Wilde by Abby Brooks
Chapter Thirty-Five
Leo
Hank leans on the wall just inside the kitchen, waiting for me to look up from my sketch. I scrape the pencil along the page, several long strokes to finish the outline before I finally look up. “Something I can help you with?”
“So much snark for a guy supposedly trying to be less of a dick.”
He looks so full of himself, he must think he’s got something good on me. I lean forward to study my drawing, picking up the pencil to darken a few of the lines. “If you’ve got something to say, might as well just say it.”
“Just remember. You asked for this.”
“For fuck’s sake. If you don’t get on with it—”
“I met Amy today.” Hank’s face says he knows just how big a bombshell this is. “She seems like a sweet girl.”
My pencil clatters to the table and I stare. “You met…what did you do, Hank?”
“Geeze. Way to jump to conclusions. Jack and I went to that burger place you recommended.”
“Plinky’s.”
“That’s the one.”
“And Amy was there?”
I picture her sitting at our table, staring wistfully at her hands. Had she been thinking about me? About us? I wish I could go back and undo everything I did. Everything I said.
“She was working.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. “Working? At Plinky’s? Why?”
Hank shrugs. “We didn’t actually get into the long and short of it, but I assume she’s doing it in exchange for financial compensation. El dinero.” He rubs his fingers together with a sarcastic grin, then pushes off the wall and pulls out a chair. “She said you went to see her.”
“I did. I tried. She wouldn’t give me the time of day.” Fuck, it was so hard to watch her close the car door in my face and drive off. It instantly made me regret pushing her out of my house when things blew up.
“And what did you do to earn said time of day? Did you apologize? Did you try to initiate a conversation about what went wrong between you? Did you take her to a private place, where she could let down her guard and admit her feelings? Or did you show up and pretend like nothing ever went wrong between you and try to force yourself back into her life?”
I sit back in my chair and fold my arms across my chest. “I feel like you have a point hidden in all those questions. Why don’t we skip to the part where you explain it to me.”
“I’m just saying that from what I’ve heard, both of you had a hand in the way things skidded off the rails, but you’re the reason it all fell to pieces. You absolutely cannot expect to just show up and that’s all. You need to hear her side. You need to talk about the hard stuff, man.” Jack leans forward, arms on the table, palms up.
“He’s not wrong.”
I look up to find Chet glowering in the doorway. Instead of pitching a fit and stomping away, I close my eyes and sigh. “Good to see ya, big brother—even if you are butting into a conversation you weren’t part of.” I hold up my hands. “But your advice is welcome because apparently I need it.”
Chet bobs his head and takes a seat. Silence descends on the table and I stare at my sketch. When I booked the flight out here for Wednesday dinner, the plan had been to catch a plane back to LA Thursday morning, but after the conversation with Chet, I couldn’t bring myself to run away again. There were fences to be mended and it wouldn’t be easy, and I sure as hell couldn’t do it from a different state.
I’d thought I’d meet Amy at her appointment, pour on the charm, and then step back into the way things were. I could be a dad, she could be my girl, and I’d finally start to feel like I belonged at the Wilde family dinner table. I explain as much to my brothers. “I’m just kind of in limbo.”
“You need to show that girl you care.” Chet places his hand on the table. “You need to show her you’re sorry. That you heard her. You want her. And you don’t intend on pulling a disappearing act again any time soon. As for the family? We’re here for you. We always have been and we always will be. If you’re ready to start being the man I always knew you could be, then I’m with you every step of the way.”
I look to Hank who lifts an eyebrow. “You’ve got him speaking in paragraphs, little brother. That has to mean something.”
Chet groans.
“It’s funny,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “I always thought I’d be happy when I finally got out of Logan. If anything, I’m the least happy I’ve ever been.”
“You know what they say. Wherever you go, there you are.” Chet knowingly bobs his head.
I expect Hank to make a joke, but instead, he nods his agreement. “You can’t run away from your problems,” he says. “They just keep coming with you.”
And fuck, were my problems piling up. “The woman I’m in love with, the mother of my child, wants nothing to do with me.”
“I wouldn’t say that’s true.” Hank shrugs. “If you’d seen her today, it was pretty clear she misses you.”
“If this girl matters to you, you have to fight for her, Leo.” Chet nods his head like he solved all my problems, instead of offering some vague advice. He and I will probably never speak the same language, but I’m willing to stick around long enough to learn the dialect.
Images of Amy break through my thoughts about Chet. The swell of her tummy showing through her shirt. That soft blonde hair flowing in the breeze. The way she froze in place as she recognized me at the hospital. The yearning dancing with hurt in her eyes. I stand, suddenly desperate to see her, gathering my sketchbook into my arms, along with my pencil.
“Where are you going?”
“To Plinky’s. I don’t know what I’m going to do, or what I need to say, but you’re right. I can’t just give up. She has to know how I feel.”
“You do realize you’re about to ambush her while she’s working, which is basically everything we told you not to do,” Hank shouts after me as I dash from the room.