God, she carried so much. Too much.
I grabbed her face, looking directly into her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me you were torturing yourself this way?”
She shrugged. “I thought maybe with some time, I’d stop thinking like this, my fear might go away. But it didn’t. It’s been over three months, and I still tell you to wear those stupid condoms.”
“I don’t care about the goddamn condoms,” I growled. “I told you I understood you aren’t ready to try.” I just haven’t understood enough.
She shook her head sadly, twisting the sheet in her hands. “I am ready. I’m just so scared. Scared I won’t be able to get pregnant but also scared I will.”
I nodded, understanding lighting my brain. “It’s a lot of what-ifs. A lot of unanswered questions. What if you can’t get pregnant?” I repeated. “What if you can and miscarry again?”
More tears slid from beneath her lids as she squeezed them tight.
“But, baby, what if you can? What if what happened was just a terrible thing? What if we try again and it turns out better than you imagined?”
“Are you afraid?” she asked, her eyes wide and innocent.
I smoothed a hand down the side of her head. “Every day.”
“Really?”
I smiled. “Hard to believe, huh? It’s just because I’m a badass.”
Her lips lifted.
I grabbed her face again. “I will love you no matter what, Rimmel. Baby or no baby. The only thing in this life I can’t live without is you.”
I’d said this before. Months ago. I thought it sank in, but it hadn’t. Sometimes words needed repeating.
“And this shit about you not being strong enough to protect our daughter…” I shook my head, adamant. “Stop it.”
She laughed. “You can’t just command my feelings.”
“I can, and I will,” I demanded. “You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You might be small, and you might be kinda awkward.” She pinched me, and I winced. “But your body”—I reached between us and put a hand on her stomach—“is perfect. I don’t know why Evie couldn’t stay with us, baby. But I do know her loss was not your fault. She knows it, too.”
Her eyes filled again. I really fucking hated when she cried.
Rimmel whispered, “I like to think she’s with my mother.”
A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed, trying to dislodge it. “I think she probably is.”
There was a sudden knock on the door. “Room service!”
Rim straightened with a little shriek and whispered yelled, “We’re naked!”
I rounded my eyes. “Thank God you told me! I’d have answered the door and showed off all our goods to the waiter!”
Rim scrambled off my lap, trying to leap off the bed for her clothes. She ended up tangled in the sheet and half dangling off the mattress.
“Just a minute!” I called, loud enough for the guy in the hall to hear.
“You’re killing me, Smalls.” I reached down and supported her twisted form as she fought to get free.
With her feet finally on the floor, she straightened to her full shorty height and glared at me. I kissed her on the head and jammed her shirt over her head. “Out of sight, woman.” I smacked her playfully on her bare ass.
She took the shirt and disappeared into the bathroom, and I pulled on my jeans but didn’t bother with a shirt. I let the waiter in with the rolling cart, added a big tip to the slip, and signed it.
“Have a good night, Mr. Anderson.”
I held the door for him, and when he was gone, I threw the lock and pushed the cart over toward the bed. Rimmel appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, wearing my old shirt.
“Your cake is here.” I lifted a silver lid off a small plate to reveal a giant-ass piece of cake dripping in chocolate.
She came over and poured herself a mug of coffee and added cream and sugar. I flipped off the lid on my plate, which held a huge steak, a pile of roasted vegetables, and a skewer of grilled jumbo shrimp.
“C’mon. I’ll share with ya,” I told her and lifted the plate to get back in bed.
“I’m not that hungry,” she said, sipping at the coffee.
I scrutinized her as I sat and shoved a shrimp in my mouth, patting the mattress beside me. It pleased me when she picked up the cake and a fork and joined me. The plate filled with chocolate rested on the bed in front of her drawn-up legs, the mug cradled in her palms.
“Romeo?” she asked quietly.
“Hmm?”
“Do you think it’s disloyal to Evie to try and have another baby?”
I set down the fork and then the plate, turning to her. “I think your heart is so big we could have ten kids and you’d love them all equally as much, including the one who isn’t here.”
“Really?”
“You keep bringing home dogs, ugly ones at that, and you love them all just as much as Murphy,” I quipped.
“Ralph is not ugly. He’s unique,” she scolded.
Sure was. Uniquely ugly.
“It’s not disloyal, baby,” I said instead of arguing about the R’s attractiveness. “You know how I feel about loyalty. Especially where family’s concerned. We won’t ever forget about Evie.”
She nodded. “Valerie said something similar.”
The shrimp between my fingers paused midway to my mouth. “My mother?”
Her eyes crinkled around the corners with her smile. “I went to see her earlier this week. We talked.”
I threw the shrimp back onto my plate and pressed the back of my hand to her forehead. “You feeling okay?” I joked. “First you get into a brawl at the game, and now you tell me you went to visit my mother.”
She wagged her eyebrows at me. “We had tea.”
I gasped dramatically, then went back to eating the shrimp. I was starving. “You for real went to see my mother?”
She nodded, setting aside the coffee. “I thought she might understand how I felt better than most people…” Her voice faded away.
She was right. If anyone understood exactly what Rim was going through, it would be my mother. I’d always hoped someday they would find a way to move past all the shit Mom did, but this wasn’t the way I would’ve chosen for them to do it. Maybe this was a silver lining in the otherwise black cloud that hung over us.
I took her hand and laced our fingers together, silently offering support.
“How did it go?” I asked, slightly wary.
“Really good. Just hearing what I was feeling was valid and normal from someone who’d been there really shifted something inside me.”
“In a good way?”
She nodded. “I feel stronger now.”
Her words cut me even though I knew that was the last thing she intended. I felt like shit I hadn’t known she was still blaming herself and fearful of losing another child. “I wish it had been me that made you feel stronger.”
Her fingers tightened around mine. “I wouldn’t have been able to get to this point if it weren’t for you. I never thought anyone could ever love me the way you do, Romeo. I truly thought it wasn’t possible. But you do.”
“I’ll never stop,” I vowed.
“In an odd way, I think hearing the understanding from someone who doesn’t love me like that, from someone who actually debates if she even likes me, is what made the difference.”
“I get that.” I leaned close and kissed her softly. “But you know my mother loves you.”
Rim made a sound; I wasn’t sure if it was acceptance or denial, but I let it go. This conversation wasn’t really about my mother.
“She told me to talk to you, you know. Tell you how I felt.”
“I’m glad you did.”
She swallowed and took a breath. “I’m ready to try again.”
I stilled. Did she mean what I thought? I looked into her eyes. They were so wide, so innocent… yet so knowing. Her head bobbed, as if telling me yes, I was exactly correct in what I was thinking.
But in terms of the heart?
It was like a passing second.
She tucked her hair behind both ears, holding my searching gaze steadily. “It’s not because of the press or anyone else. It’s because I want to. I want your baby, Romeo. I want a part of you growing inside me.”
I still recalled the way she looked with just a slight swell to her stomach. She was so tiny she started showing almost immediately. There was something primal about it, about knowing my child was growing inside her. Usually, it was just the woman’s hormones that changed with pregnancy, but it changed mine, too. It made me even more protective, as if it were a sudden awakening to just how fragile life really was.
I cleared my throat. “It’s not something that needs to be decided tonight.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a while. Since before you left for the season. Then I talked to your mom…” Her voice trailed away.
I don’t know why, but her sudden readiness made me a whole lot less ready.
You know why.
“But there is something I want to do first.” She went on when I said nothing.
I leaned around her for the coffee. “Name it.”
“I was thinking about going to see my doctor. You know, get an exam, maybe some bloodwork, make sure everything is as it should be. I thought it may give us, well me, some extra confidence that this pregnancy may work out better.”
“That’s a real good idea, baby. You call the doc and let me know when the appointment is. I’ll be there.”
“But football,” she protested.
I made a sound. “Fuck football. You come first.”
Rim leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “I love you.”
“Me, too,” I said, then gestured to the cake. “Eat your chocolate.”
She chuckled and reached for the plate.
She seemed lighter now, like, as she said, the last couple weeks had shifted her thinking. I was grateful for that. So damn grateful. I wanted her happy. I’d give anything to make sure she was.
Even at the risk of my own peace of mind.
Rimmel
I dreamed of repeated knocking. Until I woke enough to realize I wasn’t dreaming; the knocking was real. And it was annoying.
“Whoever that is, is an asshole,” Romeo grumbled and slid out from beneath me. I made a sound as my body connected with the mattress.
The knocking continued, even as Romeo rustled around for something to put on and promised whoever was there an untimely demise.
“Took you long enough!” Braeden’s voice boomed into the room the second the door swung open.
I smiled into the pillow, imagining Romeo scowling.
“What the shit, man?” he grumped.
“Pancake Sunday,” he announced, ignoring Romeo’s combative tone. I heard the light sound of glass on glass and lifted my head to see him wheeling in a giant room service cart covered with white linen.
“It’s Monday,” Romeo growled.
Ivy, who was carrying Nova, stopped in front of him as she walked in. “I tried to tell him he was being a moron.”
Nova held out her arms for Romeo and leaned forward.
“Uncle Romeo is tired,” Ivy told her.
Romeo grunted and reached for the baby. “Never too tired for you, lady.” She settled in his arms with ease and gave him a short-on-teeth smile.
She looked pretty adorable this morning, with white and pink striped tights and a white onesie with the words My Daddy Plays Football in gold glitter. Around her head was a pink striped headband with a floppy bow on top. The strands of her dark hair stuck out around it like she’d been playing too hard already and hadn’t thought about her hair at all.
She got that from Braeden.
Or maybe me.
On her feet were a pair of gold-glitter tennis shoes. Seriously, baby-size shoes had to be one of the cutest things known to man. I had no idea where Ivy found half the stuff Nova wore, but I swear she could open her own boutique and be a highly sought-after business overnight.
As Braeden clattered around the room (and seriously, I mean clattered; oh my word, he was loud!) and Ivy told him to be quiet, I lay my head on the pillow and stared at Romeo and Nova. It was the first time in a long time seeing him with her in his arms only made me feel one type of way.
Want.
Lately, it had been want coupled with guilt, anxiety, sadness, and loss.
Don’t get me wrong. I still felt those things. I always would. Losing a child was something you lived with, not something you got over. But for the first time in a very long time, I allowed myself to solely want another child with my husband and not be overcome with everything else.
Hope swelled inside me. It was sort of like sunshine after a rainstorm that lasted for days.
A pair of sweatpants-clad legs stepped into my line of sight. I glanced up, past the T-shirt and crossed arms, to look into the face of my scowling big brother.
“I got a bone to pick with you, tutor girl.”
I raised an eyebrow, which made me wonder where my glasses were. “You just burst into my room at the crack of dawn, and you’re the one with the bone to pick?”
“It’s after nine,” he said, dry, and handed me my glasses, which were on the table beside him. He knew me too well.
“So you become an overnight sensation for brawling in the stands, and suddenly you’re too good for pancake Sunday?”
I shoved the glasses on my face, then pushed at the mass of hair threatening to attack my entire head. “It’s Monday,” I told him, even though Romeo already had. “You guys weren’t home for pancake Sunday yesterday.”
“Excuses,” B reprimanded.
“Wait,” I said, heaving up into a sitting position. “Did you say overnight sensation?”
“You’re trending on TweetDeck,” Ivy said from across the room. “And just about every other social media site.”
I groaned. “The clip of you in the stands yesterday has over a million hits on YouTube already.”
I fell over, letting my face bury into the pillow.
“My sister, the unexpected bruiser.”
“I’m never going to hear the end of this,” I groaned into the pillow.
There was another knock at the door.
“What the fuck is this? Grand Central Station?” Romeo muttered and went to the door.
“You watch your mouth when you’re holding my kid,” Braeden told him.
“He hasn’t had his coffee yet.” He really shouldn’t teach her such bad words, but I would defend him anyways.
Braeden glanced at me and winked. I sat up once more and shoved my fist under my glasses and rubbed at the sleep still clinging there.
“Heard there was coffee up in here!” Drew announced, waltzing into the room.
Surprised, I glanced around B. “Drew! Trent!”
“Hey, sis.” Trent smiled.
“Everyone’s here!”
“It’s pancake Sunday. Monday edition,” B said.
“It’s a family tradition.” Trent nodded.
“You guys drove all the way here to eat pancakes with us?” I said, surprised. I glanced at Romeo. “Did you call them?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“We saw the game.” Drew guffawed. “Thought you might need someone to bail you outta jail.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
“It was a rough night. Figured you could use some family time,” Braeden said low, tugging on my hair.
My eyes misted up. I held out my arms to him for a hug.
He wrapped me up, squeezing me tight. Before pulling back, he whispered in my ear, “I love ya, sis, but you gotta put on some clothes. This just feels wrong.”
&nbs
p; I gasped and laughed at the same time.
I was wearing a T-shirt, but that was about all. The blankets did cover me from the waist down; it wasn’t as if I were exposed.
“You better get your girl, Rome. One slight move and all her tidbits could be exposed.”
Romeo grabbed B by the back of his neck and pulled him away. “Dude, get the hell away from my wife.”
I waved at Nova and shoved the covers back.
“Clothes,” Romeo said, planting himself in front of me like a shield.
I grabbed my bag and darted into the bathroom. Outside, I could hear everyone talking, the sound of plates clattering, and the scent of maple syrup and bacon wafted through the air.
I smiled as I pulled on a pair of black leggings, a loose button-up chambray shirt, and added a chunky knit cream-colored cardigan (that was too big, my favorite) over top.
The blown-out, sleek strands of my hair were long gone. In their place was my usual wild style. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
I’m sure by now you know what I’m going to say.
I didn’t bother with it. I pulled it up into a massive knot on top of my head. Because I still had some flyaways going on that looked like horns, I fished out a yellow polka dot headband I sometimes wore when I washed my face. I used it to make me look less like Satan, then called it a success.
No, I didn’t care that the headband didn’t match.
I was just about finished when Romeo let himself into the bathroom, paused on his way past to kiss me on the temple, then went to the toilet to pee.
And this was marriage, folks. The real kind. Not the kind in romance novels.
Romeo had no qualms about peeing in front of me. Or doing any other bodily function, no matter how gross or stinky.
“Hey, baby,” he called, and I rolled my eyes.
“No, Romeo. I do not want to hold it for you.”
Men.
“You really didn’t call them?” I asked, putting my pajamas and hairbrush I didn’t use back into my bag.
“Didn’t have to. They’re family,” he replied simply.
Even after all this time, I still was surprised by the people I got to call family.
After he finished up and washed his hands, Romeo grasped me around the waist. “I wish I could come home with you today.”
#Bae (The Hashtag Series Book 8) Page 15