"The baby is fine. He's under the Bili lights right now because he was just a little jaundiced which is perfectly common in premature babies. It's more precaution than anything. But he's been through a lot the past few weeks; we just want to be overly careful."
"When can I see them?" I asked, trying to focus on continuing to breathe.
"You can see your son through the window up in the NICU right now. In a couple of hours, we will take him off the lights so you can hold him, but for now, we want to keep him there. You," he said, looking at me, "can see Autumn at any point."
"And me," Peyton insisted, eyes red-rimmed, makeup everywhere, a complete and utter mess, but her voice held more conviction than a general leading his men into battle.
"And you," he agreed immediately, but gave us a firm look. "But only you."
"Why don't you go see your son?" Peyton suggested. "I will go sit with Autumn until you get back, then we'll switch."
That was exactly what we did.
For the entire night.
Autumn drifted awake several hours later, having been drained from the stress, the blood loss and transfusion, the seizure, and the accompanying seizure migraine.
"The baby..."
Those words were out of her mouth before she even fully focused on me.
"He's fine," I said immediately, giving her hand a squeeze. "They have him under the blue lights just to make sure he stays fine, but all the tests have come back great so far. He's a little small, but he will be a huge, hulking Mallick in no time."
"My head hurts," she admitted. She didn't even need to say it; you could see the pain behind her eyes.
"Yeah, they said they would give you a dose of pain meds once you were conscious. I'll call..."
"I'm okay," she said, oddly.
"Sweetheart, you have a splitting..."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "You're watching me like I might drop dead. I'm okay."
"You weren't," I said, hearing the heaviness in my own voice.
"But I am now."
"See this?" I asked, showing her the front of my shirt that was smeared black.
"Yeah?"
"Peyton losing her shit."
"She cried?"
"She bawled," I corrected.
"And I missed it?" she said, looking ridiculously disappointed at the idea. "Almost dying, that's what it takes for her."
"Yeah, well, we aren't going to take that risk again just so you can see her with her mascara running."
"Ugh, fine," she grumbled, but she was smiling softly. "When can I see him?"
"Tomorrow. They said we could come up and hold him and feed him if you're up to it."
"I'll be up to it."
And she was.
We got to hold our son, feed him, and, finally, name him.
Celen.
"It's a mash-up of Charlie and Helen," she informed me as she looked up at me, her finger in our son's tiny hand, her eyes a little glassy.
"How long have you been sitting on that?"
"Since I knew it was a boy," she admitted, giving me a sweet smile.
Nothing.
Not a goddamn thing in the world to deserve her.
Or him.
Yet there they were.
Autumn - 5 years
I couldn't have any more.
With the Mallick clan, they all seemed to have litters.
I had wanted to carry on that tradition as well.
But it had taken six months to get my blood pressure down to normal without medication.
Then we had forgotten all about things like other babies because we had been so wrapped up in the one we had. One that had eyes just a shade darker than Eli's, a mix of both of ours, and hair that was just shy of black.
Eli had been right.
Once he got out of the hospital, he grew like a weed, kicking dirt in every preemie chart the doctors tried to measure him by.
At three, he was tall, wide-shouldered, and dense.
He had a strange mix of the roughness all the Mallick boys possessed, always getting into trouble, always getting hurt, and a softness that his father possessed more than his brothers did, a quietly reflective side even at his young age.
It wasn't until Celen celebrated his third birthday that we went to the doctor to talk about the possibility of another.
And it had been a very firm no.
I guess I had suspected as much.
I wasn't stupid. Once I felt well enough to listen, I had Peyton read me the online pages about pre-eclampsia. I understood that the risk factors increased with each child. And it was ill-advised even when you had mild complications.
Mine were severe.
So I think a part of me had known.
Yet I felt a really strong sense of guilt as we walked out of the office.
Then I felt shitty for feeling shitty because we had Celen.
"Thank God he said it."
"What?" I asked, confused, sure I misheard him.
"Thank God he said it."
"I don't understand," I said, turning to lean against the car.
"Look," Eli exhaled, putting his hands on my hips. "I know you got to be blissfully unconscious through it, but seeing you seizing, not getting updated for forty-minutes, that was the worst time in my life. And I'm counting the six years I spent inside. I'd take six more over watching that happen again. I'd give up six years of freedom to never have to think I was about to lose you again."
My heart squeezed in my chest at that, in the conviction with which he said it.
"But all your brothers..."
"Have exactly how many kids they are supposed to have," he cut me off. "And, sweetheart, so do we."
"But you love all the kids..."
"Yes, I do. Of course I do. But loving them doesn't mean I need to have five of my own. Autumn, I never saw myself here. I never thought I would get my family back, have the love of a good woman, have any children at all. It seemed so out of the realm of possibilities for me. I am fucking thrilled with what we have. I don't need one goddamn thing more."
It was like a weight had been lifted.
Would it have been nice to have more?
Yes.
But I loved our little family.
I loved the undivided attention we could give Celen.
And he had seventeen cousins to play with. He would never feel alone or lonely.
I didn't need one goddamn thing more either.
Eli - 10 years
"I can't fucking do it again. I swear to shit, they're trying to kill me."
That was Hunt, sitting off the side of his couch, scrubbing his hands down his face.
Mayla was seventeen.
As the rules went, she was finally allowed to date.
So she had her first one later that night.
"We agreed to these rules," Fee reminded him, watching him with a smirk, clearly enjoying his paternal dilemma.
"Yeah, when they were all in elementary school still. When I was sure this day would never come."
"They're almost all grown up," Fee went on, purposely adding salt in an obviously open wound, clearly enjoying herself.
"Don't say that. They're little girls."
"Becca is twenty-two, living in her own apartment, likely dating..."
"Don't. Babe, you're just making it worse."
"I know. I'm evil, aren't I? And Izzy..."
"Stop."
"Izzy and her guy are going on a year now."
"You're being ridiculous," Shane said, snorting.
"Um, bro," Hunt said, looking up, shooting him a look, "Sam is gonna be a teen soon. This is you in a couple years."
"Nah, man. Sam isn't dating until I'm dead. We made a deal."
"Yeah? When was that?"
"When she was eight. But it still holds."
I laughed at that, leaning back, enjoying the struggle of a father of girls. I knew because I had been a guy that dating was different for us. I understood Hunter's freak-out, his wish for more time
for the girls to just be girls.
Statistically speaking, Autumn had reasoned with me when I had brought it up earlier, girls start 'dating' much later now than most times in history. Historically, Becca would have at least three kids by now, Izzy two, and Mayla would be freshly married.
When put in that perspective, I was pretty fucking glad these girls lived in the time that they did.
Even if it meant having to listen to Hunt bitch about it being too soon for an hour while Autumn was in the other room having a talk with Mayla.
Not the sex talk, of course.
Fee was progressive. The girls got small sex talks every year as new information became appropriate.
This was a different talk.
Autumn called it a "pre-date talk" that was, apparently, about pressure, consent, safety, and her right to go as fast - or slow - as she wanted. She had given similar ones to both Becca and Izzy the day before their first dates. It was also one of the most in-demand classes she had, next to couples tantra, and the talk talk.
"You told her to carry her knife too, right?" Hunt asked as they walked out. "Right in the thigh, Mayla," he told her.
"And twist," Shane chimed in.
"Punch to the groin for good measure," Mark added.
"You still have the mace I got you for your birthday too, right?" Ryan asked.
"God," Mayla said, looking around at all her uncles. "You guys are so weird."
We all shared a smile as she walked off, shaking her head at all of us.
"Did I ever thank you for giving me a son?" I asked as Autumn dropped down on my lap.
"Every time I have to have this talk with anyone," she agreed, smiling.
"Well, thank you for my son," I told her again.
"Speaking of, we should go pick him up. Knowing Bobby, he is letting them play with sparklers unsupervised."
Bobby was still around.
He eventually did get locked up again, doing a year for possession, getting out early on good behavior as he always did.
When he got out, he had practically needed to crawl over broken glass to get Nat back.
I gave him the super job at the apartment building when the old super got married and needed to move on with his life. They got married. Then they had three boys that, well, were so rough and tumble that they put Mallick boys to shame.
She really wasn't exaggerating in her worry about sparklers.
"I wish Peyton still lived there to keep an eye on things."
Autumn - 11 years
"Why would you get rid of Cock God?" Peyton asked, wrapping her arms around the massive human-sized phallus statue that had been just inside the door of the store since about two months after I first opened it. "He's done nothing but stand here and inspire everyone to pick out a nicely shaped dildo."
"I'm not getting rid of him. I'm just trying to redo the store a little. I haven't done anything different in too long."
"But why must Cock God move? He is the store mascot! The store is Phallus-opy. He's the phallus. The glorious, giant phallus."
"I just think that maybe he's a bit 'in your face' there."
"This is a sex store, Autumn. Cocks in the face are kinda part of the whole shebang. I mean, except for the girls who dig girls. But we can just get like a giant pussy to put on this side!" she exclaimed, waving a hand out to the other side of the door.
"I am not putting a giant vagina up next to the door, Peyton."
Now there was a sentence I never could have anticipated saying before. Even owning a sex store, that was a bit, ah, unusual.
"Eh, yeah. I mean even if the girls who dig girls don't like the men attached to the dicks, they like the dick shape too. Cock God stays, I vote. I mean, where else are you going to put a Santa hat at Christmas if not on his lovely, curved, shapely head?"
"I love you, but you're ridiculous," I declared with a laugh as I sorted through a box of various types of handcuffs.
"If you get rid of him, I'm taking him home with me."
I chuckled at that, looking up, finding her serious. "I don't think your man will want a giant cock in your house."
"Oh, please. If he can get used to my penis flower pillows, he can get used to Cock God."
"You're supposed to be here helping me plan, not making demands on one small statue..."
"She didn't mean it," she said, putting her hands on the head of the cock. "You are perfectly adequate. Though we all know it is partly the size of the boat, no matter how the saying goes. Alright, fine," she said, reluctantly getting serious. "Show me the swatches."
Eleven years, and she never lost an ounce of her crazy.
Love had come to her, like I had predicted, but it hadn't softened her, it hadn't rounded out her rough edges, it hadn't calmed her crazy.
In fact, it was the oddest thing.
It gave her comfort to be herself, without having to prove anything. More and more often, you could catch her without her war paint - makeup - and completely comfortable with it. She stayed in more. She just became a more laid-back version of her usual self.
It was a sight to see.
I was so happy to see her happy.
And raising her own little one.
Just like me, just one.
But more by choice than happenstance.
A little girl just a bit younger than Celen.
I hoped she would grow up to be every bit as confident, imaginative, and fearless as her mother.
Just like I hoped Celen grew up to be as kind, determined, loyal, generous, and strong as his father.
He was already on his way there.
Sometimes, when I walked in the room to say something to one of them, and I caught them sitting working on homework, or building a model ship, or just lounging together watching TV, it simply hits me.
The whole of what my life had become.
The crazy, amazing twist of fate that led me to that coffeeshop on that day to watch that man and his dog. To witness his life take a turn in the worst possible direction, leaving me to take in Coop, and feel compelled to update him on his well-being.
The pen pal friendship.
His release.
Our budding relationship.
His connection with Peyton, and mine with the Mallick and Rivers Clan.
Then, finally, Celen.
I went from such a small, though fulfilling life, to such a huge, amazing, beautiful, wonderful one so full of unique personalities, so much loyalty, so much love that it was almost painful to receive it all at once.
And in some moments, when my mind was on other things, when I wasn't prepared for it, it hit me.
With actual impact.
I would often go back a step.
My eyes would glass over.
And I would have a moment of complete and utter appreciation for this man, this amazing, wonderful, beautiful man who once upon a time didn't believe in himself, who had needed me to show him how perfect he was.
Then he spent every single day after proving to me just how worth it that all was.
"Incoming," Peyton said, turning away from the window where she was holding swatches up to the light.
There was an odd look in her eyes that I didn't quite understand until the door burst open, and in all three of them walked.
Eli.
Celen.
And some godawful, hideous mutt.
See, Coop had given us fourteen loyal years before old age took him from us, peaceful in his sleep, no illness, no pain, just a release from his duty to us.
I had sobbed for weeks.
Peyton had joined me.
Celen as well.
Even Eli got choked up over the loss of the amazing, pain in the ass creature who had, essentially, brought us all together.
Afterward, we simply never could bring ourselves even to try to replace that void.
Apparently, fate had other plans for us.
"Seriously, though," Peyton said, looking at the dog. "Where do you find these freaks of nature?"
He was all legs with a skinny center, pointed ears, and a tail that could clear tabletops. What made him so unfortunate looking was the fact that the only places he had hair was on his head, ears, the center of his back, and his tail. The rest of him was skin.
He looked like he was out of some sci-fi nightmare.
Some kind of genetically engineered dog.
I looked up to find Eli grinning at me.
"Let's see what kind of adventure he can take us on..."
XX
DON'T FORGET!
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ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA
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Eli (Mallick Brothers Book 4) Page 22