by Imani King
Maybe it’s like the new me, instead. The one who can finally breathe, who can finally love, who can go to bed at night content. I know that my daughter is really and truly happy now. She knows her father. And more than that, her father loves her, and he’s here. Even after all the trials and tribulations with Saint, we’re finally a family—a growing one.
Saint finishes with the folding and carts it all off to the baby’s room. Instead of putting each of the items in the drawers, I hear him open the close and shove in the overflowing laundry basket full of green and yellow onesies. I laugh and try to pull myself up to go help, but I decide when I’m half way up that I need to be back down. I’m not as young as I was six years ago, and I know I’ll need Saint to help pull me up if I don’t want to fall flat on my face.
“Saint!” I shout. My husband—the one who married me in the courthouse six months ago so he could, in his words, “lock me down” and make sure I didn’t run off—comes running into the family room.
“What!” He pants, putting his hand to his chest, worry sweeping over his face. “Are you having contractions? Do we tell everyone to cancel? Is it time to go?”
I giggle and brush a long curl of my hair back over my shoulder. “No. But you’d like to tell everyone to cancel, wouldn’t you?”
A grin rises on Saint’s angular face. “You got me.” He walks over to me and sits down on the couch next to me. He automatically puts his hand on my large, planet-like belly. Inside the baby wiggles in response. We both laugh. “Are you sure you aren’t having any contractions? Or any anything going on? That shout sounded like you might need to go to the hospital.”
“Oh my lord. No. There’s nothing going on. Nothing out of the ordinary happening. In fact, when I went to the doctor yesterday, he said I was zero centimeters dilated, not even a little bit effaced, and that the baby hadn’t dropped yet. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll be pregnant forever.” As I say that, the baby shifts again, and I feel an accompanying twinge in my hips.
“If you want to get out of this lunch tomorrow, I could you know... speed things up for you.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me and moves his hand lower over my bump. I had thought that men didn’t really fancy their wives hugely pregnant, but Saint seems to want me more than ever. “The doctor told us that that could jump start things...”
“If that could jump start anything at all,” I whisper, moving in closer to him. “I would have gone into labor three weeks ago after that trip to San Luis Obispo.
Saint grins contentedly. “Woman, I didn’t even know I could get so lucky. I didn’t think you could get any sexier, but your body right now, goddamn.” He raises a hand to my breasts, sweeping his fingers over the nipples and making them as hard as little bullets. I whimper and glance outside to Trixie. She runs over to the other side of the yard to get more dirt for the garden. Her dress is stained with streaks of black dirt, and there are several leaves in her curly golden hair. “Let me give it a try, at least,” Saint growls, sneaking his hand beneath my dress and cupping my generous breast. “I think it could help us both if we had a little quickie. Plus, you just taste so good right now.” He lowers his mouth to my other breast and licks and sucks at my sensitive nipple through the fabric. A bolt of white-hot lightning sears through my core, straight down to my sex. I remember theoretically wanting sex while I was pregnant with Trixie, but Saint makes my longing about fifty times worse.
“Okay, baby. Trix can’t see us from here, and she’ll stay outside until we call her. But baby, wait to taste me tonight. I just want you inside me right now.” He groans even as his tongue swirls around my nipple. We’ve gotten practiced at pushing each other’s buttons so we can gain just as much pleasure from quick, stealthy sex—the sex of two parents—as we can from the two-hour long sessions he’s good for after Trixie goes to bed at night.
“Yeah?” he says in between licks. “Believe me, I will. I’ll be quick right now, but we’ll take it slow tonight since our house will be filled up with people tomorrow. I’ll make sure I relieve all this stress.”
Somehow, he manages to undo the buckle of his belt and get his enormous cock out of his jeans while keeping on with my breasts and flipping my skirt up over my thighs. When he positions himself between my legs, he doesn’t even bother to take off my panties. Instead, he pushes them to one side and positions his cock at my entrance. My sex pulses in response, and I let out a long, deep moan, feral and wild. He pushes into me slowly, savoring me, grunting with each inch that he drives inward. The feeling of him inside me is one of utter, complete fulfillment, like it was something fated, something destined.
“That’s so good, baby,” I moan, putting my fingers through his hair. “Put it all the way in. Come on, baby.”
Saint growls and fills me entirely, the base of his cock against my slick, pulsing skin. I take my breath in sharply, and Saint, responding, falls into a slow, steady rhythm. “Fuck, honey. You’re so wet. God, how did I ever get so lucky?” His breath quickens, and he moves so that every time he fills me, his body meets my clit, sending me higher and higher, until I close my eyes, and everything disappears into oblivion. My orgasm comes over me, deep and slow and warm, spreading through my sex through my thighs and up through my body in a symphony of shivers and tingles. I clench my legs around him and cry out. Sensing my release, he increases his speed, letting his muscles tense and let go as he meets his own pleasure. At the last, he grabs my thighs and thrusts into me deep and hard, letting go and filling me with the warm rush of his essence.
Later, when we’re both up, tidying and organizing things in the massive house, we keep smirking at each other. Even though we’re adults, it feels like we’ve been up to no good the afternoon before his family is coming into town. The day goes on as it normally does, and before we know it, we’re snuggled together with our daughter in her big, grown-up girl bed, reading books and talking about meeting all of her cousins. And when the adults go to bed, Saint delivers on exactly what he promised.
Surprisingly to me, the stress we both feel fades away after that, and we go to sleep as we often do—happy in each other’s arms.
Tomorrow, I’ll be on the other side of thirty-seven and a half weeks.
I count down the days. I delivered Trixie at forty-one weeks, and that was after an induction.
“Still so much time to go,” I mumble, and then I drift off to sleep, finally.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You look different, I swear it.” My wife bustles around the kitchen even though we have a whole team of people to prepare lunch. My brother Dylan and his wife Maya are already here, their two-year-old twins running rampant and testing out every baby toy as Maya nurses the brand new baby in her arms.
Like she always does, Helena welcomed them all and made them immediately at home. I wonder sometimes what I would have thought or said if Hel had shown this gracious side when I first met her—instead of that ornery, pissed off way she was with me for the entire first month. I’ve concluded that I would have tried to get into her pants no matter what, because it doesn’t matter what side of her personality she’s showing—I want them all.
“I don’t look different. What do you think, Maya?”
Maya laughs and shrugs. “I just met you, remember? But your bump is sitting low. Was it like that yesterday?” The twins start trying to climb into the jumparoo, and Helena deftly directs Trixie to take the twins outside with Dylan. This woman, I swear.
“I don’t know. I don’t feel any different.” Even though the lunch was prepared by one of my chefs, Helena is still going to the trouble of making a lemon pound cake and raspberry iced tea to add what she calls a “hint of Southern charm.” Truth be told, my mom will appreciate the gesture, but this whole crew is from all over the place and probably wouldn’t know Southern charm if it whipped them in the face. I guess we are from Texas, but it felt more like the Wild West growing up than it did the actual South. “Besides, I had Trixie at forty-one weeks, so I expect I’ll be waiting at l
east three more weeks, anyway.”
“Second one is always different,” Maya says. “When I had this last one, it’s like the rules all changed.”
“It has been different, I guess,” Helena says, but she keeps working. And soon, Rowan and Cadence appear at the door after a giant SUV rolls into the driveway. Apparently, Cadence prefers to drive the damn thing because it’s safest for the little boy. On her hip, she holds a little guy about the same age as the twins. They all walk in, and the house becomes a whirlwind. I keep looking over at Helena, and it does look like her belly is sitting lower. I trust that woman’s judgment before I trust my own, but right now, something is off and I don’t know how to describe it. If Trixie were inside, she’d back me up. But she’s distracted, playing hostess to the twins and doting on Rowan and Cadence’s little one as Cadence carries him outside.
“Saint, you sonofagun,” Rowan says, pulling me into a bear hug. I feel my throat tightening up—which isn’t an especially manly feeling. But when you haven’t seen your brother in a solid two years, can you really blame a man?
“Ro,” I say, my voice hoarse. “That’s a good-lookin’ little boy you got there.” My accent seems to be getting more and more Texan as my brothers show up.
“He’s got a temper like Daddy,” Rowan says. “But I think he’ll be artistic like his mama. Little dude loves colors and paints, even as young as he is.”
Rowan and I watch the kids out of the window, but I keep glancing back at Helena. Nicholas and Christian arrive at the same time, and after that, things become a blur. I’m pouring whiskey from my cellar for each one of them, and I’m keeping the wine flowing for each of the ladies. With their wives around, they all seem different. Dylan, steadier. Rowan, far more positive and bright-eyed about the world. Nicholas—well, he seems less boring, especially when he’s laughing and having fun with his adopted kids. And Christian’s face lights up just like it used to when Liana puts her hand on his arm, and when his three children start climbing all over his lap. He doesn’t even bother to hide his scars. In fact, in the light of the whiskey-induced haze each Corbett brother is now surely feeling, it seems that Christian’s scars have faded over time. But it might just be that he’s smiling, for the first time in what seems like forever.
After a third whiskey, I don’t feel so weird about Helena anymore. If she thought something was going on, something would be going on. And clearly, she doesn’t feel like a damn thing is happening. When I look over at her, Maya is bending down to pull the lemon pound cake out of the oven, while Helena holds her babies. Cadence is putting ice in each of the glasses, and Dylan has come back inside to fold the napkins and help set the table.
I watch the scene as it unfolds.
It’s not often that I’ve had nothing to say in my life, but this seems to be one of those times. I stand there, silent. Nicholas comes over to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “We missed you, Saint. I kept thinking you might show up at the last minute, like you did at Dylan’s college graduation.”
“Hell, man.” I shrug, and I keep looking ahead. “I didn’t even properly apologize to you. I was doing work shit, and I should have put it off.”
“Work’s important, Saint,” Nicholas says, like it’s no big deal. I suppress a wave of guilt. I knew that telling Nick it was work-related would keep him from getting upset. Work was always the one thing Nick was better at than any of the rest of us—and sometimes we joked it was the only thing he was good at. “I’m just glad we’re all together now, brother.”
Dylan and Rowan come stand next to us, and Trixie runs up to grab my legs. Christian turns to us from the sofa. His kids are still crawling all over him. “When are mom and dad getting here?”
“Mom’s probably lost,” Dylan says.
“Or she made Dad take her on a wine tour. She’s really hell-bent on getting some red wine from the vineyards up in Solvang,” Rowan adds.
“She’ll get here. Dad will get his act together and drag her ass up the mountain before noon.” Dylan laughs as he says it and checks his watch. “Actually, I rescind that statement. I’ll say 12:15.”
“I’ll call 12:20,” Rowan says.
“12:23, at least.” Christian laughs and pulls one of the twins back onto his knee. “Maybe we’ll call it an even 12:30.”
Nicholas nods to the front window. “That’s them now. Your wife prepped to greet the matriarch of the family?”
“She’s probably been prepping for meeting mom since the day she got pregnant with Trixie,” I say. I look over at Helena. She’s laughing and directing the big kids to put drinks on the table. Trixie barrels over to her, grabbing my hand as she goes. As mom and dad head up the walkway, I start directing my brothers to put out food, and Helena glances over at me nervously.
“How do I look?” she whispers.
“Better than a picture,” I say back. After that, I take her hand and lead her over to the door. Even before my parents ring the doorbell, my brothers are all taking their places at the gigantic dining room table that Helena had made big enough to accommodate my whole family. Liana sits all the kids down at three other tables that the caterers brought this morning and gets them all started with fruit and crackers.
After that, everything seems to happen in slow motion. The doorbell chimes, and Helena opens it wide, her smile big enough to light up the whole room. I’ve kept reminding her not to sweat meeting my parents that much—they’re as laid back and friendly as each one of my brothers. But still, she looks like she might bust a gut smiling, her manicured hand lying softly on the top of her belly. As she extends the other to shake my father’s hand, I look down and wonder at how low that belly of hers is hanging.
That little boy or girl is getting ready to make its appearance. As long as it can wait until tomorrow.
“I’m Helena,” she says, her voice bright and happy.
My father shakes her hand firmly, maybe too firmly, because Helena cringes just a bit and shivers like she’s shaking something off. That uneasy feeling comes over me again.
“And I’m Carter Corbett. This here is Mary Beth. Sometimes Mary.” My dad pulls me into a big hug and holds me tight. “Never thought you’d have the sense to marry this one. Can’t blame you. She’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” When I turn around, Helena is saying something to my mother and my mom has Helena’s hands in hers.
“You look just gorgeous, honey. I wish I’d been able to be with you when you were pregnant with Trixie. But that’s just fine. We were so pleased to meet Trixie when Saint brought her out to see us last fall.” My mother continues to prattle on about how beautiful our daughter is when Helena reaches out for my hand and clutches it hard. For a second, the world seems to fade out around us, and everything seems a little bit strange. The way she’s grabbing my hand makes me feel like there’s something very, very strange going on. But then everything fades back in, and everything seems fine again.
“Let me show you guys in. Dylan—er, Rowan—can you get your parents’ stuff to their room?” The boys head over at Helena’s bidding and take my parents’ stuff, exchanging hugs and kisses. Helena squeezes my hand again before she leads my father over to the head of the table. Then, the strangest thing happens—Helena, who swears up and down she gave birth to Trixie at nearly forty-two weeks, doubles over and clutches at the top of her belly.
“Holy crap,” I hear her mutter, and she reaches out to clutch my mother’s arm right as my dad goes to take his place at the table. “Holy crap,” she repeats. “That’s some Braxton Hicks or—oh holy crap!”
Everyone turns to look at Helena as she leans over and clutches her belly again. I rush over to her and take her other arm, while my mother gives me a worried look.
“Honey, if it’s that bad, those aren’t practice contractions—are they wrapping around your back? Dammit, someone get out a watch or a phone or something with a timer on it!” My mom shouts, and Dylan brings out his phone to start timing.
“I don’t think it’s
real—oh crap—” Helena cringes and starts to breathe heavily.
My mother grips her arm. “I think we’ll need to get you to the hospital pretty soon here. They’re coming quick. Trust me—I’ve had five boys.”
“No—it’s definitely not—I—” Helena pauses and crouches over again before she can talk again. “It’s definitely not—”
“Oh honey,” my mother carries on. “I think it definitely is. Has this been going on all day?”
Helena clutches the top of her belly again and pulls down on my arm as I hold her. “Not really—well maybe—but it’s definitely not—”
There’s an audible popping sound, and a what looks like a waterfall falls on the floor, all over my mother’s shoes. My mother, of course, kicks off her shoes in response and starts yelling instructions to everyone in the house. “Liana! Get towels. Dylan—keep timing her contractions.” She runs off a laundry list of tasks in the way only a mother of five children can, and she keeps going until she looks over at me. “You—Saint—you’re going to have a baby. And your little girl is about to be a big sister. Call the hospital. Tell them we’re on the way. Then call her parents. I’ll pack her a bag, and we’ll follow you straight to the hospital.” She pauses and gives me a deep look, green eyes seeming to glow, while Helena leans hard against me and starts panting. “Go! Go on now,” she adds. “Did you hear me?”
That’s when everything snaps back into real world time, and we’re all running around, moving in circles and picking up things to take to the hospital. And then we’re driving—and somehow we make it to the hospital with a hastily packed back in tow. Trixie bursts out from behind her grandparents, smiling broadly and running up to hug my legs.