“Slater, my star!” Malynda exclaimed as she wiggled over to me. She was absolutely stunning, her blonde hair in bouncy curls, a sky blue, sparkly dress that fell all the way to the floor and trailed behind her. “How are you feeling?”
“A little overwhelmed,” I managed, my voice cracking a little. “There are a lot of people here.”
“There are,” she purred gleefully. “People from all over have come to see this, come to see you it’s perfect, don’t you think?” She pointed to a man on the far side of the room. “That man over there is Thomas Conti,” she whispered. “He’s in that new Netflix show and has come all the way here between shoots to check this out, he’s really into his abstract art.” She pointed to a woman in a little black dress. “And that is Christiana Witt, her second album came out last week, she’s number one in fifteen countries as we speak.”
“Wow.”
“And counting, she’s huge,” she gushed. She was excited, that much I could see. I knew Howling Hills was fancy but I didn’t think I could pull in a crowd like this. It made me breath catch in my throat. God I wish Niko was here, he’d know what to do, he’d be able to tell me how to act and make sure I wasn’t freaking out.
“Here he is, the man of the hour,” Jarrett’s voice startled me from my panic, something I was incredibly grateful for. He was crossing the room with Brent on his arm, the pair of them wearing matching tuxedos, Jarrett in a bowtie, Brent with a cravat. They looked beyond adorable.
“The place is packed,” Brent said, releasing himself from Jarrett and pulling me into a hug. “You must be so damn proud, congratulations.”
“Thanks Brent, Jarrett,” I sighed away some of my troubles. “Thanks so much for coming you guys.”
“It’s our pleasure!” Chasen boomed as he approached, Tate running a little behind him to catch up. “This looks incredible, I can’t believe you’re at a gallery in Howling Hills.”
“Honestly? Neither can I,” I said quietly. “It’s pretty cool.”
“These paintings are incredible,” Tate said, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging a little open. “The one in Frostbites is going to be worth a small fortune after tonight.”
“Stop it,” I said. “Now you’re just being silly.”
“Hey, I don’t plan on selling, it’s a personal commission,” Tate replied. “I made you cake,” he said suddenly. “It’s in the back of the car, I had planned to give it to you in person but the party looked too fancy for red velvet cake.”
“If there is a party too fancy for red velvet cake, I’m not sure I want to be part of it,” Jarrett said, looking around. “This is pretty fancy, big brother. Dad would be…”
“Drunk somewhere and hitting on one of the cute waiters?” Chasen offered.
Tate nudged him in the side. “You’re spoken for.”
“It’s window shopping.”
“It’s perverted.”
“He’s got a point you know,” Brent said, a mischievous grin on his face. “These are some tasty waiters.”
“That’s the name of the company Malynda hired them from actually,” I replied. “Tasty Waiters, delicious men or your money back.”
We descended into slightly raucous laughter for a moment until we remembered where we were and straightened back up, trying to look for all intents and purposes professionals.
Jarrett leaned in a little closer. “What I was going to say was, Dad would be very proud of you for tonight,” he said. “I know he wasn’t big on your art and your art career, but you know he would have seen this and just lose his mind at how cool it all was, how well you’d done.”
I shrugged, unable to stop the slight pang in my heart at missing Dad, and then at missing Niko. “And just think, it was Niko’s doing,” I said. “He got me the meeting with Malynda.”
“Where is Niko?” Chasen asked. “I’ve met him a handful of times which hardly seems proper when he’s having your baby.”
I took a moment. “He’s not here,” I said. “We had a fight about a week ago so he went to stay with his brother, Nyle.”
“Where?”
“Howling Hills,” I replied.
Chasen raised an eyebrow. “Well, fight or not fight, he should be here tonight.”
I took a deep breath and composed myself, now wasn’t the time to get emotional about this. “Let’s hope so then, huh?”
Malynda appeared at my side again, a grin so broad her face looked like it might split.
“Slater, Slater, Slater, we are in business!” she hissed, struggling to contain her excitement.
“Malynda, I’d like to introduce you to my brothers-“
“We don’t have time for you to introduce me to your brothers,” she snapped. “We’ve sold out.”
I blinked. “Of what?”
“Paintings.”
My brothers and their mates looked to each other confusedly. I joined the party. What was she talking about?
“As in-?”
“As in your paintings have been bought by the people in this room, each and every one of them you beautiful, talented man!” She was gripping my shoulder so tightly her nails were digging in. “I can’t believe it. This is the quickest any show of mine has ever sold out. There were people fighting over that new one.”
“What new one?”
“Tainted Love,” she said wistfully. Just hearing the name of it put a picture of Niko in my head, a picture I didn’t want there right now because it hurt me so deeply that he wasn’t here. “It sparked a little bidding war, I had to step in to stop them fighting each other but I think that just drove the price up further.” She sighed. “You’re a star Slater, you’re the star of tonight.”
“Who bought it?” Tate asked. Malynda turned so sharply I wouldn’t have been surprised if she hadn’t even noticed he was there the whole time. She quickly rearranged her face into a smile.
“Damian Freedman,” she said.
Tate’s face lit up. “Damian Freedman is here?” he breathed.
“He is indeed and he just had to have that painting of yours,” she said turning back to me.
“Now who’s window shopping!” Chasen sniped. Tate pushed.
“There’s just one thing left to do,” she said grabbing hold of my arm. “And that would be for you to say a few words to your adoring public.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, Slater,” she said “I wouldn’t dream of doing this to you in any other situation but tonight has been a roaring success, we can’t just leave these people without seeing you in the flesh. Let them know your inspirations, what makes you tick. Keep it short, keep it sweet, leave them wanting more.”
She started to drag me away towards a small podium that had been set up near the middle of the room. I turned my head back towards my brothers, pleading with them to come and rescue me, but none of them did.
Traitors. I thought to myself.
Malynda had found a microphone and before I could protest any more she was speaking into it, her smile broad, her voice bright, every bit the perfect hostess.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” she started. “Thank you so much for coming here tonight, I sincerely hope you’ve had a wonderful evening.” She took a deep breath, composing herself. Though why she needed to compose herself was beyond me, I was the one who didn’t have a speech prepared and was having to speak completely off the cuff. “I would like to introduce to you the man of the hour, the reason you are all here tonight. Ladies and Gentlemen, Slater Ewen.”
The room erupted with the applause, a wave of it carrying forward and nearly knocking me off balance. My brothers and their mates were cheering the loudest, Chasen chanting my name and whooping like he was at a football game, not a high end gallery in Howling Hills. I could always count on him to lower the tone.
Malynda handed me the microphone and I could hardly stop my hand from shaking.
“Good evening, thank you so much for coming,” I said, recoiling a little at the sound of my voice coming thro
ugh over the speaker system. “Your support tonight has been truly overwhelming,” I continued. “I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that and for supporting me in this. Malynda, I owe you a lot for tonight happening so thank you also.”
I took a breath. “I suppose my biggest inspiration when it comes to my painting is…” I trailed off as I saw the doors to the gallery open and a familiar face walk through.
Niko walked in looking like a million bucks, a well fitted tuxedo hugging every curve, his pregnant bump round and gorgeous in front of him, his hair swept back and away from his face. He looked right at me, and I lost myself entirely in him.
Malynda nudged me, bringing me back to the room. He was here. Niko had come. I couldn’t stop the smile stretching across my face, new life breathed into me. Suddenly, I was a lot less nervous, a lot less scared of the people in front of me. Niko was here. Everything was going to be alright. I knew it would be.
“Sorry. My biggest inspiration has actually just walked into the room,” I said. The crowd turned around to see Niko who stopped walking, frozen in the middle of Artscapia. “This is Niko Lesher,” I continued. “He is my partner and the father of my child.” A murmur ran through the audience. “A lot of these paintings happened after Niko moved in next door to me. The one just as you enter the room, ‘The Long Hello’, was actually the first thing I painted after Niko and I got together. My cat Fishstick,” he perked up a little at the sound of his name, stopping his winding around my ankles. “Was actually the one who made this happen. He leapt over to Niko’s balcony and it drove us together. Once I saw him, once I really took him in and got to know him, I knew there was nobody else in the whole world for me.”
Niko looked like he was crying. Tate had made his way over to him and wrapped a caring arm across his shoulders, which he seemed to appreciate.
“’Tainted Love’, the most fought over painting here tonight, was actually a recent addition to the line-up,” I said. “It was inspired by losing the most important thing in your life. I thought I’d lost the love of my life not too long before this show, I thought we were through, and ‘Tainted Love’ expresses that feeling. Niko is my muse, my one, my only. He’s all I need. I hope you enjoy taking in the rest of my work this evening. Thank you all.”
Applause erupted once again as I stepped away from the stage, but the sound seemed muffled, far away, I certainly couldn’t keep my focus on that. I needed to get to Niko.
I pushed my way through the crowd, acknowledging people’s thanks and congratulations, but doing everything I possibly could to get to Niko.
I stopped in front of him, looking down at his beautiful face, those gorgeous amber eyes that seemed to be glowing at me in the dim light, at the smile that seemed to get a few clicks brighter as I reached him.
“You meant everything you said up there, you big old cheese ball?” he said, sniffing back his tears.
“Oh, every damn word,” I replied. “I can’t believe I nearly lost you.” I stepped to him, placing my hands on his hips. “Never again, Niko, never again.”
And I kissed him. Everything was right.
18
Niko
I was so unbelievably proud of Slater and everything he had achieved. The show was a hit, a smash if you listened to Malynda, and all of his paintings had sold, just like I knew they would. Finally people were going to see how talented Slater was and I finally got a chance to apologize to him for losing my mind a little bit.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “Having a baby is a lot of pressure. I’m pretty sure if you talk to Tate and Brent, they went through similar things when they were pregnant. It’s not like being pregnant with a normal baby, there is so much more involved than that.”
“I get that,” I said. “But I’m still sorry. My brain was all over the place and I just wasn’t doing a good job of handling myself. So please forgive me for that, and also for anything that might happen during the next few months of this pregnancy.”
“Beyond forgiven, now and in advance,” he said, pulling me into a tight hug.
I got to hang out with him and the rest of the Ewen pack, which was incredible. I finally felt like I was part of something, and none of them hated me for acting like a crazy person, which was certainly a bonus.
A couple of weeks later, Slater took me back to Doctor Acevedo for a sonogram. I was nervous, so jittery at the thought of hearing our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. I mean, I was pretty sure everything was okay, but once I heard that heartbeat, I knew it would feel a lot more real than it did before, and I didn’t know how prepared I was for that.
“How are you both feeling?” she asked as we got into her office.
“I’m doing well,” I said. “I’ve been resting, just like you recommended, Slater has been working hard to provide for us both, it’s been pretty great.”
“We had a bit of a rocky patch,” Slater added. “But everything is fine now.”
“I think every couple has a rocky patch during a pregnancy,” she said. “I would think that you of all people would know that, Slater,” she continued. “With everything that happened between your brothers and their partners I thought you would have been a little more prepared for it.”
I hopped up on the bed and lifted my shirt, the bump seeming to grow in spurts every night. From one day to the next, I swore blind I could see myself inflating. She covered my stomach with the gel and started to trace patterns through it with the handle of the machine, searching for a heartbeat.
Slater took hold of my hand, squeezing it gently as she searched. Her brow furrowed and I held my breath, panic suddenly flooding my body. I looked to Slater who looked perfectly calm, but I could feel his palm getting sweatier.
Pulse pulse pulse pulse
There it was, like the room had never been silent, like it had been there all along. A sigh flew from my mouth and I saw Slater’s shoulders drop, the tension falling out of them the second the heartbeat came through. It was the most beautiful sound in the world, like nothing else I had ever heard.
I’d seen enough movies and TV shows to know that this would be an emotional moment but I still welled up, the tears filling my eyes and breaking their banks to pour down my face. I had a baby, we had a baby.
“Here is the head,” Doctor Acevedo said, pointing at a tiny blob on the screen. “And we’ve got some arms coming through just here, where the lighter patches are.” I could sort of see it. It mostly looked like a swirling gray mass of static, but I could feel it. I knew they were in there but this was just something else. Confirmation. They were here.
“Would you like to know the sex of the baby?” she asked.
“No,” Slater said, looking to me. “My brother’s would like to know though.”
Doctor Acevedo blinked. “What?”
“They are throwing us a gender reveal party this evening,” he said a little sheepishly. “After this actually, and need to know.”
She chuckled and shook her head. “Whose idea was that?”
“Chasen’s,” Slater groaned. “You know what he’s like.”
“I do, yes,” she replied. “Okay, fine, you don’t want to know but feel free to tell Chasen and Jarrett.”
“That’s the one,” I said.
“I’ll give you two a moment alone and make a phone call then,” she said. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
Doctor Acevedo left the room, the silence descending upon it so fast I started forgetting to breath again. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us. It was hard to believe we only found out about the baby a few of months ago and now here we were with a baby that had an actual heartbeat and everything. It was real. It was actually happening.
“What’s going through your head right now?” Slater asked nervously. “Second thoughts?”
“It’s a little late for second thoughts,” I said, pointing a finger at my swollen stomach.
“Not what I meant,” he replied. “I just meant are you alrigh
t? I can imagine this is pretty overwhelming.”
“I’m not about to have a breakdown about it, if that’s what you mean,” I said, trying not to sound too cutting. “It’s just weird isn’t it? Like, hearing it for the first time,” I could feel the tears rushing to my eyes, my voice wobbling. “It’s just a lot to handle right now, you know?”
He leapt up from his chair and wrapped me up in a hug, his big arms encircling my back and squeezing me tight. I cried on his shoulder for a few moments, not sure if they were happy tears, sad tears, or a very confusing mixture of the two.
“We’re going to be fine you know?” he said. “We’re going to be better than fine, we’re going to be great at this.”
“How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “Because I know you,” he said simply. “And I know how brilliant you are.”
We went home and got dressed for the gender reveal party Jarrett and Chasen were throwing us at Frostbites. We had been instructed to bring Fishstick along, as he would be doing the big reveal.
The entire bakery had been decorated with streamers and balloons of pink and blue so they didn’t give anything away to us at all, a white canvas sitting on the floor just waiting for Fiskstick to walk over it. He sat patiently behind a wooden block, no doubt preparing his paws, ready for his star turn. It was all so adorable I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I said to Jarrett who stood proudly in the middle of it all. “It’s too much, honestly!”
“It’s not too much,” Jarrett replied. “It’s not even enough. The pastries were made by Tate, along with some that were leftover from the day-“
“There weren’t many left over,” he scoffed. “Practically all of this is new.”
“And the decorations were me and Chasen,” Jarrett shrugged. “These people are all here because they love you guys.”
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