Third Strike

by B. J. Harvey

  The angry glares I’m seeing from everyone in the group are too much to bear. I open my mouth to say something—anything—to make this better but snap it shut when Millen and Ashley’s dad stops in front of me, blocking out everyone around us.

  “I don’t know what fucked up game you’re playing, Drew, but you need to leave. I’m guessing you’ve got a flight to book now, but I’ll tell you this: if you have any respect for my son and daughter and this family, you’ll go and give everyone time and space. That woman…” he shakes his head, venom dripping from the word, “… that woman has already tried to destroy my son’s life, and if you’ve let her sink her claws into you, I now fear for yours.” He lets out a harsh breath and grits his teeth. “Go pack your bags. I’ll have a car waiting for you, and I’ll call my pilot to lodge a flight plan to get you back home as soon as they can get you there.”

  He reaches out and cups my shoulder. “If there’s anything else you need, call me, but whatever you do, do not go after my daughter. You’ve just destroyed her and whatever the hell has gone on between you two, now is not the time or the place to sort it out. Go be with your son. We’ll talk.”

  “There’s more to it. It’s not what you—”

  “We’ll talk later, Drew. But I hope to God you have a good lawyer, ’cause Lana Mason cannot be trusted.”

  “It’s not what it seems. It’s… complicated.” He nods, his expression unreadable.

  “You need to walk away. Let Kenzie and Millen try to get back to enjoying their day. If you care about this family at all, you’ll do what I say.” I nod, my mind blank because there’s nothing more to say. I screwed up—again—but there’s nothing I can do about it right now. I’ve got a long flight ahead of me, and that will give me all the time in the world to work out how on earth I can fix this mess.

  Two hours later, I’m strapped into a seat on a private plane, and in no place to appreciate that fact. I called Lana’s OB/Gyn to confirm that she was in fact at the hospital. I wasn’t able to get anything more than that despite being her husband, a fact that should be useful in this situation. It’s definitely not been useful for anything else. Except destroying life as I knew it.

  Nearly fifteen hours later, I’m bleary-eyed, still wearing my shirt and dress slacks, and I’m walking out of an elevator onto the maternity floor.

  “Yes, Mr. Peters. Let me take you to your wife’s room. Such a shame you couldn’t be here for the operation. It’s always nice when the husband can be there to hold the mom’s hand.”

  That snaps me out of it, and I stop dead in my tracks. “I’m sorry, did you say operation?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. I just assumed you knew. Your son was born via C-section. But don’t worry,” she says with a huge smile, “both Mom and baby are doing well. Obviously your wife will need to take it easy for the next six weeks. However I’m sure you’ll be there to help her with everything.”

  I run that over in my mind as she continues walking toward the end of the hall, my heart beating out of my chest with every step closer I take. I’m a dad. I have a son.

  Then I turn the corner, walking past the beaming nurse as I enter the hospital room—more like a suite at The Ritz—and see Lana lying in bed asleep, her face as peaceful as it’s ever been since I’ve known her. Our baby—our son—sleeps in a bassinet beside her.

  As if in slow motion, I move over to the crib, bracing my hands on either side and leaning down. I’m frozen in place. He’s wrapped in a white cloth swaddle, but even still, he’s wriggled his hand up so he can suck his thumb. His downy skin begs to be touched, but I’m almost scared to reach out and do it. Light blond whispers of hair cover his perfectly round head, and I’m fighting the urge to pick him up and hold him to my chest.

  I never thought I’d feel a pull as strong as I do right now. My own flesh and blood is sleeping in front of me, born while I was thousands of miles away.

  I crouch down to get a closer look, my heart bursting as he snuffles and grunts. I reach out and touch him, carefully running my index finger over his temple, marveling at just how soft he feels, how fragile he is. Then he slowly cracks open his eyes and they’re such a dark blue, they remind me of the other person I love more than my own life.

  Pride and fear and an overwhelming sense of responsibility that I’ve never felt before coursed through me. I would do absolutely anything for this baby—my son. I would climb mountains and cross seas. I would fight to the death and give up everything I had for him. Before this moment, there was only one person in the world I’d fallen in love with at first sight. Today, she just got competition.

  “Hey,” Lana whispers, stealing my attention from the baby. I glance over my shoulder at her, finding her grey eyes fixed on me. “When did you get here?” she rasps.

  I’m taken back by her gentle tone. I scan her expression, looking for any sign of an ulterior motive, any indication that’s she prepping herself for her next manipulation, but my search comes up empty. “A few minutes ago. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Okay. He’s cute. I didn’t expect him to be so…”

  I furrow my brows, turning back toward him. “He’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah,” she replies, her voice weirdly void of any emotion. I stand and move over to the bed, sitting down on the edge.

  “How are you doing?”

  She offers a weak smile. “I can’t feel anything below my waist, so that’s a bonus.”

  “Did something go wrong? Why did you have a C-section?”

  She frowns, opening her mouth as if to say something before shaking her head. “I’m really sleepy.” She yawns and reaches up to rub her face with her hand, an IV tube sticking out of her wrist.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Lana?”

  “Yeah. I’m just tired.”

  “And… the baby? He’s all okay?”

  “Yeah. Ten fingers, ten toes, and hungry the minute he came into this world, apparently. The nurses told me he screamed down the OR. I can’t remember much; there was too much pulling and shoving and pressure that I kind of lost focus there.”

  I reach out and cover her hand with mine. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I thought we’d be okay, with you still having three weeks to go.”

  I catch a lone tear falling down her cheek. Conflicting emotions swirl inside of me. I regret not being here to help her through the labor and birth. I’m guilty of missing the first breath my son took in this world. I also feel torn for feeling sympathetic for this normally vile woman. One drunken mistake has cemented her place in my life for at least the next eighteen years.

  Her body relaxes into the mattress for a second, and I catch a glimpse of the Lana we used to know before the nasty, vindictive games started on her mission to claim Millen and nail him down. Ironically, I put myself in front of that bullet but sliding my eyes toward the bassinet once more, I’m not sure I can say it was the worst thing to happen to me.

  She tenses as if realizing her guard is down and she tugs her hand free to wrap her arms around her middle.

  “You should really give him a name, Drew. It was part of the deal, remember?” Her tone is flat and emotionless.

  My head jerks back at the sudden chill in her voice. “This isn’t the time to talk about deals, Lana. We have a son. He needs a name that we both want.”

  “I can’t think right now. I’m on morphine, and I’m tired. You choose the name.”

  I look back to the crib, studying our son’s face, rolling the name around my brain that’s been stuck with me for the past few months. “Travis Michael Peters,” I say softly.

  She’s quiet, her eyes switching slowly from me across the room to the crib, a gentle smile curving her lips, and for once, I actually believe that she has a heart. I’m soon proved wrong.

  “Did they get married?” she asks as I reach the doorway.

  I turn back, and I see then the hurt and loss in her eyes. What she still doesn’t get is that there was never any chance that Millen and Kenzie wouldn’t e
nd up together. Those two were made for each other. Anybody who sees them can tell that from a mile away. “Yeah. It was a beautiful ceremony. The only interruption came afterward when I got your text.”

  I don’t miss the twitch of her lips as she fights off a smirk. Her eyes flash with what could only be success. If I weren’t seeing her and our son in the flesh, I would’ve questioned whether she was actually in labor.

  How is this now my life? This should be one of my happiest days. Instead, I’ve irrevocably broken the heart of the only woman I’ve ever loved, I’ve decimated the bond I have with my best friend—likely Kenzie too—and I’ve tied myself to a woman who hates everyone important to me and has, in the past and probably still now, tried to destroy those three same people at different times and in a myriad of ways.

  “I’ll be back soon. I need fresh air.”

  “Oh, Drew. Be a good husband, and make sure they know who’s paying the hospital charges. I wouldn’t want there to be any confusion when they send out the bill.”

  There she is. That right there is the future I have to look forward to, but it’s a sacrifice I made in the best interests of my son.

  My new mission is to protect him with my heart, my soul, and my whole life, and make sure that he remains untainted by his mother as much as I can.

  I’m going to be there for him, to love him, and to give him everything I have to give until such time as he no longer needs me to. And even then, he’ll always know that he has a father who loves him.

  I may have made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m determined to make sure he never thinks he’s one of them.

  It’s been four weeks, and Ash is M.I.A. Millen and Kenzie went straight from their wedding to Italy for a three-week extended honeymoon, and if Gaby’s texts are anything to go by, I’m the last person either of them wants to talk to.

  I texted Ash while I was waiting for the plane to fly back home, while I was in a taxi on the way to the hospital to meet Travis, while I was rocking my son to sleep at three a.m. one morning, hoping like hell that the change of time might elicit a response, even if it is a simple “fuck off.”

  This morning, things changed. I tried to call her, and the number had been disconnected. Just like that, I’ve lost three of the most important people in my life. The only person who hasn’t cut me out is Mr. Ross. He’s been a great sounding board and has even been over to meet Travis.

  Losing Ash has ripped me apart. Her father must know where she is, but he’s not giving anything away. In fact, he hasn’t actually raised the subject of the two of us and whatever has gone on. You’d think his son punching me in the face—again—would raise some questions, but his focus, at least for the time being, has been helping me learn the role of being a father.

  It’s something that has become somewhat of a necessity, given that from the moment we got home from the hospital, Lana has been what can only be described as a ‘hands-off’ mom. She never entertained the idea of breastfeeding him at the hospital—of course, that’s her prerogative—but there has been zero effort put in on her part to bond with our son. As far as she’s concerned, her job was done the minute she popped him out.

  Having had a mom who did anything within her power for me, and having another mom in Nina who was always there for me, my heart breaks for my little boy.

  He has blond hair and the brightest, bluest, wisest eyes I have ever seen. He’s the perfect mix of his parents. He may not have been conceived out of love, but he’s definitely more than loved now.

  Life should be good, and it is, except for the black cloud that’s hanging over my head. I never thought it would turn out this way. I’m married to a woman I should never have been with. The woman who owns me heart and soul has shut me out of her life, just when I finally stood up and told her I loved her. My best friend and his wife have already endured enough heartache to last a lifetime, and there I was, interrupting their wedding celebrations with an ill-timed phone call, revealing a secret I should have never kept.

  I’m a hot mess, wrapped up in a cloud of fuck-ups, with no light at the end of the tunnel to show me the way to future happiness.

  When Lana stipulated that we had to be married if I wanted her to agree to my custody requests, I balked. Literally. I stood up in the middle of her lawyer’s conference room and yelled, “Are you fucking serious with this shit?” and stormed out. This was before she’d moved in, so it was easy to escape.

  My lawyer—as is his job, and what I pay him for—managed to get them to concede to signing a prenuptial agreement with very clear expectations of what was and wasn’t allowed, what would automatically render the agreement—and the marriage—null and void, and that also laid out what Lana would have to give me if I was to give her what she was asking for.

  I knew there were ulterior motives behind her marriage request. What I’ve never been able to understand is why she has this desire to force the men in her life—who don’t really want to be there—to marry her. She’s a beautiful woman. She has a good head on her shoulders. She went to college and has an MBA. She’s not someone you would look at and think “she’ll have to trick a man into marrying her.”

  Her personality, her lack of moral compass, and her tunnel-visioned approach to nailing down a rich husband to live a life of luxury is the deal-breaker, and I know after the whole Millen fiasco that she became a pariah overnight in the high-brow society circles she socializes within.

  But when it came down to it—and, as my well-paid lawyer correctly pointed out to me—Lana was looking to protect herself by legally attaching herself to me, in exchange for an iron-clad prenup and her agreeing to give me primary custody of our son when he was three months old. Her only other condition was for her to remain legally married to me for two years, receiving spousal support for that period of time. It may not have been the most straightforward or even logical agreement, and I definitely felt I was having an out-of-body experience when I stupidly agreed to go ahead with it, but I was—and still am—focused on the one thing that means most to me: my son.

  I’m prepared to do anything I have to for him. Even giving Lana her way if it means getting what I want in the end. I’m determined to do right by him and whatever I have to do in order to achieve that—then I will do it, whatever the sacrifice, whatever the financial, emotional, and personal cost to me. He will always be the one who comes first in my life. I thought I would have the opportunity to raise him with Ash by my side, but until I can find her and explain everything, I have Travis.

  Until I can get Millen to listen to what I have to say about his sister and my history with her behind his back, I have Travis.

  There’s a common theme in all of this. Lana is an irritating influencer—that I cannot deny. She is legally my wife. She has no recourse when it comes to any of my money, property, or investments. She gets a monthly payment from me into her bank account, and she is living with me for the foreseeable future until such time as she is able to find her own apartment nearby. After that, I’ll be funding her lifestyle as stipulated in our prenuptial agreement. Then I’ll be free.

  Marriage only means something if it’s with the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. I did not lie when I told Ashley on my hotel balcony in France that I was her first, and I would be her last. This bump in the road is simply that: a small detour in my life plan. An unfortunate yet unforgettable consequence that brought my son into my life. Seeing his first smile made everything I’ve done—even what I’ve put others through—worth it.

  Just that one smile.

  Now all I need is one more smile: from Ashley when she says she’s truly mine again.

  With Travis being one month old now, and Lana flaking out on coming with us, we head to his new pediatrician for his latest Well-Child check. Lana booked the appointment, telling me she wasn’t happy with our old one. Having missed all the other ones due to meetings and brief work trips, this is the first one I have been to, and I’m full of all the questions a new parent no d
oubt always has when they see the doctor.

  With Lana’s whole attitude toward motherhood and parenting in general since Travis was born, I had considered that she might have post-natal depression. When I asked her about it, she laughed her ass off; the bending-over, can’t-breathe kind of laughing before she sneered at me. “You’re the only one who wanted this baby. I was merely the incubator,” before stalking off. An hour later, while her son was crying in my arms, she walked out the door to a waiting car and disappeared for three days. No text, no call, no “I won’t be home.”

  “He’s doing very well, Drew. He’s in the 90th percentile for weight and height, and he’s doing everything a full-term four-week-old baby should.” I freeze, my mind blanking on what he just said.

  “Sorry,” I say with a laugh. “Are you sure you have the right notes there? Travis was born three weeks early via emergency C-section. He was definitely not full-term.”

  The doctor furrows his brows, checking the medical file on the bed beside him, Travis sound asleep in his arms. “Travis Michael Peters, born four weeks ago at North Side Women’s Hospital via elective cesarean at forty-one weeks, one-day gestation.” He looks up, his face still a mask of confusion. “He was definitely full-term. Over, in fact. Let me give your son back, and I’ll check the predicted due date. Maybe there’s a clerical error in here somewhere.” He gently hands Travis back to me and returns to the folder, perching himself on the edge of the examination table.

  I take a seat before I fall down, my brain on information overload as I try to comprehend what the doctor is telling me. I cradle my son in my arms, my head dropped as I stare at him, and as if the mere suggestion has infected my mind, I start to notice little things in his face, his expression, the way his earlobe is attached to his cheek, his cute little button nose that is neither mine or Lana’s. Then the pediatrician drops the gravel, knocking me out like the Whack-A-Mole I am, straight down to rock bottom. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.