take you out.”
“Why’d you leave me sitting there, Zack?”
He made a face, “I was waffling. Thinkin’ about all you’d been through, all…”
“My baggage?”
“No. Not your baggage. Your feelings. I didn’t want to toy with you, Tessa, serious. I just--- it’s been a long time since I felt anything like this and---”
“What the fuck?” That was Tommy, coming out of Luc’s, carrying Carina in her car seat. He was staring at Zack and electric bolts were shooting out of his eyes. They were going to melt Zack into a puddle of goo.
Shit.
Zack made an excuse and left. Tommy looked at me for an explanation, but I waved at him, “Don’t even ask.”
Some weeks later, Zack finally convinced me to let him take me out and it was a pretty phenomenal date. When we were at my door, him kissing me goodnight and making me go weak in the knees, my brother emerged from the darkness and put a gun to Zack’s head.
It was pretty dramatic and ended with me begging him not to hurt Zack. Tommy was furious, thought Zack was playing me.
“Pop took Jimmy from me. Don’t you take Zack.” was the line that got Tommy to lower his gun.
“Does Zack mean something to you?” Tommy demanded.
“I don’t know. He might. He could.”
“Get inside,” my bossy brother ordered.
I overheard his short chat with Zack.
Zack said, “Is that what I gotta do to get us through this? Be like Lex with Holly? Marry your sister?”
“Motherfucker, don’t think you get off easy. You decide to make me your brother-in-law you’ll be in my sights for the rest of your fuckin’ life.”
“You told me I needed to give you a good reason not to end our relationship.” Zack was obviously joking.
“You fucking with my sister’s feelings?” Tommy was clearly not joking.
“No, man. Not at all. She impresses the fuck outta me. I wanna get to know her better. See if there’s something.”
“You got at least ten years on her, Zack.”
Zack chuckled and I’m sure he was giving Tommy the ‘you’re a hypocrite’ look because there’s ten years between Tommy and Tia.
“All right, all right. Get the fuck outta here. I got my eye on you.”
I love my big brothers. Both of them. They are badasses who wouldn’t hesitate to pull a gun on someone to protect us (and more. I know this from experience. But their hearts are in the right places.
Dare
2 Years Later
We spent almost a year trying to get pregnant. It was hard on us, especially her. I started to wonder if it was a punishment for all I’d done wrong. My penance would be that I wouldn’t be able to give her kids. Maybe the baby Debbie aborted hadn’t been mine. Maybe I couldn’t even father a child.
The doctor said it was my wife that had medical challenges, not me, and that although it wasn’t out of the question, it would likely be difficult to get pregnant.
I was not relieved. She felt like a failure. It was so rough on her that I wished it’d been me that was the problem, because the way she beat herself up over it was hard to watch. If it were my fertility that was the problem, she’d have adapted. It was who she was; always trying to be what I needed.
After several months of trying, a pattern began where she’d be happy three weeks a month and then she’d get anxious, try to hide it, and then be in the dumps when she got her period. Month after month waiting to do pregnancy tests, getting her period despite fucking like jackrabbits.