Down on Me (Club 24 #7) Read online

  “I’m sorry I’m home so late,” I said, trying to make me the bad guy in whatever demons Spencer was facing.

  “I don’t even know what time it is,” she mumbled, not making eye contact with me.

  “It doesn’t matter. Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head. “I had a late lunch.”

  I realized I hadn’t eaten anything except breakfast. “How about you take a hot bath and I’ll take Kyle and show him how to make dinner? I’m starving.” I grinned hoping she would catch onto my joke.

  Instead, she frowned. “If you knew what I’d done, you wouldn’t be so nice to me.”

  I chuckled. “Spence, it can’t be that bad. No one’s bleed—”

  “Kyle almost fell off the bed while I was changing him!” she shouted as she did look me in the eye. Then more tears started to fall from her eyes.

  My breath caught for a split second. “What? How?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked down at her lap as she spoke. “I was changing his diaper, I was laughing, and then Niner started to bark. I went to quiet him because I didn’t want him to scare Kyle and make him cry and when I turned back around, Kyle had started to fall off the bed.”

  “But he didn’t—”

  “Then when I grabbed him to keep him from falling, I squeezed his arms hard. I mean, hard, Brandon. I know I hurt him. He started to cry and I started to cry and I’ve been crying ever since—”

  “Okay.” I tilted her head up so she’d look at me and then brushed her hair behind her ears. “I’ll look at his arms to see if he has bruises, but that’s all he’ll have because he didn’t fall. You caught him. That’s a good thing, baby. And if anything, he was probably crying because he was scared.”

  She stared at me, her tears finally stopping. “You think he was only scared?”

  “I’m not sure, but he’s okay now.” We sat up on our knees to get a better look at Kyle. “He’s not crying and I don’t see any blood. Accidents happen. The important thing is that you caught him and he didn’t fall.”

  She took a deep breath. “You’re right.”

  I kissed her lips. “Go take a long bubble bath and I’ll watch him and cook myself some dinner. Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

  “Yeah, I had a sandwich at four.” She stood and walked to the bathroom.

  I turned my attention to Kyle. “Mommy said you had a little accident today. Let me see your arms.”

  His arms appeared to be okay. There was no bruising, but if Spencer had grabbed him as hard as she said she did then that might change as the night went on. I picked Kyle up and headed down to the kitchen to teach him how to cook.

  *

  As it turned out, Kyle was not a very good cook.

  I tried to show him how to chop ingredients and he shit his diaper. Then I tried to show him how to put everything together and he cried for a bottle. I’m sure he wanted Spencer’s boob—I know I sure the fuck did.

  The whole not having sex for six weeks was killing me. I was counting the weeks down. We were almost to week five. I knew I was pushing it, but as soon as it was week six, we were getting down to business. Did we have to wait until the end of the week? Fuck it. If Spencer says its okay, I’m going in—deep. I didn’t know if I had to wait until the end of week six or not, but I was going to try throughout the week and see what happened.

  By the time I was finished making my chicken stir-fry, Spencer came down to join us.

  “How did you get him to sleep?” She looked over at Kyle in his motorized baby swing.

  I shrugged. “Changed his diaper, fed him and placed him in his swing.”

  “Fuck—the swing,” she mumbled.

  “What does that mean?” I placed my plate on the dining room table.

  “He just wouldn’t fall asleep today. I should have remembered the swing.” She closed the fridge, a bottle of water in hand.

  “All day was bad?”

  She came and sat at the table with me and sighed before answering. “No.” She paused for a second as if she were thinking of what to say. “We just weren’t used to you being gone.” She played with the label on the water bottle, her gaze not meeting mine.

  This would be the perfect time to tell her that I’d be home tomorrow, but the why was weighing heavy on me. From the beginning of our relationship, we hadn’t hidden anything for each other. But this—if I told Spencer what I was scared of, it would no doubt keep her awake at night and she needed to be there for Kyle. We had another person to take care of now.

  “I’m staying home tomorrow.”

  Her cognac eyes looked up. “What?”

  “Maybe I went back too soon.”

  “Jason went back after three weeks.”

  “Jason doesn’t live forty-five minutes away from the gym.” I took a bite of my food.

  She looked over at Kyle and then back at me. “Ryan and I are supposed to go for a walk tomorrow. I was going to ask her for advice.”

  I chuckled. “I never thought I’d see the day where we were asking Ryan for parenting advice.”

  Spencer finally giggled. “I know, right?”

  I took another bite of my food. “I didn’t like coming home to you the way you were today—”

  “Like you said, it was an accident.”

  “I know, baby.” I reached out and grabbed her hand. “But I think we should ease into this. It would be different if I worked right down the street, but if anything were to happen to you, I wouldn’t be able to get here fast enough.”

  “What do you mean if anything were to happen to me? Don’t you mean us?” She waved her hand between her and Kyle.

  I swallowed hard, realizing my mistake. “Of course that’s what I meant. It was a figure of speech. My point is that we don’t really know what the hell we’re doing and I’m all the way in the city. It was different when we both worked there. But now you two are here and I’m there. I spent my day worrying about y’all.”

  “You only called once.” She frowned, looking back down at her water bottle.

  “Because Jason told me not to call.”

  “What? Why?” Her gaze met mine again.

  “He said that Becca got mad at him when he kept calling her. Said you’d be too busy to talk to me.”

  Spencer laughed. “Babe, this is Jason we’re talking about. He probably called her every twenty minutes.”

  “This is true.” I smiled then ate the last bite of food. “Anyway, I already told him I wasn’t coming in. You can go for your walk with Ryan tomorrow. I have a meeting in the morning.”

  “Here?”

  “Ahh.” I rubbed the back of my neck. This was the moment to come clean. I couldn’t put Spencer through that, though. I might not be protecting her physically at the moment, but this was protecting her heart and that was just as important because I lived and breathed for her love. “Yeah, I hope you don’t mind. I set up a business meeting here.”

  She blinked. “Oh. Well, it’s not like you don’t have a home office.”

  I grinned. “I knew you’d understand.” I stood and kissed her lips softly. Talk about dodging a bullet.

  “Can you carry the swing into the living room so I can watch TV?” she asked as she left the kitchen.

  I did as she’d requested and then went upstairs to take a shower. When I came out, Spencer was in her rocking chair breastfeeding Kyle instead of downstairs watching TV.

  “He woke up?”

  She sighed. “He only sleeps when you’re around.”

  I laughed, thinking she was joking, but she didn’t even crack a smile. I sat on the bed, my head propped up on the headboard so I could talk to her while she fed Kyle. “You know that’s not true. Everyone knows new parents don’t get sleep because babies don’t sleep.”

  She stared at me without saying anything and then down at Kyle.

  “Am I wrong or something?”

  “No,” she snapped.

  I scooted closer to her. “Then what is it?”

  Sh
e was silent again and I was about to repeat my question because I wanted to know what was going on in her head. I wanted to know how I could help her, but then she finally spoke.

  “I just feel that you have a way with him.”

  “Babe …” I tilted my head to the side and gave her a sympathetic look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “For starters, you always get him to fall asleep.”

  “That’s not true. After you feed him, you give him to me and it just happens that he falls asleep.”

  She turned Kyle, rested his head on her shoulder and started to burp him. “Also, you have this power to get him to stop crying.”

  I laughed. “Spencer you’re being ridiculous now.” I realized my mistake the moment the words left my mouth.

  “Ridiculous?” she hissed. “You think I’m being ridiculous?”

  I groaned and rubbed my hands down my face. “Okay, that was a bad word to use. In all fairness, I don’t have a power to get him to stop crying. I’m not doing anything different from you. We’re learning together.”

  We didn’t talk while she burped him. She placed Kyle in his bassinet and threw his spit rag in the hamper. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t cry when you’re here because when you’re not here, he cries all day. And I mean all day, Brandon. All fucking day.”

  “Maybe he missed me, too?” I reached for Spencer’s hand to pull her to me.

  “You too, as in, as well?”

  “Yeah.” I smirked.

  “You think I missed you?” She smirked.

  I scooted closer to the headboard, pulling her with me. “Well, duh.”

  “What are you doing?” I grinned and nudged my head toward my dick.

  She raised her eyebrows. “You mean sex?”

  I reached for the hem of her T-shirt. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

  “You know we can’t have sex for six weeks.” She swatted my hand away.

  I gave her a wicked grin. “But we can do other stuff.”

  She groaned. “Not with Kyle in the room.”

  “So we go to another room.”

  “You’re kidding right?”

  I looked down at my erection. “Does this look like I’m joking?”

  “I just had a baby come out of my vagina, Brandon. The thought of doing anything sexual is so far off my radar right now.”

  Something was definitely bothering Spencer. This was the woman who’d had an orgasm on my leg on a dance floor in the middle of a Vegas night club. This was the woman who, on our first date, had crawled into my lap and rode my fingers while the rain beat down on my car. This was the woman who’d let me fuck her against her bedroom door while Ryan was in the other room. Hell, this was the woman who gave me a hand job in my parents’ pool while they were home and now she wouldn’t even touch my dick?

  Whatever the case may be, I needed to get to the bottom of it because Spencer didn’t need to be worrying about things if Michael really did have plans to come for her.

  Chapter Five

  Spencer

  When Brandon was questioning me, I wanted to tell him the truth. I wanted to tell him that I couldn’t handle being a mother. But how do you tell your loving husband and the father of your newborn son that you’re failing as a mother? I couldn’t. Instead, I only cried.

  He’d walked in during my meltdown and I’d wanted nothing more than for him to hold me like he had so many times before. Instead, he only knelt beside me and asked why I was crying.

  I suppose when he held me before was because of Christy, Michael and Matt and Brandon knew why I was crying, but like those times, I needed him. It wasn’t every day that I almost let our baby fall to the ground. I needed him just the same. I needed the comfort from him, especially after the day I had and when finally he gave it to me I’d ruined it by shouting that I’d hurt our baby.

  Later in the bath, I had a quick thought about ending it all. Slipping down into the water and never coming back up. You see it in movies all the time and it looked easy on the big screen. But I could never kill myself. I’d fought too hard against Christy and Michael to end it. And Kyle needed me. We still had our connection. He’d only cried because I grabbed him. He didn’t start crying because he was back to hating me. We were still on the same page.

  And there was no way I would let Brandon down. He fought for me. He saved me.

  He loves me.

  *

  The next morning, I woke to Kyle crying. This was the third time he’d woken up that night.

  “Whose idea was it to have one of these?” I joked as I rolled out of bed.

  “Ryan’s,” Brandon mumbled into his pillow.

  I chuckled. It kinda was Ryan’s idea for us to have babies at the same time. “Maybe we should send Kyle over to her house until he’s five.” I picked him up and turned back toward the bed to check his diaper before I fed him.

  Brandon rolled over onto his back, his perfect bare chest and eight pack exposed as the sheet slid down. He kept his body in shape using our home gym. When we’d first bought the house, I questioned him about it because we could always use Club 24, but he said he wanted something at home just in case we didn’t want to drive into the city. As it turned out, he’d needed it for three weeks while he stayed home with Kyle and me. “Just until he can sleep through the night,” he looked at the clock, “and past five in the morning.”

  “I’ll feed him and we can all go back to sleep.”

  He rolled over and mumbled a thank you. It was tough waking up every three to four hours. I’d heard that as Kyle got older, he would sleep longer. I just wished it was sooner rather than later.

  *

  Having Brandon home was exactly what I needed. I was already less stressed, and as I got ready for my walk with Ryan, I felt like my old self.

  Brandon watched Kyle while I changed into black yoga pants and a purple tank top. When I came down the stairs, he was laying on the couch with Kyle. I stopped mid-step before hitting the bottom stair and stared at the pair, my heart swelling in the process. This was what I lived for now. This was why I couldn’t end it all no matter how frustrated and sad I was. I knew Kyle’s crying spells would pass and one day I would return to normal.

  I was tough.

  I was strong.

  I was a fighter.

  I was a survivor.

  And I was going to overcome this.

  As I was in my trance, there was a slight knock on the front door. Brandon looked toward the door and then me.

  I smiled. “I’ll get it.”

  “Good idea.” Brandon grinned the smile I’d fallen in love with.

  When I opened the door, Ryan walked in carrying Abby in her car seat. “Oh, I didn’t expect to see you, Brandon,” she said, looking over my shoulder.

  “Hello to you, too.” I chuckled.

  She turned back toward me as she walked through the threshold. “Sorry, I got distracted by a shirtless Brandon. Can you blame me?”

  I closed the door. “No.” I laughed. On cue, Kyle started to cry. I thought Brandon’s chest was his safe haven?

  Brandon rose. “You’re taking him with you, right?”

  Abby started to cry. “No, we’re leaving you with both kids.” Ryan grinned and set the car seat down on the floor. Brandon turned to me, eyes wide.

  “She’s joking, babe.” I smirked and kissed him. “Go get dressed for your meeting. We’re going for our walk.” Ryan had taken Abby out of her car seat and had her head resting on her shoulder, bouncing her. Already, Abby had stopped crying.

  “How did you get her to stop crying so fast?” I wondered, holding Kyle as he still cried.

  “She loves when I bounce her.”

  I began to lightly bounce Kyle as I held his head to my shoulder. I also silently prayed that it worked because I didn’t want to lose my shit in front of Ryan or Brandon. After four weeks, I was supposed to know how to make him stop and I was certain Brandon knew how. Luckily, as I bounced, his cries lessened unt
il they finally stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned my attention back to Ryan.

  “Ready to go?” she asked.

  “Yep, let me get the stroller.”

  “I’ll meet you outside. I left mine in the car.”

  I nodded and walked toward the garage, carrying Kyle. I couldn’t believe that after twelve years of friendship, Ryan and I were raising our kids together. It was what we’d always wanted. We both had our bumpy roads to get to where we were, but she finally had her family and I had mine. Plus, our houses in the suburbs.

  Right before I was about to leave to walk with Ryan, Brandon came into the garage. “Where’s Ryan?” he asked, looking past me as I buckled Kyle into his stroller.

  “She’s putting Abby in her stroller.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  I scrunched my eyebrows and raised up. “Why?”

  He kept walking toward her car as he spoke. “I just …”

  “You just what?” I called out, but he didn’t respond. By the time I got to Ryan’s car, I could only make out a few words coming from Brandon.

  “… eye out.”

  They both stopped talking as I approached. It wasn’t like they weren’t friends, but it was weird that Brandon needed to speak with her without me.

  “Everything okay?” I questioned.

  “Yeah,” they said in unison.

  “What are we keeping an eye out for?”

  Brandon rubbed the back of his neck. “Um …”

  “He wants me to keep an eye out for a break in Max’s schedule so I can let him know when he’s free and they can play poker one night.”

  “You guys are going to play poker again?”

  They looked at each other for a split second and then back at me. “Max’s birthday is coming up and they want to do a guy’s night,” Ryan answered.

  “Oh, okay. Well, I’m ready to go if you are.”

  “Ready!” She smiled.

  Brandon kissed me goodbye and we started to walk down the street.

  “So, how’s it going?” Ryan inquired.