He leaned in.
And I shoved him back. “No.”
His eyes flashed with shock and offense.
I took a step back and folded my arms over myself. “You are not about to keep fucking me and being a father whenever you feel like it. That’s not happening.”
He just stared at me, and I stared right back, hating how much being in his eyesight made me feel so whole. Even angry, stubborn, and making this whole pregnancy harder than it had to be, he still had a hold on me I resented. Part of me still longed for him and needed him in ways I wished I didn’t, still wished, against all good sense that we could do this right and be the kind of man and woman who knew how to love each other without turning everything into a fight. But we weren’t that and knowing that while still wanting him made me feel weak and furious at the same time.
My heart was beating hard, but for once I didn’t fold. “I need boundaries. Real ones. And that starts now. You don’t get to come in here and throw me off because you feel like it. You don’t get to fuck me whenever you want to. You don’t get to have access to me while you’re still acting like our baby is something being done to you.”
He continued glaring at me, as if I frustrated him to no end, as if he hated my existence.
“This ismyhome,” I pressed. “You don’t get to do with it whatever the fuck you want. So, you don’t need to come by, unless you’re here for your child, and it’s not here yet. I don’t need you to be around. Families assemble cribs together. You’ve made it perfectly clear that that’s not us, so I don’t need your help.”
Reek didn’t say anything for a second. He just looked at me, and I could tell he wasn’t used to me drawing a line with him like that.
But I was done allowing chemistry to make me a fool.
14
TARIQ “REEK” HORTON
Ididn’t have a good reason for showing up at Ava’s new place. Security had given me the address. I had the building layout too, because the men I had watching the place sent me everything I needed to know, like entrances, cameras, elevator access, and blind spots. I had all of it before she probably even figured out which light switch in the hallway controlled what.
Honestly, I couldn’t stand not having access to her. I hated not being able to put my eyes on her whenever I felt like it and know for myself that she was straight. That was why I popped up. But standing there in that nursery watching her build a life that didn’t need me was making me regret it.
The room already felt like a nursery. There was a rocking chair in the corner. Tiny outfits hung in the closet. It looked like she had a whole vision for this baby and was carrying it out with or without me.
That shit drove me insane. Watching her stand up to me and deny me made it worse. It proved something I already knew and kept trying to out grow. Ava got under my skin deeper than anybody else ever had. She always had. Even now, with her mad as hell and standing there breathing hard from the argument,she still looked like something I wanted to grab with both hands and ruin myself over.
But I refused to say any of that tender shit because the second I looked at that crib too long, I felt the same anxiety I had when my grandparents left me home alone for the weekend. I was only eleven. They said they were going out of town for the weekend like leaving a child alone in a musty place with barely any food and strict orders not to open the door was normal. My grandmother left a loaf of cheap bread, a jar of peanut butter with a spoon stuck in it, and one can of ravioli in the cabinet.
I remember the silence more than anything. The silence was so different when you knew there wasn’t another adult around. Every knock from pipes, footstep in the hallway, and every car outside made me jump out of my skin because there was nobody there to make me feel safe. I remember sitting on that couch, knees to my chest, trying not to think too hard about the fact that nobody in the world would’ve known if something happened to me until they felt like coming back.
That kind of loneliness stayed in you. That kind of neglect changed the way you looked at family forever. And now I was in a nursery, staring at a crib, feeling like I just wanted to take off and run.
Ava continued to glare at me with those piercing light eyes, but behind that anger, I could see the hurt. I knew I put it there. I knew every ugly thing I said had been sitting with her since the day I said it. I was trying to find the courage to tell her the one truth I hated most. She was everything I wanted and everything I feared more than death itself. I wanted to tell her that she had me fucked up in the best and worst way, that seeing her stand up for herself like this made me want her even more and scared me even worse.
Before I could find the nerve, her phone rang.
She glanced at the screen and answered. “What’s up, Saint?”
I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I watched her eyes buck. “What?!” she blurted, already breathless. “She’s in labor?”
She started moving too fast, hands shaking, looking around the room like she couldn’t figure out what to do first.
“Oh my God, already?! Why didn’t you all call me sooner?!” I could hear Saint’s muffled reply then Ava told him. “I’m coming. Tell her I’m on my way.”
She hung up and rushed past me out of the nursery.
I followed slowly, not knowing if I should or not. She went straight into what I figured had to be her bedroom. The room was nice. Bigger than I expected. Saint hadn’t been lying when he told me she had already fully furnished this place. There was a king-sized bed with a tall, upholstered headboard. She already had a dresser and lamps on the nightstands. A throw was folded neat at the foot of the bed.
Ava was frantically trying to get her shoes on. She had one hand braced against the side of the bed while she hopped her foot into a boot, and it was the first time I really noticed little things about her pregnancy I’d been too angry to pay attention to before; the way she automatically put a hand at the small of her back when she stood too long, the way she breathed heavier now that she was carrying extra weight, the way her stomach changed the whole shape of her body but still looked right on her.
She was beautiful, baby bump included.
She shrugged into her coat, still breathing fast, and reached for her purse.
