“Broke into your apartment and left you notes.”
“The poetry?” I ask, just to clarify.
He nods, looking around again. “We need to leave soon.”
“No, you need to leave.”
“I can’t leave without you.”
“I think that you need help,” I say, as I see Kenton looking through the crack in the door.
“I love you. We were getting married.”
“Please just leave. I'm happy. Can’t you be happy for me?”
“Weren’t we happy?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Chris,” I say softly, “we were a lie that you and my mother cooked up. You were my first everything, and it was all a lie so you both could collect money that I didn’t even know I was going to receive.”
His eyes close like he’s in pain, his head tilts toward the ceiling. I watch out of the corner of my eye as Kenton steps into the room, gun drawn.
“I loved you though.”
“Love isn’t like that, Chris. I'm sorry. I hope you get help so that one day you will know what love is but that isn’t love.”
His eyes meet mine and I can see the sadness in them.
“I want you to put your hands on your head and turn around slowly,” Kenton says. Chris’s head swings in his direction. When he registers the gun in Chris’s hand, Kenton’s hands go to his head. Then his gaze comes back to me.
“I'm sorry.”
I nod my head and watch Kenton pull cuffs out of his pocket and attach them to Chris’s wrist.
“What the fuck?” Asher’s voice cracks through the room like thunder. He looks me over then takes a step towards Chris. Kenton blocks him.
“See to your girl,” Kenton says quietly. I can tell that he’s having a hard time not beating the crap out of someone. I think anyone would do for him right now after everything that happened yesterday. Me being in danger today is playing havoc with him.
“Are you okay, baby?” he asks, taking a step towards me.
“Yeah.” I nod my head as he pulls me into his arms. “It’s over,” I whisper into his chest.
“Yeah,” he agrees.
Epilogue
“Again, again!” Emma screams as Asher picks her up again, tossing her through the air and into the pool. He’s been doing the same thing for the last ten minutes. I look around for someone to help me at eight and a half months pregnant. It’s hard to get my ass out of our lounge chairs unless I roll out, get on my hands and knees then stand. There are too many people around for me to do that today without really embarrassing myself.
“Need some help?” I look up to see Kenton standing over me.
“God, yes.” I moan. “I swear, this little girl is going to be a dancer,” I tell him and watch as he smiles.
“The pool turned out awesome,” he says once he pulls me up. I look around. He is not wrong. The pool is amazing. It has a hot tub that is connected to it, along with so many flowers and plants that you would think we were in the jungle.
“Yeah, Jack did an amazing job,” I say and look over at him. “So, where is Christen or Tina or Lisa or—”
“Very funny,” he says, cutting me off.
I start to giggle and feel my belly bouncing with my laughter then I feel a kick that’s so hard, I stop immediately and grab Kenton’s hand and pull it towards my belly.
“What?” he started. Then, his eyes get big and drop to my stomach. “Holy shit!”
“Yeah, now imagine that on your bladder.” I laugh.
“That’s so amazing,” he says and his hand starts to rub my belly.
“Now, I know that it’s obvious by the huge ring on her finger that she’s taken, but if you happened to miss that, you definitely can’t miss the fact that she’s obviously pregnant.”
I laugh and see Kenton looking at Asher with something that looks a lot like envy in his eyes. I know he doesn’t want me, but I think deep down he wants his own family.
“Yeah, both those are hard to miss,” he says, smiling.
“How’s it going, man?” Asher asks him while pulling me into him.
“Good. Busy. I'm seeing someone and things are good.”
“Just one someone?” I ask, knowing his history. Since I’ve been around, there has been someone different at each event.
“Yeah, just one.” He smiles and shakes his head.
“That’s great,” I whisper, laying my head on Asher’s chest. He doesn’t look like someone in love though, so I wonder if he’s just trying to settle down because he is lonely. “You should invite her next time we all get together.”
“Baby, leave the man alone. He just said he’s seeing someone, not that he is picking out a ring.”
I scrunch up my nose at my husband. “Fine,” I grumble. His eyes go soft and he puts his mouth to mine. The kiss is sweet and soft. “I'm going inside then I'm going to visit Ms. Alice,” I whisper, biting his lower lip.
Once, I'm done in the bathroom, I track down Ms. Alice. She’s sitting in the baby’s room. It was finished yesterday with the help of Nico, Cash and Trevor. They were over most of the night, laying carpet and touching up the walls. I look around and can see all the love that went into making this room special for our daughter. I know that she’s going to have more love than she will know what to do with.
“It’s so beautiful,” Ms. Alice says and I agree. It is beautiful. The walls are a very light blue with flowers that shoot up from the base with clouds and butterflies. Meg and Liz spent a week coming over every day when they got off work to paint every flower and butterfly on the walls. Asher and his brothers sanded down every piece of furniture that we picked up from Ms. Alice and stained the wood a dark brown. The bedding is a quilt with pink and white checkers. It looks like a fairytale baby room. I think, what really means the most is that everyone helped make it beautiful. “You know that I never had a girl and Asher’s mama didn’t have a girl either.”
“I know,” I say softly.
“I'm excited that this house is going to have a little girl in it. I think all those boys needed this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, sweet girl. They’ve never really been around little girls to know how precious they are. I think when this little one comes, she’s going to turn their lives upside down, and they all need it. Each one of them needs to see that all women were once precious little girls.”
“You’re right,” I agree quietly. “But I think they all know how precious women are from you and Susan. They’re just waiting for the right woman to come along and show them how precious they are.”
She smiles and pats my cheek. “Smart girl.” I laugh.
“Well,” I say, kissing her cheek, “I'm going to go find my husband.”
“Are you ever going to have a real wedding?”
“I don’t know.” I honesty haven’t thought about it. After I got out of the hospital, me and Asher went right to the court house and got a marriage license. I was wearing sweats and sneakers and so was Asher. We just wanted to be married. The wedding didn’t matter to me. “Maybe, after the baby gets here, we can have a small ceremony.”
“That would be nice. She can be the flower girl.”
“Yeah and Beast can be the ring bearer,” I say, laughing. “Maybe me and you can start planning something small. I'm sure Mama Susan would like to help.”
“I know she thinks of you as a daughter and would love to help you. Shoot, if you let her, she would probably take over the whole thing for you.”
“I might just let her do that.” I laugh.
“Alright, go find your husband before he starts running around the house, yelling for you and scaring all the guests.”
“I’ll come back and check on you soon. Do you want a piece of the baby shower cake?”
“No, thanks. I'm on a diet.”
“Oh, lord.” I roll my eyes.
“Hey, there’s a new guy that’s kind of cute. I need to watch my girlish figure.”
“I'm leaving,” I say, laughing and walking out the door, trying to get the image of Ms. Alice and a man, any man, out of my head.
“Hey, sis, you’re leaking,” Nico says and I look down at the water pitcher in my hand. I don’t see it leaking, but I do see water running down my legs and onto the floor at my feet. I look back at the pitcher then back at my feet, and then I realize that it’s time.
“I... I'm, well, I think my water broke,” I tell him and he looks like he may fall over.
“Your water broke?” He stumbles back.
“Oh crap!” I mumble.
“What’s going on?” Cash asks.
“My water broke and Nico is freaking out,” I tell him, waving a hand in front of Nico’s face. Then I look at Cash and he looks the same as his brother. “Come on. You can’t be serious?” I groan.
“Is everything okay?” Trevor asks and I don’t even tell him. What’s the point? He’s just going to freak and I don’t have time to deal with them.
“Your water broke?” Trevor says from behind me and I notice that he sounds normal, so I stop and look at him.
“Yes, and I need to find your brother. Will you help me without going comatose?”
“Sure.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, and his other two brothers aren’t standing four feet away staring into space. He grabs me around the waist then slides his arm under my thigh, lifting me. I scream and hold onto his neck for dear life.
“I could have walked,” I tell him, digging my nails into his back.
“This would be easier if you would retract your claws there, kitten.”
“Oh, sorry,” I mumble.
“What are you doing? Put her down,” Asher says when he sees us come through the backdoor.
“Her water broke. I'm taking her to the car.”
“Your water broke?” he asks in the same tone as Nico and Cash.
“Asher James Mayson, if you freak, we’re going to have so many problems, especially after you shoved that damn baby book down my throat every day for the last nine months. You know everything that is going to happen. You cannot be surprised by any of this.”
“You tried to burn it,” he reminds me of my failure. When we finally got home from the hospital and the guys came over for dinner that weekend, they decided to grill steaks and found the baby book still inside the grill, safe and sound, not even slightly damaged by the horrible rains that we had for two days before. He brought the book inside, set it at the island, then went back out to the grill, never saying a word about it.
“That book is like the damn Chucky doll,” I complain and dig my nails into Trevor’s neck again when the first contraction hits.
“Holy mother of God, that hurt!” I say, breathing deep and looking at Asher.
“Go get her stuff. I’ll take her to the car,” Trevor tells him.
“Put me down.”
“I'm taking you to the car.”