by Mj Fields
“No,” I answer quickly.
“Why not?”
“Tris …” Bekah whispers.
“What? If she’s going to be part of this family, why can’t I ask her?”
“I don’t believe in abortions. For me, anyway.”
She shrugs. “I had one.”
“It’s every woman’s choice.”
“Not really a fucking choice when you’re fifteen and knocked up by a narcissist who bangs your cousins after—”
“Tris,” Amias calls as he walks over.
“What?” she spits.
“Chill, yeah?”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you to.”
She stands up. “Fine, whatever.” And then she walks away.
“I’m sorry about that,” Bekah says softly. “She’s had a rough experience.”
“I understand.”
“Doc, come swim with me?”
“I didn’t bring a suit.”
“I bought you one. Let’s get you changed.”
“That’s code for let’s go get naked.” His cousin, Kiki, laughs.
He sticks his bottom lip out. “Please.”
“You buy into that now, you’re screwed for an eternity.” Carly laughs.
Poolside
I often forget how in-your-face Tris can feel to those not used to her intensity, and that was a discussion I planned to have in Jersey, but obviously it needs to be had now.
I reach out for her hand, and she hesitates.
Eyes wide and darting around from the family to the kids in the pool, she says, “Georgie is in the pool.”
“She’s good,” I assure her.
Kiki smiles. “We’ll watch out for her. Go have some fun.”
Sutton sighs. “The extra eyes and hands around can be overwhelming at first. They may seem like they’re trying to take over your whole world, but—”
“May seem?” Truth looks at Ellis. “They totally would if you let them.”
Bella laughs. “Control freaks.”
“Total control freaks.” Gabrielle lifts her drink toward Justice, who’s across the pool and she does it with fondness.
“The girls are not wrong, but it comes from a protective place.” Aunt Tara smiles softly. “A place where the eight eyes of four strong, stubborn men protect you, even if you feel like you don’t really need that protection.”
“Wait until there’s a mouse in the house.” Aunt Tara smiles at Truth, and then they both laugh.
“You’ll feel like they’re trampling all over you,” Aunt Carly pops in.
“And they are.” Momma Joe laughs, reaching over and taking her hand, so I pull mine back, knowing damn well this isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Ellis is getting initiated. “But it’s because they’ve all lost someone beloved. It comes from a good place, Ellis.”
Brisa smiles. “And if ever you need help in putting them in their place, you ask Momma Joe.”
“Sweets, they’re talking about Gen one, not—”
“Oh, hell yes, your little crew is the same!” Gabrielle laughs.
“Cut from the same loincloth,” Sutton jokes.
Annoyed by being compared to a caveman, I rebut, “Yeah, well, they’re all extra-large, so—”
Ellis covers her mouth, slushy red daiquiri seeping through her fingers.
Mom reaches over and hands her a napkin, which she immediately takes. I grab another one.
“You okay?”
Nodding, she wipes her hand off, and I wipe off her mouth, happy that she’s wearing a bit of a smile as she looks down.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to go change now.” She looks up at me. “But I can handle it alone.”
“What’s the fun in that, Ellis?” Momma Joe laughs, and then they all do, even Ellis.
“There is no way I’m wearing this.” Ellis looks over the red bikini. “This is so far from who I am—”
“So far from who you see yourself as, Ellis.” I grip her shoulders and turn her to face the mirror, a mirror bordered in pink wood in the shape of a castle. “You see a past that was so far from normal that it’s hard to see a future where you can see yourself, because your focus is giving Georgie girl better. Which, by the way, is such a bad-ass move, a queen move.” I rest my chin on top of her head. “Beside—or in this case, behind—every queen, a king should stand to remind her that she’s not alone. He should remind her how hot she’d look in a red bikini.”
“You almost had me,” she sighs out.
“Oh, I’ve had you.” I wrap my arm around her and splay my hand over her tiny bump of a belly.
She looks up at me, a sweet smile on her face, but then … “I will never wear this red bikini. You just made that bikini a game.”
“I’ll cave for now, since the reason I tried to get you in here, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t to bang you over this little princess bed. It was to give you a break from Tris.”
She shakes her head. “Tris is … fine.”
“Tris is kind of difficult to understand until you get to know her. Then”—I scratch my head—“well, hopefully you’ll love her, because she’ll love you once she knows you’re not judging her.”
“But what if she judges me?”
I lead her to the bed and sit down beside her. “It’s gonna feel like she is. She plays defense better than any person on this planet, but once she gets to know you—”
The door opens, and Tris walks in, Matteo following her.
“Once you get to know her, you’ll love her, too.” Matteo grips Tris’s shoulders gently.
“I’m crazy. Certifiably so.” Tris nods once.
“Bipolar,” Matteo explains.
Tris looks at me. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
“Was waiting until we got back to Jersey to unload our—I mean my—”
“No, he means our.” Ellis looks from me to Tris and continues. “We all have our issues. The label crazy, though”—she scrunches up her nose and shakes her head—“I don’t wonder about what makes a person go ‘Crazy,’ I wonder why they haven’t all been there and back.”
“Unfortunately, I just stay on that hamster wheel.”
“I may have social media stalked your brother after meeting up with him after that night that we—”
“Got drunk, fucked, and made a baby?”
“Tris, easy.” I whisper.
Tris ignores me and walks over, takes Ellis’s hand, and pulls her to the bed, basically making her sit. “So, you didn’t know he was the best baseball player since—”
“Tris,” I say a bit louder, and she looks at me.
“I need to know so I can stop making up my own story.” She looks back at Ellis. “So?”
“Tris,” I say louder.
Ellis turns her body completely and faces her. “I understand the need for answers. I have way too many questions I’ll never have answers to because the only people who can answer them are dead.”
“Like …?” Tris asks.
I step forward to intervene, but Ellis holds up her hand.
“Like, did my mother try to kill herself and me, or just me, after my biological father told her he was moving back to Greece because he wasn’t in love with her. And like, when Georgie’s father found out I was pregnant, which I told him after he told me he was engaged to a girl back home and insisted I have an abortion, and I told him I couldn’t, did he drive recklessly on a winding road and swerve off that road to get into an accident to kill the baby, me, or both?”
“Did he die?”
Ellis nods. “And I was in the hospital; some of the time in traction while I was pregnant and stayed there to heal when Georgie came a bit early, and then longer when she was getting strong enough to leave.”
“I’m glad he died.”
“Jesus Christ, Tris.”
She looks up at me. “He deserved to die.” She looks back at Ellis. “So, do you think I suck because I had an abortion?”
“No, not at all. Totally dif
ferent monsters driving our crazy trains.” Ellis smiles softly at her.
“Does yours have a name?” Tris asks.
“Which one? My mother, my father or Georgie’s father?”
“Fuck them, they’re in hell. I’m talking about your monster.”
“No.” Ellis laughs.
“We should totally name them. Give them cool names, too.”
“I’ll let you name mine.” Ellis’s smile widens.
“I’m in a band,” Tris blurts out. “I named the band Foreplay. You have a kid; do you really want me naming your monster?”
“True. Maybe I’ll pick it out myself.”
Tris looks up at me. “I love her, My.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Tris hugs her then steps off the bed, onto the floor, and heads to the door. “Wear that bikini. Your ass is hot.”
Once the door is closed, I sit next to her. “So, that’s Tris.”
“I think she and I are going to be friends.”
“You’re going to be more than that, Doc. You’ll be sisters. Family.”
She smiles cautiously. “Maybe naming my monsters will make them less intimidating.”
“You get that I’m here to slay them, yeah?”
“A minute ago, you were going to be my king, now you’re going to be my knight in shining armor, too?”
“You do understand that I’m going to be your everything, right?”
She looks down, hair falling in her face, hiding her smile.
“I’m not afraid of proving it.”
“Then I’m not going to be afraid to let myself fall.”
I kiss her. I kiss her hard, too. And she kisses me back just as hard. Hands in hair, lips and teeth kind of kiss. A kiss that you’re so lost in you don’t hear the door open before you hear …
“Mommy!”
With the ’rents, women, and children all tucked in bed, Tricks, Max, Justice, Tobias, Brand, and I are all sitting in the hot tub.
“So, lemme get this shit straight”—JT sits forward—“you played Magic Mike to a bachelorette party, took the bride—”
“I knew she wasn’t the bride.”
“—and not only fucked her but had the decency to go down?”
They all laugh, because they clearly didn’t attend Zandor Steel’s class when they hit puberty on fornication.
Tricks then interjects, “Max got roofied.”
Tobias adds, “You two almost died.”
Max interjects, “Nah, I almost killed him. I—”
“Could have been both of us, Max,” I cut him off. “No more bullshit. We get back, you get your license back, we make that fucker pay, and then you get back to enjoying your reign at that fucking cesspool of suck for what’s left of your senior year.”
“I’m not sure I want that.”
“Maxie, someone needs to knock him on his ass,” Justice hisses.
Max nods. “Yeah, or maybe we just step back and watch him self-destruct. Let’s table that and get back to My. He’s back in the game, has fallen in love, and—”
“You gonna wife that?” Brand asks.
“He got her pregnant, of course he’s going to wife that.” Tobias snickers.
“It was like …” I shake my head. “I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s fucked up, but I just knew. I can’t explain it.”
“Look around, My.” Patrick smirks. “We’ve all felt it, and Maxie’s next.”
“Hold up.” Max laughs. “Don’t you fucks wish that on me. I plan to enter college, and no offense, but I want to be Max, just Max, not—”
“Baby Steel?” I laugh.
“Exactly.” He holds up his water bottle and shakes his head. “Our parents didn’t meet until—”
“They found their forever.” Justice shrugs. “Doesn’t come on a timeline, and it sure as fuck doesn’t always come easy. But when you lay your head down at night, next to your girl’s, and everything just seems better, totally worth it.”
When “Candy” blasts from my phone, I laugh.
“What the fuck is that?” Tricks asks as I lift my ass up out of the water.
“That’s how it all began.” I walk over and grab my phone.
Her: What is this address on the BB card?
Me: Home, Sweets. Google it.
Her: Where are you?
Me: Pool.
Drying off, I watch the screen and wait for her to hit me back when the patio door opens.
“No. Just no. You need to slow it down.”
I look up at her, her hair piled in a messy bun, tying her robe. Smiling, I make a mental note; I like her in robes.
“Look, I get your whole vibe.” She waves her hand in front of me, and I smile bigger. “This is not funny. You can’t just take over my entire life in a week.”
“All is fair in love and baseball, Doc.”
“Amias.” She fists her little hands.
I dry off my hair. “It wasn’t fair that my entire world was rocked the moment I saw you, but it happened.”
“Your hotness and all this”—she waves her hand in front of me again—“and that”—she points to my face—“it doesn’t get you a pass to just … trampling.”
“What did you do, My?” Max asks, getting out of the hot tub.
“Bought our home.”
“Is it a shit hole?” Brand jokes.
“It’s not happening,” she whisper-hisses having just realized they’re all here.
“That’s hilarious.” Justice chuckles, gripping my shoulder. “She thinks she can stop Steel.”
Tricks walks past, patting her shoulder. “It only hurts until you get used to it. If you don’t believe me, ask Sutton.”
She hasn’t once smiled, not once, and I’m … not worried at all.
Once they’ve all made their way inside, I step forward, and she steps back.
“Let’s you and I not roll like that, yeah?”
“I have a daughter and a baby, and —”
“So, this isn’t about the house? You like the house?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “That is not a house. It’s a village. Georgie and I lived in a one-bedroom that wasn’t even a one-bedroom. I converted a closet into her bedroom for four years. We just moved into a two-bedroom apartment that she thinks is awesome, Amias. That place you bought…here’s a pool and gardens … It has a flippin’ theme park in the backyard.”
“Okay, so it’s the kid thing, not a house thing?”
“You’re not listening.” She throws her arms up.
“I’m standing in front of you, listening to every word.”
“You’re not understanding me, and that’s not a good—”
“I am understanding, and this might pinch a bit, but you’re using Georgie and your past as an emotional anchor to move forward.”
“And now you’re shrinking me?” Her voice squeaks, and she clears her throat. “You’re not qualified to shrink me.”
“Fair enough. But you gotta own that you’re scared, and you’re going to have to tell me exactly what it is that scares you. Give me the heavy, and let me smash it into pieces.”
“I have a nice place. Georgie and I finally have a nice place. She knows I did the work to get it.”
“So, this is Disney all over again.”
“Except literally with a price tag that’s a million and a half dollars more.”
Knowing she’s not done but holding back, I sit down and say, “Keep talking.”
“I’m not gonna have her looking out a car window when we drop her sister off for a visit with her dad between out-of-town games and breaks in the season, wishing she could be there, too, when we inevitably end this.”
“Back that ass up a sec—”
“No, you. You stop.”
“We’ve legit just truly started, and you have us—”
“Being with an athlete, I know the odds are not in my favor. I’ll be baby momma number one of several, and I—”
“Shut it down, Ell
is.” I stand up and step toward her. She steps back and almost busts her ass on a pool noodle, but I catch her and put her ass in a chair. “I get you’re emotional and shit. You need to get that I’m not running because of it. I didn’t do all that shit to you, and hand to God, I never will. When you and I make this official, which we will, I want Georgie to be Steel, too.”
“Would you stop? Please, just fucking stop.”
Ellis said fuck.
“Asking for that is like jumping on a train track and expecting your hands are gonna stop the oncoming train. Expecting me to be chill in having some sort of shared custody is as fucked up as taking a bottle of Jack to an AA meeting.”
“You can’t say that at nineteen years old!” And the tears come.
I lean down and attempt to help her hold it together, by way of a hug.
After a good five minutes, I step back. “You’re tired. We have an early flight. Let’s get you tucked back in and shelf this for when we get back, yeah?”
Back to Jersey
I miss him …
No, I correct myself. I miss big hugs, and it makes me feel pathetic, pathetic and weak. Why? Because this is how ‘I roll’, how my life has always turned out to be, and how I had long ago accepted it, embraced it even. I was perfectly content with making a good living and being the best mom I could be to my Georgie, whose little hugs were more than enough to make me happy.
So, what happened? I got pregnant. I got pregnant the first time I had sex since the accident. The day I bought in to the lie that Georgie’s father seemed he as no longer angry with my decision and thought maybe life was going to be okay. And maybe I would finally have a family of my own.
Then, the crash.
After talking with Tris, I felt that maybe my issues, the ones I’ve always tried to hide, and as Lily often points out, the ones that keep me from living, were really not as bad as I’ve allowed myself to think they were, and that maybe I could somehow have a normal life.
He told me he loved me. Amias told me he loved me.
Perfect, ‘yeah?’
Um … no.
Last night, while lying in bed, with Georgie asleep beside me and after a hot ‘quickie,’ which was seriously not that quick—a fast ‘fuck?’ Yes, fuck, because those kind of moves don’t get to be called making love—Lily messaged and scolded me for not telling her I was taking Georgie to Disney. Then she scolded me for not sending her pictures and simply posting them on social media, which I pointed out she always encouraged me to do.