Page 90 of Between Brothers

Chapter 40

Hayley

Friday came and it was nearly eight o’clock. I stared at myself in the mirror and swallowed hard. It was supposed to be mine and Blue’s first date. Well, the first one since, you know…

I was in one of my favorite summer dresses while I could still wear them. The weather in the low eighties today, spring as sprung as it was going to get and moving right on into summer. My stomach was still deceptively flat and I realized I had no idea how any of this pregnancy stuff worked, like when I was going to start to show, or when the morning sickness was supposed to stop.

I heard his motorcycle pull up and went out the back door to meet him. He swung a leg over and turned around, stopping and taking me in. His face was tired, and carefully closed off and I fidgeted nervously, waiting for him to say something.

“You look beautiful,” he said and I managed a brave smile.

“You look tired…” God, I didn’t know why I said that, but it was true. It was so very true. He looked exhausted.

“Working hard, picking up some overtime, trying to sock some extra money away for the baby.”

I nodded, “Me too. Saving up every bit I can, actually.”

“You’re not doing any of this alone,” he said and it sounded like a vow or promise.

I took a step and then another down the back steps and asked, “So what did you have in mind for tonight?”

“Um, first…” he went to one of his saddle bags and undid it, pulling out a bouquet of flowers and turning back. He came to me with the hydrangeas and handed them to me and I smiled, the stems wrapped with string and a tag. I admired the carefully folded paper blossoms and turned the tag over to read it.

No words except ‘I love you…’

I felt my heart twist in on itself with such an extreme longing to go to him and have him put his arms around me and tell me that all of this was just some terrible dream, but it wasn’t. Still, I didn’t care to punish him, or us, any more than we’d already been punished by fate and who knows, even by God himself… I just couldn’t stand the thought of either of us hurting one another anymore and so I looked up at him with tears staining my lashes and told him the truth…

“I love you, too…”

He came to me carefully and put his arms around me, drawing me against his chest and said, “Shh, don’t cry. You’ll ruin all that careful makeup.”

I uttered a broken laugh and cried anyways, saying in a broken little girl voice, “It’s waterproof.”

He held me lightly, and breathed deeply and it was as if he was trying to commit the feel of me in his arms to memory. As if this was the last time he would hold me like this and though I didn’t think he was completely forgiven, I didn’t think we were quite as broken as we’d been the moment before.

“Let me put these in my studio and we can go,” I told him and he nodded, reluctantly letting me go.

I set the flowers on my work table and returned to him and he said, “You want we should take your cage?” I nodded, not quite ready to face a ride on the bike so soon after Cell’s accident.

“Let me drive so you can fix your face.”

“You never said where we were going.”

“I figured the good ol’ classic of dinner and a movie.”

I nodded, “Sounds good.”

“I thought we could both use something a little fun,” he said holding the door open for me and I got into the passenger seat of my own car. He closed the door and jogged around and got in on the other side.

“You going to leave me hanging?” I asked with a faint smile, curiosity getting the better of me.

He threaded his fingers through mine and raised the back of my hand to his lips and said, “You’ll see.”

He took me to a Texas Road House. When he pulled into the parking lot I had to laugh and he smiled shyly and said, “I told you, fun.”

It was fun and the food was good, the topic of conversation quickly steering in the direction of our baby.

“I have to ask, how do you want to do that?”

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