“Didn’t want them. That’s right. But if I have one, Rochelle, that’s different. I’d need to know that. We really do need a DNA test.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Well, we do.”
“Quin doesn’t even know about her. So he can’t want that.”
“I’m gonna tell him tonight when I leave here, and once I do, he’ll come looking and he’ll demand a DNA test.”
“Is that a threat?” So many things in that statement make me uncomfortable.
“No,” he says. “No,” more emphatically. “That’s not why I’m here. I just… need to know. And I need to make things right with Quin. So I have to tell him.”
We have another long silence as Bric picks up a toy from the floor. A red plastic block. He turns it in his hand like he’s never seen anything like it before.
“You said you came to beg for a favor. Was that your favor? The DNA test? Because if so, it’s not happening. I get why you’d want to know, I do.” I look at him with an earnest expression. “I even sympathize about your situation with Quin. But I cannot get involved with you guys again. It was…” I stop and try to pull myself together. I’d forgotten about the feelings. All those desperate moments last year. All the crying and craziness. I know it was just the hormones, but it was real while it was happening.
“It was what?” Bric prods, ever the psychoanalyst.
I let out a long breath of air. “It was hard. I didn’t want to walk away, Bric. I wanted what every pregnant woman wants.”
“The happily ever after?” he asks, shooting me another small, but genuine, smile.
I shrug. “I guess you could call it that. But right after I found out I was pregnant, after I told you—like the next day, I think—Quin and I were at your last garden party on the Club roof and we were dancing. It was such a great night. I told him I loved him and he looked at me, Bric… he looked at me like I was a stranger.”
“So you left.”
I nod. “I left. I knew he… I knew I was important to him, right? But the minute I admitted that I loved him, I saw the fear in his face.”
“What fear?” Bric asks.
“That the game would end. I knew right then that ending the game was the thing he feared most. Not me, Bric. He wasn’t going to miss our couple relationship. But us. Me and you and him. That’s what he wanted. That’s always been what he wanted.”
They both want that. I thought Smith did too, so that doesn’t fit into my assessment of them. Why play this game over and over again? But I don’t know Smith that well. I do know Bric. And Quin is just like him, minus the dark Machiavellian side.
Bric picks up a blue block and stacks it on top of the red one on the arm of the chair. He watches Adley for a few seconds. Another smile creeps out. So many real smiles from Elias Bricman today. “She looks just like you.”
My gaze falls down to my absolutely beautiful daughter. “I think so too. She’s got my blonde hair. And I still have a baby picture of me.” I nod to the photo frame on the mantle of the fireplace. It’s a cheap frame. Something I bought at the local drugstore after I got Adley’s first pictures taken last month when I made a rare trip to the Durango mall. It’s me and her, side by side. And we could be the same baby, that’s how much alike we look.
Well, except for the eyes. Adley has bright blue eyes and mine are hazel. But that might change.
Bric stands, walks over to the fireplace, and picks up the frame. “Jesus.”
He stares at the image for so long I start to feel weird. “That was the favor then? The DNA test?”
“No,” Bric answers, still gazing down at the photo. “That was just to piss you off.” He smiles, looks over at me from under that curl of hair again. “Because I know you. I know how to push all your buttons, Rochelle.”
Right. Bric is all about manipulation. “Then why are you here?”
He places the frame back where he got it. Gently. With reverence, almost. “We could play a new game,” he says. And then, ignoring the confused look on my face—“A game called Make Quin Happy Again. Give him what he thinks he wants.”
I shake my head and huff out something that isn’t a laugh. I know Bric cares about Quin. They are like brothers. But he’s not here for Quin. He’s here for himself. Everything Bric does is for himself.
“Because I think you’re right,” Bric says. “He likes the us. The three of us, you know. But I think he wants you, Rochelle. And he’d want this baby if he knew about her. I came here because I thought I could bring you home with me. Chella is making us have lunch together tomorrow at the Club. I know Quin doesn’t want to see me. Can’t even fucking look at me.” He winces at his swear word, but doesn’t apologize. “So even though when I got on the jet this afternoon I was coming here to beg you to stay away… I had another thought along the way. A small idea crept in. A little fantasy, you know? That I’d show up with you and the baby tomorrow like a… like…”
“Like a gift,” I say, filling in the missing word. He nods. Slowly. I say, “I thought you were playing a new game with that other guy?”
He huffs out an exasperated laugh. “It’s so fucked up, Rochelle. It’s never gonna work. And I miss you too.”
We stare at each other for a few moments. I’ve talked to Bric lots of times. He’s an easy guy to confide in. But I’ve never talked to him about our relationship. And he’s never offered me up anything more than the casual, You look nice tonight, remarks. Or, I like your hair that way. They always felt so… mandatory. He was always nice to me. Always generous with his money. And careful during sex. But he never looked at me the way he’s looking at me now. It makes my heart flutter a little. “You miss me,” I whisper. “With you and Quin?”
He nods again. Even slower than the last time. “I have been talking myself into thinking you leaving was the best thing to ever happen to me. But it was a lie. Just like you’re trying to lie to yourself right now. What we had was good, Rochelle. Better than good, really. It was pretty fucking great.”
I look down at Adley, wondering how I went from hating the fact he was here to… reconsidering all my choices.
He’s good, I tell myself. He’s always been good at playing on people’s emotions.
“Don’t you get lonely? Do you have boyfriends?” he asks.
“No,” I say. But I’m only referring to the boyfriend part. I get very lonely. I just hide it better than I used to.
He comes over to the couch and sits down next to me. Very close, so our legs are touching. “Can I hold her?”
I almost snort. “You want to hold her?”
Another slow nod of affirmation. “I can’t stand it.” He laughs. “I need to touch her. She’s so fucking pretty.”
“Have you ever held a baby before?” I ask, not sure what to make of this unexpected turn of events. Hell, so many turns in this one conversation, I’m getting dizzy.
“I played Santa last year at Christmas.”