I’m counting on it.
We don’t drive back to the Hale House. Instead, I make a detour to Donnelly’s apartment. The two-bedroom that he shares with Akara, Quinn, and Banks. None of the other guys are here, and I don’t ask who decorated the living room because black and white hand drawn posters are taped to the walls. A black leather couch, leather bean bag, and simple chrome table accent the space.
Donnelly slumps on the floor and leans back against the bean bag, while Maximoff and I take the couch.
Now we wait.
The next hours are excruciating. We keep SFO updated on comms and try to distract ourselves. Maximoff flips through channels on the TV, landing on a Harry Potter marathon. Donnelly crafts a paper fortuneteller—which is like a homemade magic eight ball—and tries to read my future.
No one sleeps. Not even as exhaustion beckons us like a siren calling out to sailors. We’re more inclined to sail this ship straight into a storm.
Morning comes and goes. Quinn, Akara, and Banks stop by to take showers, change, and leave. Quick entrances and exits. Without sleep, Donnelly can’t take his shift on Xander’s detail, so he has to give it up to Banks.
By the time night rolls around, I’m wired from Ripped Fuel, and Maximoff looks like hell.
“Sleep,” I tell him. “I’ll wake you, if we get the call.”
He shakes his head, neck tensed. Eyes glued to the TV. The eighth and final Harry Potter movie plays on the screen.
And then Donnelly’s phone vibrates on the floor, near his foot. Maximoff and I swing our heads towards the noise.
Donnelly glances at the screen and then answers. “Yeah?” His eyes find me. “Okay. Yeah….yeah. Thanks.” He hangs up.
“What is it?” I ask.
He’s gone pale. “They want me to come back.” He’s not an idiot. He knows, if the test came back negative, they would have told him over the phone.
Maximoff’s already on his feet. “Let’s go.”
We’re ushered into an office in the hospital, but no one sits down. The doctor who met with us last night is here again, but this time he’s accompanied by a petite white woman with auburn hair. She holds a clipboard tight to her chest.
Maximoff and I stand side-by-side. His fingers brush against mine, and I take his hand. Donnelly leans against a bookshelf, a few steps back from us. I think he might be hoping this can all go away if he disappears in the shadows.
“This is Amanda Sheffield,” Dr. Turner introduces. “She’s the social worker here tonight.”
She rotates to Donnelly. “You must be Paul. Could we have a minute alone with you?”
Blood drains from Donnelly’s face, and he glances at me. “They have to stay. Farrow is my legal counsel.”
My brows spike. “Man—”
“Legal advisor.”
“Better.”
Dr. Turner looks between us and concedes. “We have the results from your lab work.” He hands me the paper, probably figuring I’m the only other person in the room who can read it. I scan the data quickly, while he continues. “The paternity test came back negative.”
“Holy shit,” Donnelly says into a relieved exhale, burying his face into his hands.
My brows are knotted as I keep reading the paper. “Donnelly,” I whisper.
He lifts his head, frowning.
Dr. Turner clears his throat. “The DNA test did show that you share around 12% DNA with the child. Do you have any siblings?”
“Nah, it’s just me. I’m an only child.” He glances at me again, confused. I just want to cut to the chase. I know Donnelly’s family history, and I don’t need this doctor asking him a million questions.
“He has one uncle. So that’s most likely the father.” I look to Donnelly. “Knowing your family history, and how much DNA you share with the kid…you two are cousins.”
12
MAXIMOFF HALE
Dear World, what the fuck? Sincerely, a stupefied human.
We receive more information, and Donnelly’s world sounds more bizarre and fucked up than even mine. Just to be clear, I’m aware my problems aren’t that significant compared to most. I have a hefty trust fund, great parents, and I’m engaged to the guy I love.
I’m processing.
How Donnelly’s Uncle Scottie is only thirty. How Scottie got a twenty-five-year-old woman pregnant before he was sent to prison.
Tina Ripley was at the hospital tonight after an OD. Once she gained consciousness and answered a few questions—including giving the hospital staff Donnelly’s name and number—she snuck out the back door. Disappeared and left behind the four-month-old baby she was wheeled in with. Police have been searching but they can’t find Tina.
After delivering all the details, the doctor and social worker leave the office to let us discuss everything.
Legal documents line a mahogany desk, and I’ve already called my family’s lawyers to help. No one’s made any decisions, but there are only two living relatives able to care for the baby, Paul Donnelly and his dad Sean.
Since Sean was just released from prison and no one’s been able to get ahold of him, the social worker already ruled him out.
The way it’s been explained to us, both parents—Scottie and Tina—still have parental rights. Until the police find Tina or until Scottie gets released from his five-year sentence (for manufacturing meth), the baby needs a guardian to take over all legal rights.
That person will be responsible for all of the child’s needs. Shelter, food, education…every little thing.
The three of us sit in chairs: me, Farrow, Donnelly. We face a desk, an empty plush leather seat tucked against it. My stomach hasn’t stopped clenching since we got here.
“So maybe I take the kid?” Donnelly says, talking it out. “The mom could come around and want him back. It’d be like babysitting.”
Farrow gives him a serious look. “What if she doesn’t come back?”
Donnelly’s knees bounce and he clicks a pen open and closed. Open and closed. He slips the pen behind his ear. “You know after my parents got sent away, I spent a month in a group home.” His voice cracks on the last words.
I didn’t know.
Farrow puts a hand on his back.
Donnelly shakes his head. “How could I do that to him? When I have the money. When my grandmom took me in with less.”
Farrow’s eyes redden. “Could you give Maximoff and me a minute alone?” That question is like facing a head-on collision. I know what’s coming. I see the aftermath.
But I’m still holding my breath.
Donnelly rubs at his face, exhaustion behind blue eyes. “Yeah, I need somethin’ to eat anyway.” Farrow gives him directions to the nearest vending machine, and when he leaves, Farrow turns to me with grave, serious eyes. I know him well enough to see what’s ahead.
“You want guardianship,” I say aloud, letting the reality into the air.
He barely blinks. “I can’t ask you to do this with me.” He keeps an arm on the back of my chair, but he doesn’t touch me.
I feel myself packing on life vest after life vest. Abs tight, muscles flexed. I can barely slouch a fucking inch. And I’m just staring at the love of my life—the guy who’s as stubborn as me—and I’m falling in love with him. More and more.
Even if I’m scared.
“You’re ready to be a dad?” I ask. “Right now?”
Farrow tilts his head from side to side. “I don’t know.” Honest to God, he looks terrified.
“I thought you knew everything,” I joke.
His smile flickers in and out. “Don’t worry, I still know more than you, wolf scout.”
I inhale deeper. “I’m not worried.”
“Yeah?” He nods.
“Yeah.”
His eyes dance over me. “Maybe I’m not ready, maybe I am.” He breathes in. “But he needs someone to be there for him. All-in for him. And I can do that. That’s the way I see it.”
All-in for him.
&n
bsp; When I was born, my parents weren’t ready to be parents. I was an accident that surprised them at a shitty time in their lives, and they needed a lot of fucking support. Most came from family, and they provided this unconditional, pure love.
Giving that to someone else feels right.
But I can’t deny the way my stomach twists like it’s ripping itself apart.
“Maximoff,” Farrow breathes. “This is fast, even for me. If you’re not behind this, if this is going to ruin us, then you need to tell me.”
“Nothing is going to ruin us,” I say immediately. No hesitation. I don’t believe for a second this could.
Farrow puts his fist to his mouth in thought. “You’re twenty-three.”
“My mom was twenty-three when she had me.” That’s a weird fact that I send into the air. My face scrunches. “But like you said, he needs someone to be there for him. I get that.”
Farrow nods. “If I’m going to be taking care of a baby. Shit is going to change.”
My head whirls. Words get lost on my tongue. We sit in a heavy silence for what feels like forever but can only be a minute or two.
“Say something, please,” Farrow whispers.
I can’t fight this pressure on my chest anymore. “It’s fast,” I say softly, my throat closing. “Probably too fast for me.”
Farrow opens his mouth, and I cut him off quickly, “But I need you to choose this.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t if you’re not ready.”
Emotion tries to surge up, but I’m pretty good at pushing it down. Only my eyes burn, fighting back something stronger. He slides his chair closer, our knees knocking together.
“Have you ever read Nicomachean Ethics?” I ask in a whisper.
He gives me a look like you know I haven’t.
I don’t break from his eyes. “Aristotle says there are three types of friendships. Friends for usefulness. Friends for pleasure. And then there’s true friendship. Friends that do things in pursuit of good for each other. Not for any other reason.” I take a deeper breath. “You don’t even hesitate for Donnelly. It’s just something you need to do for him, and I get that. Because if it were Janie, I’d need to do it too. And you wouldn’t stop me.”
“You can stop me,” Farrow says through his own bloodshot eyes.
I can’t.
I can’t.
“I can’t,” I say and release the pain on my chest. “I don’t want to.”
I reach for his hand. His thumb glides over the wedding band on my finger. His ring. Still on me. Waiting for him. “I don’t love life-altering change,” I remind him. “It freaks me the hell out, but there’s not a single person I would rather do this with than you.”
“Good.” He nods. “Because I couldn’t do this without you.”
That hits me. Because he’s older—and I don’t know, he acts like he can do a lot of fucking stuff on his own. Without me.
We’re quiet for the next few minutes. Just touching each other’s hands and letting our breaths slow. Settling into this decision. It’s not long before Donnelly returns with three bags of chips and cans of Fizz.
“They were out of Fizz Life,” Donnelly says as Farrow stands. “Tried to find another machine, but shit, this hospital is confusing…” He stops talking and glances between me and Farrow. Confusion pleats his brows. “What—what’d I miss?” He drops the snacks and cans on the desk.
Farrow takes a step forward. “I’m going to become the guardian.”
Donnelly shakes his head with force. “No, I can’t ask you.”
“You don’t have to.”
His face cracks, and Farrow steps closer to put his arms around him just as Donnelly breaks down, bringing his own shirt up to cover his face.
Aristotle said it best.
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
13
MAXIMOFF HALE
The court granted Farrow temporary guardianship, and this healthy, beautiful baby boy is a stage 10 clinger.
And for some damn reason, he’s clinging to me.
At 4 a.m. in my childhood bedroom, I’m cradling a fussy baby against my chest and walking from my comic book rack over to the nightstand. The movement lulling the four-month-old back to sleep. I step around the sunken air mattress that we’ve abandoned re-inflating.
Farrow tried, and the baby acted like we chucked him into monster-infested waters. He doesn’t know it yet, but unless you fuck with my family, you’re pretty much safe from being shark bait.
You, the world, have zero clue about the baby and our new setup. It’s only Night 2. And it’s not every day a baby is dropped on your doorstep while you’re planning a wedding—a wedding that’s mentioned nightly on entertainment news, while paparazzi are harassing you for details.
Welcome to my strange life.
Directed by Unknown Forces. Maybe God. I’m not that religious, but I’d like to think that this is supposed to happen the way it’s happening.
It makes me a bit less apprehensive.
And it’s hard not to smile when I’m holding this little soft thing that smells like baby powder and citrus, even after washing him with fragrance-free Hale Co. baby soap.
I pace to the desk, the graphic novel Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon buried underneath a pack of wipes and diapers. The baby curls his tiny fists against my bare chest. Settling down.
I rub his back. I can’t imagine what he’s been through the first four-months of life. It’s honestly a miracle that he’s not rejecting both of us.
Just one of us.
“Hand him over.” Farrow rests coolly against the nightstand and makes a come-hither motion. “You can’t carry him around for decades, wolf scout.”
Sounds like a challenge.
I open my mouth to respond. But he’s a full-fledged distraction to my brain that loves how he’s doing absolutely nothing.
That’s right. Farrow is just annoyingly at ease, his leisurely state almost infectious.
I drink in his shirtless torso: gorgeous gray-scale tattoos sprawled across his body and the colorful sparrows and swallows throughout. I skim higher, to his barbell nipple piercing.
Higher, to his growing smile.
To his recently dyed hair. Back to bleach-white, which contrasts his brown eyebrows that rise at me. “You want a picture?”
“Of the wall, sure.”
He shakes his head with a half-smile, then makes the come hither gesture again. “Come on.”
“You’re positive you want to hold him?” I lower my voice as the baby stretches a tiny arm and smacks his lips. “He’s been here less than 48-hours, and you’ve already been peed and spit up on. There’s only one more box to tick off, man, and I don’t know if you can handle projectile poop.”
“I can handle some baby shit,” Farrow says, his eyes narrowing on my smile. “You’re loving this.”
I’m better than Farrow at plenty of things. But I recognize he has me beat in a lot of areas too. So I can’t deny that having miles on him in the kid department feels pretty damn good.
Especially since he was a Med-Peds first-year intern before quitting his residency. Peds standing for pediatrics.
But so far, I’ve excelled more than him.
Changing diapers, bottle-feeding and burping an infant—I didn’t even need to use YouTube or phone a friend. I’m the big older brother to a sister almost ten-years younger than me. Not to mention all the other kids in my family.
It taught me a ton.
“I’m soaking it in,” I admit.
Gloating about my knowledge lightens the situation. The situation being that the baby loves me too much.
He’s terrified of not being in my arms. It doesn’t matter if I pass him over to Farrow or place him in the crib. His reaction is the same. Titanic tears and banshee wails.
And I get that Farrow is worried I’m going to be a walking zombie if I take on the full load of this kid. He didn’t accept the guardianship just to saddle
me with all the weight.
“We can try again,” I tell Farrow on my way towards him. Slowly, I peel the baby off my chest. His tiny hand grips my thumb. Clinging.
Farrow stands fully and takes the baby with tender, gentle force. As soon as he’s in my fiancé’s arms, he expels the highest, mightiest cry.
Jesus.
He has some epic lungs on him. “Maybe he’ll be a swimmer,” I say, positive thinking and all that.
Farrow tucks the fussing baby to his tattooed chest. Just like I had him against mine. To the baby, he whispers, “Wolf scout thinks you’ll be a swimmer, little man.”
I smile.
Despite his easygoing nature, Farrow wears this intense concentration. He sweeps his hand soothingly over the baby’s back and sways melodically from side to side.
I don’t know who I’m smiling at anymore. Farrow, or Farrow holding the baby, or just the baby—let’s go with just the baby.
He’s a cute tiny thing. Like major levels of cuteness. He has light-brown wispy hair on a mostly baldhead, rosy chubby cheeks against pale skin, and he’s warm in a gray koala-hooded onesie.
Farrow lifts the hood, and the little animal ears stick up.
He unleashes a piercing cry.
I cringe. “Christ, man.” That one blew out an eardrum. He’s not hungry or in need of a diaper change. We’ve already checked every damn thing. He’s just adjusting.
Farrow cups the back of the baby’s head. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispers to him.
At first, we thought Farrow’s plethora of tattoos freaked out the kid. But my parents tried to hold him and they were met with the same glass-shattering scream.
“Maybe something in here can help.” I hike over the air mattress and dig through the mountain of boxes and shopping bags: perks of being the heir to Hale Co.—a literal baby product company.
This little guy has been in our lives for less than 48-hours, and my family already went overboard.
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