Change of Heart

  “Hey, Ani! Your favorite person in the world is calling. Hey, Ani! Your favorite person in the world is calling.”

  “Crap,” I groaned, leaning over to grab my purse on the other end of the couch. “I don’t know when your uncle Alex got my phone but his ringtone is even more obnoxious now.”

  “Hey, asshole,” I answered when I finally found my phone in the bottom of my purse.

  “Hey, pretty girl. How’s it going?”

  “Good, just feeding Arielle. Do you think it’s cool if I just went to bed at seven? Arie goes to sleep at seven so I’m feeling like that would be totally acceptable.”

  “Tired, huh?” he asked with a laugh.

  “Yeah, working all day is kicking my ass.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it.”

  “God willing,” I muttered.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Great,” I groaned, pulling the bottle out of Arie’s mouth as it went slack. “She’s, like, thriving and shit.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Yes, it’s a good thing. But I’m missing everything!”

  “No you’re not,” Alex argued. “Moms have been working full-time for fifty years, and they haven’t been ‘missing everything’ or all their kids would hate them.”

  “Was that supposed to make me feel better?” I groused, lifting Arie up to burp her.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it didn’t.”

  “Lots of moms have to work, Ani. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “I know that,” I snapped, then immediately tempered my voice. “I just wish that I could be independently wealthy or win the lottery or something so I didn’t have to leave her every day.”

  “Yeah, I hear you.” He paused. “Hey, have you talked to Bram lately?”

  “I see him at the office every day. Why?” I asked, pushing myself up off the couch. Arielle was going straight to bed so I could, too, do not pass go, do not collect a bath or change into pajamas.

  “Just wondering when you two will get your shit together,” Alex said lightly, laughing when I growled.

  “Why is everyone all up in our shit all the time?” I hissed as I laid Arie down in her bassinet. Thankfully, she didn’t stir as I threaded her arms into and then zipped up the little sleep sack she slept in. “We didn’t work out.”

  “If you would get your heads out of your asses, you’d work out!” Alex replied in exasperation. “Jesus, Bram’s got this shit hang-up that dates back to our mother, and you can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s ridiculous and annoying as fuck.”

  I dropped down to my mattress and stared at my bedroom door. “Hang-up that dates back to your mother?” I asked softly, making Alex curse.

  “You need to ask Bram about that,” he muttered.

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Well, it’s not my story to tell.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, I do care. I don’t even remember half the shit he remembers, okay, Ani? He’s got all this shit floating around in his head, and I don’t even know how to talk to him about it because I cannot fucking remember it.” Alex’s voice grew rough, and I heard his teeth snap shut as he finished talking.

  “I’m not even sure what to say to that,” I replied, kicking off my shoes and standing up to strip off my jeans. At least the dress code at work was one point in its favor. Jeans and T-shirts were pretty much the uniform.

  “I just wish you’d talk to him,” Alex finally said as I climbed into bed in my T-shirt and panties. “I don’t think he’s sleeping, and you sound like shit too. Something’s gotta give.”

  “I’m fine—just getting used to having an infant and a full-time job,” I retorted.

  “You don’t miss Abraham at all?” Alex asked.

  I opened my mouth to agree but couldn’t do it. Even if I thought I could lie to Alex, which I’d never been able to do before without him seeing through me, I couldn’t disregard Bram like that.

  “Yes, I miss him,” I finally said. “But it is what it is.”

  “Wrong.”

  “You’re a nosy pain in the ass, but I love you anyway,” I said with a snort. “But I’m so fucking tired I’m going to fall asleep on the phone.”

  “You’re in bed already?”

  “I told you I was going to sleep at seven. It’s seven,” I replied, pushing my face against the cool pillow under my head.

  “Fine, but I have one more question for you,” Alex said seriously, making me tense. “What are you wearing?”

  “Fuck off,” I laughed, hanging up on him.

  I set the alarm on my phone and set it on my nightstand before rolling to my back in the middle of the bed.

  What had Alex been talking about when he’d mentioned Bram’s hang-up? From comments made over the years, I’d been under the impression that Bram and Alex’s mom was one of the good ones. They hadn’t had a shitty home life like I’d had. Their mom had actually died, leaving the boys wards of the state. I didn’t think that they’d ever known who their dad was—we were alike in that respect—but beyond that, our stories couldn’t have been more different.

  So what the hell was Alex trying to imply?

  I curled onto my side and pulled a pillow to my chest. My eyes were heavy as I looked out the window, but I knew it would be a while before I actually fell asleep. Nighttime was when I missed Bram the most. Throughout the day, I could keep myself busy enough that I didn’t think about him as much, but after Arielle was asleep in her bed and the house was quiet and still, his absence in my life seemed to magnify.

  He’d been so adamant that he wanted to be with me the day he’d caught us in the bath, but I couldn’t trust him. How was I supposed to believe that he’d changed his mind? Our disagreement hadn’t been as trivial as where we wanted to live or how we spent our money. Having a child was a huge undertaking. It meant that you were dedicated to that child for the rest of your life. It was an even more binding and important commitment than marriage.

  That’s the part that I couldn’t get past. Abraham wasn’t asking me to date him, or if he was, he was completely out of touch with reality. He was asking for a lifetime commitment, if not to me than to Arielle. But he couldn’t just decide a few years down the road that we weren’t working out. Even if he stopped loving me, he’d still be Arielle’s parent. It wasn’t something he could change his mind about, and the fact that his decision came out of nowhere made it even harder to believe.

  My eyes filled with tears as I thought about the way he’d been dragging his body through the door of the office every morning, smiling at me tiredly as he made his way back to his office. He wasn’t sleeping, at least not as much as he needed to be.

  I wiped my face and pressed it harder into the pillow, trying in vain to fall asleep.

  I was pretty sure I didn’t look any better than Bram.

  Chapter 17

  Abraham

  You told her what?” I yelled into my phone, hearing the case crack in my hand.

  “I mentioned that you had a hang-up about our mom,” Alex answered sheepishly. “It just slipped out! I was irritated as fuck that you two were being such idiots, and I—”

  “It’s none of your fucking business, Alex,” I yelled again, pressing my fingers into my eye sockets. “You really think that telling Ani that I’m still dealing with shit from when we were six years old is going to help the situation?”

  “Well, it couldn’t fucking hurt!” Alex yelled back.

  “She’s got Arielle to think about, and you made me sound like I can’t get my shit together. How do you think that looks?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Abraham,” Alex replied, his voice back to normal. “We were just talking about why you two weren’t together and—”

  “Why the fuck are you even discussing my relationship with Ani?” I cut him off. I was livid. I’d known the moment I answered the phone that Alex felt like shit about something, and as soon as he began speaking, I
’d wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him.

  I was so tired that it was giving me a sour stomach, and my eyes felt like they were covered in sand. The only thing keeping me awake in the warm confines of my truck was the fact that Alex was trying to talk his way out of the fact that he’d completely screwed up.

  “Because life is too fucking short,” Alex barked. “You two need to get your shit together.”

  “That’s my problem,” I growled. “Mine. If I want to tell Ani shit about our mother, I will tell her. It’s not your fucking place!”

  “I’m not going to stop talking to Ani because you’ve got some fucked-up desire to piss on her leg,” Alex argued, his voice low. “She’s one of my best friends. Just because you’re fucking her doesn’t mean that’s going to change.”

  “I don’t give a shit if you two want to play Call of Duty or paint each other’s nails,” I replied derisively. “I’m telling you right now to stop discussing me with Ani. I’ll take care of this. I don’t need you fucking shit up more than it already is.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Alex breathed, barking out a laugh. “Abraham, I’m pretty sure you’re fucking this up all on your own.”

  The line went silent, and I pulled my phone away from my ear to find that the fucker had hung up on me.

  I was sitting in my truck in front of my parents’ house, and I’d taken Alex’s call so I could put off going inside. I’d missed family dinner the week before because I’d fallen asleep on my couch without even taking my boots off. I was barely sleeping at night, and when I did, I still didn’t feel rested the next morning.

  Things with Ani and me were tense, but I didn’t know what the hell to do about it. I’d laid it all out. I’d told her exactly what I wanted, and then I’d waited for her to come to me—but she hadn’t.

  I’d seen her at work, and I’d gone to my mom’s on my lunch break to see Arielle, but Ani still hadn’t said a word about our conversation. She seemed perfectly fine with the way things were going, while I was a fucking mess.

  I scratched my fingers through my beard and hopped out of the truck, frustration and overwhelming exhaustion making my movements sharp and jerky. I was running on adrenaline, and the crash was going to hit me hard. My conversation with Alex had pissed me off, and knowing that Ani was just inside the house made that anger magnify by a thousand.

  How could she just write me off? She said she fucking loved me, but what? I wasn’t good enough for her because I hadn’t wanted kids before I met Arielle? If that was the case, why did she keep spouting off about how she still loved me?

  I climbed the steps and walked in the front door without knocking. The closer I got to Ani, the more frustrated I got, and the minute I heard her laughing voice in the kitchen, any patience I’d had was lost.

  “Anita,” I growled as I cleared the doorway, making my mom and Aunt Ellie’s heads shoot up in surprise.

  “Abraham,” my mom called in warning.

  “Outside,” I ordered, ignoring my mom as I herded Ani toward the back door.

  She didn’t argue with me, just took one last look at Arielle, who was swinging back and forth in her little swing at the edge of the kitchen, before leading me outside.

  As soon as we’d hit the back porch and I’d slammed the door behind us, Ani wrapped her arms around herself and lifted her chin. “What’s up?” she asked calmly.

  The lack of emotion in her voice made me crazy.

  “Why the fuck are you discussing me with Alex?” I yelled, making her jerk in surprise. “How the fuck is any of this his business?”

  It wasn’t what I’d wanted to say. I wanted to ask why she hadn’t called. I wanted to know why she didn’t want me. Why she didn’t even seem to miss me anymore. I wanted to know if she still loved me.

  But I wasn’t going to actually say any of that. I’d already told her what I wanted. She knew where I was at, and she simply didn’t care. I wasn’t going to lie back down so she could step over me and walk away again.

  “Are you joking?” Ani asked in surprise, her hands fisting.

  “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  “No, you look like you’re going to fall over. Why don’t you go get some rest and then we can talk again when you aren’t completely losing it.”

  “I can’t fucking rest, Anita!” I hissed, taking a step toward her. “I feel like shit all the time. And you seem to be doing just fucking fine. You don’t want to be with me? Then just say it!”

  Ani’s mouth trembled, and her cheek puckered.

  “Just say it,” I insisted, taking another step forward. “Because this is absolute bullshit! I know I fucked up! I know that I acted like a pussy, and I ran—”

  “Why did you run, Abraham?” she asked tearfully, cutting me off.

  “Because I didn’t think I wanted kids and—”

  “No,” she cut me off again. “The truth.”

  “That is the fucking truth!”

  “Not the whole truth,” she argued, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

  “What do you want me to say, here?”

  “I want you to tell me why you had a change of heart,” Ani said simply, like the answer was something easily given.

  “I just did,” I replied stubbornly through my teeth.

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “Because I fell in love with Arielle. From the second I held her, I knew. It was different with her. I don’t know if she was just supposed to be mine, or if it was because she was yours, but there’s never been a moment in her entire life that I haven’t felt like her fucking parent!”

  “But you didn’t come to me then,” Ani whispered, tears running down her cheeks. “It wasn’t until after Hen—”

  “I didn’t know if I could do it!” I roared, Ani’s tears making me feel out of control. “What if something happened to her? What would that do to you?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to her, Abraham,” Ani said, reaching out to touch me, then dropping her arm as I dodged her.

  I couldn’t take her hands on me then. I felt too volatile, my emotions too close to the surface.

  “But what if something did?” I asked, throwing my hands in the air.

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  “Losing everything!” I yelled, my chest heaving. “If I lost you, I might survive. Barely. If I lost both of you? I’d be a fucking dead man.”

  I clenched my eyes closed against the words and turned away, bracing my hands against the porch railing. Even saying the words out loud caused an almost visceral reaction in my body. Everything pulled tight, from my feet to my neck. I tightened my hands on the railing to keep myself from going down.

  “Baby, we’re not going anywhere,” Ani choked out, coming up behind me.

  “My mother lost a baby,” I ground out as she laid her hand lightly at the base of my spine.

  “Abraham,” Ani breathed, dropping her head against my back.

  “And it’s fucking stupid to bring that up—I’m not a child, and I realize that bad shit happens every day. I know that.”

  “I know,” Ani whispered.

  “You should have seen what it did to her, Ani. She just fucking faded, piece by piece. As I got older, I knew I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to take that chance.”

  “Baby—”

  “And I sure as fuck didn’t want to take that chance with you,” I hissed, turning to face her.

  She rocked back on her heels, but before she could pull away, I was gripping her head in my hands, pulling her face to mine.

  “I’d never want that for you,” I murmured, resting my forehead against hers. “Honest to God, Anita. If you had listened to me, if you hadn’t adopted Arielle, I would have never taken that chance.”

  “That’s the problem,” she replied hoarsely.

  “No,” I ground out. “No. I’d never go back. I’d never in a million years go back to that—I got fucking lucky.” I swallowed hard, swaying a little. “I’m so fucking luck
y that you didn’t listen to me.”

  “Baby?” Ani whispered fearfully as I began to slide sideways. “Abraham?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, righting myself.

  “No,” she gasped, pushing my body against the railing and bracing me up with her body. “What the fuck?”

  “I’m so fucking tired,” I slurred, dropping my head to her shoulder as I tried to bring shit back into focus. I knew I was scaring her, but I couldn’t stop the dizziness that hit me like a freight train. “Can’t sleep without you.”

  “Trevor!” Ani screamed as I tried to prop myself up.

  “Jesus,” I groaned, using the railing behind me to steady myself. “I’m fine. Shit.”

  “Everything okay?” Trevor asked less than a second later, popping his head out the back door. “Holy fuck, Bram!”

  My vision was going spotty, and I shook my head to try and clear it.

  “Trev,” I called as I felt my knees begin to buckle.

  Then it was lights-out.

  * * *

  “Ani,” I said sometime later, opening my eyes in the dark. I knew immediately that I wasn’t home in bed, and I groaned as the smell of my parents’ house registered.

  I’d passed out in the middle of yelling at Ani. Smooth.

  I could hear voices speaking quietly somewhere in the house as I crawled out of the bed and stumbled to the doorway of Katie’s old room. It always took me a minute to get my land legs under me when I first woke up. It was something that had happened to me since I was a kid, and no matter how I tried to change my habits by staying in bed a few minutes after I’d woken up, I still walked around like a drunk for a full minute after I’d climbed out of bed.

  It had made getting up with Arielle a bit of an ordeal as I’d waited to get steady before I’d lift the crying little miss from her bed.

  I turned on the light by the doorway and glanced toward the playpen at the other end of the room, immediately shutting the light off again as I saw Arielle sleeping peacefully with her arms flung out to her sides.

  Then I swallowed hard and stumbled into the hallway. The voices stopped when I got close to the living room, and as I stepped into view, I found six pairs of eyes staring at me in surprise.