Chapter 11

  Noel

  “It’s so big,” Ariel breathed, standing next to me as I pulled Diana out of the car. “It’s like a mansion.”

  “Mind your manners,” I reminded her as we walked toward the front door.

  I’d agreed to move with the girls into Titus’s house and after two sleepless nights, wondering if I was making a gigantic mistake, we were actually going through with it.

  Ariel wasn’t wrong. The house was massive.

  And there were people everywhere.

  “You’re here,” Titus called happily, jogging down the front steps. He looked down at Ariel. “Ready to see the inside?”

  “Yeah,” Ariel muttered, glancing to the side of the house where a large play structure was just barely visible.

  “After we get you guys settled in, I’ll show you the swings. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Ariel replied.

  “Titus?” I stopped abruptly as two older men came out of the house. One had dark hair and a big scar across his face and the other was just… huge.

  “We’re gonna head out, kid,” the man with the scar said as they passed us. He glanced at me. “We’ll introduce ourselves later, yeah? When things settle down a bit.”

  “Thanks for the help,” Titus called as they moved toward a row of motorcycles.

  They raised their hands in acknowledgment.

  “Who are all these people?” I asked as a couple of other men carried something toward the back of the house. There was a group of women over by the garage, laughing and chatting, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  “The club,” Titus replied ruefully as he put his hand out to help Ariel up the porch steps. “When I realized I’d never be able to get the house ready in time, I called for reinforcements.”

  I winced. “We could’ve waited.”

  I’d just been worried that if I gave myself time to overthink it, I’d change my mind.

  “It all worked out,” Titus announced, leading Ariel through the front door.

  There were even more people inside, mostly women, and they were moving with a sense of purpose as they waved at us, carrying mops, rags and other various cleaning supplies.

  “Hey, guys,” Titus’s mom called, hurrying toward us. “You’re here!”

  “Gran!” Ariel called, pulling away from Titus so she could run toward Heather.

  “I called my mom,” Titus explained as we moved toward her. “She’s the one who rounded everyone up.”

  I nodded, looking around. There was a staircase to the left and on the right was a living room with a big sectional couch facing a TV that hung above a fireplace. A wall separated the kitchen from the living room, and as we got closer to Heather, who was listening to Ariel ramble on about moving, I got a better look at it. The kitchen was massive. There was a long dining room table, a kitchen island that would’ve taken up most of my kitchen in the trailer, and row after row of white cabinets.

  I clenched my teeth so my mouth didn’t fall open in awe.

  “Kitchen is clean,” Heather announced. “And the fridge and pantry are stocked. I started some chicken soup in the crockpot so you guys don’t have to worry about dinner while you’re settling in. Just drop some dumplings or noodles in at the end and voilà.”

  “Thanks, Ma,” Titus said, grinning at her.

  “It’s kind of a pain in the ass trying to find stuff in here,” Heather joked, watching as I surveyed the room with wide eyes. “But there’s plenty of storage space.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

  “I didn’t mind a bit,” Heather replied. “I’ve been trying to get in here to clean since he bought it. You finally gave him a reason to let me.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Titus argued, embarrassed.

  “You’re right,” Heather replied, her lips twitching with mirth. “For a bachelor pad, it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I blurted. “Is that a high chair?”

  “Cool thing about the club,” Heather replied. “Someone’s always got the hand-me-down you need—especially if it’s baby gear.”

  I felt tears burn my nose and I tried to think of anything else to make them go away.

  “Why don’t you give Noel a tour,” Heather said, reaching for Diana. The baby lurched toward her in response, and I suddenly felt naked without the armor of my youngest. “I’ll get the girls a snack and show them around down here.”

  “Good idea,” Titus replied, he swept out his arm.

  I felt like I was in a dream as he showed me the kitchen, the living room, the half-bath and the laundry room downstairs and then led me upstairs. They’d even thought to put baby gates at the top and the bottom of the stairs, so Diana wouldn’t go tumbling down. I watched numbly as Titus showed me how to open them.

  Upstairs he led me down a long hallway. There were two bedrooms on each side of the hall, with bathrooms centered between them. The bedrooms facing the front of the house were Bas and Cian’s—the latter who’d come to meet us the day before as part of my conditions for moving in—and the bedrooms facing the back of my house belonged to me and the girls.

  “We didn’t have time to paint or anythin’,” Titus said apologetically, opening up the first door. “But if you want to later, you can. The girls probably want somethin’ more fun than gray.”

  I stared at the bedroom, words caught in my throat.

  Twin beds mirrored each other on low frames. Between them, a long beautiful dresser sat beneath the windows. A changing table that matched the dresser sat along the same wall as the door we’d stepped through and to my left was a walk-in closet.

  “Ariel said that her favorite color was red,” Titus said nervously, gesturing to one of the beds. “And Diana seemed like hers was purple. I mean, she didn’t say it, but she always grabs the purple crayon when she’s colorin’.”

  I swallowed hard. He knew what color crayon Diana liked best.

  “They don’t really make red bedding for girls,” he continued, his words moving fast. “That’s why her comforter is a little different from Diana’s—’cause I had to get it in the boys’ section. But I don’t think you can tell? I don’t think she’ll be able to tell. Their sheets are the same, though, see? I just did ones with flowers on ’em, ’cause my mom said to get ones that were one hundred percent cotton and most of the kids sheets are like polyester or some shit and I’m not really sure what the difference is, but my mom knows about that kind of thing so I just went with she said.”

  My hands were shaking as I ran one over the top of the changing table. There was a basket full of diapers on one of the shelves.

  “Come on,” Titus said, that same frantic energy in his tone.

  “Titus,” I murmured just as he’d reached the other doorway.

  He froze.

  “This is beautiful,” I murmured, gazing around the room.

  “You like it?” He let out a long breath.

  “It’s—”

  “I know, I went a little overboard,” he said quickly. “I just want them to be comfortable, you know, and—”

  “It’s perfect,” I said, cutting him off.

  He just smiled, sliding open the pocket door, and waved me through it. Inside was a bathroom that was sparkling clean and had new towels hanging from the railing. I knew they were brand new because Titus cursed under his breath and reached beyond me to rip off a tag from one of them.

  The shower curtain looked like it had never been used either.

  “Nothin’ fancy,” Titus said. “But there’s a tub for baths and stuff.”

  “Perfect for us,” I replied.

  A door opposite the one we’d gone through led to my bedroom.

  “This one sticks a little,” he said, sliding the door open and then back closed again. “If you just push it a little toward the bathroom when you open it, it’ll be fine. You won’t get locked in or anything. I was gonna fix it, but it’s gonna take a bit to open up the wall and shit and I figured that we could do it later.”

  I nodded, but my eyes were glued to the other bedroom.

  My room was a mirror image of the girls’ room. A king-size bed sat on a low platform in the center of the room, covered in a multicolored quilt and crisp white sheets. A beautiful white crib with a yellow sheet was along the wall with the windows, and the wall next to me held a pair of matching dressers. In the corner sat a deep cushioned yellow rocking chair.

  I walked inside in a daze, running my hands over the dressers, then the crib, finally dropping onto the end of the bed.

  “I figured the girls will probably still sleep with you for a while,” Titus said quietly, leaning against the doorframe. “So I made sure to get you a king so you’d have the space.”

  “You didn’t have to do all this,” I rasped, the tears that had been pressing at the backs of my eyes finally making their appearance.

  It was like a dream. A movie. If this was what second-hand looked like, I wasn’t sure what kind of hand-me-downs I’d been getting. I ran my fingers over the stitching on the quilt. It was a beautiful geometric pattern in every color of the rainbow.

  “My great-great-gram made it,” Titus murmured, nodding to the quilt.

  “Really?”

  “Our family has a bunch of them,” he confirmed.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I breathed, overwhelmed.

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d want the changin’ table in here or in the girls’ room,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder. “But since Diana’s still in diapers—”

  “It’s perfect,” I cut him off. I seemed to be doing that a lot, but I couldn’t stand the nervous way he was rambling. He’d done so much. I couldn’t believe how gorgeous and clean and well thought out our rooms were. Why in the world was he nervous?

  “You wanna see the rest?”

  “There’s more?” I asked in disbelief.

  Titus just laughed and put his hand out. He led me through my bedroom door and pointed to the new knob he’d installed, pulling a couple of keys out of his pocket.

  “I’d put one on your keychain,” he said, handing them to me. “And stash the other one, just in case your keys get locked in the room.”

  “You take one,” I replied, handing back one of the keys, thoughts of the girls locking themselves in the rooms playing like a nightmare in my head. Maybe I hadn’t thought the whole locked-door thing through.

  “You sure?”

  I nodded.

  He led me down the hallway and up two stairs to the door there and opened the door. “This is my room, it’s not nearly as nice as yours,” he joked, gesturing so I would look inside. “Mick is the one who’s good at all that decorating shit. If my bed’s comfortable and I’ve got some place to put my clothes then I’m set.”

  He said that, and yet, his room was great. His furniture was a dark wood that all matched, and he had a gray comforter on his bed that looked new. Everything was clean and tidy and seemed well taken care of.

  “I’ve got my own bathroom through there,” he said, pointing. “And it’s got a big tub. So, if you ever want to use it, feel free.”

  I stared at him.

  “Offer’s open,” he said with a shrug.

  I was highly aware that he was still holding my hand as he led me back down the hallway, but it felt oddly natural as he pointed out Bas’s bedroom and then Cian’s, leaving their doors shut. When we got back downstairs, the house was surprisingly quiet, and we followed the sound of voices until we reached the kitchen.

  Heather, Otto, Bas, and Cian stood around the island while Diana and Ariel ate little orange crackers.

  “You might need to get one of those hanging high chair things like we’ve got,” Heather announced, standing next to where Diana perched on a stool. “This one wants to sit at the island like a big girl.”

  “We got so many snacks,” Ariel told me excitedly, leaning around Heather. Bas quickly stepped forward, making sure she didn’t fall off her stool.

  “Did you say thank you?” I asked, finally letting go of Titus’s hand as I moved farther into the room. My palm tingled.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did everyone take off?” Titus asked his mom. “I didn’t have a chance to say thank you.”

  “You said it enough while they were here,” she replied dryly. “Send out a group text if you want.”

  “Gran said I got my own room,” Ariel said, bouncing a little in her seat.

  “You’re sharing with Diana,” Heather clarified. “Remember?”

  “You wanna see it?” Titus asked, grinning.

  Squeals of delight were punctured with Diana’s orders of “Down!” as Titus rounded them up and led them toward the stairs.

  “You comin’?” he called.

  I turned to follow them and then thought better of it. While I wanted to see the girls’ excitement about their beautiful room, I also had this weird urge to let Titus show them alone. He had done that for them. He’d gotten them bedding in their favorite colors. He deserved that moment.

  “No, go ahead,” I croaked.

  Their voices grew quieter as he helped them up the stairs.

  “Okay?” Otto asked, watching me intently.

  “Did you see the rooms?” I asked, moving closer as the rest of the group started talking about other things.

  “No, but my mom said Titus set ’em up real nice.”

  “They’re insane,” I whispered, widening my eyes. “He thought of everything.”

  “You’re surprised?” Otto whispered back in amusement.

  “It’s a little overwhelming,” I replied, my eyes wandering over the large swaths of dark gray countertops surrounding us.

  “He loves you,” Otto said matter-of-factly, crossing his arms.

  “What?” My gaze snapped back to his.

  “He’s always loved you, Noel,” Otto replied, looking at me like he couldn’t decide if I was stupid or just completely oblivious. “He wants you to be happy. Comfortable. Safe.”

  “You’re telling me this now?” I hissed. My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head.

  “He’s been at our house every fuckin’ day,” Otto reminded me. “You think he’s there to see me?”

  My mouth opened and closed like a fish as I stared at my brother-in-law.

  Otto shook his head.

  “I got a red bed,” Ariel announced, racing back into the kitchen. “We’re gonna go see the playground!”

  “Purple,” Diana announced, carried in on Titus’s arm. “Purple bed.”

  “Lucky,” Heather exclaimed excitedly. “Do you like your room?”

  “We don’t like it, we love it!” Ariel replied, sliding to a stop at the kitchen door. “Uncle Otto, you wanna come see the playground?”

  “I gotta head home, honey,” Otto replied. “Auntie Esther’s probably wonderin’ where the heck I am. Show me next time?”

  Ariel’s expression fell.

  “I’ll come see it,” Cian blurted, rounding the island. “Come on, Bas.”

  I stood there in the kitchen, dumbly watching Otto and then Heather saying goodbye to the girls. I barely noticed when she came over and gave me a hug. As soon as they were gone, Bas and Cian brought the girls outside, their squealing drowning everything else out.

  “Hey,” Titus said quietly, hunching over a little to meet my eyes. “You alright?”

  I’d known Titus cared about me. He’d made that perfectly clear every time I saw him. He asked how we were doing. He played with the girls. He helped out in any way he could. He’d even offered us a place in his house, even though he knew that I couldn’t pay him. I wasn’t an idiot, I knew that he’d made up the housekeeping job so that I would feel like I was contributing and not just mooching off his generosity. He’d showed up for us in hundreds of different ways.

  But Otto had said Titus loved me and the way he’d said it left no room for doubt about exactly how he loved me. Once he’d said it, the truth of his words had settled deep in my bones. There was no turning away from it or pretending like I didn’t know.

  “You love me,” I blurted. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  Titus jerked back in surprise. “What?”

  “Otto said you love me,” I repeated. “Is that why you did all of this?” I gestured around me to the sparkling clean kitchen and the fully stocked pantry.

  “Fuckin’ Otto,” Titus murmured, running a hand down his face.

  “Is that why?” I asked again.

  “Of course it is,” Titus said, grimacing. He braced his hands on his hips.

  “I don’t know what—”

  “You don’t have to say anythin’,” he cut me off that time. “It doesn’t change anythin’.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “I’ve loved you since you were fifteen years old,” he countered. “I loved you when I picked your ass up from that run down trailer. I loved you when your piece of shit brother showed up. I loved you when I made breakfast for you and the kids, when I played magical horses with the girls, when I built that fuckin’ magnet tile mansion. Today isn’t any different from those days, alright?”

  I stared at him.

  “It doesn’t mean that I’m askin’ for anythin’, alright?” he burst out, throwing his hands up. “Nothin’ changes.”

  “We live with you,” I murmured.

  “Are you goin’ back on our deal?” he asked, all expression disappearing from his face.

  My heart was pounding and the baby’s feet were jabbing my ribs from the inside and the kitchen felt like it was echoing when I spoke.

  “No,” I replied quietly.

  Titus’s hands dropped from his hips as he nodded. Before I knew what he was doing, his hands were cupping my face as he leaned in close. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’d do anythin’ for you. Havin’ you livin’ here is far from an inconvenience for me. If anythin’ it’s helpin’ me out. If you weren’t here, I’d still be goin’ over to Otto’s every night.”

  Taking a shaky breath, I reached up and wrapped my hands around his wrists.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I murmured back. My thoughts were swirling. I loved being around Titus and there was something incredibly heady about being the focus of his attention—but I was eight months pregnant, the mother of two toddlers, and my life was an absolute mess. I wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but I was almost positive that I wouldn’t be able to give it to him, and that made my heart flutter with panic.