Page 147 of Daddies' Holiday Toy
The three of us stay with her for a long while after that, watching her as she dreams, none of us wanting to break the spell quite yet.
Finally, when Reece pushes up off the bed, Liam and I force ourselves to follow.
Once the front door clicks shut behind us, I glance at the other two.
“We need to talk,” I say.
Reece meets my eyes with a nod, Liam following suit.
Even if we all want to stave off the subject a little longer, we all know we can’t.
This isn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
The hallway outside Holly’s door feels colder than the street, ironically.
It takes everything in me not to turn back around and head upstairs again, back to the comfort of her apartment and to where I know she’s still sleeping tucked in her bed.
Reece jerks his chin toward his car as soon as we’re out on the curb, fishing his keys out once more. “My place.”
We ride together in silence.
By the time we get there, it’s almost midnight.
He kicks the door shut behind us and tosses his keys into the dish on the counter next to it. Liam makes a beeline for the fridge, pulling out a few beers, and tosses them to us.
I settle down on the couch with my own and crack it open, taking two healthy swigs of it.
Liam settles into the spot next to mine, drink unopened, while Reece takes the floor, crossing his legs together, facing us.
“So,” Reece says, a small sigh leaving him, “what the hell are we doing?”
Liam shoots him a look, eyebrow raised. “With what? Holly? The kid?”
“All of it, man.”
I run a hand over my face. “We don’t know who the father is, and if Carson’s meltdown tonight is any indication, things are only going to get uglier from here.”
Liam sets the beer down on the small end table next to the couch on his side.
“What are we supposed to do? It’s her choice whether she wants to get rid of it or not. If she ends up keeping it, that’ll make her issues with her dad even worse. Plus, you saw the kind of meltdown Maggie had.”
Reece exhales through his nose.
“Neither of you helped yourselves by fighting him. What the hell is wrong with you two? I wake up to a dozen calls from you, Liam, and then a frantic one from Holly, telling me you’re in fucking jail.”
“It wasn’t like we planned that. Carson swung first. We were trying to defend ourselves…and Holly,” I say.
He doesn’t look convinced, but instead of pushing it, he pops open his own beer and downs half of it in one go.
Finally, Liam looks at me.
“What do you want to do, Jack?”
It’s a fair question but also loaded.
I glance toward the window, the city lights casting fractured reflections on the glass.
