Page 81 of Bad Boy for Hire
“But it’s also okay to dump his ass,” Lisa said. “The last thing you need is a man calling the shots.” Lisa sent Elliott a stern look as if to say that sympathy for Xavier was not welcome. But May appreciated Elliott’s input.
For the next half hour, they discussed fun topics like which bedroom would become the nursery, the trendiest paint colors, and if May wanted to know the sex of the baby before he or she was born. They’d decided that the guest bedroom, currently underutilized for storage, would make a perfect nursery, and that neutrals with a focus on earth tones would be ideal. May informed them (to their collective dismay) that she didn’t want to know if she was having a boy or a girl until after the baby was born.
Lisa, ever the drama queen, argued that she might “die” if she didn’t find out the baby’s sex beforehand. May assured her that she’d outlive them all, and Lou and Elli wholeheartedly agreed.
May soaked in her friends’ attention and stayed as present as possible. Tonight had been a good reminder that even though her family was distant, she wasn’t alone. The women in her inner circle were the epitome of love and support.
“I shouldn’t have repeated what Xavier shared with Ant. Both times.” Lou winced. “Forgive me?”
“I don’t blame you,” May told her. “You were the one who let me know what was going on, which is more than I could say for Xavier. He and I will find a way to work through this. We are friends. And I’ve seen the way he takes care of his brother and his employees. He’s a natural. He’ll be a great dad.”
“Permission to speak freely?” Elliott asked, doing that scrunched-up thing with her nose again.
May nodded.
“If he’s used to taking care of everyone, wouldn’t it be natural for him to try and take care of you too?” Lisa narrowed her eyes at Elliott, who rushed to add, “I’m not saying he shouldn’t have told you what he was thinking—he totally should have.”
May sighed.
Elliott was right. Lisa was right. She was right.
“I know he means well, but I also know I’m not asking for too much. Including me in the conversation about the baby I’m carrying should be a no-brainer for him.”
“You’re right,” Elliott agreed.
“And he should lead with his love and never-ending devotion,” Lou said.
May heard the word love loud and clear, but she didn’t acknowledge it. It was too big, too much, and the last thing she wanted to think about right now.
So instead she looked around at the expectant faces of her friends and asked, “Is anyone going to eat that last garlic knot?”
Xavier sat on the edge of his childhood bed, his elbows resting on his knees. He felt like a giant in this room. The narrow bedframe had creaked when he sat down, his ass sinking deeply into the broken-down twin mattress.
The smell of fresh paint was in the air, and his baseball trophies were long gone, but the bed was the one he’d slept on as a kid, the beat-up dresser where he’d stored his geeky science magazines the same.
He’d been content as a kid. He’d been raised in a happy, stable household with a mother and father who had stayed together—who were still together. It’d been the three of them until he’d turned fourteen and his mother had given birth to Lynx.
Back then, Lynx had been nothing more than an inconvenience. Xavier had wanted to go out with friends and sleep until noon. A baby brother needing his parents’ full attention had complicated those plans. As if being chauffeured around by his dad wasn’t bad enough, sitting next to a bulky car seat had been worse. He’d been mortified whenever a friend had come home with him after school. Sleeping until noon hadn’t worked out, either. And he’d been required to do a lot of household chores since Mom had been nursing and was more sleep-deprived than anyone in the house.
He smiled to himself. He’d been a shit at age fourteen. A rite of passage, he supposed. Someday he would have to contend with his own fourteen-year-old.
Wild.
He’d thought of nothing but May since the evening she’d driven away from him. Like before they dated, he respected her boundaries. Everything about her body language and the finality of her goodbye warned him not to push.
After she’d left, he’d trudged inside, his mind spinning. He’d almost forgotten about Lynx, who had ultimately decided to eat the sandwich he’d offered May.
“I didn’t know you guys were having a serious discussion,” Lynx said in his own defense. Lucky for him, Xavier was clean out of fight.
“Yes, you did. And you also knew she didn’t want a sandwich.”
Lynx chewed, thoughtful for a moment. “Is she really pregnant?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” Xavier opened the fridge to make himself a sandwich, not because he was hungry but because he needed something to do with his hands… Besides wrap them around his brother’s neck.
