Page 35 of First Comes Forever

Brothers.Of course Amani and I are just friends. Especially seeing the way her eyes just lit up when she saw Carson, it’s clear what she’s craving. A family. A child.

Two things I will never ever be able to offer.

* * *

“Amani?” I ask as I knock on the closet doorframe. “How are you doing in here?”

She’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of my old master closet, the setting sun shining through the bay window and highlighting the side of her face.

It’s bizarre to have a bay window inside of a closet, surely a design oversight, but at the time, Liv thought it was perfect. She didn’t like the idea of a new baby living down the hall. This oversized master closet was the perfect size for a mini nursery, and the bay window made it seem less like a little prison cell.

I exhale deeply, trying to ignore how uncomfortable it is to be back in this condo.

“Are you okay?” Amani asks, rising to her feet, abandoning the box she was unpacking.

“Yeah, why?”

She cocks her head to the side, studying me. “You seem lost in thought.”

Damn. I thought I had a better poker face. “I’m just thinking about how much has changed since I bought this place.”

I drop my gaze, enjoying the sight of her scrunching her bare toes into the plush gray closet carpet. For some reason, I’m quite satisfied she already seems to feel comfortable here.

“Such as?” Amani asks.

Looking a little to the left, I see where the seal of the baseboards is separating. I need to get that caulked again soon. “When I first bought this place, brand new, I used to stay up at night worrying about how I was going to pay my mortgage. It was a miracle the lender approved us. At the time, my wife didn’t work, and I was still a new talent agent at LMC Agency. But this place was everything we wanted, so we went ahead and bit off more than we could chew.”

Amani’s big green eyes freeze into owl-like circles. “You share this condo with your wife?”

“Shared. With my ex-wife,” I assure her. “I offered to sell it and split any profit with her when we broke up, but she wasn’t interested. She let me keep it.”

“That was awfully generous of her.”

Was it?Maybe it was the smarter choice. Liv didn’t want to be stuck with the memories that are surrounding me right now. The reason I should’ve sold this place a long time ago.

“I suppose,” I say, then purposely divert the conversation. “Hey, I don’t mean to go all nineteen-fifties traditional roles on you, but if you can stay here and keep an eye on the baby for a bit, Alex and I can strap your bed on top of his SUV, drive it over, and bring it up. We only have the big furniture left to move from your apartment.”

Amani gives me a cheeky smile. “Carson’s almost three and you still call him ‘the baby?’”

I let out a small laugh. “He’ll always be a baby to me, I guess.”

She nods. “I get it. I’m the same way with Noa’s son. Jonah is going on five, but I still see his baby face.” She cups her hands and holds them close together. “Teeny, tiny head with these big blue eyes that took up half of his face. He was so damn cute.”

She takes a little step closer and the sun catches the highlights of red hair strips twisting around her bun. The light dances across her full lips and when she catches me gawking, I yank my stare away.

“You’re going to be a good mom when the time comes,” I say, grasping for anything to distract from the fact that I was clearly falling into a trance staring at her.

Her sharp laugh punctures the tension between us. “None of my friends would agree with you.”

“Really? Why? You’ve barely spent two hours around Carson and he already favors you over his dad and uncle.”

She chuckles as she crosses her arms and touches her elbows, unwittingly pushing her breasts upward. She’s wearing a dark purple tank top, so nothing see-through today, but earlier this morning, I swear I could see the outline of her nipple jewelry.

“Did you put a bra on?”

“Yeah. I didn’t realize your brother and nephew were coming,” she answers casually. “I didn’t want to be too revealing.”

“So you’re just revealing around me then?”

---