Page 71 of His Bittersweet Regret

“Let me give you a ride home, Opal. It’s late, and I’ll be worried all night.”

“I appreciate it, Ryker, but there’s no way that I’m riding in the same seat with either of them,” I pointed out.

The car door opened and Brix got out and moved immediately to the back seat. “You can have the front seat with Ry, since you don’t mind his company, and Bas and I will remain quiet for the whole ride. I promise, we just want to make sure you get home safe.” Ryker grinned as his brother seemingly made it easier for me to accept his offer of a ride.

“Where’s Jimmy?” I asked.

“He’s hanging with Marsh and Austin,” Ryker replied.

“Fine.” My feet already hurt, so I relented and got into the car. “Why are you the one driving?”

“They couldn’t agree over whose vehicle to take tonight, and when I ended the argument by telling them that I’d just drive myself, they hopped in and told me I could be the designated driver.”

One glance back at the twins told me they weren’t inebriated. They both smiled at me, as if we were old friends. “Ended up not drinking after all, since Jimmy decided he wanted to just go hang out with the baby.”

“Why didn’t you all just stay together and hang out there?” I asked.

Both twins gave me an odd look, but it was Ryker who answered. “Bas and Brix aren’t allowed to go over there when Marsh has Austin.”

“What? Why?”

“Because Marsh said that they haven’t earned your trust or approval yet, and he wasn’t going to go against your wishes.”

I stared at Ryker, dumbstruck. All this time, I’d been thinking that the twins were able to see my son when he was with his father. I hadn’t realized that he had forbidden them to be there when he had the baby.

“You still haven’t met your nephew, outside of that awful day in my apartment?” I asked them. Both shook their heads as their twin sorrowful expressions attacked my fragile heartstrings. I turned back to Ryker. “Take us to Marsh’s house, please.”

His grin grew by a mile and the boy did not argue.

28

Marsh

“Hey man! Good to see you. I thought you weren’t going to come by until tomorrow?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on it until I ran into Opal at The Parks.”

“She was at The Parks?” I asked, wondering immediately who she had been there with.

“Yep,” my oldest brother answered. “She told me you had the little squirt here, so I figured I’d stop by. Had Ryker drop me off once they explained why the twins weren’t welcome here today.”

I nodded, not willing to face down the argument about why the twins couldn’t come to my house. Apparently, they’d told him enough because Jimmy didn’t push the issue with me.

“So, where is my nephew?”

“Just got him down for the night, but you can come back to the nursery and see him. Quietly,” I tacked on with a bit of warning.

“I gotcha, Bro,” he teased as we made our way back to the nursery. He looked in on Austin and shook his head before we turned and moved to the living room once more. “Never thought I’d see the day when one of my little brothers had a baby, but I guess if I had to pick one of us to go first, it would have been you.” He nailed me with a solid look as we sat.

“What the fuck happened with Opal? The only reason I pegged you to have a kid first was because you always had a rock-solid relationship with that girl.” He glanced around at all the pictures of us together still hanging on my walls where my mother put them. I couldn’t bring myself to take them down. It hurt too much to think that they might be all I had left of our time together, aside from my son.

“She was out with Joe tonight.” I had my suspicions, but the confirmation from my brother was just like receiving a surprisingly swift kick to the balls.

“I was an idiot.” That admission seemed to surprise Jimmy, but then I went on to explain everything from beginning to end. When I got to the final stages of the crap fest I’d created, Jimmy whistled long and low.

“Well, shit. You make me angry with myself for going away when I did.”

I shook my head. “Nah, you had the right idea. Maybe I should have joined the military too and took Opal out of this place. Then, we wouldn’t have had family drama and the twins in our faces the past few years.”

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