by Jaye Cox
“Close your eyes. Now image it’s ten years from now and you come home from work and open the door. Who do you see? Who’s the first person that you see in your mind?” Goddammit, the kid is good, I’ll give him that.
“Now, picture my mum dying…how does that make you feel?”
That pain in my heart resurfaces and I feel a little choked up.
“Now, if you love her, and picture her in your future, and can’t imagine a world without her, what are you waiting for? Life is short and we can’t waste any of it. Now, I have an idea on how to get her back, so listen carefully.”
I pause the video and run to her desk and rummage through the drawer for a pen and paper. Back at the laptop, I unpause and listen to his instructions. He knows about Alex, and also said if she was still around I could use her to my advantage. I would need my contact from ACE TV, and I can’t believe this kid knew about Lacey. Callie gets daily notifications from the app on her phone so she would see a headline, but that wouldn’t be enough for her and we would need something else and I should use him without asking her for a benefit concert or a gift to him, and the reporter would need to use that also. SO that is Part A of the plan. Part B is softening her up and he’s left a USB with his dad, along with instructions to wait for my call before taking it to Callie. That is Part B. Sasha is in on Part C because he said he’s run through his head who she’d call for help to get to me and he’s certain if I’m touring she’ll turn up to a concert, otherwise we could skip part C. Part D is up to me, he says, since his plans got her there. He also lectures me about not being a pussy, and I’m no pussy. I’m left shocked and staring at the screen when he says to not watch any further as the rest is for his mum, and that she should watch it after I propose and says she’ll need to see it. As much as I want to know what he has to say to her, I respect his wishes and shut it off. I bloody love this kid, he’s a pure genius. I wish I could have gotten to know him better. Could I really do this? I love Callie, but marriage has never been in the cards for me. I’ve never even considered, for a second, that anyone would even want to marry me. I’m way too damaged and high maintenance.
I call Mickki to my room, and the look of annoyance on his face doesn’t go unnoticed, I tell myself I will ask him about it later. I show him the video and that seems to shift his mood. I hit pause when Beau is done and as I stare at him and wait, I see a smile creep over his face.
“So what do ya think?” I say.
“Smart kid, he even had me wanting to marry her,” he says and my head whips around and I look him in the eyes. “Whoa killer, I don’t plan on stealing your lady, but the kid has a point.”
“Right, I thought it was crazy yet brilliant. If you mentioned marriage to me six months ago, I would have freaked out, gone on a binge, and screwed her sister. Now, the thought of marriage and settling down sounds inviting. I’m not a pussy, though.”
“Far from it bro, this is borderline crazy, but I think we can pull it off. You call that chick from ACE TV and then get on to Delilah, she has crazy good taste in jewellery.”
“I know, she buys herself jewellery every year for Christmas on me. Can you call Sasha, fill her in and see if she’ll get in contact with Callie’s ex-husband.”
“Already on it,” he says, pulling his phone from his pocket and leaving the room.
Not even an hour later, the plan is in place. Sasha called me once she got off the phone to Mickki to suggest that we get Lacey to add the last concert was in Beau’s honour. It would piss her off enough to come because she’d use it to confront me and wouldn’t miss it either since it was held on Beau’s behalf. Mickki has sent over plane tickets and back stage passes for Sasha to get to Callie somehow, and she said she would get it done. Lacey got in on the plan to set up a post tomorrow morning. Let’s just hope all goes to plan.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Callie
24 hours later
This is it. I think to myself. I wished Sasha could have come with me, but her husband had some important meetings and she has a family now and another child. So, I brought Jaynie with me. I knew she’d enjoy a Black Diamond concert and especially one held in Beau’s honour. I didn’t tell her I was beyond furious that Eddie hadn’t even bothered to call me and tell me about it, that he was using my son to benefit himself. I muster a smile when Jaynie shrieks at the sight of Beau’s picture on the big screen.
“He would have loved this, Callie. I’m so glad you asked me to come.”
“I’m glad you came,” I say, offering her a smile. My attention is directed at the crowd moving aside, that’s when I see Marcus walking in my direction and laugh to myself. He still makes me think of Men in Black, dressed head to toe in an expensive black suit and his dark shades.
“Ladies, please come with me,” he says and I shake my head; I’m not ready to confront Eddie, not with Jaynie around. I didn’t really think through how I’d get him alone. He must know I’m here.
“Does he know I’m here?” I ask quietly as we start walking.
“No, Sasha called Mickki, and he swore me to secrecy. He’ll only know you’re here, when and if you want him to. They didn’t want him to ruin the night for you.”
“Thank you, it means a lot.” He doesn’t say anything else, he just nods and leads us to a roped off section, which I find odd. I’ve never seen anything like this at a concert, but this isn’t just any concert it’s Black Diamond’s final concert ever and it dawns on me that this is a big deal.
When the guys all walk out on stage, I find myself holding my breath. The sight of him makes my palms sweaty and the thumping of my heart physically hurts. I’m quickly reminded of how much I still love him, even the anger melts away until I remember he’s engaged.
“It was only a stupid article from some bimbo in love with Eddie,” Jaynie says as if she can read my mind.
“What do you mean?” I say, playing dumb.
“Don’t act stupid, Callie, you’re far from it. I know you get the notifications on your phone. I don’t believe, for one second, that he’d touch that chick with a ten-foot pole.” Jaynie may be right, but it doesn’t change anything. The asshole didn’t even invite me and that tells me he doesn’t care. I wonder if he even knew the concert was in Beau’s honour considering he’s always been oblivious to anything going on around him unless it somehow directly involves him. Jaynie sings song after song as loudly as she can. After two encores, Mickki tries to quieten down the crowd.
“Alright, alright, if everyone shuts up we may do one more song,” Mickki says and the crowd falls silent in the hope of hearing them one last time. Just when I think he’s about to say something else, Eddie walks towards him and takes the microphone.
“Thank you all for coming, we appreciate the support from all our fans over the years. I want to give a special mention to Beau,” he says. “I didn’t have a chance to get to know Beau very well before he passed away, but he was truly an extraordinary kid who loved his mum so much. She’s here tonight. Callie, where are you?” Jaynie starts jumping up and down squealing and pointing to me, no point trying to hide now. “Yo, Marcus bring her up to the stage.”
I shake my head, no. “Nope, no way,” I say as Marcus walks my way.
“No point fighting it,” he says. “He’ll just come to you.”
He’s right and I follow him up to the stage, my heart beating through my chest. Once I’m on the stage, Eddie walks over to me. My emotions are all over the place, I want to cry and scream, sucker punch him in his junk, but I just stand there and stare at him; everything just melts away.
“Callie, from the first day you walked into my life, it changed. At first, I was far from happy about the situation, but over time you grew on me and not having you in my life hasn’t been easy. I miss you, I miss your no-bullshit attitude. I thought if I let you go, and it was meant to be, you’d find your way back to me, but a wise kid made me realise-life is too short to wait,” he says, the sweat visibly running down his face. He shakily g
ets down on one knee and his hands are shaking. What the hell is he doing? He can’t propose, not when there’s so much I need to say and so much he doesn’t know.
“Callie, I know this is crazy,” he says and the crowd cheers him on. “But I don’t want to waste any more time, I love you and can’t imagine my future without you in it. Will you marry me?”
“I…I’m pregnant,” I finally spit out and I watch for a reaction, but he just stands there speechless for a second and literally passes out. I knew this was too much for him to handle, fuck, it’s too much for me to handle. I was booked in for a termination, I couldn’t bring another child into this world when I’d done such a bad job at being a mother the first time; I can barely keep my shit together and Eddie is just as unstable. I didn’t want my sister to know, or even Eddie, but when I watched Beau’s video he made me think that maybe I should think it through some more. Then Eddie catches me off guard and I just blurt it out in front of thousands of people. There’s no way to take that back and him passing out is the icing in the cake. We’re as screwed up as I thought we were.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eddie
I look around the room, realising everyone is here including a medic. “I’m fine, can everyone get out.” Everyone starts to leave, even Callie. “Not you, Callie.” She looks at me and sits back down in the chair beside me. “You’re pregnant?” I have so many questions, I figured I may as well start there.
“I am,” she says, not offering me any more information.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“I only found out just before I came back, I’ve never had regular periods so I didn’t think anything of it until I had my routine drug test, which I found amusing since I was in the middle of nowhere. To be honest, I wasn’t going to keep it.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re messed up. I failed the first time around and your reaction just now confirms how you feel.”
“I was expecting a different reaction from you is all, and wasn’t expecting that, but this changes nothing. I want to marry you, I want a life with you and while kids weren’t something I was expecting, or thinking of straight away, we can do this. We may be screwed up and have made lots of mistakes in our past, but together we can figure it out.”
“I don’t know, it all seems so fast,” she says.
“If you asked me two days ago, I would have said the same thing, but you need to watch this. If you still think it’s a crazy idea then I’ll drop the marriage idea, but I’m not leaving you again no matter what you decide to do.” I get up from the day lounge I was laying on and go in search of my laptop. Callie just watches me in silence. I know it’s in here, in retrospect it probably wasn’t a smart idea. I find it in a closet with the rest of the crap I’d bought in earlier and sit it down next to her and wait for it to load. The few minutes that go by feel like hours.
“What’s so important that I need to watch it?” she asks.
“Your son, he’s brilliant.” She just smiles and watches as the screen lights up, I skip it forward to where I paused it earlier. Beau’s face pops up on the screen and while I see her sadness, I see the pure love on her face. Call me sappy, but the thought of her looking at our child like that, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
“Hey mum, me again. I bet when I died you expected that to be it, you can’t get rid of me that easily.” Callie has tears in her eyes and laughs at his joke. “So, I take it Eddie asked you to marry him. You said no, didn’t you? Don’t overthink it or use your past as an excuse. I’ll ask you what I asked him. Do you love him?”
She looks over at me. “Well?” I ask.
“Yes, I love you,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Now, close your eyes and imagine it’s ten years from now. The door swings open at the end of the day and you’ve cooked a nice meal—who’s coming home to you? And lastly, imagine Eddie dies—does it hurt your heart? Does panic set in? You know life is short, and you can’t ignore how you feel because you’re scared. I love you and you have my blessing. Now, go back to the start of the video and see how much effort we put into this proposal.”
I start the video over for her and she watches and laughs in places.
“So, this was all him?” she says.
“Pretty much. When he says it, it doesn’t sound crazy though, it just makes sense,” I say, getting down on one knee. “So, I’m going to ask you again, will you marry me? We have so much to talk about and a lifetime to figure it out. We are far from perfect, but you know what, I want to be flawed with you. I want to get old with you by my side, holding my hand when times get hard. I know things will get hard because that’s what life is all about, but with you by my side the hard things never seem as bad. You’re that missing piece I have been looking for all my life, when I’m with you everything else fades away and I feel like everything is right in the world.”
“Yes,” she says. I slide the ring on her finger. It’s nothing flashy or oversized, Delilah said Callie was elegant and something simple yet beautiful is what she’d like. “It’s perfect”
“So, we’re having a baby,” I say.
“I’m scared,” she says.
“It’s okay to be scared. Hell, I’m scared too, but together we can figure it out. He’ll be loved, something I never had growing up.” I don’t talk about my past very often, but one thing I never felt from my parents was love.
“He?” She says, arching an eyebrow at me.
“Or she, but I think these powerful swimmers have made a boy.” She playfully slaps me as I pull her to my chest.
Last night, after I spent what felt like seconds with Callie, I was whisked away to wrap up our tour. And that meant meeting fans and talking to reporters and those vloggers, or whatever they call themselves, because a pregnancy bombshell and her saying no to my marriage proposal would be everywhere by tomorrow. Mickki did say that he wanted to go out with a bang. But all I wanted to do was go back to Callie and talk to her before she could talk herself out of marrying me and having my baby. When I, or Beau, came up with this idea, I’d planned on her being in my room and made sure her friend had their own room. When we finally got to the hotel as the sun was coming up, I crawled into bed next to her and pulled her up against me. I needed to hold her in my arms to believe this is really happening, to make her feel safe before we head out into the real world – my world. We’ve never talked about her being in the spotlight, we may not be Black Diamond anymore, but with the record company about to launch its first artists I doubt the spotlight is going anywhere. Now that we’ve fulfilled our contracts with Fontaine records, and all the drama with Alex is over with, our solicitors made sure a contract of our own was signed just to cover our asses. Oliver wished us well, and I have a feeling Alex has something on him or his father, because he didn’t seem overly happy with her last night. One of the roadies told Mickki he overheard them arguing about losing some of their best talent, and that he’d never work with Avery again. I told Mickki and he said Alex and Avery were together now and so much made sense, the two of them deserved each other. I’m just glad the whole thing is over with. For the first time in my life, I’m content with knowing where my life is headed; a beautiful woman, a baby on the way, and an exciting new adventure workwise.
Chapter Thirty
Callie
I rub my huge stomach to ease the pain. My doctor said that Braxton Hicks contractions are very common this late in pregnancy, as they prepare the body for labour. I don’t remember them being this bad with Beau’s pregnancy, but I was sixteen back then. Jules is due to bring my nephew, Hunter, over. He is the happiest little boy you could ever meet. Today is the trial run for the launch of Diamond Records. Eddie has worked his ass off with the girls getting them ready, they’re his star act besides Mickki.
“Hey Babe, are you okay?” Eddie says, walking out of the ensuite in nothing but a towel that hangs low on his hips. I watch as the water drips from his long hair down his
chest and stops around the patch of hair under his navel. I lick my lips. “Don’t you be undressing me with your eyes, I can’t be late today.”
“I can’t help it, blame pregnancy hormones.”
“I thought women stopped putting out when they got all big and things started swelling?”
“Are you saying I’m fat?” I tease, waiting for his reaction.
“Oh no, don’t start that, woman,” he says, dropping his towel and swinging his dick to get my attention. “Maybe I can spare a few minutes.”
“A few minutes? You’ll need a lot longer than that, you know, to get around all this weight,” I say, the look in his eyes says challenge accepted.
Pulling me into his arms, he asks, “Is this what you want?” He kisses my neck. “Or maybe here?” Lowering the strap to my singlet top he says, “I know you like this.” Freeing my right breast, he takes my nipple in his mouth.
“Oh god, I need you now, stop teasing me,” I say, pulling away from him. I make quick work of removing all my clothes and pushing Eddie onto our bed. “He’s ready for me.”
“The monster is always ready for you,” he says as I climb on top of him. I slowly take him in as I lower myself on top of him. My huge belly limits the positions we can use.
As I rock into him, my stomach hardens. It does that quite often when we have sex and I have learned to ignore it, the one time I mentioned it Eddie freaked out and refused to have sex with me for a week. Leaning back as I rock, I start to feel the build-up of an orgasm. Out of nowhere, I feel a popping sensation and something trickles out between us.
“What the fuck was that?” Eddie asks, rolling me onto the bed. It dawns on me my waters just broke and I start laughing hysterically.
“My waters broke,” I say as tears run down my face. Eddie screams and curses as he runs around the room.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” Mickki says, bursting through the door. Luckily his attention is focused on his brother freaking out, just long enough for me to wrap the sheet around my body. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s burst through the doors while we were naked.