Baby Daddies - Tara Brown Page 0,68
She smiled at me and called me uncle. And I called her Mena and then I woke up.” He scans his card for the elevator and grins at me. “It was foreshadowing for sure.”
“How high were you?” I laugh.
“Not high at all. I’d fallen asleep on a plane on the way to a gig in Vegas.” He nudges me. “It’s gonna be a girl. And you have to call her Mena.”
“I’m not calling her Mena. How high are you now?”
“It’s wearing off,” he says as the doors open on his living room. The front of the apartment has glass walls and a sizeable deck overlooking the ocean. “Now, let’s make you something to eat while you tell me this story.”
“Okay. Let me. I don’t want some munchies because you’re high. I need sustenance.” I put down the bag and walk to the fridge and begin speaking as I rifle through, “So Lori got it in his head—” I pause and glance back at my brother who is now sitting at the large marble counter. “Actually there’s a backstory. His older brother, Sean, is a drug addict. Homeless and missing for years.”
“Oh shit.”
“Right. Anyway, no one knew where he was. Lori has always had an ongoing search with private investigators. But they never found anything. Anyway, back to the original part. I let it slip that we’re having a baby in front of some people at Nat and Brady’s wedding who are friends of Lori’s parents. He decided we should come here before we go to Nova Scotia for Dad’s birthday, meet the family, and spill the beans.”
“No.” Josh shakes his head. “That’s a terrible idea. Aren’t his parents complete assholes? Why would he want to do that?”
“He has a love-hate with everyone in his family, so who knows?” I pull roasted turkey breast, two kinds of cheese, pickles, mayo, mustard, and lettuce from the fridge and put them on the counter next to the lush brioche buns he has.
“But why not meet them first, then tell them about the baby? This just seems like a bad idea. How does the brother fit into this?” He’s following along well for being stoned.
“When we arrived today, I was sick,” I stop and wince, realizing I haven’t processed the humiliation of the plane vomit yet. “I puked in front of him on his plane. I had some kind of motion sickness. He managed to get the garbage pail to me as I got sick. It was awful.”
“Jesus.” Josh wrinkles his nose.
“Right.” I wash my hands and make us both an enormous sandwich as he gets up and grabs the chips from the pantry and puts a handful on each of our plates.
We don’t move, we eat at the counter like we did when we were kids as I finish the story.
“So let me get this straight. You wake up from the nap and the brother is dying in the hospital, Lori’s gone, his sister sees you in your skivvies Googling the grandpa, and the cook tells you to leave on the DL, pretending to care about you but likely just to get rid of you?” Josh surmises as he eats the last chip.
“Yup. And now I’m here, not sure where to go or what to do. I feel like an idiot because my stupid being homeless, jobless, and poor is nothing compared to his brother dying and his parents sucking. But I’m completely reliant on him and I hate it. I just want to be able to take care of me and the baby and not have him worry. But I also don’t want to move away from him.” I wipe my mouth and take a drink of the lime and watermelon sparkling water I found in the fridge. “I seriously like this guy.”
“Okay, so real talk,” Josh says as he sits back in the chair. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you need to take this job with Stan, but not the apartment.”
“I was thinking that too. I can’t do the free apartment. I’ll go from feeling like I owe Lori to owing Stan.”
“I’m buying a place in New York that you will take care of as a favor for me. Because you’re right, you have to get some independence so you can feel safe and secure and sort this Lori thing out slowly.” He’s completely sober and rational and being my older brother. “He can’t worry about you and the kid and his job and brother and all the crap