Page 10 of Crazy In Love (Love & War #2)

I settle in and watch him lift things and throw things. Squat and roll. He sweats and grunts, and when I think he’s ready to take a break, he wipes his face and starts all over again.

Five in the morning is for lazy sleep-ins or quiet moments by the water. A romantic book and a cup of coffee. Or a hug, the kind that never ends. But Chris’s preference for a punishing ‘ I must be stronger than Rambo ’ routine leaves me with a deep sadness in the base of my belly.

Because only the most guarded, wounded man would work himself the way he does while no one else is watching.

“Fox?”

Startled, I tear my gaze across to Alana’s door, and in front of it, the woman herself, in tiny sleep shorts and a shirt that can’t possibly hide all of her belly.

She squints, searching for me in the yard and tracking all the way to the dock, until finally, our eyes meet, and the worry in hers extinguishes, replaced by sweet happiness.

She places her hand on the railing and sumo-walks her way down the stairs, so while she’s busy with that, I cast my eyes back to the Chris show. But of course, his workout is over, and his eyes burn against mine.

It should be impossible that a human being’s light could change so visibly from one moment to the next.

But the darkness that surrounds him now is entirely different from the darkness of an early morning.

His unfounded anger, as obvious as if he were facing me, with two middle fingers pointed to the sky.

His chest lifts and falls, oxygen flooding his veins and filling his lungs, and by his sides, his hands flex and ball. His arms swell with adrenaline and the added blood flow from his workout. But if he receives a serotonin boost from exercise, he shows none of it to me.

He merely frowns, and when Alana emerges from the front of her yard and starts onto the dock, his eyes flicker her way.

And damn him, they soften.

“What are you doing out here so early?” Oblivious to our audience, Alana pads across the rough wood, massaging the side of her stomach with a kneading roll of her hand. “I know you’re a morning person, but this is kinda ridiculous. It’s barely six o’clock.”

“It’s six already?” I don’t have a watch, and I didn’t bring my phone outside. But I cast a look to the sun, crawling just a little higher. “I didn’t even realize. Why are you awake so early?”

“I smelled the coffee Tommy banned me from having.” She walks straight toward me, her belly hitting mine and her hands wrapping around my mug before I can stop her.

Then she brings it up and sticks her nose as close to the liquid as she can, drawing the smell all the way to the base of her lungs.

“That’s the good stuff. Jesus.” She takes another whiff and comes up again with a goofy grin. “This baby is coming today.”

Just like that, my heart splats, and my eyes drop to her stomach. “I’m sorry… what? Are you having contractions?”

“Everything feels a little tighter, that’s all. It hasn’t begun, but I have a sneaking suspicion she was waiting for you.” She hands my coffee back and comes around to lean against the railing. “What were you looking at?”

My eyes swing back to Chris’… or, well, the place Chris stood a mere moment ago. But his yard is empty now.

“Fox?”

“Nothing. Just enjoying the quiet. Do you normally come out here at this hour?”

“I think about it a lot. But most of the time, I stay in.”

“Lazy bones.”

She snickers. “I can’t leave until Tommy’s ready to let go.”

“Because he won’t let you?”

“Nah… Because I won’t let me.” Smiling, she brings her eyes around to mine.

“Sometimes Franky climbs into bed with us, so when that happens, and we have nowhere else to be, we usually switch the TV on and, before we know it, it’s nearly the middle of the day, and we didn’t even notice we were hungry. ”

I tut-tut-tut. “That Watkins boy not feeding you?”

“Seems he’s obsessed with taking care of me. Food. Water. Comfort. He’s bought two dozen different shapes and sizes of pillow in the last six months, all for me to try because he’s worried my stomach hurts when I lie on my side.”

“Does it?”

“No.” She takes another long, silly sniff of my coffee. “He worries, though. Like, a lot. So I rarely complain, and the times I do, it’s usually about how hard he’s working. That’s when I tell him he needs to come home.”

“Devious.” I scan Chris’ yard without being entirely obvious about it. “He won’t hear ‘ you’re working too hard .’ Instead, he’ll hear that you want him at home. At which point, he’ll fall into bed with you anyway.”

“It’s a system. He felt like his Vegas fight was only okay.”

“But he won.”

She snorts. “I know. Still, he thinks he could’ve done better, and not fighting Conner makes him feel like he’s not the true champion. It’s like he’s worried we’ll go hungry if he only wins a fight by a little bit .”

“As opposed to a clean knockout?”

“Right. Never mind the fact he owns the house outright, the gym has no debts, and his clientele is loyal. He could lose every fight, and everything would still be okay. But he’s Tommy Watkins.

” Sad, she drops her gaze and sighs. “He always fed me, even when he was starving. Me leaving for ten years caused a lot of damage.”

“You can’t seriously think you were in the wrong for?—”

“No. I don’t.” She nibbles on her bottom lip, rolling it between her teeth. “But that doesn’t erase the things he thought and the ways he felt for all those years. He and Chris are caretakers, and even though Tommy was thrilled about this baby, it doesn’t stop him from freaking the hell out.”

“Which is why you asked me to come to Plainview.” I take back my coffee and knock her shoulder with mine. “Sure, you want me to help. Especially when the explosive poo arrives.”

She giggles.

“But mostly, you want that extra set of eyes and hands, so if Tommy’s losing his mind and the baby is crying and Franky is ridiculously dysregulated, you could call on me to pick up a couple of the pieces while you save Tommy from a menty-b.”

“A menty-b,” she snickers. “You always did have a skill for taking something serious and destroying its power. Mental breakdown is scary. Menty-b is…” She shrugs. “Meh.”

“Have you considered that Tommy isn’t the one you should worry about?

” I don’t bother hiding my intentions this time.

I cast my gaze toward Chris’ deserted yard and search for him in the shadows.

“That dude is Franky on steroids, Alana. But he’s a grown man with no clue how to emotionally regulate or calm the hell down.

He’s all knotted up, scared to death of this unknown world you’re walking toward.

And instead of being a healed, normal person who admits, ‘ hey, I’m kinda out of my depth here, so can someone help?

’ he loses his mind trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. ”

“Fox—”

“You and Tommy and Chris are the old round hole. He was even able to jam Franky in there. But now, this baby… and me…” I exhale a soft laugh. “Jesus. He’d rather smack me with a rubber mallet than let me suggest a different, larger, potentially newer hole.”

“I told you how things were when we were younger, right? How we created this odd codependence and obsession with keeping each other safe?”

“Yeah. Child of trauma, abusive situation.” I tilt my head to the side and stretch my neck. “I know.”

“He’s terrified of being left behind. He’s grown now, and outside of all this, he’s brave and strong and entirely capable of living his life.

But the baby scares him. The possibility that something will go wrong terrifies him.

And the nagging fear that I’ll leave Plainview and go back to New York makes him sweat. ”

“Because he’s in love with you?”

“Me?” She chokes out a quiet laugh. “Love, yes. In love , no. If I leave, then Tommy will follow. And obviously, Franky will come, too. I think this scenario scares him most of all, even though, really, if we ever moved, we’d take him with us anyway.

Christian’s fear of rejection is almost as toxic as yours.

” Taunting, she peeks across and smirks.

“You would curl into a ball and die. He would curl his fists and kill. It’s different. ”

I tamp down on the bubbling anxiety that swells within my stomach. “Is he aware of how utterly mentally fucked up he is? There are therapists that can help with that sort of stuff.”

“He’s aware. But there’s no therapist on the planet who can help him.” She leans into me, setting her cheek on my shoulder. “He needs to be reminded that he’s loved, that’s all. He needs that unwavering reinforcement, since he was told every single day of his youth how unwanted and unloved he was.”

“Sounds needy.”

She clicks her tongue, which, in Alana code, means I’m about to cop an elbow to my ribs.

“And then there’s you, dying for acceptance and silently begging for the same things he is.

But not only don’t you stroll into town and make friends with the man not entirely different from you, but you’re out here actively throwing his insecurities in his face. You told him he was unneeded, Fox.”

“He told you I said that? What a snitch!”

“He didn’t tell me. But I suspected, and you just confirmed.” She turns her head and searches my eyes. “Don’t do that, okay?”

Busted . I grit my teeth.

“For me? Don’t say things like that to him.

He’s not just any guy you get to play with, and poking at him is not the same as poking at Booker or Colin or anyone else we know.

Christian isn’t needy in the way you think he is.

But he’s fragile.” She lays her cheek on my shoulder once more. “He needs to be handled with care.”

I’m fragile.

I need to be handled with care.

And he told me in five different emails how unwanted I was.

But no one wants to hear about that.

“Please?” She takes my hand and tangles our fingers together. “It would reduce my stress by a whole lot if I knew he was okay when we’re not in the same room. This matters to me.”

“Fine,” I grumble, petulant and proud of it. “For you. Because I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I won’t tell him he’s unwanted,” I clarify, since I’m all about the details. “I promise nothing about irritating him in general.”

She snickers and tightens her fingers around mine. “I figured as much.”

“I’ll just be me. And I won’t intentionally hurt his feelings. But if my existence is a bother, then that’s something he’s gonna have to handle all on his own.”

“This is going to be a bumpy six weeks,” she sighs. But then she hisses and grabs her stomach. “She’s talking business now. Ouch. She’s gonna come out swinging.”

“Little fighter baby.” I set my coffee on the railing and press my palms to her stomach. “Sheesh. You weren’t kidding. Your stomach is tight as hell.”