Xavier pulls away, my heart pounding so loudly I’m sure he can hear it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s fine.” So much more than that.
“I should put this crib together and get out of your hair. Charlie will be done with school soon.”
“Okay. I’m going to go…out…in my… I’m going to go take a bath.” Yep. And forget that I haven’t had a spark of desire in so damn long.
“I’ll let myself out, when I get done.”
“K. Bye.”
My feet can’t move fast enough to my room. I slam the door shut, locking it before sliding down the wall. My lips still burning from that kiss. A kiss was never just a kiss for us. Never stopped at that. He never pulled away.
This was the line that we crossed over, and I’m not sure we can go back to where we were before.
I’m not sure if I want to.
And I’m blaming the hormones.
Twenty-eight weeks
My whole body ripples with pain. I fell. Getting out of the shower. Stupid fucking me. I need to go to the doctor. But no one is answering, and I’m not attempting to drive myself. I didn’t want to do it. But 9-1-1 is my only option.
The whole ride to the hospital, I clutch my phone, willing Lock or Xavier to call back. But nothing from them. Hadley wasn’t answering, either. Tara is back in Vegas covering all my shit. Not what I wanted from the day.
“Ma’am, how far along are you?”
“Twenty-eight weeks. They’re twins. So please, don’t make comments about how big I am,” I bite out. Everyone does. When you’re as big as a whale, that’s what happens. And I hate it.
He looks scared at how to answer me before shaking out of it. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Did you call your OBGYN when you fell?”
I have to stop myself from yelling at him. This may be my first pregnancy, but I’m not an idiot. “Yes, he’s meeting me there,” I respond through clenched teeth.
“Good. Have you had any contractions?”
“A few. Spasms, mostly in my lower back.”
“Okay.” He types away on the computer. “Any medicine you have taken today?”
“Just my prenatal vitamins.”
My phone rings. I silence it as he talks. Only it rings over and over.
“You better get it, probably checking on you. I’m good with questions for right now.”
I sigh. I know it’s him, even before he speaks. Only Xavier would call again and again. “Hello.”
“Naomi. What the fuck? Where are you?” It comes out in a rush.
“Getting a ride to the hospital. I called and texted you that I fell, but you didn’t answer.” My words are soft, but they may as well be a roar. He let me down—Xavier may have been busy, but I’m pissed. Too pissed.
“Who’s giving you the ride?” Xavier’s voice barely a whisper of sound. He knows he messed up. And I don’t have it in me to calm him down.
“Metro Ambulance.”
“Fuck, are you serious?”
The tension floating between the line ties me in knots. “No, X. I just woke up this morning and said, ‘Hey, I want to fuck with X today.’ Yes, I’m serious.”
He ignores my jab. “Taking you to General?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll be there in five.”
“Okay.” Whatever.
“Sounds like your husband’s in trouble,” the EMT states.
“He’s not my husband.” And today is the reason why he won’t be.
We stay silent as the pain starts to spread from my back to my stomach. And now that Xavier is on his way, I have this pit in my stomach that something could really be wrong with me now.
* * *
I’m having contractions. Ones that are strong and constant enough to freak the doctor out. Xavier and Lock are staring daggers at each other from over my body in the bed. Both battered and beaten from another fight they got into, and I’m spent from the worrying to try to ease it this time.
“Naomi, I’m going to go get Charlie from school. But I’ll be back in thirty minutes. Call me the minute you hear anything, or if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“For real. Put me on speakerphone so I can hear everything if I’m not here.”
“Got it. Speakerphone,” I say, staring at him. He is beating himself up over not answering when I called, and when I found out why, I instantly felt guilty.
Xavier was late because of my father.
He leans over the bed, the frown taking over his entire face. “I love you. All of you.” He says before placing a soft kiss on the top of my head.
Lock’s vision follows Xavier’s every movement out the door. “I can’t believe that fucker had the balls to come up to me at the gym. Man, if Reed wasn’t there, I would have murdered him.”
The line pulls deep inside—the one that tied me to Lock, then to Xavier, cut. The patience I had for this dissolves as I listen to my own father beat X up, not only by his fists, but also by his words.
“That’s enough,” I snap. “You have got to stop this shit. Like it or not, Xavier will be in my life one way or another ‘til one of us dies. I’m tied to him for the sake of our children. The children that could have come today, and you were too busy stomping his fucking face to notice I called you for help. And he was too busy nursing his wounds to come when I needed him. All of it stops now.”
The beep of the machine next to me gets louder as my heartbeat increases.
“Calm down, Omi. We’ll talk about it when you get out of here.”
“No, we will straighten this out now. You hurt X, you hurt me. Plain and simple, and if you can’t figure that out, then one of you has to leave. And I’m afraid if you make me choose, it’ll be you.”
The war needs to stop. I just want to have…peace. Peace between them, between me, between us.
“You still love him, don’t you? After everything he did, you still do,” he asks.
I take a deep breath. “I do. But this is more important than what I feel for him. I can’t have this around the kids. I can’t have this around me. It’s not good for anyone involved.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it…right, Pops?”
“For you, Naomi. For these grandkids. I’ll do it. I didn’t know you still…”
Still love him. So much. I didn’t think I would, but a heart can only be hidden for so long before a spell is recast on it.
That’s what Xavier has been doing one day at a time, casting his reins back on me. And I don’t have it in me to live a lie. I will always want him. I will always love him.
“I do still. And he really isn’t a bad person. He made a few mistakes, but that doesn’t take away that he once was your best friend.”
“I’m not sure about that. But no more of that bullshit.”
“Thank you, Pops.”
“Doesn’t mean I’ll have him over for a fucking barbecue anytime soon.”
“Wouldn’t be you if you did.”
Thirty weeks
My doctor stares down at my latest lab results, his face hard as a rock. “We have to put you on bed rest, Naomi.”
“Why?” I knew it was going to happen. With twins, it was a fact I had long since been warned about. But it doesn’t sound fun. Not in the slightest.
“The combination of your fall, the fact you are getting even sicker as we get closer to the due date. We need to keep those babies in you for as long as possible, preferably to thirty-six weeks. Do you have a place to stay?”
“My house.” Where else.
The doctor shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Naomi, but that isn’t the best place for you. You live too far away from the hospital for my liking. Not to mention, you live by yourself. You’re going to need someone to care for you.”
Xavier stands up from his chair, clearing his throat. “That’s fine, Doc. She’ll just stay with me.”
My eyebrows jerk up in surprise. “What?”
He simply
offers a pat on my head like I was a friend of his. “Don’t argue. You heard what he said. It’s for the babies. I’ll give you my bedroom. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
When he puts it as easy as that, I have a hard time turning him down. “Are you sure?” I risk asking.
“Yes. For you and them. I would do anything.”
“Thank you.” I grab his hand, offering a small smile.
“My pleasure.”
* * *
I haven’t blinked once since stepping into the nursery at Xavier’s house. The pale yellow walls, the same glider sitting in the corner, the same sheets on the twins’ mattresses—but I’m not at my house. It’s Xavier’s.
It makes no sense.
Not even a lick of it.
“Why...?” I choke out.
He laces his fingers through mine, pulling me out of my trance. “Let’s get you comfortable in bed, and I’ll answer any questions you may have. But you have been on your feet longer than I’d like.”
I drop down onto his bed, the scent of him enveloping me. I can’t do this. It’s so much.
“Why did you do this? This… Dammit, X. Why do you keep doing shit that makes it really hard not to love you?”
“Fuck, Naomi. In case you wanted to know, it’s because I love you, and this is what I want to do for you. I just wanted something for when the kids come over—I want them to know this is home to them as well. I didn’t do it to prove anything to you. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”
The way he looks tonight, the way he opens himself to me, is doing it.
Opening me up.
Time for me to try.
“X, do you…do you think you could sit down with me? And…watch some shows for a few? It’s okay if you have something else to do. Just—”
“Shush. In case you didn’t know, I’m crazy about you. So there’s nowhere else I would rather be.”
The bed shifts as he gently lowers himself. Nothing has changed—everything has changed.
A knot forms in the back of my throat. I’m slipping. This pull, push. It’s a chain reaction. I just need to be grounded. The stress of the babies is growing stronger each day. And now with staying in his house, I can’t not have his calm surround me.
“Can you hold me?” It comes out as a plea.
I want this to be our time now.
But it’s not the right time. Not with the future up in the air. I just want him here, holding me and have that feeling back, even if just for tonight.
“All you have to do his ask.”
He wraps his arms around my belly, the comfort from him relaxing me for the first time since I got the news of bed rest.
Caution to the wind. I can’t take my eyes off him. The words and fights don’t weigh heavily on my heart anymore. It’s now this overwhelming sense of peace bubbling up. “X, I love you,” I whisper out in a breath.
Xavier tenses. I try to ignore it, but the damage is done—he’s heard it and nothing can ease the fact that maybe he doesn’t anymore. Not the way I feel it.
His large hand takes my face, leaving me winded. “I love you, too, Naomi.”
I can’t turn away, not anymore. My heart fails to understand—he should always be near me. “Do you think we will be okay? All of us?”
“No doubt.”
“Is it even possible? Us finding our place back together?”
With what is between us, we should have a way back, only it feels impossible to break the chains of that past.
“When I love you the way I do, then all this other shit means nothing in the bigger plan. And when I’m with you, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“I wish I could close my eyes and forget it.”
I want to push back the hurt, end the fight, but I can’t ignore the feeling in the center of my stomach that something may go up in smoke. And that will only disappear whenever Xavier decides that I’m enough.
“I wouldn’t want you to do that. When you finally look at me with true forgiveness, then we will be back and unbreakable.”
“I want your positivity.”
The person staring back at me when I close my eyes at night, replaying our arguments, isn’t who I want. I just want to find my way back.
“Anything I have is yours,” Xavier whispers against my head, and I believe him.
I bury my face against his throat, and the low thud of his pulse sings me to sleep.
Thirty-six weeks
We made it. Today is the day we will finally meet Hollis and Caitlan in person.
“X, just you in the scrubs is enough to make me forget I’m about to get a shot in my back.”
“That’s why I’m here. Comedic relief.”
“Are you ready, Dad?” the nurse asks.
“I won’t be their dad. This cool person once told me ‘Pops’ is what everyone should call their dad.”
“So you want ‘Pops’ with them, too?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, Omi, let’s get you ready to go meet our babies.”
“I’m scared.” So scared. I just want to hear both of them cry. Cry for the new breath of air that hits them.
X trails his fingers down my cheek. “I know you are, baby, but just one more minute and you’ll meet the firstborn.”
“What if I turn out like my mom?”
Why did it take me ‘til the moment I’m strapped to a table to freak out? It should have happened when I first found out.
“Baby, your irrational fears couldn’t have come last week?”
I stare up at him—I’ve never felt closer to him before. “I know, but I’m just thinking…I mean, I wonder if it’s sealed in my DNA to be an awful mother?”
If I am, at least Xavier stepped up.
“Remember what you have done for Charlie?”
“Yes. But it’s not the same.” It’s not. My mom threw me away because she couldn’t love me.
“No, it’s not the same. I know that. But you know why I think these are doubts that will go away as soon as you see them?”
“No,” I squeak out.
“With Charlie, you didn’t have to love her like she was yours. You had the choice to be involved as much or as little as you wanted. And you picked to love her like she was the most important person in your life. That alone speaks to the type of parent you will be with our babies.”
“You swear?”
“I fucking swear with everything in me.”
The pressure is almost too much, but I focus on Xavier, and the looks he gives me. Like I’m the most important person in his world. That this, right here and now, is where he truly wants to be. I take a deep breath. I can do this. I can love them with as much as my heart will beat.
“All right, Naomi, get ready to meet your son.” He raises Hollis over the curtain and the cry that rings out is one of the best songs I’ve heard. “One more minute, and you will meet your daughter.”
I wince as the pressure builds again.
“All right, here she is.”
Caitlan raises over the curtain and with her comes a low cry from her lungs.
My soul soars with unshakable love for both of them, and I know that everything will be just fine.
Chapter 28
Xavier
I’m a father. Times three now. I glance down at Naomi sleeping in my bed, and nothing could make me prouder of the mother she has become in such a short time. She’s a trooper. Never letting up with the breastfeeding no matter how hard it seems to be. Never letting the crying of two babies get to her. Never letting the lack of sleep show through her.
She is my fucking hero.
Hollis and Caitlan were released a week ago. We didn’t fight about where they would go. Home with me—us, really. Naomi said that this has become more her home than the place Lock rented for her. We were raising them as one unit. Didn’t mean we worked everything out, just that she felt we could work it out, and being separate didn’t make sense with two babies.
But we should be t
ogether. Take it one milestone at a time.
Hollis whimpers, and I lower the volume on the monitor before making my way down the hallway to the nursery.
“Hey, buddy. You can’t sleep, either?” I reach down, picking him up out of the crib before he starts trying to get milk out of me. I laugh as I put his pacifier into his mouth. “Nope, you ate thirty minutes ago. Give Mommy at least a couple of minutes to sleep, then you can have at it.”
I slowly rock him back and forth, singing softly to get him back to sleep. It’s funny that Hollis loves the Toy Story song I recorded for them, and Caitlan loves the Little Mermaid song.
“If you start crying, Mommy is going to come in here. You should learn now that she likes her sleep. She needs it, too. Cranky.”
“I don’t need sleep.” Naomi’s voice fills the room.
“No?” I glance up and the sight of her knocks me back. Messy hair, bags under her eyes. She’s still unstoppable.
“Okay. Maybe a little bit.” She laughs it off as she walks toward me.
“A lot bit.”
“He needs to eat?”
“No, I think he just has his nights and days mixed up.”
“Like someone else I know.” Naomi throws a wink my way.
“I’m afraid I’m going to miss something.”
This time around, I’m not missing a first of anything. This is my second chance, and I’m not going to regret it.
“He’s nodding back to sleep. Why don’t you lie him back down?”
I place a soft kiss on his cheek before laying him back in the crib.
“Can I be honest with you?” Naomi asks, throwing the covers over her body.
“Yes.”
Her hair falls over the pillow before locking her sights on me. “You would never guess that you were scared about having kids.”
“Got that ‘fake it ‘til I make it’ thing down,” I joke.
“No, X. You don’t. You truly are everything I would think a father would be for them.”
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