it doesn’t matter what you want. Know what I mean?”
That fast the memory broke through:
Pops kicking open the door to the bathroom, Mom on the floor, moaning, vomit trickling out of her, Brian trying to run inside until Dad backhanded him, hard enough to send him sprawling, This is grown-up shit, little snoop, go wait in the kitchen—
No. He didn’t think about that day, any of those days. That boy was gone.
“Brian? I say something wrong?” He shook his head, shoved the memory away. Thought instead of the piano he’d seen delivering pizzas to that nursing home north of town, the Jefferson Home, a black baby grand. He wondered…
Persuading the place to let her play was easy. Of course, exaggerating her credentials didn’t hurt. Graduated from Julliard, you’re lucky to be getting her… Reaching into the bottom of his duffel for two hundred bucks to have the piano tuned was the clincher.
Why was he going to so much trouble? He didn’t know. They hadn’t had sex yet, but it seemed obvious they were headed that way. But he wanted to impress her. More, to surprise her.
And he did. Her tension as he drove them out of town annoyed him—did she really not trust him?—but he forgave her when he saw how she almost ran to the piano. And she brought it to life. He’d always thought classical music was boring. Not that day. He could see her, them, in a house with giant windows overlooking the ocean, her fingers lighting up a concert grand as he and their kids—for some reason, he imagined four of them, two boys and two girls—sat watching.
Man, I am falling for this chick.
Later he would wonder whether he’d fallen for her at all or the fantasy she represented, no linoleum floors, matching Porsches in the garage. But at the time, he found her intensity captivating.
Then, craziness. The oldster lurching off his chair, dead on the floor. Brian tried chest compressions, though he knew they were useless. Nothing was bringing this guy back. His heart was pancaked like a house in an earthquake.
Afterward, Brian felt his old EMT attitude kicking in, Screw ’em if they can’t take a joke, and death is the ultimate joke. He knew he was saying all the wrong things, but he couldn’t stop himself. By the time they left the manager’s office Rebecca could hardly look at him.
Luckily, she decided to forgive him.
And they were off.
Within a couple of months they were spending most nights together. What could only be called a tidal wave of sex washed them away. It wasn’t just that Rebecca was close to insatiable. Something about the way she lost herself made it possible for him not merely to perform but to experience her.
Without really thinking, much less consciously planning, they decided to get married. And quickly.
Even now, Brian didn’t know if he’d been cynical or hopeful. Yeah, Rebecca had the money, the education, the prospects. He was marrying up. But he wanted to pull his weight too. And if her plans were more definite than his, so be it. Until now he’d let life carry him along more or less at random. Letting her choose his future for him was just another roll of the dice. He liked Becks. Cared about her. She was interesting. The FBI thing was cool. He couldn’t exactly see her kicking down doors, but she was fierce. If she thought she could handle it, he wasn’t gonna argue.
Did he love her? He didn’t know what that word meant. He tried not to look too deeply inside himself, but when he did, he saw something missing—stolen—from him too many years ago to count. Becks was no dummy. She believed in him enough to marry him. That fact alone made him feel better about himself, made him think maybe he wasn’t as broken as he thought. If she trusted him, who was he to argue?
So they went for it. And like a week later, Becks was preggers.
Which was honestly not what he was expecting. He should have, right? The way they went at it. But all those one-night stands, he’d never knocked anyone up. Sure, he’d been careful, but not that careful. He’d had a few accidents along the way. Maybe some part of him thought he couldn’t.
Wrong.
When she called him into the bathroom, Brian, you have to see this, showed him the stick, he couldn’t help himself, his first thought, Oh shit. But he looked at her, her eyes wide, overjoyed, her