Finding Fate

by Charisse Spiers

  “What?” he whispers, like he’s trying to sort that out in his head.

  Why the hell am I so nervous? Maybe because I’m like some crazy cat lady, only instead of hoarding cats I’m hoarding people. “Tell them, baby,” Konnor urges me.

  “You came to me and asked if you could stay with Madden until you could find a place big enough for all of you. What bothered me the most is that you felt you needed to ask, like this isn’t your home too. It made me realize that maybe somehow I haven’t made you feel like this is your home since you were single when you moved in. I thought it was obvious when I brought you here, and when I wanted Riggan and Sayler to stay despite the pregnancy and what I was going through at the time, giving them free reign to bring the baby in whichever way they saw fit. Riggan’s old room is the nursery because that’s what they wanted it to be. I’ve never felt overcrowded, even knowing we are about to bring three babies and a child into the mix. Then I thought that maybe somehow I haven’t made Gabby feel welcome enough and you weren’t telling me something. The truth is, I’m not ready for either of you to leave. I know one day all of you are going to buy your own house and there is nothing I can do about that, but it’s too soon for me. I know our lifestyle isn’t typical, but it’s ours, so I came up with a damn good argument to hold you here. Space is what you needed. We made a way by sectioning off the square footage into a master bedroom, a small bedroom, and a recessed nook big enough for a crib and dresser and maybe an armoire to hang clothes. It’s a shared bathroom but it’s a full bath. The kitchenette is enough to give you your privacy if you want some small family quick meals while still having to come to dinner with the rest of us. This place is yours for as long as you want it to be. The main door has a lock with a key. The way I see it, Madden is just coming home. He has a bedroom with furniture. There are gift cards on your nightstand to go shopping for anything he needs. I wasn’t stupid enough to offer you cash. I know Maddox is like the other boys with his pride.”

  Maddox clears his throat. “How much do I owe you?”

  “It’s a gift, not a handout. I don’t give a damn about the money.”

  A tear runs down Gabby’s cheek. “Why would you do this for us?”

  My own emotions spike, but I force back the tears. “Because you’re my family, and family helps family, especially during a time of need. All I want in return is for you to stay. I was looking forward to us being together while we raised our babies. It’s not every day you see friends pregnant together. I’m taking it as a sign we were meant to find each other.”

  Gabby starts walking toward me at a quick pace and throws her arms around me a moment after Konnor steps back, as if he already knew what she was going to do before she did it. I return the hug. “Thank you. I’ll never forget this. And I’ll always be thankful that you befriended me when you had every right to hate me. He was really torn up without you, and now I know why. Your heart is unforgettable, Presley.”

  “I could say the same about you. I’m happy you got your son back.”

  “Thank you.” She pulls away as Maddox passes by silently, mumbling he’s going to lay Madden down, finding his room easily. “He’s not being rude. I promise. He gets quiet when he’s emotional until he sorts through it.”

  Riggan stands and helps Sayler up. “We’re going to turn in and give y’all some privacy.”

  Konnor takes my hand. “We have business to finish,” he says, already pulling me away. I wink at her, laughter erupting as we walk through the door and hit the stairs.

  As we come into our room and shut the door, he jerks his tee shirt off, pushing me toward our bed. “Have you changed your mind? If you have, I totally understand, baby. No pressure.”

  I sashay over to him, my hands already working his jeans open. My turn to show him how grateful I am for him. “Hell no. The thought of sucking your dick makes my mouth water.”

  He groans. “How is this my life?”

  I drop to my knees and jerk his jeans down, already tasting the tip. I look up at him, his impressive size taking up so much of my small hand. I smile. “And to think, this is only the beginning.”

  Then I wrap my lips around it and use his compliment as motivation. He grips my thick hair on the first pass. “Fuck, baby, that mouth. All those years I pictured this never even came close to the real thing.”

  Funny how that works. I could say the same exact thing.

  Gabby

  The space is quiet now that we’re alone and the only lights that were on in the main area when we came in are the lamps on the end tables that anchor each side of the couch—which has track marks on all the cushions as if it was steam cleaned. Thank you, Presley, because I’ve heard what this space used to be used for, and no man would ever think of cleaning it.

  Madden’s ceiling light turns off, but enough light shines out to confirm some sort of lamp must be on. I wait a few minutes, but Maddox doesn’t come out, so I walk to the door to him sitting against the wall on the floor across from the small twin-size bed, watching Madden sleep in his own adorable room with tears running down his face. My heart stalls. “Baby?”

  He breaks like he was barely holding it together, placing one large hand over his eyes to shield them, his shoulders shaking, and it breaks my heart like the day he was having an anxiety attack after I was a bitch to him about the two girls he slept with the day after we got back together when my dad took me. This isn’t a few tears this is a full breakdown.

  I walk over to him and drop down to the floor, straddling his lap, and then wrap my arms around his neck and hug him tight. “Talk to me.”

  He wraps his arms around my waist, holding me close so that I can’t see his face. “I don’t know how to repay this, Gab. I was a lone soldier fighting an army for so long it feels foreign to have people on my side. Konnor gave up his basement, our practice studio, and they footed the bill to make us an apartment? How do you thank someone for this? Everything I tried to come up with to say sounded stupid.”

  I pull back and place my hands on his face. He turns away, fighting against my palm, ashamed that he’s crying like this. “Don’t hide. Not from me.” His eyes meet mine. I lean in and press my lips against his wet ones, my eyes briefly closing before I pull away. “I want to love every side of you. What’s the point in saying for better or for worse if you don’t mean it?”

  He places his right hand over my left, pulling it to his lips for a kiss over the band of my engagement ring, and then lowers it. “I was raised to work hard, marry the girl you love, support your family, and love God. I don’t know if I can take this and be proud of myself. Your dad will never respect me if I do. It’s already hard enough for me. I’m not Greek. I’m not rich. I’m not from a prominent family. I finally got his blessing by fighting for it. I don’t want to lose it.”

  “Mad, aren’t we past all that? I’m yours. How many times do I have to prove it before you believe that we’re going to be together regardless of what anyone tries to say? I gave you up to give you freedom. I let him go to protect everything we knew was true. I lived poor and sacrificed success because greed stole everything from me. I kept myself pure in hopes we’d find our way back to each other, to prove that despite what was forced on us, I loved you more than moving on. I took a beating instead of bowing to something I don’t believe in. I fought for us. There’s always something worth fighting for. That’s the point in warfare, after all—to overthrow dictators, to be able to live in peace and to freely believe in what we want to believe in. Why does anyone stand for anything? To ensure they don’t fall for everything. Christ was crucified to pave a way for an entire species. Who gives a damn about one person? He can respect that we chose each other or take the loss. Those couples like your grandparents that make it fifty years and are still going strong—they started with love and the will to make it work. Everyone has to start somewhere. This is our somewhere. And one day, when someone we know is in need, we pay it forward. That’s the way all love works, baby; not just love between t
wo lovers.”

  His eyes are watery. “Just when I think I can’t possibly love you any more, I fall deeper. It’s hard to believe sometimes that the love of my life and the mother of my kids was a girl I picked out of a crowd.”

  “Maybe to most, but any real music lover would tell you hearts align just like words to form the perfect song. So many different options, but only the right ones come together for the perfect combination. There was just something about you for me like you thought there was something about me. The rest faded away and you stood out.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better had I tried.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me against his broad chest. I can hear his heart beating. “Is it weird that I like watching him sleep?” he says low, like he’s been talking the whole time, careful not to wake Madden. “When we were in Greece, every night after you went to sleep, I got out of bed and slipped into his room just to watch him breathe. When I do, for a little while, despite everything bad going on in the world, everything is right in mine, and I’m at peace.”

  “It’s easy to understand when you never thought you’d get the opportunity.” I shrug. “It’s no weirder than me watching you watch him to get that same feeling.”

  “What?”

  “Now that I know what it’s like to sleep beside you every night, I wake up when you’re not in bed. There are nooks and crannies in that house you don’t know about. Every time you watched him sleep, I watched you watch him. The entire time I was pregnant with him I felt like I was betraying you. I knew you’d be a good daddy. Living with that secret was slowly killing me. I just wanted you to know your son, even if only for a moment like me, so seeing it happen is a beautiful thing to watch.”

  He tightens his hold on me. “What do you think made your dad change his mind about the adoption?”

  “One thing that will always hold true with a Greek—nothing is more important than family. Regardless of who helped make him, he’s a part of me, and I’m a part of my dad. I was too close emotionally to think about it rationally or maybe it would have occurred to me. In the end, he couldn’t turn his back on either of us, even knowing I’d hate him for taking him from me.” I smile as a tear falls off my lashes onto Maddox’s shirt. “My grandmother said he never missed a visit. He was always a constant in my life too, despite how busy he was. If he told me he’d do something he always did. He never left me. I never wondered if he was coming home when he was gone. That’s the dad I’ve been holding onto. That’s what made the rest bearable, like when he whipped me in a way he never had. With every lick I remembered a time he hugged me. And when it was over and I had all that time to think, I tried to imagine being in his shoes and how I would be if you left me with Madden and never came back. He’s never remarried. I’ve never even heard a rumor of him with another woman. Love makes people crazy and losing it can drive someone insane. I know that better than anyone.”

  “It’s hard to like him after everything, but in some way, I get it. Like you said, I was a threat to him. I was the one that could take you.”

  “Yes. The only one.”

  We sit in a comfortable quiet as he holds me, and I cuddle up to him. He’s warm. I’m tired but I’m not ready for this moment to end. If he wants to sleep against this wall then I’ll do it. “Will you teach me to speak Greek?”

  I sit upright. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? I barely even use it.”

  “I know, and I’ve never understood why. I liked hearing you say things in another language.”

  “It made me different than the majority, and kids don’t understand the differences of the world. It made me a target to be laughed at. I just never cared to be in the minority.”

  “Your differences don’t make you a target, Gab, they set you apart. If you get to love every side of me, I get to love every side of you. Don’t throw away the things that make you the most beautiful. I fell in love with a Greek American girl. I want to be a part of it too, and our kids, as in plural.” He pushes his hands under my shirt until both palms are perched on my abdomen. “I want this baby to be bilingual too. I want them to know where they come from.”

  If only my father could be here now. He’d be damn proud. Maddox is such an amazing person. I love him inside and out. I smile at him. “You do realize it’s a lot easier to learn another language when you’re a child, right? Their minds are like sponges and their palate is still forming. That’s why my dad made me learn English and Greek from the time I could speak. And the difference in learning a language like Greek versus Spanish is that you have to learn an entirely new alphabet instead of a new keyboard that’s a variation of the English alphabet with added symbols.”

  “I want to learn for you and for my kids. I know I’m not as smart as you and I’ll probably sound like a jackass, but I want to try. We can start now and maybe by the time the new baby learns it I’ll be somewhat fluent.”

  I want to roll my eyes. Maddox is one of the smartest guys I know. He could glance at a study guide and ace a test in school. It finally dawns on me what he said. I never knew he liked hearing me say things in Greek. He asked a few times, but I just thought it was morbid curiosity like every other true-blooded American does when they find out someone is bilingual. They don’t really care. They just want to hear something so foreign.

  I lean in and place my lips next to his ear, thinking, and then I whisper, “Páre me sto kreváti kai me agapó.”

  He breathes harder as he hardens beneath me. Interesting. Why didn’t I do this forever ago? “Now translate it.”

  “Take me to bed and make love to me.”

  He grips me tight and gets to his feet, barely getting his balance before walking over to the lamp to turn it off. I hold onto him, all limbs wrapped around his body as I let him carry me to our new room. “I’ll make love to you if you speak Greek to me while I do.”

  A naughty giggle slips when he comes in our room and tosses me on the made-up bed. This will be fun. I’m almost bummed I didn’t think of it first. He jerks off his shirt and tosses it aside, already coming over me. I smirk. “Min stamatísete méchri na fonáxo to ónomá sas. Don’t stop until I scream your name.”

  He groans as he jerks one side of my pants down. “God, that’s so hot.”

  Before I can respond, his mouth is on mine, showing me just how turned on it has him. I don’t want this to ever change. If I have him, I have everything.

  Fifty-Seven

  Presley

  I mindlessly scroll through my Facebook feed while I sit in the waiting room of the OBGYN clinic’s imaging department as I wait for them to call us back. I make sure to show up early. I always get a little nervous on appointment day, and today my anxiety is a little worse due to the fact that we’re finding out the sex. We get to see our baby, and as much as I hate to breed negative energy, I’m always waiting for the shoe to drop as my punishment from my previous abortion. I hate it, but I’m not sure it’ll ever completely go away.

  My phone slips out of my hand as Konnor takes it from me. “Hey, jerk, what was that for?”

  He smiles at me as he shoves it in his jeans pocket, knowing I’m not serious. I love that even though we’re a couple our friendship hasn’t faded. It’s actually gotten stronger, like it was when we were kids. I guess that’s what happens when you take away all the animosity we had between us from our feelings. We can still joke and name call without being petty and getting mad or taking offense. “No one in Laguna cares that you’re a Baker anymore. You’re old news, baby,” he teases, knowing I was stalking it for weeks after I changed my last name to his and my marital status from ‘in a relationship with Konnor Baker’ to ‘married to Konnor Baker’ publicly to see if people were talking trash about us. I couldn’t help it. Our coupledom has been anything but normal. But my gosh, it seems like that was forever ago.

  I run my tongue over my top teeth to keep from smiling. “That’s not what I was doing. I was trying to keep my mind occupied
, so I won’t worry that something is wrong.”

  He slides to the edge of the chair as he leans back with his feet flat on the floor and legs spread in front of him, lacing his hands behind his head in a way that makes his tattooed biceps flex as he glances at my growing belly in my fitted top, his brows rising with mischief. He can literally do nothing and be sexy as hell. It’s a little insulting for us that work so hard for it. I know a joke is coming. After all that bragging that I could still wear my own clothes, I finally had to break down and buy some maternity clothes. The ponytail holder holding my jeans together at the button and slit wasn’t working anymore. “You look bigger, and very much pregnant. I’m going to say it’s fine.”

  My jaw drops as a laugh falls out of my mouth. “You ass! Are you calling me fat?!”

  He laughs back. “What? It’s getting bigger. Do you want me to lie? Not your ass. I’m talking about your stomach.”

  I roll my eyes, my smile giving away that I’m not in the least offended by his brutal honesty, because even though no girl wants to get bigger, it cuts down on my anxiety that it’s clear the pregnancy is progressing, especially since I can feel the baby move. That and the fact that we’ve had sex many times over the last few days since Gabby and Maddox came home and I told him I missed our normal sex life, despite our busy schedule, which means he’s obviously still attracted to me, belly growing and all.

  Had I known one blow job would take care of that I would have taken him by surprise in the office or shower or something before. “I just don’t like the buildup before an appointment. My mind throws too many what ifs at me. Something can always happen, you know, and I feel like I need to prove myself more with this one to prove that I’m grateful for a second chance.”

  He stares at me for a minute, as if he’s thinking, and then he breaks the connection of his hands and grabs mine. “Baby, give yourself a break. I’m pretty positive you already have.”