Page 92 of Between Brothers

Chapter 41

Blue

“I want to ask Hayley to marry me.” I braced myself for a punch in the face but Jake just stared at me. “I know I fucked up, but I love her and with the baby… I know it’s important to you and to her that marriage happens before a baby. I’m totally cool if she decides later down the line to divorce my fucking ass or whatever, but I never meant for any of this to happen this way. I always meant for Hayley to stay an honest woman.”

Jake leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms and asked the inevitable question meant to hurt, “What if the kid ain’t yours? What if it’s Paul’s?”

“Doesn’t matter the genetics involved, even if Hayley says no, that kid is mine and I’m man enough to take care of it, pay for it, provide for the mother of my child – whatever needs to happen.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, because that’s what men do.” I gritted my teeth and Hayley’s father gave me a look like really motherfucker? I nodded, “Yeah, really. They own their shit when they fuck up and I’m not going to pretend I didn’t when Cell died, but…”

“But it fucked you up but good, didn’t it?” he asked and I was surprised that there wasn’t any judgment in his tone. I nodded carefully. I think the only one to really get just how much it’d destroyed me was Dani… and maybe Dragon, but Dragon had a soft spot for women and Hayley was always going to be Jake’s little girl, so I didn’t bother to even try to use it as a defense for my actions when it came to her.

It didn’t look like I was going to have to, though…

“Not sure what to make of you loving another man like that. I personally find it to be distasteful in the eyes of God, at least that’s what I’ve always been taught.”

I bowed my head and shook it, “It didn’t start that way, at all… but it did end up that way that I loved him, but his being a dude didn’t have anything to do with that. I don’t look twice at any other dudes. It was just something about him specifically. It’s not the kind of thing I thought I would ever find again in anyone else.”

“Until you met my daughter, am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want to hate you,” he said frankly and I nodded again.

“I get that. I even understand it, but what I don’t understand is why you say it like that. That you want to hate me. It totally implies that you don’t.”

“Oh, I’m angry with you. Pretty fiercely, too… but no, I don’t hate you. I can’t hate anyone who did the good that you boys did for my Hayley. She was a different girl when she was with y’all. Happy… outgoing again. I didn’t know how you’ns was gonna do it, but I figured love would find a way.”

It had, just not the way any of us had expected… I rubbed the back of my neck and said, “I can’t imagine loving anyone else the way I love her. I want to do everything right but I can’t help but feel I’m doing everything wrong.”

“Hell,” he said with a note of irony. “That’s just part of life, son. This shit don’t come with an instruction manual.” He took a pull from the neck of his beer bottle and let out a long suffering sigh.

The bar we were in was still pretty quiet, it being only the afternoon and in the middle of the week. He’d met me here at my request to talk about Hayley as soon as he’d gotten off work at the diner.

“Does that mean..?” I asked.

“That I give you permission to marry my little girl? I’m not happy about it entirely, but yeah. I give you the go ahead to ask, but if she tells you to fuck right off?”

“I fuck right off and pay my child support,” I agreed.

“Men make mistakes. Lord knows I have. I spent a stint in the county jail for being a drunk and slappin’ Hayley’s momma around once, before Hayley was born. Eileen never should’a forgave my ass but by some grace o’ god she did and I not once raised my hand to her again. Hayley doesn’t know.”

“She won’t hear it from me.”

“She’s already forgiven you, you know. I know my girl. She’s the forgiving type. She just has to convince herself that she’s done it.”

I almost cried right then and there with relief.

“So, future son-in-law… Just how you planning on asking her and when are you moving in? Seems to me shit’s a changing and I sure as fuck ain’t letting my baby girl move out or into that club of yours.”

“The club’s a nice place to visit, sir, but I am sure sick of living there.”

He barked a laugh and it was like a thousand pound weight had been lifted off my shoulders for a hot minute. It was quickly replaced with the nagging doubts and fears of ‘what if she said no?’ which I couldn’t let that happen, but I also couldn’t spring it on her right the fuck now, either.

We were doing okay, had been on a couple of dates, and at the last one had even kissed goodbye. It’d taken everything in me to keep it civil, to not just pull her body against mine and carry her to the nearest bed.

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