by Kristy Marie
“What? What happened?” I’m already pushing toward the front door, my brother on my heels.
“I’m driving,” he barks, and I don’t argue. Whatever gets me in a car the fastest.
“Mac!” I lose it when she doesn’t answer me. “What’s going on?”
Her next words are my greatest fear—I’m not going to make it in time. “My water broke.”
Cooper
“What do you mean your water broke?”
Hysteria is not a good look on anyone, let alone someone who is supposed to come into stressful situations and save them. But that’s the thing, I can’t help McKinley from this far away.
“I mean, never mind. It was a false alarm. Everything is fine. Just stay there. Lu will catch her breath, and we’ll be back on the road in no time.”
Maverick swerves onto the highway, breaking several posted speed limits. “You’re lying.” I know her tones of voice now. She might have once been able to convince me she was fine, but I’ve been with her through highs and lows for the past six months. I know when my wife is scared.
“Mac? Baby? Listen to me—”
“No, no, no. You listen to me,” she starts all bossily, her voice quaking through the phone. “I will not have this baby alone. I’ve been alone all my life, and I refuse to go through this without my husband.”
My chest tightens, and I have to look out the window to find a focus. “You’re not alone,” I tell her. “I’m coming, but you can’t wait on me.”
“Yes, I can—I am waiting on you. Labor takes hours. You’ll make it.”
If my brother wasn’t next to me, I would yell, but that would be counterproductive as Mac seems set on waiting, and Maverick doesn’t know that the baby isn’t mine. Discussing this in front of him will only blow our story. I promised I wouldn’t go back on my word, and I won’t. Mac’s secret will die with me. Besides, that baby inside her is mine, no matter whose DNA it carries.
After a few deep breaths, I lean my head against the window, preparing for a long debate.
“Don’t breathe all bossy like that, Cooper. I don’t even want to hear it.”
Breathe bossy? How does one breathe bossy?
“This baby is coming out of my body, and he—like you—will learn that we wait for Mommy to be ready. And I’m not ready, Coop.” The spunk in her words wane. “I’m not. I thought I was, but I’m not. I’m so not ready to have a baby. I couldn’t even put the bassinet together. I fucked it all up.”
Seriously? She’s basing her parent-readiness on baby furniture? “I’ll handle the bassinet.”
Her breathing is heavy, and she goes quiet for a second. “Mac? You okay?”
“No.” She starts crying, the pain in her voice ripping apart my insides. “These contractions hurt. It’s so not like that Lamaze lady said. Breathing is not fucking helping.”
Shit.
I look at my brother and put my phone on mute. “Mac’s having contractions.”
My brother, the no-bullshitter looks at me, his mouth firm. “Call her an ambulance before she has the baby on the side of the road.”
He’s right. He is, but he didn’t hear the fear in her voice. “Cooper?”
I take the phone off mute. “I’m here. Is it over?”
“I think so.” She sounds so weak, so vulnerable. I can’t bear to tell her. So I do what husbands are supposed to do for their wives—I protect her, even if it’s without her consent. “Where are you, baby? Can you drop me a pin, so I can put it in my GPS?”
With a teary, “Yes,” she sends me her location, and I immediately forward it to Maverick and put the phone on mute.
“Send an ambulance to that location.”
If she hates me, she hates me, but there is no way I am risking her and the baby’s safety because she’s stubborn.
Another contraction hits Mac, and I hear her breathing through it when she shouts, “I don’t hear you breathing, Cooper!” It makes me smile. I may not have been the one to fill her body with a baby, but I’ll happily pick up the job of being yelled at to get it out.
“Hee, hee, hee, hoo,” we chant together, giving Maverick time to call an ambulance, keeping his voice low so Mac doesn’t hear and try to do something stupid like walk somewhere else.
“That one hurt a little worse,” she finally says, regaining her snark. “But they are far enough apart that it’ll be fine. At least that’s what that stupid book you made me read said.”
The asshole rears its ugly head. “They don’t sound far apart to me.”
“Well, I didn’t ask for your—or your watch’s—opinion on the matter.”
I grit my teeth, knowing she’s scared and in pain. “Please let me call someone for you.” I don’t want to surprise her and piss her off when she’s finally speaking to me again. If she would just consent for an ambulance, it would save me a grovel session later.
“No, you’ll be here in like eight or so hours. I’ll be fine.”
And this is why I yell. She makes absolutely no sense, and she knows it.
“Mac.” I sigh, not knowing how else to negotiate with her. “This is serious.”
She sucks in a breath. “Don’t you think I know that? I—”
I can hear sirens.
“Please tell me you didn’t call them.” She’s crying, and I feel like such an asshole that I can’t be there to hold her.
“I didn’t.” Exhaling, I add, before she can say anything, “But Maverick did.”
“Why?” She’s sobbing, her breath catching as another contraction hits her.
“Because I love you, and I vowed to always look out for you and the baby—even if it pisses you off.”
“Well.” She blows out a breath, and I find myself doing the same. “I.” Another breath. “Am.”
“I know you’re mad, but I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.”
“I don’t want to have this baby in a strange hospital… alone.”
The sirens are closer, and I try lightening the situation with a joke. “But at least we have that good insurance. You shouldn’t have to pay anything regardless of what hospital.”
I do, actually, have co-insurance, but she’ll never know that. For all she knows, I have no copays or deductibles. I’ll take care of any expenses for her and the baby.
“Don’t make jokes. This is serious. I’m about to have this baby, without our uppity doctor.” She’s serious.
“I’m sure I can call ahead and ask for the uppity-est doctor they have on staff,” I tease.
A sob bursts through the phone. “I want you to come save me now.”
Something in my chest tightens to the point I can’t take a breath.
“I know I said I didn’t ever want or need your help, but I do. Having you beside me this whole pregnancy made everything a lot less scary because I knew you would protect me, even if I didn’t want you to—because that’s what you do, right? Save games and people?”
My throat clogs with emotion, and it takes me a second to work through it. “I’m coming, baby, but I won’t make it to you in time. But you’re strong. You carry a wrench, remember?”
She lets out a half-hearted laugh.
“You’re so strong… I wish I could take credit for saving you, but I have never saved you, Mrs. Lexington. I’ve just had a front-row seat this whole time, watching as you saved yourself.”
“Stop lying, Cooper! It’s not sexy.”
I’d laugh if she weren’t serious.
“I’ve failed at everything. I couldn’t even look at the ultrasound pictures! What if I can’t look at the baby? What if I can’t soothe his crying?”
Her own crying increases before the sirens stop. “Oh, God. They’re here.”
“You’re okay. Take your wrench and go with them. I promise, I’m coming.”
“Can I call you?” She sounds so defeated, so alone that I want to stomp on Maverick’s foot and make him go faster.
“You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”
That gets a laugh out of her. “You always threaten me with that, yet I’ve never seen you follow through.”
“I’ve been keeping a tally. I figured the baby didn’t need to suffer with you.”
“So you’re saying when I’ve delivered…”
I grin. “You’ll pay your dues.”
I hear the emergency crew talking to her. “Tell your husband to meet us at Baptist Health.”
A choked cry is all she manages before I add, “I’ll be there. Call me when you get settled.”
She doesn’t answer, and I don’t dare hang up. Even when I can hear them loading her into the back of the ambulance and asking her dozens of questions about the pregnancy. Her voice seems steady as she answers, but then they ask for her home address.
“Cooper,” she calls. “Tell this man where home is.”
“I can’t wait on you, Mav!”
Maverick, unlike me, is calm and collected as he waves me off with a laugh. “Go, I’ll meet you in there.”
We drove through the night to get to Mac in eight hours with me on FaceTime, holding my breath with her through each painful push. Thankfully the nurse dug through McKinley’s purse, finding the wrench, and the phone charger, so I could watch in helpless awe as my strong and beautiful wife pushed our son into the world all on her own in a room full of strangers.
I watched as the tears streamed down her face when they placed him on her chest as she sobbed, kissing his chubby little cheeks. My heart couldn’t take it. I wanted nothing more than to be there with them and enjoy the moment, but I knew Mac needed a moment with our son. A moment that was just them. She needed to be able to look at that baby without guilt. She needed to see that he might have been part of Griffin, but he was part of her too.
She was not a failure.
She was a woman, beautiful and dedicated to raising that baby with everything she was. The journey for her to get to this point might have been long, but it was worth it, so damn worth it.
“Mac?” I knock on room 402, the one Mac told me she and the baby were in.
“Come in.” Her voice sounds tired. That’s fine. I’m here now, and she can rest while I hold the baby.
The room is dark when I push the door open and find my wife in bed, with a lamp lit on the bedside table, illuminating the swaddled baby in her arms.
“Hi.” I take a seat on the mattress, careful not to jar her in case she’s sore.
She grins. “I guess you want to meet your son, huh?” She’s teasing, but it doesn’t stop the tears at seeing her okay, at hearing the healthy baby cooing in her arms as I lean over and kiss the top of her head. “I very much would like to meet my son.”
And like I had never felt love before, my wife lifts her arms, kissing the striped hat on the baby’s head, and places him in my arms.
Everything pauses.
I don’t breathe or swallow when the tiny boy in my arms, his eyes the same shape as his mother’s, looks up at me.
“Levi Lexington,” my wife whispers, “meet your daddy.”
McKinley
“Hand Mama the wrench and close your eyes. I gotta kill Daddy before dinner.”
I level the little boy at my side with a look that dares him to argue, which he ignores.
“Daddy said you’re not supposed to be carrying a wrench anymore.”
I squat down so I’m eye to eye with Griffin’s mini-me. “Levi, don’t you want a new daddy?” Glancing at the strange vehicle in the driveway—a Mercedes that clearly isn’t mine—I growl. “One who doesn’t have a death wish every other Friday?”
Unfortunately, Levi, like everyone else who gets to know Cooper, is his biggest fan. “Daddy also said that making death threats when the baby can hear you isn’t nice.”
Cooper is such a manipulator.
“Did he also say that it’s his fault I’m always pregnant?”
What did Cooper do when Levi finally went to school? The asshole knocked me up again. Jacob came four years later, which leads us to that time Ainsley and Maverick offered to watch Pops and the boys for us so that we could have a date night.
Spoiler alert: Cooper knocked me up again.
This time though, we’re having… another boy. Don’t get excited. I’m surrounded by men who are replicas of my husband. You’d think I’d have one that was Team Mom, but nope, it’s still just me and Pops against Cooper and his brood.
But he’s done it now. Telling me he was running behind at the stadium and couldn’t stop to pick up dinner. Dinner, clearly, is some ball bunny in need of a DILF.
Not today, sister.
If Mr. Lexington can’t be with me and all these dang kids, then he will die. No questions, no explanations, no nothing but a wrench to the balls, ensuring he will never impregnate another woman or charm her into marrying his sweet adulterating ass.
“Daddy said not to get upset when you talk loud and don’t make sense. He says the baby makes you crazy sometimes.”
And there is reason number two that Daddy is getting his ass beat. “Never mind. I’ll get the wrench myself.”
“Pops!” The little traitor runs to the front door. “Tell Daddy to run!”
I sigh and look up at the Georgia sky. Yep, you heard right. The Georgia sky. Cooper didn’t hesitate to sign the contract for Atlanta when I agreed to move. The next week, before I could change my mind, movers showed up, and Cooper had us packed in the car. If the man has learned anything, it’s been not to give me time to think about my decisions.
“You threatening people already? It’s not even eight o’clock.” The old man at the door grins, pulling Levi close. “Don’t worry, kiddo, we hid the wrench the last time Daddy left the toilet seat up.”
Cooper almost died then too. Nothing—and I mean nothing—makes getting up ten times a night to pee better. But falling into the toilet bowl because your husband—on the one time he gets up to pee—forgets to put the lid down… That’s grounds for murder or until death do us part.
I had to stop with the delivery do us part. I felt sure it was the reason Cooper kept knocking me up. He needed to make sure I didn’t change my mind and leave with Levi.
Don’t roll your eyes at my comment. I know when I’ve been replaced.
The moment Cooper held Levi, I knew I wasn’t getting that kid back. The Closer took one look at those chubby little cheeks and was ruined.
I knew I could never divorce Cooper at that point. Not that I would have, I’m just saying, I knew then that no man would ever look at my child like Cooper looks at Levi. He doesn’t just look at him like a stepfather looks at his stepson.
No, Cooper looks at Levi like it’s his face staring back at him. Not one hour has passed when Cooper has ever shown preference with our boys. Not one. To him, they are all equally his. Granted, we tell Levi about Griffin, and Jacob about his Uncle Griffin. We don’t keep secret Griffin’s role in bringing Levi into this world and making us a family. For all the pain that came with losing Griffin, getting to raise his son has been an absolute joy.
At night, Cooper and I sit with Levi in his bed and tell him bedtime stories, consisting of all the silly things Griffin used to do when we were kids. Levi knows he has two daddies. One that died before he was born and the other one that loved him from the moment he saw him on the ultrasound.
“You need some help getting Jacob?” Pops hollers across the yard.
I narrow my eyes at the old man. “Well, if I plan on stabbing your grandson with my keys (how dare they hide my wrench), I do.”
Pops chuckles. “Coop! She’s home, and she’s stabby again.”
I watch as my bestie and my first-born disappear into the house before I shuffle to the car where I left the door open in my haste to kill Cooper and his girlfriend, and look at the baby in the back seat, sucking aggressively on a pacifier. “Should Mommy key the girlfriend’s car?”
Jacob doesn’t answer, and that’s quite all right, he’s only eighteen months old. I’m in no hurry for another man in this house
to sound like my husband.
“You know that’s not my girlfriend.” Crazy muscled arms wrap around me. “You know Pops would have killed me first.”
I shrug, refusing to turn my head to look at him. “That’s why Pops is still my favorite.”
The scruff on his face scratches my cheek as he nuzzles me. “Don’t lie in front of the baby. It sets a bad example.” He palms my belly, the nearly-identical black wedding ring (we had to cut them off a few times when his hands would swell from pitching) made from a zip tie still sits on his finger. I refuse to let him buy us real ones.
I said it once and I’ll say it again, if they can hold Lu together, they can hold our marriage together. And Lu, well, she still takes up a space in the garage, even though I never get to drive her anymore (see seating capacity with a shit load of kids.) But she still runs… sometimes.
So, we can’t get rid of the rings because Lu is still being held together. Pitchers know you can’t change routines that work. When you’re pitching great, you don’t change anything. Translation: I still love Cooper, and he’s not dead yet. Best to be wise and not fuck with changing the rings. I don’t care what the rest of those baseball wives think.
“I’m going to set a terrible example when I kill whoever is in that house with you,” I tell him.
He pulls away and flashes me a smile, grabbing Jacob from his car seat. “We’ll get the shovel ready.”
Okay, something smells fishy here. “Who’s in the house, Cooper?”
The man who I love dearly, but want to kill daily, simply responds with, “See for yourself.”
“I don’t know if I should kiss you or smother you.”
I’m exhausted when I finally come to bed, finding two boys lying across my husband with their great-grandfather asleep in the side chair.
“I’m thinking a kiss sounds better right now.”
I flop down on the bed and rub down Jacob’s back. “Why did you call Chris?”
My husband, the sneak, shrugs. “He owed you an apology.”
That he did, but it was still a shock to see the man, who crushed my heart with only a few words, sitting at my kitchen table. “You let him see Levi too…”