White Lilies (A Mitchell Sisters Novel) (27 page)

John stays in the kitchen while Skylar follows me to the front door. Before I walk through it, I place her gift on the entry table. “It’s just something I found that reminded me of both the ‘Erins’ in our lives. I thought you might like it.”

She eyes the box, wary of it. She nods her head. “Thank you.”

I open the door and step through. “Call me when you’re ready to talk, Sky.”

I walk out without looking back. I don’t want to know if my use of her nickname made her happy or mad. I don’t want to know if she picked up the box to open it. I don’t want to know if she walked back into the arms of another man.

chapter twenty-four

I walk through the door to Mason’s condo, ready to lay him out for withholding such valuable information, when I hear the giggles of a small child. My lecture will have to wait. Mason’s eighteen-month-old daughter toddles over to him when she sees me. I’m a stranger to her. I usually stay away on the weekends he has her. I suddenly feel like an idiot knowing he gave up part of his weekend with her to drag my ass back home.

She holds out her little arms and he swoops down to pick her up with one hand, swinging her up and onto his hip. “It’s okay, sweet pea, this is my friend, Griffin.”

“Hey there, Hailey.” I tousle her platinum-blonde hair that is a replica of his, right down to the cowlick in the front that forces her short waves to fall on either side of her left eye.

Hailey hides her head in Mason’s chest as he bellows out a laugh. Then I watch the two of them play. I watch this two-hundred-and-fifty-pound quarterback sit on the floor with his daughter and build a tower out of blocks. Then I watch him lie on his back and balance the tiny girl on his feet, whirling her through the air while he makes airplane noises. Then I watch him sing ridiculously embarrassing songs about patty cakes and pony rides as she giggles and tries to sing along with him, but mostly she just pats his face and tries to stick her fingers in his mouth, which he then kisses.

I watch them for hours, sitting on a barstool in the kitchen while nursing a beer. I don’t move a muscle, not even when they fall asleep, her on his chest. I see her little lips quiver and make smacking noises as she sleeps. I see his hands instinctively wrap around her when she shifts her weight on him.

Then I see his heart break when Hailey’s mom comes to gather her up before bedtime. I see the pain on his face, in his every movement. It’s palpable and I can feel it from across the room. He’s a broken man watching his little girl leave as she calls out for her daddy.

I will do anything and everything not to live through that myself.

He walks past me and I jokingly hand him a tissue. He bats my hand away. “Fuck off,” he says, reaching in the fridge for a beer.

I hold up my hands in surrender. “That was painful to watch, man. Is it always like that when she leaves?”

He simply nods his head and then chugs half of his beer.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

“Tell you what, that I sometimes cry like a baby when Hailey leaves?” He means it as a joke, but I’m pretty sure there’s some truth there and it guts me.

“No, tell me that Skylar is seeing someone.” I close my eyes and shake my head thinking of how I felt when I walked up those stairs and saw his hands on her. “I walked right into the middle of a goddamn date.”

He laughs.

“I’m glad to see you find this so funny.”

“I don’t think it’s all that serious,” he says. “Would it have changed anything if I had told you?”

I shake my head. “I guess not.”

“Well then, that’s why I didn’t tell you,” he says, as if that clears everything up.

“Who is he, Dix?”

“John something-or-other.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“I know his name, douchebag. I met him tonight. Who the hell is he?”

“They work together, but he’s not on staff at Mitchell’s. I think he’s a food or beverage supplier. I’ve never met the guy, so there’s not much I can tell you.”

“Never met him?” I give him my best
what-the-fuck
look. “How do you know he’s not some deranged fucker who goes after pregnant women and then takes their babies?”

He laughs again. “Dude, you watched way too much television during your drunken hiatus. He’s fine. Baylor says he’s a good guy who has been working with her parents’ restaurants for years.”

I finish my beer and stare at the empty bottle after I set it on the counter. “Did I ruin my chance with her, man?”

He sighs. Then he puts another beer in front of me. “She still has feelings for you. I can tell by the way her face turns sad when we talk about you.”

“You talk about me?”

“Of course we do. You’re my best friend. You’re her baby’s father. She lost not only Erin, but you. She needed support. Plus, she needed my help to move your big-ass furniture around.”

I laugh. “Yeah, that bed is huge. I don’t know what Erin was thinking when she bought it. It took three guys to move it upstairs.”

I’ll never forget that first night in the townhouse. She jumped up and down on the mattress after the bed was delivered. We were twenty-two at the time and she looked like a little girl on a trampoline. She was so happy and carefree and alive.

“What is it?” Mason asks.

I realize that I’m smiling from ear-to-ear and it dawns on me that I just thought of Erin without feeling sad. I allowed myself to let the happy memories infiltrate the bad ones. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m—”

“Ready to move on?” he interrupts.

I look guiltily into the neck of my beer bottle. “Does that make me a dick? That after two months, I want to be with someone else? Hell, if I’m being honest, it was a lot less than two months. What if it isn’t enough time? What if I’m doing this for all the wrong reasons?”

“Answer me this, Griffin. If there wasn’t any baby, would you still want Skylar? Or would you just be trying to use her to get through your grief?”

“What the hell, Dix?” I pick up my beer and walk into the living room so I don’t take a swing at him.

He follows me, smiling. “See, I pissed you off by even suggesting it, didn’t I? You want that woman with or without a baby. Two months, or two minutes, it doesn’t matter. There’s no set time to grieve someone. Especially not in your situation. I don’t know what Erin wrote in that letter, but my guess is that she told you not to feel guilty about wanting Skylar. That she did everything in her power to push you together and that she wanted you to know it was okay to be with her.” He points his beer bottle at me. “I’m close, aren’t I?”

I nod my head.

“Then don’t be a damn fool. Go after what you want, G. Skylar wants it too, you know, but you hurt her at a time when you both needed each other. She might not feel like she can trust you to be there for her if shit goes wrong again. And who can blame her?”

We drink a few more beers and talk football. Then I hit the couch, that was not built for a guy my size to crash on, and try to sleep when all I can really do is think of a way to get her to let me in.

~ ~ ~

I watch her walk down the street towards Mitchell’s. I know her hours. I knew she’d be arriving soon. Yet, I still showed up here an hour early, at the coffee shop across the street, waiting for her to come to work. I grab my camera and take some pictures of her. Her heel gets caught in a sidewalk grate and I hold my breath, watching her find her balance. She laughs at herself.
Snap
. I catch the moment on film. She doesn’t look around to see if anyone saw her trip. She doesn’t even care. My eyes move in both directions, searing into the men that turn their heads as she walks by.

Her growing belly is now evident under her winter coat. Yet even that doesn’t detract from the stares she garners. As she gets closer and I zoom in tighter, I see it. The locket I gave her. I can see the sparkle of the diamond when the sun catches it.
Snap
.

I wondered if she would even open the gift, let alone wear it. I wonder if she thought to put a picture of Erin in it, like I had imagined.

I remember standing on a corner down in Miami Beach a few days before Christmas. I was watching happy couples walk down the street hand-in-hand, window shopping for what might go under the tree. Moms and Dads, going in and out of ice-cream shops and restaurants, swinging their young children between them. Trying to look like I fit in, and not a loser that abandoned his quasi-family, I started looking in windows myself.

The locket practically jumped off the blue velvet and bit me. Hanging from a stunning rope chain was a silver locket with a flower etched into it. I convinced myself it was a lily. The bud of the flower was a diamond—what would be Aaron’s birthstone since he was due in April. There was no way I wasn’t going to buy it. Even if all I ever did was keep it in the box. It was perfect. I knew instantly that Skylar would love it. I just didn’t know if she would love it if it was a gift from me.

But there she is, wearing it only days after I gave it to her. Before reaching for the door, her hand comes up to touch the locket.
Snap
. Something stirs deep inside me.
Hope?

I sit for a while longer, catching glimpses of Skylar as she makes rounds through the restaurant. I gather up my things to leave when I see John walk up and through the front door of her restaurant.

Jealously seeps from my every pore. Has she let him touch her stomach? Feel
my
baby move? Would he even want to, the sicko bastard? My eyes narrow and my fists ball so tightly, my fingernails break the skin of my palms. I can think of nothing else;
see
nothing else but visions of him rubbing his hands up and down her arms the other night.

It takes all my strength to remain glued to the chair instead of marching across the street to lay claim on what isn’t even mine; what I gave up so that another man like John could come in and take my place.

The door to the restaurant opens and Skylar walks through, followed by John. She doesn’t have her coat on, but he does. Good, he’s leaving and she’s not going with him. He makes a strange face and reaches out to touch the locket, questioning her. It’s all I can do not to run over and rip his hand away from it.

She shakes her head at him, shrugging her shoulders while giving him a small smile. I’ve never wanted to be a fly on the wall so badly. He leans over to kiss her on the cheek and then she waves goodbye. The whole time, working the locket between the fingers of her right hand.

Suddenly, she turns to me and looks me straight in the eyes through the glass of the coffee shop window. Like she knew I was here. She briefly closes her eyes and tilts her head to the sky. She visibly takes a breath before looking both ways and crossing the street.

I quickly pay the check and meet her out in front of the coffee shop. She raises her eyebrows at me, in the same way she did the other night. She wants me to be the first to speak.

“Coffee?”

She raises her brows dubiously. “Haven’t you had enough coffee, Griffin?”

She
did
know I was here. I put my proverbial tail between my legs and give her an innocent shrug.

“My wait staff all know who you are,” she says. “Mindy noticed you hours ago. What are you doing here?” I see her warm breath meet with the cold air every time she speaks.

“You must be cold. Come inside.”

She shakes her head. “I have to get back to the restaurant. I just wanted to thank you for the locket. It’s beautiful. But I also wanted to tell you that I don’t think this will work.” She motions between the two of us and then nervously twists the ring on her pinky finger. “I understand you feel bad for leaving the way you did. That you feel guilty about not being there for Aaron. We slept together. It happened. It doesn’t even matter that it was the best sex I’ve ever had. We did it out of grief, and that’s no way to build a relationship. It’s not enough. Aaron deserves more than that. And for the first time in my life, I think I do, too.”

She looks over her shoulder at Mitchell’s. “I have to get back now. Go home . . . er, wherever. Go back to work, Griffin. Do something with your life that Aaron will be proud of.”

She starts to walk away, but I grab her arm and whirl her back around. She questions me with her eyes.

“What’s your favorite flower?” I ask.

“Huh?” She eyes me skeptically.

“Flowers. Which are your favorite? It’s an easy question, Skylar.”

With a sad smile, she reaches up to touch the locket. “You already know.” She checks the traffic before crossing the street. I could swear I see a genuine smile creep up her face in the reflection of a cab window, but it could just be my overactive imagination. The same imagination that has her dumping the food guy and giving me another chance.

I watch her walk away without so much as turning back once to look at me.

I should be upset. But I’m not.

I don’t think I heard a word she said after ‘
best sex I’ve ever had.
’
 

chapter twenty-five

Gavin sets another beer down in front of me. He and Mason decided to take me out for drinks and get my ass off Mason’s lumpy-as-hell couch.

I’ve given her some space. I haven’t stalked her since the coffee shop earlier this week. Maybe once she gets used to the idea of having me back again, she’ll come around.

Gavin shakes his head at me. “As the guy who had to win back one of the other Mitchell sisters, I can tell you they’re all stubborn as hell. It took me months to get Baylor to let me back into her life and I didn’t even screw up as badly as you did.” He tips his beer at me. “You don’t have months, Griffin. You need to do something now, before your kid is here. Take it from me, you do not want to miss the birth of your child. It’s something you’ll never get back.”

I set down my beer, trying to perfectly match it onto the wet ring it left on the bar moments ago. “She hasn’t lifted a finger to talk to me. What am I supposed to do?”