Marry me? (BWWM ROMANCE)

WTF

Brendan was dying, his head was pounding, his stomach was turning, and legs felt like noodles. He sat up in bed alone, and was flooded with memories. “Oh shit” he rubbed his jaw, and felt like the biggest tool on the planet. Once the flood abated, he concentrated on getting himself together. First step get out of bed, he stood out of bed. Next, get dressed. He looked around for his some sweats and a t shirt. Last step, apologize. Brendan first thought was to make breakfast for everyone. Once he opened the door and heard the cartoons playing he knew it was too late for that. He walked to the living room and greeted the twins who were fully dressed in yellow and blue outfits.

“Miss Patty just elevate the leg for a half an hour. If you feel that it isn’t working call me back and I will come help you….Of course no problem….Bye” Opal was on the phone with her favorite Hypochondriac Miss Selia Patty, she balanced the phone in one hand while preparing snacks for the kids with the other. Brendan smiled at the cute faces she made with the cut up grapes and apples. “Good afternoon Brendan” Opal answered in a cold manner, it was clear to see that she was still mad over last night. “What time is it?” He asked, embarrassed over his late awakening. “1230, me and the kids are about to go to interview at the daycares downtown.” She replied refusing to look his way. “What do you want Brendan?” She asked, with a clipped tone. “I wanted to apologize for last night, I was acting like an ass” Brendan laid his hands on hers to halt her busy work. “Okay” She replied.

“Come on O. Talk to me” Brendan pleaded “Brendan, I can’t right now. I have a full day scheduled for me and the kids and I don’t want to spoil it with an argument.” Opal annunciated every word with a harsh cut to a carrot with a large butcher knife. “Okay… Well let me come. Give me 10 minutes.” Brendan ran to the bathroom to start getting ready. While he was busy Opal focused on calming down. Which was easier said than done, she was hoping to leave before Brendan woke up. She wanted to take time and reflect on what happened and what it meant for them.

‘Fuck, Fuck, Fuck’ Brendan couldn’t erase the look on Opals face, it was the look she had whenever she had to give a patient bad news. ‘What if she wants to leave me?’ Brendan’s mind was running crazy. ‘Calm down, it was one drunken night. Sure you said some fucked up shit, but who hasn’t. Just show her you love her and this will all be forgotten memory.’ Brendan, exited the shower and convinced himself it would be a good day.

It was a pretty good day so far, Opal and Brendan have narrowed down there options for daycare. They even bought the kids 5 new outfits, and although Opal protested she ended up with two new pairs of shoes and a purse to match. At around 4 the family made it home and put down the twins for a nap. “Opal, please talk to me.” Brendan begged Opal, to open up to him. “Brendan, do you realize what you risked by doing what you did. We could have lost them, after all of the work we did…. Look I know I came down on you and I’m sorry, but what you did hurt me. Not only did you come back from a drinking, knowing damn well what that could mean for our case. You also made me into some kind of asshole just because I was worried about you. Now I’ll admit I came at you wrong, but you acted like you didn’t care about me or the kids and I got upset.” Opal said. “Opal, I needed to relax, after what I did with Gladys I needed time to myself. I mean do you know what we did…. We destroyed a marriage.” Brendan felt the memories rush him, from placing the panties in Gladys bedroom, to setting up the mistress to appear at the same time that Social services was interviewing her. “We protected our family.” Opal defended “At what cost, we are going to destroy there relationships with their grandparents” Brendan spat back. “Look, the whole time we were going through this process, the father didn’t even mention the grandparents and neither did the agency. So as far as I am concerned they are a non-factor…..Brendan we tried, if they don’t want to cooperate then they are going to have to go” Opal gathered up the kids things and made her way to her first appt.

Brendan, sat on the couch feeling the full weight of his guilt, Ding. Brendan saw that he had a text from Julia, the text had an attachment and Brendan fought the urge to open it. Yet his will was weak, when he opened the attachment he saw Julia in her birthday suit, with the caption ‘For whenever you need it’. Brendan was going to delete the text, but was caught off guard by the doorbell.

“God dammit” Brendan winced as the harsh noise attacked his weary ears. “Im coming” He announced to the stranger. He opened the door to see Mrs. Betty. “Mrs. Betty, what are you doing here?” Brendan asked, the small woman looked terrified and out of breath. “Oh, I am so sorry” She pleaded, confusing the fuck out of him. “Sorry for what?” Brendan ushered the woman in, trying to speak in as a calm a tone as possible. “Well, for the adoption cases we try to keep track of the parents in case something comes up the child.  From time to time, custody cases like these happen and we have to have the parents intervene….Well we were trying to get ahold of the father, so that he can give the final word.” Either her voice got lower and lower, or Brendan’s hangover was getting the best of him, because the last thing he heard her say was that the father was missing. “Wait,wait,wait. So you’re saying if we find the father, he can give us the kids and this can be over with.” He simplified what he heard. “Well, its not that easy. There will still be a custody hearing but having the father on your side gives you a leg up.” She explained “As I said the father is missing, he wasn’t at the address he gave me and his emergency contact was a fake.” Mrs. Betty trembled and started to sob. “Hey, hey, hey relax, does he have any relatives that may know where he is?” Brendan comforted her, “Well he has a sister that lives in Chicago, but she isn’t answering any calls or responding to any emails.” Mrs. Betty sniffled. “Oh god, I could lose my job I was supposed to make sure that all the information was correct. If my supervisor find out.” The woman cried harder. “Look, he won’t find out, give me the info and I’ll go find him.” Brendan face screamed determination. “What, are you sure?” Mrs. Betty, considered giving Brendan everything, thinking what did she have to lose?

Opal, was exhausted dragging two kids to three interview that were a good 30 minutes apart from one another was not fun. Yet, anything was better than sitting in the awkward silence with Brendan, or getting into a heated argument. Never in her life, had she had this much trouble with Brendan, hell the last time they had a real argument was when, she accidentally broke his crockpot, six years ago. “This is what happens when you cross the lines of friendship” she reminded herself, while pushing the kids through the halls to Brendan’s apartment. She opened the door, and heard no signs of Brendan. Great, she rolled her eyes. I was hoping he could help put the kids in there cribs. “Guess I’m doing this alone too” she sighed to herself.

When the idea of adopting a child first came to mind, Opal knew she would be doing everything alone, but she foolishly hoped that when Brendan decreed his love that he would help with the kids and make the family whole. “That’s my problem right there.” Opal said to herself while tucking Zoe into bed. “I relied on Brendan too much, I was ready to be a single mother before. I better start acting like one now.” Opal, straighten her spine and walked out to the kitchen to get dinner ready. She was in the hallway when she noticed the lights were on in the Office. She also noticed Brendans soft voice, She was prepared to go in there and have an adult conversation about what happened today when she heard a woman’s giggle.

Brendan was giving Ashley his all, after all she was the connection to the father to his children. “So what do you say we meet up?” He shot her his dazzling smile, like he suspected the dark skinned woman blushed. Tracking down someone has never been so easy. Not only was Ashley the fathers sister, she was a budding chef, who just so happened to be a huge fan of his. So it wasn’t hard at all to get the woman to talk to him. “So hey how about we set up a meeting, I can come to you?” Brendan had her right where he wanted, he was sure that she held the answers as to where Jim Greyson ran off to. “Umm sure” she answered nervously. “Can we keep this between us, you know how the media gets? “Brendan winked at the girl, glad that he could hide his true intentions behind some celebrity shyness. “OH of course, there’s a café down the road we can meet at?” Ashley sent Brendan the address, and Brendan couldn’t help but smile. Soon he would find the twins father, and alleviate some tension between him and Opal. “Brendan?” Brendan heard Opals small voice and looked up to see tears streaming down her face. “God Dammit” Brendan cursed, what the fuck was he going to do?