues, right?”

“What do you tell her about me?” he asked warily.

She rolled her eyes. “God, you sound like Ellie and my mom. All they care about is if I’m badmouthing them to Dr. Stewart. But you don’t have to worry,” she leaned up and pressed her lips to his in a gentle peck. “I don’t talk about you.”

“Why not?” Now he sounded offended rather than wary. “I don’t at least warrant a mention?”

She laughed softly. “You are the only part of my life I
don’t
need to pick apart and analyze to figure out what’s going on. That’s a good thing, by the way,” she said when his lips tightened in a frown. “But we do talk about my dad a lot, and how that relationship made me glom on to Josh and his family like a remora on a shark and refuse to let go.”

“So have you used that address you found yet?’ His hand came up to cradle her cheek and she leaned into it like a cat.

“Not yet,” she replied, loving the feel of his callused palm against her skin. “He’s had no interest in seeing us up to this point, so there’s no reason he would be open to it now. And there’s only so much rejection I can take. But at the same time, I feel like as long as I have realistic expectations, I don’t want to let this go completely without giving it one last chance.”

As the words spilled out of her mouth, she wondered why it was so easy to talk to him about this when she hadn’t discussed it with anyone outside of her therapy sessions.

Probably because Brady had so many secrets of his own that deep down she knew she could trust him to keep hers.

“Sounds like you have your answer.”

Molly bit her lip, wishing it felt that cut and dried. “Ellie has no interest, and I’m worried that if I contact him, I’m bringing him back into everyone’s life, not just mine.”

Brady smiled and threaded his fingers through her hair. “You’ve spent too much time making sure everyone else gets what they want and need. You need to do what you need. What’s going to make it better for you?”

“I need to contact him. I need to ask him why.”

Chapter 10

Brady returned from his run the next morning to find Jordan at the kitchen table slumped over a bowl of cereal. He gave his nephew a good morning nod as he walked into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water and chugged it. Jordan mumbled a greeting and shoveled a spoonful of cereal in his mouth. He paused, then reached for the sugar bowl in front of him and dumped in a half dozen spoonfuls before Brady could snatch it away.

“Lay off. I don’t have dental insurance.”

“You have to put a lot of sugar on Cheerios or else they taste like cardboard,” Jordan grumbled, but continued to wolf down his breakfast. “Can’t you get some better cereal? Like Cocoa Puffs or something?”

The mere thought made Brady’s teeth ache. It wasn’t the first time this week Jordan had complained about the food Brady chose to stock. So far, Brady had gotten an earful about the ‘gravel bread’ (whole wheat) and ‘hippie peanut butter’ (all natural, sugar free).

“I already told you, you want to buy the groceries, you can buy whatever you like.”

Jordan rolled his eyes and emptied the bowl while Brady went to the refrigerator. He pulled out eggs, cheese, bell peppers, and green onions, and set to work making himself an omelet.

“I don’t want onions in mine,” Jordan said.

“Who says you get one?”

“Come on, I’ll do the dishes,” Jordan said as he got up from the table and started over to where Brady was chopping onions on a cutting board.

Brady shot him a glare and looked pointedly at the empty bowl on the table, surrounded by dribbles of milk.

He felt a mild shot of triumph when Jordan stopped in his tracks and turned to retrieve his dishes. A vast improvement from two mornings ago, when Brady had had to tell him four times to clear them.

“Deal. Grab me another omelet pan from the cabinet.” He poured some oil into the pan he already had going and went to work on the bell pepper.

Jordan set the pan on the burner next to the other pan as Brady added the onions to his and divvied up the bell pepper between the two.

“So you have fun last night?” Jordan asked as the smell of cooking onions filled the kitchen, making Brady’s stomach growl.

His hand holding the spatula froze for a split second as he stirred the cooking vegetables. “As fun as any night I fall asleep in front of SportsCenter,” he replied blithely.

“Uh huh, riiiiight,” Jordan said.

Brady looked up and met Jordan’s knowing, cat’s who got the canary look.

“Something you want to talk about?” Brady asked as he scraped the vegetables back onto the cutting board.

“Just wondering why I heard your truck pulling in around two.”

“What were you doing up at two?” He cracked the eggs into bowl, added a dash of milk, and whisked it until it got frothy. Damn it, he’d counted on Jordan being a deep enough sleeper to miss the sound of his truck and its loud American engine.

Maybe it was time to trade it in for a Prius.

“I had to pee.”

Brady grunted and poured the eggs into the two pans, swirling one, then the other.

“So where’d you go?” Jordan prodded.

“Out,” Brady looked up and hit him with a stony gaze that would have shut up anyone else on the planet.

“Who is she?”

“What makes you think there’s a she involved?”

“Are you suddenly into dudes?”

Brady gave him another glare. Jordan kept on going. “You left after midnight and didn’t want me to know. Figure you’re either getting laid or doing something illegal. I know you’re not going to do anything illegal so…”

“Your powers of deduction are astounding,” Brady said as he added the vegetables back to the pans and sprinkled in a handful of cheese into each. “Get the plates and forks.”

“It’s Molly, isn’t it?” Jordan said as he set the requested items on the counter.

“It’s none of your business,” Brady said as he slid the omelets onto the plates. He handed one to Jordan and took the other to the table and sat down.

“I mean I know I said you should hit that,” Jordan said as he slid into the seat across from him, “but Molly’s doesn’t seem like a girl you just booty call.”

“She’s not,” Brady shoved back from the table and went to the refrigerator to get some salsa. “And it wasn’t just a booty call.”

“So you were with Molly!” Jordan crowed.

Brady winced “Do me a favor and keep that information to yourself. Molly’s not keen on the idea of everyone finding out about us.”

Jordan’s lips tightened and he set down his fork. “Right. She’ll screw around with you, but God forbid she goes anywhere people might see her with you.”

“Let me guess, things didn't work out with the girl from your chemistry class.” Right after school started, Jordan had told him about a girl—Emma? Emily?—who had been assigned to his table in his honor’s chem class. According to Jordan she was “superhot” and “supercool.” It didn’t hurt that she was new to the school, her parents having moved to Idaho from Portland over the summer, and thus wasn’t up to speed on the sordid history of the McManus/Flannery clan and why most girls stayed far away from Jordan. Or at least pretended to.

“She’d sneak out to meet me, but she wouldn't go to the homecoming dance with me,” he said as he pushed the remains of his omelet around on his plate. “It was stupid of me to even ask her. But I’m lucky, right? Now I don’t have to spend a bunch of money on dinner and shit.”

“Someday you’ll meet a girl who will like you for who you are, no matter how fucked up our family is.”

“Like Molly?’ Jordan said sarcastically.”

Brady’s jaw clenched. “It’s different with Molly. Her not wanting to go public yet has nothing to do with the family.”
Because she only knows the barest minimum, “
She just broke up with a guy she was with since high school. She wants to take it slow.” He took his empty plate to the sink and wondered why he felt compelled to explain himself to a teenager.

“How is doing her on the down low taking it slow?”

Brady grimaced, hating the way it sounded so sordid, coming out of Jordan’s mouth. But really, wasn’t that how Molly viewed it?

And if that was true, how was this any different from all the other times he’d let himself be used for sex because he knew better than to ask for more?

And God knew, he wanted more with Molly. He wanted everything. Now he just had to figure out how to move their relationship in the right direction without scaring her the hell away. Had to make her understand that he was the real deal, the kind of guy she could depend on. The kind of man she could build a life with.

###

After her talk with Brady, Molly woke with a sense of resolve. Today she was going to contact her father. It was time to stop vacillating, and get this over with once and for all.

Still as she drank her coffee and pulled up his information on her computer, she couldn’t drown out the echo of multiple voices arguing her in her head. There was Ellie’s voice, telling her to leave well enough alone.
He didn’t want to see us. He doesn’t deserve to have us in his life.

Then there was Dr. Stewart.
As long as you keep your expectations realistic, and you feel this might provide a sense of closure, then I don’t advise against it.

Brady joined the fray.
You have to do what will make you feel better.

Then of course, there was her own voice, waffling back and forth amid a torrent of emotions and worries about possible outcomes.

What if he greets you with open arms? What kind of relationship do you think you’ll have?
I’ll start slowly, cautiously and keep my expectations low.