Secret Regrets (Living For Today #2) (11 page)

“Hello, Mrs. Matthews?” I spoke into the phone.

“Yes. Hello, I am calling for my son, Bryant. Is this the correct number?” Her voice was smooth-sounding with the enunciation and clarity of a bell. Prim and proper.

“Yes, ma’am. This is Bryant’s—” I paused. What was I? What had he told them?

“Well, spit it out. I need to speak with my son please.” Her voice was laced with irritation, urging me to move.

“One moment.” I muted the phone and set it down, angry she was so rude and disappointed she hadn’t heard about me, even though I’d figured as much. My mind was warring with emotions. “Bryant!” I yelled, hoping I wouldn’t have to trek back up the stairs.

“Hey, babe. What’s up?” Bryant’s rugged voice replied from the staircase as he made his way to the kitchen in no time.

Eyeing the phone cautiously, I looked back to him. “The phone…” My eyes locked on Bryant’s.

His body tensed up as he listened.

“It’s your mom.”

Confusion replaced the tense mask he had put up, “My mother?” he repeated skeptically.

“Yes, you know, the woman who delivered you into this world, raised you.”

“Ha, that is debatable. What the hell does she want?” he asked, growing frustrated as he stood before me.

The light on his phone dimmed, and I realized his mother had hung up, probably tired of waiting. By the time my eyes went back to Bryant, the shrill ring sounded again, bouncing off the walls of our kitchen.

Bryant answered the call before it could ring again. “Hello?” He paused a moment. “Yes, Mother, it is me. What do you need?”

Another moment passed as I watched the emotions flitting across his face: confusion, irritation, curiosity, then finally settling on anger. His muscles corded, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone more forcefully. “Mother. Mother! Stop speaking. Don’t Bryant me… That dimwitted woman you are speaking so foully of is my fiancée…You would do well to address her with the manners you’ve mastered faking.”

No longer did I hear the melodic voice of his mother as she spoke to him. The kitchen was consumed in silence.

“If that’s all?” Bryant attempted to be done with the call as his eyes found mine, expressing his apology.

I forced a small smile to try to bring him back to me, to let him know it was okay. The woman had no clue who I was; she just knew I’d placed her on hold for far longer than she was used to.

Just as the corner of Bryant’s beautiful smile began to tilt up, it quickly straightened back out to a grimace. “You’re what? Well, okay… Yes, Mother… Well, I can find something nearby for you… Well, yes, I have a guess… Okay... I’ll see you Friday then.” Bryant hung up and tossed the phone onto the bar hard enough it slid a good three feet after landing.

Letting out a deep sigh, he brought his eyes back to mine. “Well, honey, looks like you’ll be meeting my parents on Friday. And they will be staying here too.” Bryant walked past me and opened the refrigerator. He stared inside a moment before he looked up at the clock. Then he nodded, reached in, and pulled out a beer.

“Bryant, it is eleven in the morning!” I hollered, shocked at his behavior.

“Rose, babe. It’s my mother. If you knew her, you’d be getting yourself one too.”

I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around him from behind. “Hey, she can’t be that bad. Plus, it is about time I meet her. We will be married in a few short months.” Hesitating, I wanted to ask the burning unspoken question, but was unsure how he would react — how I would react. It just seemed like dangerous territory, but I had to know. “Do they know about me at all? About Angelica?”

As he let a big breath of air blow out of his nose, I could feel Bryant pulling away. It was obvious that he did not want to talk about it, No doubt freaking out that I was even asking. Each muscle looked strung tight, ready to react. Ready to run.

“Well, yes and no. They know there was a girl who had my heart and took it with her. They don’t know about Angelica, and, before you react — which is a bit late cause I already see your nose scrunching — I had a reason. My parents control everything. Well, technically, my mom does, and my dad agrees with everything she decides, so they are a force to be reckoned with. I just felt like they would taint the memories of Angelica. They wouldn’t understand our love, how all-consuming it was from the start. They would have said, and don’t—” He stopped speaking, every word and thought sitting on the tip of his tongue as he closed his eyes tightly.

“Bryant, talk to me,” I pleaded. It pained me to see him so distraught, but I knew it was my chance to prove my strength to him. I reached out, clasped his hand, and squeezed it, urging him to continue.

“I just don’t want you to hate them, I guess, and this will come out all wrong. They would have said us losing our little girl was a blessing in disguise. That to have a child out of wedlock is an abomination. That we had no idea what we wanted out of life or a way to provide for our daughter. They would have called us reckless and just children ourselves.”

Tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t help it. How could someone think that way? My heart ached every second of every day for our daughter. Letting go of my hand, Bryant strode away out the back glass door. He slid it closed with so much force it slammed shut.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
HE REST OF THE WEEK WAS
absolutely torturous. Bryant was not speaking — like positively mute, closed off. I had tried desperately to get him to talk to me, to give me some clue as to how he was feeling but each time, he’d stomp off and end up going for a very long run. His parents would arrive tomorrow, and tonight he was the surliest he’d been all week. It was awful.

Sitting down to eat dinner, I hoped he’d take notice that I had cooked up his favorite meal, chicken parmesan. But as he stabbed his chicken and massacred the perfectly golden breading and melted mozzarella, I was pretty sure it was not being appreciated. As he jammed each bite into his mouth, he shifted it to the side and chewed it like cud. He wrapped his firm hand around the green bottle containing his Yuengling and tilted it back, letting the liquid pour down his throat.

“Bryant, talk to me,” I pleaded, desperate to just hear something. I was terrified about his parents coming the next day; they didn’t know me and didn’t seem inclined to give me a chance.

As Bryant shoved back from the table, his plate slid forward while his chair fell back, crashing to the floor. “Damnit, Rose. I don’t want to fucking talking about it! Don’t you get it? My parents will be here in less than twenty-four hours, and I’m just supposed to be this guy they expected me to be, but I’m not. I’m just one huge disappointment to them.”

Tears welled in my eyes. I wasn’t use to Bryant yelling at me. In fact, I positively hated it. It brought back memories of Darren, the red flags that should have waved to alert me to his anger and issues, but I’d been too naïve. Unable to voice my fears, I shook my head no while Bryant just stared at me in confusion.

“I won’t go down this road again,” I mumbled, promising to myself that I would not be a victim. Backing away slowly, I watched Bryant with eagle eyes as I inched my way toward the stairs. Every muscle in my body was prepared for him to attack me as a flashback of my prom night with Darren assaulted me.

“Rose?” Bryant’s wavering voice questioned my retreat. “What are you—?”

“No, you don’t want to talk? Don’t talk. Stay there,” I firmly said, despite my trembling knees. “Stay. Right. There.” As soon as my heel hit the first step, I spun around and bolted up the stairs, not stopping until I locked myself in our bedroom. I could hear Bryant’s weight pound into each step as he bounded up behind me.

“Rose!” he called through the wood door, jiggling the door handle. “Rose, talk to me. What is wrong?”

Tears rushed down my face in a flash flood, uncontrollable as the nightmares and memories rushed back. I could feel Darren’s weight pinning me beneath him, smell the stench of alcohol on his breath. He was there in my room with me, and it left me dripping in sweat, immobile. I couldn’t even begin to understand why he would force himself back into my life, why I was this golden prize he felt the need to claim. To own.

The shadows in the room dipped lower as the sun set off in the distance. Suddenly, a soft knock broke me from my desolate mood. “Rose?” Leslie’s voice broke through my terror-stricken fog. “Rose, hun, open the door.”

“Is—” My voice caught in my throat. “—is Darren out there still?” A loud noise broke the silence that had descended after my nonsensical question.

“He is gone now.” Leslie’s soothing voice spoke again, urging me to unlock the door and allow her access. She shimmied through the crack I had allowed, and I quickly shut the door again and clicked the lock back.

“He will never leave me alone. He is so angry, so mean.” I spoke so softly Leslie leaned in closer to hear me, trying to wrap her arms around my rocking frame that was curled in on itself. My back slid down the wall until I fell to my butt. Just needing to feel safe, I brought my knees to my chest and held myself together as best as I could.

“Rose, look at me. You are home, with Bryant. Look around.” Leslie stood up, walked over to our nightstand, and grabbed a framed photo of Bryant and me canoeing down the Hillsborough River last summer. “See...” she explained, pressing the photo into my vision.

Blinking a few times, I looked up to see a very concerned Leslie.

“You back with me?” she asked as my eyes focused on her, on my room.

Nodding, I was still unable to speak. I felt disorientated and confused.

“Come on, let’s go down and sit on the couch.” Leslie held her hand out to me, helping me up once I took it. Opening the door first, she peeked out, setting my nerves on edge again.

“I think Bryant went with Grant on a walk,” she reasoned as she opened the door fully.

Looking out, I saw a hole in the drywall. I walked up to it and touched the edges of the oval-shaped hole.

“Bryant punched the wall when you called him Darren,” she explained.

“I did what!” I shrieked, closing my eyes to bring the memory of moments ago back, but finding only darkness. A hole just like the one I was looking at created a void I was unable to fill.

Once we were settled on the couch, Leslie took my hand within hers, cradling it gingerly. “Rose, do you remember what just happened? You’ve been locked away for a few hours now. Bryant had hoped you’d come out, but when you stopped responding to him and started screaming, he called me. You scared the shit out of him.”

“Leslie, I don’t know. I remember…” I paused trying to place everything I could recall in my mind. “…I remember him not liking dinner. He is so stressed with his parents coming that he has shut down. He yelled. His eyes were on fire. I backed up and hit the staircase, and he was going to come after me, and then…” My voice drifted off as I hit the block in my memory.

The back door squeaked as it opened, and soon a solemn-looking Bryant and a worried-looking Grant entered the living room. I slowly stood up and made my way over to him. As I got closer, his brown eyes moved up to look at me through his eyelashes, the pain easily readable. Snaking my arms around him, I held on tightly, feeling the ripple of his muscles as he brought his arms around me.

“We are just going to leave now. Call me if you need me,” Leslie said from behind as she dragged Grant out the front door.

“Rose,” Bryant’s soft voice unnerved me more than anything. He seemed unsure and uneasy, and that made me nervous. When my rock crumbled and turned to dust, I was left with no foundation.

“Shh…”I placed a finger over his soft plump lips. “I’m tired of arguing, of talking, of beating this all to a pulp. I want you and me. I want us without the dark cloud looming over us. Kiss me. Love me.” Stretching up on tiptoe, I got just close enough that I could feel each breath escape his lips, smell the yeast of the hops from his Yuengling. My tongue slipped out to moisten my lips, trying to tempt him further.

Bryant’s eyes grew darker as watched my every move, seeming to trace each curve of my body. With a growl, his lips were molding to mine as he tasted me. Scooping me up, he guided my legs around his waist so that my core was nestled right against his hard length that was begging to be inside me. Every second we stood here, kissing, tasting, teasing made me wetter with desire. Feeling him against me made my body ache with need.

“I will always love you, sweetheart. It’s you and me against the world, and we will win every time,” Bryant promised into my opened mouth as I gasped for air.

W
AKING UP THE NEXT
morning in our bed, my body ached for an entirely different reason. I felt worn out and thoroughly sated. I sat up and let the blankets pool around my waist as I stretched my arms above my head. Beside me, Bryant sighed as he rolled over to his side, a smile on his peaceful, sleeping face. Quietly, I slipped out of bed and took a quick shower before heading downstairs to start my weekend cleaning ritual. Bryant’s parents were expected in around noon, so I knew I had a few hours to let him rest and get the house in order.