You and Me Baby Read online

  “It went really well, but I’ll be hurting tomorrow morning,” he said, sitting down at the bar like a king in his castle, waited on hand and foot by a bunch of maidens. Or a sheik, with a harem full of beauties.

  Aiden only thought it more as yet another beautiful woman, this one looking half asleep, wandered into the kitchen and blinked at them all before making her way over to Travis and hugging him.

  “You’re all sweaty,” she said, smiling at him as he started in on his meal with all three women still gathered around him.

  What a weird hallucination. But, wow, his old friend was looking like the real deal in this alcohol-fueled mirage.

  “Travis, you’re the man,” Aiden couldn’t help himself from saying.

  Why was Travis the man in Aiden’s hallucination? Who knew? Maybe this hallucination was going to drastically improve soon and he’d have women all over him, too.

  Travis chewed slowly, looking over at his friend. “I don’t know what that means,” he said slowly. “But I’m assuming you’ve met my sisters.”

  Sisters.

  Travis had sisters?

  In the back of Aiden’s mind, he reached for any recollection of sisters.

  Oh. Oh, no. There they were. Running up to Travis after a football game. Three younger girls. Elementary school. Really, really younger. Annoying. Chatty. The kind of annoying kids that made Aiden glad his siblings were closer to his own age and not so far removed from being teenagers themselves.

  He blinked and looked at the three girls as they stared right back at him.

  “No way,” he barely managed.

  “Yes, you pervert,” Travis said calmly, going right back to his granola. “Leslie, Holly, and Brooke. You’ve met Aiden, then.”

  “He tried the red velvet cupcake,” Leslie said. “I was just telling him that if he wanted to try a different kind, he’d have to go to the Dive and pay for it.” She beamed. “Is Frank really going to put my cupcakes on the regular menu?”

  “I don’t know,” Travis grinned. “You’re the one who opened up a copy of the menu for Christmas yesterday. Did Laurie give you one of the new ones, where the cupcakes are already listed?”

  “She did,” Holly smiled. “We’re going to be so busy filling all those orders.”

  “And hopefully, you’ll make enough money to get a kitchen somewhere,” Travis said. “So I can live without always smelling baked goods. You’re killing my diet.”

  “We can move out,” Leslie said, going back to her mixing bowl. “I nearly have enough saved for my own place –”

  “This is your home,” Travis interrupted her. “For as long as you want. I was just kidding. And I want you to use the kitchen for your business. That’s part of the reason why I built such a big one.”

  Leslie smiled over at him as Holly pulled another load from the oven and Brooke went to find a cereal bowl.

  “Who cares about my diet, right?” Travis asked as all three of his sisters giggled.

  Yes. Giggled.

  Aiden was having a hard time wrapping his mind around this. Travis had sisters. Travis had sisters who lived with him. Sisters who giggled and batted their eyelashes and…

  Where were the wife and kids?

  “Travis, I haven’t met your wife and kids yet,” Aiden said, wondering what kind of woman was secure enough to live with three much younger women flouncing around all the time, parading cupcakes around.

  All four members of the Collins family stared at him.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Travis asked.

  “Your wife, your kids,” Aiden said. “I interrupted your family Christmas and all. Wanted to apologize to the Mrs. and all the little rugrats.”

  “Wow, Travis,” Brooke said, as she poured milk onto her cereal. “Are you not telling us something?”

  “Aiden, I’m not married,” Travis said. “Why would you think I was?”

  “Yeah, you are,” Aiden said. “Laurie told me last night… well, she told you, Travis, that she didn’t want to break up your Christmas plans with your family.”

  “And you assumed that meant a wife and kids,” Travis nodded. “No, I haven’t gotten that kind of family yet.”

  “Because we scare off all the women who aren’t good enough for him,” Brooke said through a mouthful of cereal. “Which is… well, all of them.”

  Aiden frowned at this. His own sister was always quick to comment on how even the worst girls he dated were too good for him, not the other way around.

  “Oh,” he said, making a mental note to tell Amelia that she was a horrible sister, just as soon as he got back to their parents’ house. “So, the family…”

  “These three are my family,” Travis said, finishing up the tiny helping of granola he’d allowed himself, taking a long drink of water.

  “Well, I was drunk,” Aiden said. “So it makes sense that I misunderstood everything.”

  All three girls glanced at him, then back at their brother, curiously.

  “Yes, you were,” Travis answered, putting his glass back down.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Holly asked Aiden, genuine concern in her eyes. “Maybe a couple of Tylenol?”

  That would be nice. Travis had it made here, all right, with a family that took care of him and didn’t berate him at every opportunity. His parents were probably a lot cooler, too. Not prone to yelling about how he was having a failure to launch and all. Travis’s parents had always been nicer than his, letting the boys stay out practically all night back when they’d been teenagers. The Pearsons had always been big on curfews, but Mr. and Mrs. Collins weren’t.

  “That would be wonderful, thank you,” Aiden said, smiling at Holly, just as she was reaching for a glass. Then, glancing over at Travis, who was moving to the sink to put away his dishes, “Hey, your folks still live here in town?”

  With that, the glass in Holly’s hands slipped. She gasped, but before it could hit the floor, Travis caught it for her.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, looking up at him.

  “That’s okay,” he said softly, moving to get Aiden his water. Holly moved on to get the Tylenol and put two in her brother’s hand, her eyes downcast.

  Leslie and Brooke were a little more somber than they’d been before as well.

  What? What had Aiden said? Or were they just really concerned about a broken glass?

  The thought was so ridiculous that Aiden almost smiled. The look in Travis’s eyes as he put the glass of water and the Tylenol down, though, kept that from happening.

  “My parents were killed in a car accident several years ago,” he said simply.

  Aiden took in a sharp breath at this.

  “When?” he asked. “I don’t remember anything about that.”

  “It was a couple of years after high school graduation,” Travis said. “I was taking classes at the junior college, working for my dad… slacking off, you know.”

  Aiden did know. It’s exactly what he himself would have done had he not landed the job he’d gotten around the same time, then gone off, far away to Tokyo and Malaysia, to Singapore and Bangkok, where his slacking off had been in the form of exotic and crazy adventures.

  “Why didn’t you get in touch with me?” he asked, thinking that he should have been there for his friend. Even if they’d grown apart, he should have been there. Then, another thought occurred to him. “Or my parents! Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “Your parents and I all had our hands full,” Travis sighed. “They were actually a big help to us back then. I had to take responsibility for my dad’s construction company, so I was stressed and grieving, too, obviously.”

  Aiden thought about the billboard. Travis had taken over his dad’s company, and judging by this house, he had done a great job of transitioning to its leader.

  “Wow,” he said. “That was probably really tough at first.”

  “Yeah,” Travis nodded. “But that wasn’t the toughest part. Child protective services got involved and wanted to come in and take the girls. Because what does a nineteen year old guy know about taking care of three little girls?”

  Nothing, probably. Aiden was a thirty-one year old guy and wasn’t sure he’d know anything about it, even at his age, much less at nineteen.

  “I was five,” Brooke said, smiling softly as she looked at her brother, then glanced back over at Aiden. “And Holly was seven. Leslie was nine.”

  “You were five,” Travis said, grinning over at her. He looked back at Aiden. “Which makes her seventeen now. Seventeen, you pervert.”

  Well, that was just wrong. Not Travis calling him a pervert because that was the truth. But him looking at a seventeen year old girl – totally wrong. Agreed.

  But the other two weren’t underage, so…

  Travis narrowed his eyes at his guest.

  “Got it,” Aiden said, conceding this without any further explanation. He gave Travis a long, calculating look. “Why did the state end up letting you keep them? I mean, I know how you were and all. You were just like me.”

  Travis wasn’t responsible enough to even take care of a dog back when Aiden had known him. Maybe time changed a person and all (and it obviously had, given how Travis was acting now), but surely he’d still been at nineteen who he’d been at eighteen.

  “Who we were and all,” Travis nodded. “Well, life happens sometimes, Aiden, and you’re left with the choice to suffer longer over things you can’t change anyway or man up and be who you need to be.”

  That didn’t answer any questions. “Inspiring,” Aiden said sarcastically. “Even still, though, the Travis I knew wasn’t exactly father of the year material. Or brother of the year. Whatever.”

  “I wasn’t,” Travis agreed. “But after the accident, things changed a lot. Once the me
morial service was over and everyone went on to their own lives, there were questions being asked, social workers getting involved, you know. I did my research, figuring out what I needed to do. My parents didn’t leave a will, so everything went to me, including the girls. And well meaning people asked the very same questions you’re asking, but I was ahead of the game. Brought in help. Your mom came over and helped me get things in order. Took care of the girls, showed me how to do that. Showed me how to cook for them, get organized with a schedule, help them with their homework, even fix their hair.”

  Aiden watched as all three sisters smiled at their brother. “Well, look at you, Suzy Homemaker,” he said.

  “He was great with the French braids,” Holly murmured, smiling at the memory. “Not much else there at first, but he could braid our hair for us. We looked good when the state people came by to make sure that Travis would be fit to take custody as our only living relative.”

  They had to be pulling Aiden’s leg. There was no way this was real. None of it. Their parents gone, Travis taking care of them, all of them grown up…

  “And he had us in church that first Sunday after they granted him custody,” Leslie said, looking over at Aiden. “Told us we needed to thank God and give Him everything because even with all of the horrible things that had happened, He’d let us stay together.”

  Oh. This.

  Aiden sat back in his chair, rolled his eyes a little, and stared at Travis. “You’re… you’re…”

  “A believer?” Travis asked, amused by the look on his friend’s face. “Yes. I am.”

  Aiden thought back to their wilder days. Sure, he was a preacher’s kid, but Travis wasn’t. It wasn’t that Aiden was opposed to people experiencing life change and finding Jesus and all (although had Jesus ever gone missing?), but he figured that most people were hypocrites, saying one thing and doing quite another. For Travis to claim to be a saved man when Aiden knew just who he was…

  “Nu-uh,” Aiden managed.

  “Yu-huh,” Travis retorted right back.

  “He’s a deacon,” Brooke said. “And he leads the senior adult men’s Bible study during the week.”

  Hmm. There had to be a catch.

  “What do you get out of it, man?” Aiden asked.

  “Apart from the joy of serving Christ and knowing Him better?” Travis asked.

  Oh, boy.

  “Ugh,” Aiden grimaced. “So, you’re serious about it, then.”

  “Wouldn’t make much sense to be half-hearted about it,” Travis murmured, glancing over at him.

  Probably not, which is why Aiden had never been half-hearted or serious about it either one. There were appearances to keep up, of course, and he’d been the dutiful son to be there every Sunday, sitting in his dad’s church. He knew the church language and the right things to say at the right time. He’d even put on a good front with others, claiming that Jesus was all that really mattered, even going so far as to grill his future brother-in-law not that long ago about whether or not he was living for the Lord.

  Well, “grill” might have been an exaggeration. But he’d made a point to ask because Jesus mattered to his siblings. Adam was moving off to a new place to plant a church, for pity’s sake. That’s how seriously his family took it.

  But… eh.

  “I guess it wouldn’t,” Aiden said. “Well… good for you, I guess. But what’s even better for you is this house. Did you say you built this thing?”

  Travis looked around. “Yeah, I did.”

  “Just picked up some drywall, a hammer, some bricks?”

  Travis frowned. “It’s a little more complex than that, Aiden.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know,” he laughed. “Neither would you, though, right?”

  This all had to be some kind of joke. Aiden kept waiting for the punch line.

  “I didn’t know much of anything,” Travis said. “Had to learn it as I went, as soon as the business became mine.”

  Aiden’s mind went back to that sign. Again. Collins Construction.

  Maybe it was the hangover, but he was having a hard time reconciling all of this.

  “You own your own business?” he asked. “For real?”

  “Yes, for real. And we just explained it all to you. It was my dad’s business originally,” Travis answered.

  Aiden tried to remember anything he could about Travis’s parents…

  He was coming up with nothing.

  “Your dad owned his own business?” he asked.

  Travis shook his head. “How were we friends and you never knew that?”

  Aiden shrugged helplessly. Maybe he hadn’t been the best friend after all.

  “Yes, our dad owned his own business,” Leslie affirmed. “And it was never very successful until Travis took over after the car accident.”

  “You really did build this house, then?” Aiden asked.

  “Along with half the houses in town,” Brooke piped in. “Have you driven around and see the newer subdivisions?”

  “The town’s growing,” Holly added.

  Well, this was good news at a time when not much else was. If the town was growing, the chances of him finding a job were better than they’d been, at least. Maybe Travis knew someone who was hiring or could point him in the right direction.

  He was hopeful for the first time since that awful conversation with his parents. Okay, so that conversation that was all one-sided from his mother and no one else. (Could it really be considered a conversation if she’d done all the talking?)

  “Growing, huh?” Aiden asked, looking at Travis. “Lots of opportunities then, huh?”

  “More than when we were kids,” Travis answered. “But it’s probably nothing like New York.” He gave Aiden a grin. “I heard all about you, big shot.”

  Big shot. Not so much.

  “Where did you hear any of that?” Aiden asked, almost mumbling it.

  “Your parents,” he said. “They told me all about how you travel the world, wheeling and dealing like you do. Where’d you just come from?”

  “Tokyo.”

  At this, Holly gasped. “Tokyo! Oh, I want to go to Japan SO BAD! Travis, did you hear that?”

  “Been hearing it for a long while,” he muttered.

  “There’s a study abroad program that I’m going to apply for in a year,” she beamed at Aiden, ignoring her brother. “That’s my top choice. Japan. And it –”

  “You can’t leave me and run off,” Leslie said, pointing her finger at her sister.

  “Here we go,” Brooke murmured as she slurped the rest of the milk in her bowl.

  “Leslie, I can’t live here forever and make cupcakes,” Holly argued. “That’s no kind of life to live.”

  “Are you kidding?” Leslie retorted right back. “It’s my dream life!”

  “Not mine,” Holly muttered.

  “But we just got the deal at the Dive!” Leslie exclaimed. “Where’s your entrepreneurial spirit?”

  “It shriveled up in the oven after the first twenty dozen cupcakes I made for you,” Holly said.

  “We’ll branch out soon enough and have our own business,” Leslie continued on, ignoring her sister. “I mean, like, our own storefront. I’m going to need all the help I can get.” She looked up at Aiden. “Hey? Do you need a job?”

  Well, yes.

  “Making cupcakes?” he said instead. “I would eat all the stock, unfortunately.”

  “Besides,” Travis said, “he’s got a job. A really good job. He won’t be sticking around here.”

  Something on Aiden’s face must have tipped off Travis to reality, though.

  “Am I right?” he asked.

  “Define right,” Aiden sighed, thinking that the truth was warranted right now. Well, the partial truth. He’d tell him he’d quit, not that he’d lost the job.

  Because sitting here, seeing Travis and all of his success, made him feel even worse about things.

  Travis discerned something in the dejected way Aiden looked at him now. “Hey, come on,” he said, standing up from his seat, grabbing a coffee cup and filling it. “I’m sick of the smell of cupcakes.”

  “Blasphemy!” Leslie shouted at him as he grinned over at her, then gestured for Aiden to go out onto the back porch with him. “Aiden, you be sure and go to the Dive to get some of these, okay?”

  “Sure will,” he said, turning to smile at her one last time before stepping onto the porch, where Travis closed the door behind them.