So I didn’t ask her to come today, to witness this miracle of a moment and take in all the joy.
But the minute I step into the court room, I know it’s a huge mistake. I watch my family standing around Walker, Hannah, and my soon-to-be nieces, which they are anyway in everything but legality at this point. And there is just this love glowing, almost as if you could see it. They all hold on to their spouses or children, and everyone is basking in the family love in this room.
It’s at this moment that I realize what a huge mistake I’ve made. Because I want my person beside me, I want to feel my son growing in her belly as she lays her head on my shoulder to watch my brother officially complete his family.
“Uncle Sin, pick me up!” Breanna comes running over, and I catch her before swinging her up onto my hip.
“Where is Frankie?” Hannah peers around me, barely caring that I’m here.
“Hi to you too, sis,” I joke, kissing her on the cheek.
“I just thought she would come. She’s family.” Hannah looks disappointed.
“Well, she might have, but I didn’t ask her.”
They both blink at me and then give me equally furious looks.
“You moron.” Walker looks like he wants to smack me, so I use his kid as a shield. “And a coward, too. Don’t use my cute little girl as a way out of this. I told you to bring her.”
He had, actually.
“It’s complicated.” But my heart says it’s not.
Colleen walks up, eavesdropping on our conversation. “It’s not, actually. Your family loves her. No one cares that she’s an employee. She’s having your baby. And you’re in love with her.”
“I never told you that …” I try to argue, but they all give me stern, knowing looks.
“Don’t act like we’re idiots,” Walker tells me.
Colleen puts a hand on my shoulder. “I dealt with this, once upon a time. Love or duty. Family or following my heart. And I’m telling you, cousin-to-cousin, as your GM, I don’t care about this. I don’t see it as a breach of either of your employment. Frankie won’t be judged on her connection to you, and we value her work more than we value yours.”
“Hey,” I protest.
Colleen shrugs. “We do, sorry.”
“She is damn good as a strength coach,” Walker agrees.
“Thanks for being on my side, guys.” I roll my eyes.
“No one needs to take sides.” Hayes finally steps into the conversation. “Believe me, she loves you, too. I haven’t even spent that much time with her, but I know what it’s like to fall for a Callahan when you don’t necessarily want to. Go get her, Sin.”
My head swivels between them all, and a sureness settles like a warm, lush blanket over my heart. I am a moron. What the hell was I thinking? This woman is everything I’ve always wanted, our family is everything I’ve always wanted. Maybe I just needed to get this one last idiotic thing out of my system, but now I see how stupid I’ve been.
“Do you mind if I—”
Walker shakes his head, a small smile on his face. “Take off, brother. Meet us, with her, at the dinner Hannah set up.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I kiss Noelle and Breanna on the tops of their heads before I sprint out of the court room doors.
Today, two families are going to be signed, sealed, and delivered.
36
Frankie
My mood has been sour all day.
Maybe it’s because it’s raining or that my baby boy has been sitting on my bladder for twenty-four hours, and I pee every five seconds. Part of me misses Florida as the brittle cold seeps in through the windows of my quaint little ranch.
Those things probably contribute a little to my attitude, but the biggest factor is that Sinclair isn’t here. Not only that he isn’t here, but he decided to go to the adoption hearing for Walker and Hannah’s girls without me.
I’m the one who has been hesitant about becoming a part of the Callahan family. I’m the one who has needed an extra push, who needs to be reassured whenever we walk into family dinners. But just when I started to feel comfortable, to really believe I was part of their inner-circle and that Sinclair and I were going to be a fortified unit … he backed off.
He got weird.
I can’t describe it, or why I know it, but I just feel it in my bones. It happened a day or two ago, out of the blue. I could feel his distance, even though he wasn’t acting all that differently. It was in how he held himself, how he couldn’t meet my eyes all the way.
Then he had shrugged off going together to the adoption, and I knew. A niggle of fear, of heartbreak, washed over me in that moment. He’s going to end this, whether he has the balls to be the one to call it off or not. Whether he could see it yet or not, he’s retreating, hiding parts of himself from me.
As I sit on my couch, trying not to cry, I run over the options in my head. If he ends this but still wants to see the baby, what will I do? It will be like stabbing myself in the heart, dropping our child off to him and not being able to stay, to see them together.
What if he doesn’t want in? What if this is his way of bowing out of both being in love with me and being a father?
A series of knocks at my door has my head whipping away from what I was barely interested in on the TV. The knocks don’t stop, and I have a sneaking suspicion about who is on the other end of them.
I rise, dread filling my heart and a pit in my stomach, and get the door.
“Frankie.” Sinclair breathes like he’s just been running a marathon.
“What?” I don’t even try to hide my anger and hurt. I’m far too pregnant for that.
“I’m an idiot. I just raced over here from the court house. I should have brought you, I’m sorry, so sorry—”
“You just let me leave. You shrugged me off with a wave and got on a plane, never looked back. I was coming to tell you that I wanted to be with you, that I didn’t care about the distance. And you just … left. You clearly demonstrated how you felt about us. How was I supposed to call you and tell you that you were going to be tied to me indefinitely, when you could barely stand to have a conversation before you left?”
My feelings, the ones I’ve pent up since Florida, come spilling out. As they tend to do with us women when we get in an argument, but using past fodder is fair game when he’s pissed me off this badly.
“Wait, what?” Sinclair looks like he’s trying to keep up.
I stalk off into the house, using my hands to accentuate just how pissed I am. Now that he’s here, I’m ready to unleash.
“And you did it again, today. You left me behind. Is that what our whole life would be together? When our son arrives, will I just become scenery in the background? Not good enough to bring around, but good enough to undress and play with when we’re alone.”
He wipes a hand down his face. “Francesca, I am so sorry. I was a fucking coward. But this … this was my check swing. And I’ll never do it again. I’ll swing every time, even if it means going down. Striking out. I’m here, every step of the way.”
His check swing. The idea blooms in my head, and my anger pauses. “A check swing?”
Sinclair scrubs the back of his neck with his hand. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure, I was scared. My fear made me balk, the uncertainty had me pulling out at the last moment. But I’m here now. I’m certain, so sure that I would throw my arms out swinging for the fences. I will never leave you, Francesca. I swear to God, it’s just you, me, and our son.”
Of course, I know what a check swing is. But using it here … the man is smart. Leave it to a baseball metaphor to cool my jets.
“I hate that you did that.” My voice is filled with unshed tears.
We’re standing in my small living room, feet apart, but I can feel the ice chipping away from my heart where I froze it this morning.
“I can’t promise to be smart all the time. Hell, I’m a stupid ass most of the time. But I’m trying, I’m trying so hard for you. I can promis
e I’ll try until there is nothing else left to try. I love you, Francesca. I love you so much it overwhelms me. I am so in love with you that it scares me, but I’m choosing to push past the fear.”
Slowly, step by step, he closes the distance between us.
“Don’t leave me again,” I whisper. “I won’t be able to take it. This, us, our son … I need us together.”
Because I love him so much, it scares me.
“No more balking. If I do, you can take a bat to my nuts.” He cracks a grin as he reaches for me.
I snort as he pulls me in, burying my face in the musky, masculine scent of his neck. “You may regret that you said that.”
“Probably.” He strokes a hand down my back. “Now, get dressed. I’m taking you to an adoption dinner, and there is no way you’re saying no.”
37
Sinclair
The doorbell rouses me from sleep, my brain protesting with every sound.
I was asleep, Frankie in my arms, my hands resting on her belly. I drifted off with my son kicking at my palms, and it was perfect.
Who the fuck is ringing my doorbell at …
I roll over, grabbing my phone and squinting as the light assaults my eyes. One in the morning.
What the fuck is going on?
The doorbell chimes again, and now Frankie is stirring next to me. I press a kiss to her temple and rush out of bed, nearly killing myself in the dark as I pull on sweatpants and a T-shirt that had been discarded on my dresser.
It’s warm in the house, but it’s still winter, and I shiver as I hurry to the front door. I need to make this stop before they wake my girl up. She has enough trouble sleeping now that she’s so super pregnant, and she deserves a good night’s rest. I’ll murder whoever is about to wake her up.
When I wrench open the door, what I’m met with makes my stomach drop.
“Yo, Sinny!” Vaughn, one of my old drinking buddies, stands at my door holding up a bottle of gin.
“Sin!” Two girls cry out behind him, and it’s been so long that I don’t even remember their names.
I see another straggler, some dude who only came to my house once or twice for a party, walking up my driveway with them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snarl.
I haven’t seen these people in two years. They’re my past, apparently showing up at one in the morning.
“We were fucking bored, and stoned, and we were reminiscing. We all agree that the fucking best parties we’ve ever been to have been at your place, and wouldn’t it be epic to just like, throw one right now. So we came over. Let’s fucking party, man.”
I look at Vaughn like I equal parts want to throttle him, but also can’t understand what the hell he’s talking about. Is this the kind of shit I used to get up to when I was drunk? Jesus Christ, these people are insane.
“Get the hell off my property.” I don’t care how rude I’m being. These strangers showed up to my house in the middle of the night.
“Dude, chill.” One of the girls giggles, and I feel my blood boil.
They start to move toward me, and I’m blindsided.
“No, you can’t—”
But my voice has no weight to them because they push past me, Vaughn rather forcefully, and just enter my house.
Would it be a crime if I got the baseball bat in my den and beat them with it? Technically, they’re trespassing.
“You can’t be here. I didn’t invite you, and I don’t do this shit anymore.”
“He needs a drink! Get him a drink.” The other female laughs, walking through my house like it’s her own.
Fuck. What did I used to do that would give people the idea I was okay with this? Clearly, they’re high as kites and maybe on something else. I have to call the cops. But first, I have to get them out. My heart lurches at the thought that Frankie isn’t safe with them here.
“Get the hell out of my house!” I yell, but they all just laugh.
“Sin? What’s going on?”
Frankie has made her way into the kitchen; the noise must have woken her. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of my boxers, her belly swelling the waistband.
“It’s nothing, baby, why don’t you go back upstairs?” I try to keep my voice calm.
She’s rubbing the sleep from those violet eyes when they land on the four bottles of liquor my unexpected guests plopped on the kitchen island. Behind me, one of the girls has gone to the stereo system, pairing her phone via Bluetooth and blaring the new Drake song through the house.
“You … did you invite guests over? Are you … drinking?”
I hate that I hear accusations in her voice, that she can’t just trust that none of this is by my doing. I hate it so much that I don’t just dispel it right away because my annoyance gets the better of me.
“You really think I’d be partying right now?” My tone is beyond pissed off.
She double takes, as if to say are you really taking that tone with me? “I don’t know, Sinclair, are you? It looks to me like your buddies know their way around pretty well. And I see they have some expensive taste, which I know you do, too.”
She motions to the Casamigos and Grey Goose on the counter.
“My pregnant girlfriend is upstairs, warm and snug in my bed, and you really think I’d be down here getting wasted with people I barely keep in touch with?”
“I don’t know, it seems awfully fun down here.”
The pregnancy has to have warped her brain along with her hormones, that’s the only reasonable explanation. The Frankie I know is rational, but while she’s been growing our child, she has reacted so strangely to certain situations.
“I’m trying to kick them out and come back up to bed with you, crazy. I would never risk my sobriety, and not just because you or our son are in my life now. That shit is too important to me. Don’t come down here and accuse me of shit you weren’t even around to see in the first place.”
I shouldn’t argue with her, first rule of being a good baby daddy is just agreeing with everything the woman says. I know that. But I can’t help myself. Maybe because it’s one o’clock in the morning.
“You’re right, I wasn’t around to see it, but I’ve heard. Believe me, I have ideas of how bad it can get. Seth was absolutely right about you!”
I’m about to fire back, this argument getting blown so far out of proportion that I don’t even know where it started, when I see it.
“Frankie …”
My voice trails off, because I see it as it happens.
A whoosh of water, rushing down her legs, soaking the boxers she’s wearing, and puddling on the floor.
The mother of my child, the woman I love, turns white as a sheet.
“It’s too early.” Her words are so weak and frightened, I almost don’t hear them.
She’s right. It’s too early. She’s barely eight months. Only thirty weeks.
My blinders go on, ignoring anything that isn’t her and our son in this moment. I move to her, scoop her up as if she’s light as a feather, and walk us to the door. My hands move on autopilot as I pull on her coat, then mine, and grab my wallet and keys.
We’re out the door in what feels like seconds, and those random assholes are still in my house. I don’t give a shit if they burn the place down at this point. Nothing else matters but Frankie and the baby.
I probably shouldn’t be driving, I’m so terrified, and it’s the middle of the night. I reach across the console and grip Frankie’s hand the entire way as she tries to bite back the sobs and fails.
Somehow, we make it to the emergency room.
I pull up, knowing that when we enter through those doors, we may learn the worst news any expecting parent has to hear.
38
Frankie
“You’re in preterm labor, and your placenta is failing.”
The words feel like they’re far away, even though the doctor is only standing two feet in front of my hospital bed.
“What do
es that mean, failing?” Sinclair clutches my hand as he sits on a hard plastic hospital chair next to me.
“Sometimes, the placenta grows weaker toward the end of a pregnancy. It doesn’t give as many nutrients to the baby as it should, or we see some blood or fluid loss. Part of the fluid that you were leaking, Francesca, was fluid that should still be in your placenta. It puts the baby in danger, and could stop development in some cases.”
I swear to God, I feel woozy just from the labor and delivery doctor talking to me. The things she’s saying, how matter-of-fact she’s being, as if this isn’t my baby we’re talking about.
I know she’s probably seen this before, but she’s talking about my entire life. This child is the center of my universe, and she just used the word danger. I want to rewind, stop this from ever occurring. If I could just go back, slow down how much I was working or how upset I worked myself up to be at Sinclair.
“What do we do? Is he … will he be okay?” Next to me, Sinclair’s voice cracks.
My gaze lands on him, and I realize I’m not the only one in the room going into a tailspin. I grasp his hand back, so hard that my knuckles begin to go white. Nothing else matters right now; not our argument, not the status of our relationship, nothing. Our son, that’s all we can see. And we’re his lifelines, so we’ll become each other’s lifelines. We’ll survive this together.
The doctor nods, and I realize I don’t even know her name. She’s not my OB, since we got to the hospital in the middle of the night. It suddenly strikes me that it’s weird this woman is about to tell me the fate of my child’s life, and I don’t even know her name. You notice strange things in periods of great shock or grief.
“You’re only thirty weeks. If this were a different situation, I’d recommend strict bedrest until we could get you to at least thirty-six weeks. But, this is not that situation. Your placenta is failing, rapidly. I’ll consult with your OB, but I believe he’ll say the same thing. We need to keep you here for the rest of your pregnancy. Hopefully, with medication to stop the preterm labor and strict bedrest with round the clock monitoring from our staff, we can get you to thirty-four weeks. We may be able to get you further, but that will be our goal.”
Check Swing (Callahan Family Book 3) Page 17