Tied - Part Four (The Tied Series) (9 page)

I’d never forget about what had happened - I’d have the scar and the limp forever. And I was disappointed to realize that maybe I’d never entirely stop being angry.

But I was ready to move forward.

○●○●○●○●○

In our case, moving on meant moving out. Mallet’s brother Tony was waiting for us at their father’s apartment in Brooklyn. My least favorite borough, for no other reason than “trendy people like it.”

“Wow,” Katherine said when we stepped out of the subway. “It’s a nice neighborhood.” It kind of was. Even I was impressed. The street was alive with pedestrians - businessmen and strollers and people walking their dogs. There were little boutiques and coffee shops and bars everywhere we looked.

“It wasn’t so nice when my parents bought the place back in the eighties,” Mallet said.

“Mal, we can’t do this,” I said, “You could make a killing off this apartment. Rent it to some transplants at triple what you’re charging us.”

“We want people in there that we don’t have to take care of,” Mal said, “You’ll unclog your own drains and change your own lightbulbs or hire your own guys to do it. We don’t want to play landlord, you know? We don’t have time. This is a good deal for both of us.”

“And we’ll really renovate the place, Mal, we promise,” Katherine said when we reached the front of the building. It was clean, and landscaped, and almost too nice. How could I not feel guilty? Even Katherine wore a concerned frown as she looked up at the brick entryway. “I mean, as quickly as we can afford to.”

“Whatever you can do,” he said, “But don’t worry about it.”

Tony let us all inside. Stepping into the actual apartment spelled out a much different story than the outside told. I understood why they were so willing and eager to just hand the place to us on the cheap to deal with. It was like a timewarp. It hadn’t been upgraded, or hell, even painted, since his parents had bought the place almost thirty years ago.

But it was perfect. There was plenty of space and that was all that mattered. It could be painted, it could be cleaned. Most of the furniture was gone - that explained why Mallet had been so busy lately. Some had gone with their father, some had been sold off. Only the dining room set had been left behind.

“That rug’s gotta go,” Riley said. The shag carpet really was a hideous relic of decades past.

“What do you think?” I asked Katherine. “It could come back into fashion any day now.”

“I think it’s up to Mal and Tony,” she said.

The two exchanged a look - one that held meaning that I didn’t know. A look between brothers, recalling their pasts in this very place. Maybe they wouldn’t want us here, after all.

But then they grinned. “Shred it,” Tony said.

We didn’t have any tools but we attacked the carpet, anyway, all six of us prying up along the edges, looking for a loose place to grasp and start tearing. It was a slow process, but Mal and Tony were determined once we got started.

“Here,” Riley called from the corner of the living room, her exclamation followed by a tearing sound.

We all helped, tugging the rug up all the way around the living room and revealing the hardwood floor beneath. “Why would anyone ever cover this up?” Katherine asked, running her hand along the hard surface.

Tony shrugged. “Must’ve been the trend at the time.” He looked down at the pile of scraps that the entire ugly rug had been reduced to. “So. When can you two move in?”

Katherine smiled at me. “As soon as we can rent a truck.”

“As soon as I dig out my old sleeping bag,” I said. I didn’t want to wait another minute to live with her if I could help it.

“No pregnant women sleeping on the floor,” Riley said.

But we did it anyway. We went home with Mallet, but returned to the apartment with pillows and blankets and a bag of groceries.

“I still can’t believe this place,” Katherine said when we returned. “I can’t wait to start painting.”

“We’ve got to move our bedroom stuff here first thing. I’ll talk to my brothers about furniture,” I said, “I know Lisa’s got some baby stuff she’d be happy to give us. A crib…”

She wrapped her arms around my waist. “I want that to be the first room that we do,”

“Anything you want, sweetheart. What does your sponsor think?” I hated to bring him up, but he was a part of her life whether I liked it or not.

“He’s not thrilled,” she said. “But he didn’t make much of a fuss. He admitted he was getting too close. We’re still going to talk but, you know, just about the appropriate sponsor stuff.”

Damn
. There I was hoping I’d have an excuse to slap a little of the smug off his face, but he was being a goddamn adult about the whole thing. Another disappointment.
I guess my fighting days really are over.

We settled in one of the bedrooms, piling our pillows and blankets in the middle of the floor and telling ourselves it was just like camping. We played a movie on her laptop and ate pizza straight out of the box.

And I’d never been happier.

“Quit smiling like that,” she said, pushing the pizza box aside. “It’s weird.”

“Why’s it weird?”

“You’re supposed to be the tough guy,” she said, lowering her voice and flexing her arms. I laughed.

“No so tough with this thing.” I knocked on my boot.

She walked toward me on her knees. “Can I say it yet?”

“Mmm. Say what?” I asked, deliberately playing dumb. I captured her face between my hands and brushed her cheeks with my thumbs. She turned one way and then the other, kissing my palms.

“I love you, Rob Lockett,” she said, her eyes shining. “I know this is all scary. I’m scared, too. But we’re gonna make it. You’ll see.”

I didn’t doubt it. Maybe I was being naive and foolish but so what? If I had to look toward the future, I might as well be as hopeful about it as I could.
I’d damn well better be with a kid on the way
.

“All right,” I said, “I’ll take it.” It didn’t feel so wrong to accept her love now that revenge wasn’t poisoning my mind anymore. That was over - I wouldn’t waste another thought on it.

There were more important things to focus on, like making love to my girl in our new apartment. I kissed her softly, then harder as I bent her to the floor and spread myself over her. She clung to me fiercely.
Never let go
. “I love you, too,” I said, planting slow, hot kisses down her neck. Her legs wrapped around my waist, and I wished that our clothes would just disintegrate on their own.

But we had time. We had all the time in the world, tonight.

And if I had my way, we’d have forever.

EPILOGUE 1

September

Sometimes I couldn’t believe how different my life looked compared to last September. Back then, I hadn’t even met Katherine yet. Riley and Mallet were an item but they hadn’t moved in together. He hadn’t been signed - he and Surly practiced at Lee’s Gym with me every day.

We’d been so carefree. It was hard to even relate to that old version of myself anymore.

Now, I was living in Brooklyn with the woman that I loved. I didn’t fight anymore - I couldn’t - but I was working an overnight security job and I was starting classes at the local community college.

Me. Taking classes.
College
. I hadn’t decided what exactly for yet, but I still had time to make up my mind.

That one wasn’t even Katherine’s doing. Lisa and Josh had somehow managed to talk me into it.

The front door open and Katherine came in, smiling, carrying a tote bag full of folders and papers and who-knew-what.

“You’re home!” she said, dropping her bags so she could wrap her arms around me.

“Wednesday,” I said. I had no classes scheduled on Wednesdays. It was our one weekday afternoon together.

“Yeah, I thought you might want to go see the guys or something,” she said.

“Nope.” I wanted to see her. With our busy schedules, sometimes it felt like we were never even awake at the same time. We had the weekends but sometimes that just wasn’t enough.

I rested a hand on her belly. “Hmm. Are you growing something in there or have you just been eating too much pudding?”

“Stop it!” she shrieked, throwing back her head and laughing. I tried to silence her with a kiss but she just giggled into my mouth.

So I just kissed her harder, until she whimpered and melted in my arms. Then I took a step away and grinned. “Somebody told me it was your birthday today.”

She smirked. “Yeah, I dropped that hint.”

I led her inside to the table, where I had candles and flowers waiting for her.

Her jaw dropped. “You did this?”

“Well it wasn’t some birthday fairy.”

“For me?”

“No, the other pregnant woman I’m living with.”

She slapped my shoulder playfully as my sarcasm finally broke through her surprise. “Jerk.” Then she kissed me. “Thank you.”

“Sit,” I said, gesturing at the table. I’d set two places. “I thought about inviting everyone but I kind of wanted to hog you to myself for the afternoon.”

“It’s perfect,” she said, waving away my concern. “I can see my sister later. This is exactly what I want to do.” She smiled. “Sit with you. And eat.” She rubbed her stomach - it was just beginning to grow round. “I feel like a bottomless pit, lately!”

“Gee, I wonder why.” I retrieved our plates from the oven where I’d left them to stay warm. “Here we go. Some of this I made and some of this I bought. You get to guess which is which.”

The only thing I’d actually cooked was the meat - steak, since she was still on a red meat kick. The potatoes and the asparagus I’d gotten from an oldschool Italian deli I’d stumbled upon.

“I tried to make dessert,” I said, “Cake is fucking hard.”

“See, I find the opposite,” she said, cutting into her steak with a hungry grin. “I can make a mean cake but I would have burnt the hell out of this meat.”

“Guess we’re a pretty good team or something, then.” I was annoyed about the dessert but it didn’t matter. We’d all get together over the weekend and Riley would take care of making a cake and writing Katherine’s name on it. I hadn’t even gotten far enough to mess that part up.

“Eat up,” I said, “I’ve got another surprise or two.”

“Is one of them a naked surprise?” she asked. That was one of the many new things I’d learned about pregnancy recently - the poor girl was insatiable.

“Okay, three surprises.”

She ate faster than I did, and then started cleaning up in the kitchen despite my protests. I finally had to physically lift her and stand her outside the second bedroom.

“Is it what I think it is?” she asked. I’d insisted on keeping that door shut for the past few weeks while Josh and I worked on our little project.

“Maybe. Ready?” She clamped her hands together and nodded. I swung the door open.

There, sitting in the middle of the freshly-painted yellow room, on a light blue area rug on the refinished hardwood floor, was Amber’s old crib. Josh and I had stripped it and painted it white, and it looked brand new.

Katherine covered her mouth. “It’s perfect,” she whispered.

I pulled her against me, her back to my chest, and slipped my second gift over her wrist. “Happy birthday,” I said before kissing her ear, then her neck. It was just a simple gold bracelet - one that Riley had helped me pick out. I would have loved to get something flashier and fancier, but Riley had insisted that even if I could afford it, Katherine wouldn’t be that into it. She liked understated - so the bracelet that we picked out was just that. Simple and pretty.

And so was the ring.

I just hadn’t quite decided when to give her that one, yet.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, turning within the cage of my arms. “It’s perfect.” Her eyes were glistening.

“Tears? Really?”

“They’re happy tears!” she laughed as she wiped them away. Truthfully, she’d been happier than I’d ever seen her ever since we’d moved into the apartment. I didn’t know if it was the pregnancy, me, the apartment itself, or a combination of all of those things, but she even seemed less stressed out after getting off the phone with her mother.