Kiro's Emily

by Abbi Glines

  She stiffened in my arms and turned to look at me. “I can’t . . . I could never do that. My momma is already worried about me, but that would break her heart.”

  What the fuck? “Your momma doesn’t want you having kids? Or she doesn’t want you having my kids?”

  She sighed and laid her head on my chest. “My momma wants me to have kids one day. But she’ll expect me to be married when I do.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Married? Well, fuck. I hadn’t even thought about that. I was keeping Emily forever. That was for damn sure, but I hadn’t thought about the fact that we needed to get married. It wasn’t something people in my world did often, because when they did, it always ended badly.

  Emily would never get to divorce me. I wouldn’t let her. The idea of her ever wanting to leave me was terrifying. But marriage?

  “I’m not ready for marriage right now, Kiro. Relax. That’s not what I’m saying. I am just saying that talking about babies is out of the question for me. I’ll do that one day when I’m married.”

  One day when she was married. She didn’t say when we were married. Fuck that. She wasn’t marrying anyone but me. Ever. She was mine.

  I pushed her down on the sofa and began stripping off her clothes. I had to remind her who she belonged to. Whose heart she’d taken over and just how much I couldn’t live without her. This shit about marrying one day was fucked up. She was marrying one day, and it would fucking be me. My babies in her stomach. Mine. All mine.

  “Kiro?” she asked nervously, as I made quick work of stripping down.

  “Open for me,” I replied. The panic in my voice was obvious.

  She opened her legs, and I was inside her immediately. “Fuck, yes,” I groaned, as she squeezed my cock like a glove. “Mine, Emily. This is mine. No one else’s. Always just mine.” I chanted like a madman while I began moving in and out of her.

  “Yes, Kiro, I’m yours,” she reassured me.

  When she wrapped a leg around my waist and locked down, that meant she was almost there. Sliding in and out of her wet heat made everything in the world OK. She fixed whatever was wrong.

  “My angel,” I said again, as her body started to shake and the orgasm had her pussy locking down on my cock, sending me off with her. “I fucking love you!” I yelled, as I shot my release into her.

  When I came down from my high, I scooped her into my arms and held her. I stayed inside her. I liked being connected to her like this. It eased all my fears.

  Emily

  Mase came to stay the weekend with us twice that summer. It was hard on Mary Ann to be away from him too long, but she was determined to allow Mase and Kiro to bond. It also gave her time to herself. She was even dating someone now.

  By the end of the summer, Georgianna had given birth to a baby girl. She said she’d had a paternity test done and that Nannette wasn’t Kiro’s child. However, something inside me told me she was lying. But Kiro refused to insist on seeing the results of the test. He said the kid belonged to Georgianna’s ex-fiancé. I was going to have her show us the results of the test when Kiro would listen to me. But right now I was letting her adjust to life with her new baby and Rush.

  It was a battle I gave up.

  Over the next six months, Mase became a part of our lives. We went to the zoo and took him to a Lakers game. We spent afternoons on the beach when it was warm enough. Every time I watched Mase smile up at his dad, my heart squeezed. I loved seeing them together.

  Georgianna never came back around. Dean would have to travel to get Rush from her. She had a baby now and refused to bring Rush to Dean. He didn’t seem to mind, and Kiro preferred it. He still hated Georgianna.

  When the guys had to work on a new song or go to record the new album while Rush and Mase were visiting, I took care of them. Both boys had stolen a piece of my heart.

  May 1993

  Emily

  Slacker Demon’s summer tour was starting. Their newest album had gone platinum once again, and I was prepared to travel with Kiro. He refused to have it any other way. Dean had convinced Trac, Brit, and Dash that without me, Kiro would be a mess. That they all needed me there in order to make it through the tour.

  We had spent the weekend with Mase, and I was going to miss him over the next four months. Kiro seemed a little sad to see him go, too. He had bonded with his son the past year, and I was so thankful for it.

  Mase was talking a lot now, too, and it was adorable. He was calling me “Emmy” just like Rush did. Kiro had picked up on it and he called me Emmy more often now than he did Emily. Mary Ann was in a serious relationship, but Kiro didn’t seem to care about that. He let me have my friendship with Mary Ann, but he rarely spoke to her.

  I slipped out of bed before the sun came up. My eyes had snapped open, and the waves of nausea roiling through my stomach were back from yesterday. I made it to the toilet just in time. Luckily, Kiro had slept through this yesterday. I had thought it was something I’d eaten, but now it was back, after I’d felt fine all day yesterday after being sick. I couldn’t be coming down with a stomach bug now. Not when we were due to leave for tour this afternoon.

  I would have to stay behind. Kiro would be so upset. In all honesty, so would I. I missed him whenever he was away, if only for a couple of hours to practice. We were rarely apart, and the idea of being separated hurt. I didn’t like it any more than he did. But as I grabbed the porcelain seat, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fly today. I needed to see a doctor instead.

  I felt his presence before he said anything. Reaching up, I flushed the toilet and grabbed a cloth to wipe my face. Then I turned to face him. He was watching me with worry and fear on his beautiful face. The last time I got sick, I’d had strep throat. One would have thought I was on my deathbed the way he hovered over me. He never left my side and held my hand even while he slept.

  “I think I should go see a doctor and catch up with y’all later this week,” I said, trying to sound brave. If he thought for a minute that I was upset, he’d stay behind with me. They had sold out every show, starting tomorrow night in Boston. He had to go.

  “I won’t leave without you,” he said matter-of-factly, then started wetting a cloth with cool water before bending down beside me and cleaning my face with it. “I can’t leave you if you’re sick. You know that. They know that.”

  “Boston,” I said weakly, wanting to crawl back into bed and lie down. I was tired today.

  “Fuck Boston. I’m not leaving you.”

  He had to leave me. So I had to get better. “I’m sorry. I’ll be fine. Let me rest, and by this afternoon, I’ll be ready to go.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “I’m calling a doctor to come here,” he said, standing up and then bending down to scoop me up.

  “I’m not so sick I can’t walk,” I told him, amused.

  “My angel throws up, she ain’t gonna walk,” he repeated, and took me to the bed.

  I let him tuck me in. Then he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’m calling a doctor. You rest.”

  I opened my mouth to argue with him, but he was out the bedroom door before I could. He’d cancel this tour if something was wrong with me. I needed to be OK, or the world was going to hate me. I would be the reason Slacker Demon canceled their tour. The record label would be furious. It would be a train wreck. I had to be OK.

  Kiro

  The doctor had sent me from the room, which made no fucking sense. He’d said he had to check something, and it would be easier if I waited outside. Emily’s soft pleading was the only reason I walked out, but I was about done with waiting.

  That was my woman and my fucking room. I was going in there. Jerking the door open, I found Emily first and made sure she was OK. There was a nervous smile on her face as she sat up in our big bed, looking so damn small.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked the doctor, taking long strides until I was beside her again. Touching her. Reminding myself she was safe. She was OK.

  “Noth
ing’s wrong. Or at least, I hope not,” he said in a jolly tone.

  I jerked my gaze away from Emily’s to look at the doctor. What the hell did that mean? “What?” I asked him, frustrated by his answer.

  “Let me leave you two alone. Emily can give you the details,” he replied with a wink at her, then packed up his bag and left the room.

  “What did that mean?” I asked her, moving in beside her and watching her face closely.

  She took a deep breath, and I watched as her hand fluttered to her stomach and she placed it there like she was protecting something. My heart stopped, and I watched her small hand lying there. Lifting my gaze back up to hers, I waited.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said softly, and then tears filled her eyes as a huge grin broke across her face. “We’re going to have a baby.”

  My heart started beating again and slammed against my ribs as I let out a loud shout and pulled her into my arms. We hadn’t been trying. We hadn’t even talked about it since we visited Mase for the first time. But I’d daydreamed about it. I’d thought of ways to propose and imagined life as a husband and a dad. I just wanted to live this life with Emily and our baby.

  Fuck the stupid tour.

  I kissed her as I covered her hand with my own. “Mine. This is mine,” I repeated between kisses, and held her against me. “Marry me, Emmy. I want you to be my wife. I want you to have my name. I was waiting until the perfect moment, when I had the perfect ring, but I can’t think of anything more perfect than right here and right now.”

  “Yes,” she said, kissing me back. “Yes, yes, yes,” she repeated.

  I pressed her back on the bed and pulled her shirt up so I could caress her stomach. “I love you, Emily. I will always love you. This life and the one after and the one after that. I will always only love you.”

  Her soft laughter filled the room. “We only get one life,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. I won’t accept it. I want a million lives with you. You’re my heaven.”

  “God, Kiro, you say the sweetest things.” She slipped her hands into my hair.

  “Can I get in your panties now?” I teased.

  She lifted her hips in response, and I jerked them down her legs and kissed my way up the inside of her thigh. This was my home.

  February 1994

  Kiro

  She was tiny and perfect. She looked just like her mother. Which was fucking insane to say, because until this moment, I thought all babies looked alike. But this one wasn’t a squished-up creature. She was beautiful. Even her lips looked like Emily’s.

  “Here’s your daddy,” Emily whispered to the pink bundle in her arms. They had taken her away right after she was born to run some tests. They were worried about her heart, which had scared the shit out of me. Emily had held my hand and reassured me that our little girl would be OK. She prayed to God, so she was banking on the big man to save our baby. I wished I trusted him that much.

  “Harlow Manning, meet the most wonderful daddy in the world. Lucky for you he happens to be yours,” Emily said, as she held out the little girl we had made together for me to take her.

  Emily had given me a kid. Our kid. The diamond ring on her finger sparkled under the fluorescent lights of the hospital room. Six months ago, she had walked down the aisle of a church in South Carolina and pledged to love me forever. I had thought that was the happiest day of my life. But holding the little bundle of pink in my arms while her mother stared up at me with so much love couldn’t be topped, not even by our wedding day.

  “She looks like you,” I said, as I studied the baby’s small face.

  “I see you in her, too.”

  I thought she was imagining things, but I didn’t care. I wanted my daughter to look like her mother. I’d have two angels on this earth now.

  “I’ll keep her safe. I’ll keep you both safe. My girls will always be the most important people in my life. Nothing will ever come before you two. I swear it.”

  Emily chuckled. “I believe you.”

  “Thank you for this. For her. For giving me this life.”

  Her hand reached out and touched my waist. “I love you, Kiro Manning. Thank you for showing me the man no one else gets to see.”

  I cuddled my baby against my chest and sat down on the edge of the bed. I had everything in life now. I didn’t need any more. This was all I needed. All I would ever need. My life was complete. My world was perfect. And nothing would ever take these two angels away from me.

  The door opened behind us, and a doctor walked in whom I had seen earlier with Harlow.

  “I’m Dr. Gavins. I’m the pediatrician on call tonight, and I did a check on Harlow earlier. We have some concerns. There was a heart murmur detected, and while this may not prove to be anything more than just that, we need to run some more tests. I’m having her moved to the NICU. She needs to be monitored by the proper equipment.”

  Emily

  Kiro held my hand in both of his as the latest update on Harlow was delivered. I had been released from the hospital yesterday, so Kiro had obtained a room for us to use while Harlow was still here. I couldn’t leave her. I refused to. She needed us.

  “She was blue,” Kiro said slowly, as if it was just sinking in.

  There was excessive blood flow from the left side to the right side of her little heart. She was having difficulty breathing. I inhaled deeply, as if I could breathe for her. I had been breathing for her for nine months now. I wanted her back inside me, where she was safe. Protected.

  “She’s going to be OK,” I repeated, to calm him and remind myself. God would not give us this baby girl to love and then snatch her away like that. I just didn’t believe he was that cruel.

  “Cardiac catheterization sounds scary as fuck, Emmy. Why can’t we hold her? She’s gotta be sacred.”

  I didn’t know what to tell him. I was waiting patiently for my mother to get here. She had planned on coming once I brought Harlow home so she could help me. But I wanted my momma. Kiro had paid for her plane ticket and was bringing her to me.

  “She knows we love her. She can feel it.” I had to believe that, too. I needed her to know I loved her.

  “She’s so fucking tiny. If this doesn’t work, they want to . . . to . . . fuck, I can’t even say it.”

  If this didn’t work, Harlow would have to have surgery. Possibly the first of several before she was even three years old. They had told us everything over the past few days. We got to wear scrubs and masks and go back and see her three times a day. Each time we had to leave her again, I had cried.

  Kiro held me, and we waited until we could go see her again.

  “She is a Manning. She’s strong. She’s stubborn. And she is loved. She’ll be fine.” I said the words out loud. I needed that to be so. I believed it. I claimed it, and I would not let it not be true.

  January 1995

  Emily

  I watched as my little girl walked toward me. She wasn’t perfectly balanced, but she was walking. Something she wasn’t supposed to be doing yet. The doctors said she would develop later than other kids her age, yet she’d walked at nine months. Nothing they said would happen to her had happened. Harlow was tiny for her age, but she appeared healthy.

  “Where’re my girls?” Kiro’s voice boomed through the house, and Harlow started clapping at the sound of it. I wasn’t sure who worshipped whom more, Kiro or Harlow.

  “There they are,” Kiro said, walking into the room and bending down to catch Harlow as she waddled toward him as fast as she could. He scooped her up and kissed her tummy, making her giggle, as they sank down on the sofa beside me. “Hello, angel,” he said, kissing me like he hadn’t seen me in a week.

  “Daddadaddadda,” Harlow started chanting, wanting his attention.

  Giggling, I broke our kiss and grinned at our daughter, who was now laying sloppy open-mouthed kisses on her father’s face.

  “Life is sweet when you can come home to all this kind of loving,�
� Kiro said, as he kissed Harlow under the neck, making her squeal with delight.

  “I think she missed you,” I said, reaching out to wrap one of her dark curls around my finger. She had the silkiest hair.

  “I missed her, too. And I missed her momma. I missed her momma a fuck of a lot. I can’t wait to get her momma naked later. I got plans for that pu—” I covered his mouth with my hand before he could continue. Kiro may have been the world’s greatest dad, but he still forgot that cursing and talking about my private parts weren’t OK in front of Harlow.

  He nipped at my fingers, and I moved my hand. “Keep it clean,” I said, smirking.

  “I just missed you,” he said, with a pout that was supposed to make it all better.

  “I missed you, too. And tonight we can spend some time together.”

  Harlow put her little hand on Kiro’s face like I had, and he pretended to bite her fingers, too, making her giggle.

  Next week, we would be keeping Mase while Mary Ann went on her honeymoon. We couldn’t travel yet with Harlow, so we would miss the wedding, but my mother was going to fly out and bring Mase to stay with us. I was looking forward to having us all together as a family. Mase was almost five now, and I never wanted him to think he didn’t fit into our family. I loved that little boy like he was my own.

  “I’m going to be extra needy this week, since we’re gonna have both kids next week. Having Mase here, too, always keeps us busy. And I miss my pus—” I covered his mouth again before he could say it.

  Harlow started clapping again. We had said the magic word: Mase. She loved her older brother. Luckily, he returned the affection. When she was a baby and fragile, he used to sing her songs and tell her stories as he sat on the floor beside her crib. He worried about her, and he would call and talk to Kiro and me often to see if she was OK.