Mr. Match: The Boxed Set

by Delancey Stewart

  I watched Erica’s body relax, finally, at the same time as the doctor carefully handed my newborn daughter to the waiting arms of the nurse at his side, and the itty bitty girl gave a little hiccupping cry that immediately broke my heart and also made me realize that in that half-second, I’d become someone I’d be for the rest of my life, someone I’d never thought I could become—a father.

  “She’s beautiful,” said the nurse, who finished cleaning my daughter up a tiny bit and then walked her to Erica’s waiting arms.

  I turned back to my wife, who took the tiny bundle in her arms as tears streaked her face.

  For once in her life, Erica had nothing to say. She held our daughter in her arms, her face filled with love and admiration like I’d never seen. A tiny pink hand reached up from the bundle of blankets and touched her chin, and Erica let out a sob.

  I moved to stand next to her, and with one finger that seemed unreasonable large all of a sudden, I touched my daughter’s hand. She wrapped tiny fingers around mine, and I felt a tear escape my own eye.

  “Oh my God,” Erica breathed, and she looked up at me then, eyes so full of wonder and love that I wanted to crawl into bed with her, hold my wife and daughter to my chest and never, ever let them go.

  “Why don’t you try nursing her, Mom?” The nurse suggested, helping Erica line the baby up. When she latched on with ease, the nurse said, “She’s a champion.”

  “Of course she is,” I agreed.

  “Have you thought of ideas for a name?” she asked.

  Erica looked up at me, and shot me a warning look.

  I’d been sure we were having a boy. So sure that every name I’d thought of for girls had been a joke. But now, with this tiny little girl here in my wife’s arms, there was no way I was going to call her Velocity or Khaleesi.

  Erica’s confident voice surprised me. “Ana Maria,” she said, and my heart swelled even more. My mother’s name.

  “Ana Maria,” I said, my voice a reverent whisper.

  “Do you like it?” Erica asked.

  “It’s perfect,” I said, knowing it would make my mother cry to hear she was the baby’s namesake. “All of this is perfect.”

  We spent another hour together, quiet in that little room as the doctor and nurse finished up and gave Erica some basic instructions about caring for herself and the baby. The nurse taught me to change the tiny girl’s diaper, and tears rolled down my face the whole time.

  How was it possible to fall so deeply in love with someone you’d only just met? Someone who couldn’t even return the sentiment, except by looking up at you with the most trusting tiny face, silently asking you to protect her, to watch over her for the rest of your life.

  The Sharks had behaved themselves in the waiting room, and after a little while, Mama and Trace were allowed to come in and meet the baby, but everyone else was kept away—too many people and too tiny an immune system were not a good mix. I wasn’t unhappy to hear it, but I did go out to receive my cigars and claps on the back.

  Hamish produced four bottles of champagne from a bag shoved under his chair, and proceeded to pop them all open and pass them around, as the team hooted and hollered, shaking my hand and hugging me.

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t get yer ugly mug!” Hamish laughed, as he passed me the bottle.

  Max stood to one side, his head ducked to Tatum’s ear, his arm around her waist. He’d always been a little aloof, but Tatum mellowed it out, and my best friend Max was more confident and relaxed lately than I’d ever seen him off the field. “Congratulations, brother,” Max said, giving me a hug.

  “We’re so happy for you,” Tatum said, hugging me when Max released me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And thank you, Max, especially. I’d never have asked Erica out in a million years if it wasn’t for you.”

  He shook off the gratitude, but a smile lit his eyes, and I knew he was proud of having been Mr. Match. Hell, he was responsible for every couple in the room.

  “Did I tell you my mom filled out a profile last week?” I asked him.

  His eyebrows went up. “No, I didn’t know that,” he said. “I’ll check in with Tallulah, make sure we treat Mama Fuerte right.”

  “I thought it was all just math?”

  “It used to be. But Tallulah does things her own way,” he said.

  “And you’re okay with that?” I was doubtful. Max was a control freak.

  “He’s learning to be,” Tatum said, laughing.

  I said goodbye to the rest of the team, and went back to my wife, to my baby.

  Mama was sitting in the corner of the room, my tiny daughter sleeping in her arms and a smile on her face I’d never seen before. She looked sad and content all at once. “You okay, Mama?”

  She looked up at me, her eyes shining. My heart was seriously challenging the space inside my chest today. I wasn’t sure how much more it could swell in there. “Better than okay,” she said. “She is beautiful. You take good care of her, and if you ever need anything, you know where I am.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the baby and holding her to me, unable to look away from the tiny little face.

  Erica and Trace were whispering, their heads close together. They didn’t share a lot of tender moments—it wasn’t their style—but sometimes they reminded me that for a long time, they’d only had one another, and this was one of those times. Trace reached out and pushed his sister’s hair from her face, dropping a gentle kiss on her cheek.

  “I’m proud of you, sis,” he said. He smiled up at me then, and stood. “I’ll leave you guys alone. Congratulations,” he said. And I was shocked to see that tiny Ana Maria could make even big Trace Johnson tear up. He wiped his eyes and left the room with my mother.

  “You did it,” I told Erica, laying our daughter on her mother’s chest.

  “We did it,” Erica said, smiling up at me.

  I would have treasured the moment even more if I’d known it would be the only moment of peace we’d have for the next fifteen years.

  Chapter 153

  Welcome to the Shitshow

  Fernando

  “Why is there slime on my good hand towels?” Erica shrieked from inside the guest bathroom. She’d been sneaking in there lately, locking the door and disappearing for longer than I thought it should probably take to pee. This time she emerged, red-faced, holding Antonio in one arm and waving a towel in her other.

  Ana Maria and her brother Nicolas appeared before her, guilt practically written in permanent ink across their tiny faces.

  “Which one of you did this?” Erica asked, managing to bring the shriek down to a very angry whisper-shout.

  “Antonio said he wanted to put it on dere,” Ana Maria said, batting long dark lashes over her crystalline green eyes. My eyes.

  “Ya,” Nicolas confirmed. “Antonio’s fault. He gets time out.”

  “Your brother is three months old,” Erica told them. “He didn’t tell you to slime my guest towels.” She looked around, glared at me when she noticed me standing in the living room, watching all this. “Where is Mateo?” She asked, her head swiveling around.

  I pointed to where Mateo was sitting at the tiny table we’d put next to the windows, studiously coloring. “I color,” he announced when he realized he was the center of attention suddenly.

  I’d wanted a son, and Erica hadn’t wasted any time giving me one. In fact, in the four-plus years following Ana Maria, we’d had three sons, and I was happier than I’d ever imagined I could be, even though our furniture was being systematically destroyed, every item left out became a projectile, and nothing was ever where you left it.

  “No more slime!” Erica raged, waking the baby sleeping in her arms, who began to wail miserably. She marched over to me, handed me Antonio, who waved an angry fist at me, and sighed. “I have to get out. I can’t do this.”

  We’d been through this a few times. “Okay, babe.”

  That earned me another glare. “What do you mean, okay
?”

  “I can handle it. You go get some time. I’ve got this.”

  She spread her hands in front of her and glared around the front room of our once-pristine condo. “No one has got this!” She shrieked, making Antonio wail louder, as Ana Maria began demanding attention.

  “Mama,” the little girl said. “Mama. Mama. Mama.”

  “Ana,” I interrupted. “Give Mama a minute, okay?”

  My little princess crossed her arms and shot a glare at me that was so close to the look Erica was currently aiming in my direction, I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Go on,” I told Erica. “I can handle it.”

  “No one can handle an army of heathens!” She fumed. “They’re messy and loud, and they don’t care if we have nice things, and … “ the angry eyes were on mine again. “You did this to me. To our quiet perfect lives. You did this with your, your magical penis! I haven’t had fully leaded coffee in five years, Fernando! And I don’t remember what it feels like to sleep more than three hours at a time. I spend my life stepping on tiny plastic pieces to toys I didn’t even know we had, stuffed animals are multiplying like frigging bunny rabbits in the nursery, and I think I just cleaned actual poop off the wall in the hallway this morning!”

  I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me. My penis was magical. You only had to look at our four perfect children to know that. The rest of it was less magical, but it was so real I loved every second of it. “Go out. We’ll be fine.”

  Erica huffed out her skepticism, but it didn’t stop her from taking a shower and heading out for some shopping therapy. Evidently she’d convinced Magalie to meet her somewhere, and I was certain there’d be wine involved.

  “Don’t forget Ana’s medicine, and call me if you need me. Antonio needs to eat again in an hour, and I haven’t checked Nicolas’s diaper in a—“

  “Just go. I’ve got it.”

  Once Erica had left, I put Antonio down to nap in his crib and corralled the other kids in front of the ninetieth re-showing of the Lego Movie with goldfish crackers and juice. Soon, everyone but me and Ana Maria was asleep, and my fierce little daughter—who was a mini-Erica in practically every way—climbed up onto my lap and went to sleep too. But not before she’d said the words I lived for now. “I love you, Daddy.”

  SCORING A FAKE FIANCEE

  BONUS EPILOGUE

  Chapter 154

  French Fashion

  Magalie

  I came home from work to find Trace destroying the bedroom.

  “Care to explain?” I waved my hand to indicate the disastrous mess, which Trace was sprawled on the floor in the middle of. There were clothes pulled out of all the drawers and boxes from the top of the closet emptied and spread around the room.

  Trace let out a pitiful moan from beneath the sleeve of a flannel shirt, which was in a pile on his head.

  “Trace. You’re supposed to be packing.” I glanced at the suitcase laid open on the bed. There were a few items inside it, but it definitely wasn’t packed.

  “There’s been an accident,” he said, his voice muffled slightly by flannel.

  Suddenly I was worried. I dropped to my knees next to my fiancé, who was definitely on the dramatic side, but whom I genuinely adored and really didn’t want to be hurt. “What happened?” I pulled the flannel from his face, and he stared up at me, his big blue eyes wide and earnest.

  “Something terrible,” he said, and while his voice held all the angst of a thirteen-year-old boy who’d just been killed in a game of Fortnite, a tiny smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Awful,” he said, the smile widening.

  “You destroyed our bedroom, so it better be really bad,” I told him, starting to realize there was probably nothing actually wrong.

  Trace’s arm swept around my waist and he pulled me down on top of him. I braced my elbows on either side of his head and looked down into the face I loved. “Mags,” he said, using the nickname he’d just decided upon for me after trying a wide variety ranging from Maglite to Magladon to Maggerhorn. “Mags, I cannot find my beret.”

  Confusion muddled my usually clear thoughts. “What?”

  “My beret. I had a beret from a costume party years ago when Erica made me be a mime. And I can’t find it.” This last part was a moan, which he followed up with a quick grope of my ass.

  I rolled off of him, coming to rest on my side so I could think more clearly. “Your beret? Why do you need a beret, exactly?”

  “For France. Everyone there wears a beret.” He let out a mournful sigh, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I fear I cannot go.”

  “You fear you cannot go?” I was trying hard not to laugh. When Trace did this, half the time it was purely comedic. The other half the time, he actually was upset about something fairly ridiculous. Which was also comedic—at least if you were not Trace.

  “I can’t go to France without my beret!” He sat up and stared at me, waiting for my reaction. I still hadn’t figured out how upset he actually was over this beret-related tragedy.

  “I seem to remember getting rid of a box full of costume-type stuff when we moved you from Mission Beach.”

  He grimaced. “Oh God. No.”

  “Trace. I’m French. I can tell you with complete confidence that no one in France will be wearing a beret.”

  He tilted his head to the side and widened his eyes, clearly not believing me.

  “I promise.” I sat up. “Have you ever seen my mom or Henri wear a beret? Or Chloe? Have I ever worn one?”

  “I can’t be held responsible for your lack of French national pride or fashion sense.”

  I stared at him for a long minute, during which part of me contemplated what life would be like with Trace for the rest of my days. What would these ridiculous tantrums be like when the man was ninety?

  “Maglite,” he moaned. “Promise me I won’t need it.”

  “You won’t need it. Don’t call me that.”

  “Magaladon.”

  “You want help packing?” I stood, scooped up a pile of sweaters that he’d pulled from a drawer.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “I can bring Wally, right?”

  I stared at the stuffed wombat Trace insisted on keeping on a shelf in the bedroom. It honestly kind of freaked me out, but he seemed to really love the silly thing.

  “If there’s room.” We were absolutely, one hundred percent NOT taking a wombat with us to France for the Sharks’ exposition game. But I didn’t need to tell him that now.

  “Good.” Trace finally stood, and we got busy packing for the flight.

  Chapter 155

  Pre-Game Grind

  Trace

  I don’t know why we had to fly commercial to France. Something about fuel capacity or some such nonsense with the team jet. Whatever. You’d think the South Bay Sharks would be important enough to merit flying first class at least.

  But no.

  “My knees are smashed. I’ll never play again.” I turned in my seat, trying to get comfortable.

  “We’ve been sitting for ten minutes,” Erica said, her head appearing over the seat back in front of me and her expression every bit as scary as it had been that time I ate all her cheese. “If you bump my seat through this whole flight I swear to you, I will strangle you with my headphone cord.” She held up the thin white cord, which suddenly seemed menacing.

  “Seriously, get your shit together.” Fuerte was even less understanding than my sister. Probably because he lost the rock-paper-scissors fight for the middle seat. His voice came through the space between his seat and Erica’s. I could see his hand on her knee if I pressed my face up to the crack. I hoped they weren’t planning any mid-flight shenanigans up there.

  “Settle down, you’ll be fine,” Mags told me. She’d actually taken the middle seat voluntarily, even though she looked like a sardine sandwiched between me and Nostradamus. “Ricardo’s legs are longer than yours, and he’s not complaining,” she said, waving a hand at Nostradamus next
to her.

  “I told you, we’re calling him—”

  Magalie interrupted, shaking her curls and saying, “I’m not on your team. I don’t use your ridiculous nicknames. Poor Ricardo has an actual name, and I’ll use it.”

  “I really don’t mind,” Nostradamus said, leaning forward and blasting my fiancée with his trademark Italian smile.

  I sighed. This was going to be a long flight. But as long as I had my iPad, which I’d loaded with every movie in the Marvel catalog, I’d be fine.

  Except. Oh no.

  “Mags,” I said, disappointment making my stomach drop. “My iPad has no battery.”

  “Charge it,” she said. She was reading an actual paper book.

  I felt around under the seat and investigated every nook and cranny of the seat in front of me, earning me another threat from my sister. “There’s no outlet. How can there be no outlet on a ten hour flight?”

  “Old plane, I guess.”

  That did it. I let out a sigh of deep disappointment, and vowed to sleep for ten hours straight.

  The hotel, thankfully, was miles better than the flight had been. Magalie and I had a spacious suite, and I was finally getting my mind turned where it belonged. The match we’d come to play against the French was not going to be a cakewalk. I’d finally figured out how to say Les Villenueves des Avignon, but I hadn’t mastered the strategy for keeping them out of my goal, despite watching hours of tape with the guys.

  We especially needed to focus on teaching their striker, Andre LePoivre in his place. The guy was trash talking us all over the world leading up to this match, telling international news outlets that his team had taken the match because they felt sorry for us, that American soccer was a joke, that we had no real finesse or command of the sport. I was eager to command his finesse a time or two if he got close to my goal box, and Max and Fuerte were both raring to decimate him at the line.