something that she didn’t want to do in front of Darrin.
She placed the Cokes on her nightstand and walked into her bathroom, pulled the bottom drawer open and picked up the economy sized box of tampons that she’d bought eight years ago and carried it back to the bed where Aidan was already lounging with one of her precious Cokes in his hand. Frowning, he watched as she opened the box and dumped the two large bags of Hershey Kisses that she’d been hiding from Darrin on the bed.
“What the hell……,” he murmured as he looked from the empty tampon box to the chocolate that she planned on devouring, back to the empty tampon box.
“Tell Darrin and I’ll make your life a living hell,” she promised, popping the top off her Coke with a sigh as she reached for the remote and settled in for a long, depressing night of Lifetime movies.
“Understood,” Aidan said with a nod as he reached for one of her bags of chocolate.
“Touch my chocolate and you’ll be singing soprano for the rest of your life,” she bit out, even as she shifted so that she could settle back against him.
He cleared his throat as he quickly lost interest in her chocolate and put his arm around her, “Duly noted.”
*-*-*-*
“Where’s Marybeth?” Reese asked as he sat down next to him at the crowded tavern table.
“At home,” he said on a tired sigh as he took a sip from his beer.
“Why didn’t she come?” his twin brother asked with a confused frown as Darrin was once again forced to shift his chair to the left and away from the couple making out next to him.
“Because this is a guy’s night out,” he bit out, looking pointedly at the two large bastards sitting to his right, the same ones that had not only brought their wives to guy’s night out, but who also couldn’t seem to stop kissing and pawing at their wives’ asses.
“If you wanted to have a guy’s night out then why did you invite them?” Reese asked, gesturing towards Trevor and Jason with a handful of peanuts.
“I didn’t,” he said, rolling his eyes in disgust when Zoe giggled as Trevor playfully nipped at her neck.
Pathetic, he thought with disgust, not at all jealous that his cousins were free to touch and kiss the women they loved whenever they wanted while he had to hide his relationship with Marybeth. It was fine with him, absolutely fucking fine, he told himself as he held up his empty beer bottle and gestured to the waitress walking past them to bring him another one.
“Then why are they here?” Reese asked, holding up two fingers, ordering his own beer.
“I have no fucking clue,” he said with a heavy sigh. “They just showed up an hour ago, sat down and started making out.”
“Do you want to move to another table?” Reese asked when Trevor suddenly grabbed Zoe from her chair and dragged her onto his lap.
“I already tried that,” he admitted, nodding his thanks when the waitress placed a cold bottle of beer in front of him. “They followed me.”
Reese chuckled as he sipped his beer. “Is Danny coming?”
“No, his girlfriend is making him dinner tonight,” he said, hating the fact that he was jealous of his brother, especially since Danny deserved some happiness after all the bullshit life had put him through.
“Have you met her yet?” Reese asked, grabbing the small appetizer’s menu positioned between the ketchup and barbeque sauce bottles in the middle of their table.
“No,” he said, shaking his head as he signaled for the waitress.
“Aidan and Uncle Jared can’t say enough nice things about her,” Reese said, looking over the menu.
“That’s because she bakes for them,” he pointed out.
“There is that,” Reese said, his lips twitching with amusement as he gestured to the appetizer menu as the waitress stopped by their table and pulled a small notepad out of her apron. “Four of everything, please.”
“Better make it five if you want the girls to get anything,” Darrin said, gesturing towards Haley and Zoe, who seemed completely besotted with the bastards holding them.
“I’ll put those orders right in,” the waitress said with a smile, not even batting an eye at their request, more than used to dealing with Bradfords and their appetites.
“Did you run a background check on her?” Reese asked once their waitress walked away.
Darrin chuckled as he took a sip of his beer. “Three months ago. You?”
Grinning, Reese nodded as he finished off his beer and signaled for another one. “Dad asked me to do it four months ago,” he admitted ruefully as he grabbed another handful of peanuts.
He wasn’t exactly surprised since their father couldn’t seem to stop worrying about their older brother. Their father was always fretting over Danny, worried that he wasn’t eating enough, that he wasn’t taking care of himself or that he was in pain and wasn’t telling anyone. Darrin worried about his brother, they all did, but they were free to worry about him. Their father on the other hand…
Had seriously fucked up and couldn’t seem to stop fucking up. He was terrified of saying or doing something to push Danny away and Darrin got that, probably more than anyone given his situation with Marybeth, but it was a mistake. His father needed to stop fucking around and face the past before it was too late. When the two of them finally handled this they would probably come to blows, but that was to be expected.
“You grabbing an extra shift tomorrow?” Reese asked, thankfully steering the conversation away from their father and all the other bullshit that he didn’t want to think about tonight.
“No,” he said, shaking his head as he sat back when the waitress walked over with a tray overflowing with cheese fries and Buffalo wings, “I’m going to take a day off and catch up on some sleep before I crash.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Reese agreed as he sat back so that the waitress could place the first part of their order on the table.
He considered suggesting that his brother do the same, but then he rethought it when he realized that would mean that his brother would end up having to spend more time with Missy, a fate that he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
“You want to catch a movie tomorrow or are you planning to spend the day lounging in bed with Marybeth?” Reese asked, earning a pointed glare from him and a swift kick beneath the table just in case his brother didn’t get the message.
“Why the hell are you kicking me?” Reese demanded with a glare of his own.
“Because you have a big fucking mouth!” he snapped, tempted to kick his brother again just for the hell of it.
Rolling his eyes, Reese grabbed a plate overflowing with fries, cheese and bacon and pulled it in front of him. “They already know,” he said with a careless shrug as he grabbed a fry and shoved it in his mouth.
“He’s right,” Jason suddenly said as the bastard reached over and snagged the Buffalo wings, “we do.”
“Everyone does,” Trevor added with a shrug as he reached over and stole Darrin’s beer.
Admittedly stunned, he looked over at his cousins for confirmation. Zoe shrugged as she reached over and stole a fry off his plate. “He’s right.”
“We’ve known for years,” Haley admitted as she pushed her glasses back up her nose and also stole one of his fries.
“How?” he asked, throwing a murderous glare at his brother, wondering if the bastard opened his big mouth and-
“I walked in on the two of you kissing in your mother’s kitchen a few years ago,” Zoe announced with a shrug.
“Me, too,” Haley said as she took another fry.
“Same here,” Jason said around a mouthful of fries.
“I walked into the backyard and found you bending Marybeth over the picnic table and-”
With a heavy sigh, he said, “I get the point,” cutting his cousin off and making him wonder how long it would be before Marybeth figured out that their little secret wasn’t such a secret anymore and tried to use it to push him away.
Chapter 9
> Would this night never end? he wondered as he tossed his keys and wallet on the bureau and asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”
With a wild look in his eye, Aidan looked up at him before quickly glancing back down at the sleeping woman curled up against him. “Nothing,” he said slowly as he carefully picked up a half-empty bag of Hershey Kisses and moved it away from Marybeth. “What are you doing?” Aidan asked, sneaking a glance down at Marybeth as he grabbed a handful of Kisses and frantically unwrapped them before shoving them in his mouth.
“Checking up on her,” he said, conveniently leaving out the fact that he was planning on taking a shower and climbing in bed with Marybeth as soon as Aidan left.
“Me too,” Aidan agreed distractedly as he rushed to unwrap another handful of Kisses while he kept glancing down at Marybeth, looking as though he expected her to wake up and go for his balls at any second.
“Is that her tampon stash?” he asked, nodding towards the chocolate that his brother was currently devouring.
Aidan froze mid-chew. “Maybe?”
“Shit,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at the television and nearly groaned when he saw the Lifetime channel emblem flash at the bottom of the screen. This wasn’t good. Lifetime movie/chocolate binges were usually reserved for when he’d fucked up and seriously pissed her off.
“Get out,” he said, sighing heavily as he rubbed his hands down his face.
“But, the movie’s not over yet,” Aidan pointed out around another mouthful of chocolate.
“Don’t fucking care. Get out,” he said, grabbing his brother by the ankle and pulled.
“You bastard!” Aidan gasped as his back hit the floor.
“Next time you’ll listen,” Darrin calmly explained, ignoring his brother’s desperate attempts to escape his hold as he dragged him out into the hallway where he released him.
“Lock up on your way out,” he said as he walked back into Marybeth’s bedroom and closed the door behind him, making sure to lock it.
“You abusive bastard!” he heard Aidan cry in outrage as he undid his belt and kicked off his shoes.
“That was kind of mean,” Marybeth said with a sleepy smile when she opened her eyes and spotted him, making his chest tighten.
God, she was so fucking beautiful…..
“He wouldn’t leave,” he explained as he walked over to the bed and sat down next to her.
“You could have asked him to leave,” she pointed out teasingly as she leaned up and kissed him.
“I could have…” he hedged before adding, “but where would the fun in that be?”
She rolled her eyes playfully even as she shifted so that she was snuggled up against him. “Where did you go?” she asked him as she shifted to get more comfortable.
“Guy’s night out,” he said as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head, savoring her strawberries and cream scent.
“I thought we were having dinner tonight,” she said quietly as she toyed with one of the buttons on his shirt.
“We were,” he said, wrapping his arm around her as he pressed another kiss against the top of her head.
“Then what changed?”
He sighed heavily as he said, “Shot day.”
*-*-*-*
“Shot day?” she repeated back, not sure what that had to do with anything.
“You always kick me out on shot day,” he said with a careless shrug as he leaned down and pressed a kiss against her neck, making her lick her lips as he place his hand on her stomach and-
Reminded her exactly why she avoided him on the days when she had to get her monthly injection. She placed her hand over his where it was absently caressing her stomach and pushed it away. She wasn’t sure if he realized that he was doing it, but he did it every single time she had to get a shot, making an already difficult situation unbearable.
He also did it anytime they were around someone that was pregnant, or they saw a baby or a young child doing something cute. He’d put his arms around her, place his hand over her stomach and with the slightest caress, he’d break her heart a little more.
He wanted a family and she couldn’t give that to him and she desperately wanted to, more than anything. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, start a family with him and grow old together, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, but that was never going to happen, at least not for her.
When the time was right, and God, how many times had she told herself that it was the right time, she was going to put an end to this thing between them once and for all so that he could move on and find a woman that wasn’t broken and could give him what he deserved.
“Are you still mad at me?” he asked as she shifted onto her side, facing away from him.
“No,” she said softly, hating the way that her bottom lip trembled, “I’m just tired.”
She felt him shift behind her, hoping that he would just leave so that she could lay here wallowing in self-pity, but instead of leaving, he curled his large body behind hers and wrapped his arm around her. He reached over and placed his hand over hers.
“I don’t like the effect these shots have on you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss against her nape as she closed her eyes and prayed that this day would end.
God, she hated shot day.
“It’s fine,” she said mumbled with a soft sniffle.
“No, it’s not,” he said, tightening his hold around her. “No more shots, Marybeth.”
“I need them.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck. “I’ll start wearing condoms, sweetheart. There’s no need to keep putting yourself through this.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s fine.”
“No,” he said, pressing another kiss against her neck, “it’s not. I don’t want you taking the shots anymore.”
“It’s not your decision,” she said, part of her wishing that she’d just ended this thing between them years ago so that she wasn’t forced to lay here in his arms while he made everything worse by being so damn understanding.
He sighed heavily as he reached up and pushed her hair away from her face. “Would it really be so bad?” he asked, brushing his lips along her jaw as he once again placed his hand over her stomach, making her close her eyes and struggle not to cry. “We’d make beautiful babies, Marybeth,” he whispered, kissing her jaw.
“I don’t want children, Darrin,” she said, forcing the lie as she swallowed back the bile that threatened to send her running for the bathroom.
“Have you even thought about what it would be like?”
Only every waking minute of the day.
“Not every woman was meant to be a mother,” she said, repeating what the nurse had said to her when she was fifteen and devastated to find out that she would never be able to have a child.
“You would make a wonderful mother,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “Any child would be lucky to have you.”
“Stop, Darrin, just stop,” she said, pushing his hand away as she crawled off the bed, needing to put some space between them before she did something stupid like tell him the truth just so she could put an end to this nightmare.
He sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed as he shoved his fingers through his short hair. “I didn’t come here to upset you.”
“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head absently as she glanced at the clock. It was just after nine o’clock and unfortunately, most places would be starting to close for the night, limiting her options for an escape.
“How about a bath and a late dinner?” he suggested, looking exhausted and making her wonder how long it had been since he took a day off and got some rest.
Too damn long, she decided as she grabbed one of his old shirts and a pair of his boxers that she’d helped herself to the other day and headed for her bathroom. He followed her, but didn’t say anything as she turned the water on. He reached over her and adjusted the water before
he grabbed the shower nozzle and rinsed the tub out as she stepped back so that she could kneel in front of the small ornate cabinet that he’d built for her when they were fourteen and searched through the bath salts that he’d given her over the years until she found her favorite, black raspberry and vanilla.