by LJ Evans
Edie laughed. “You’ve all had sex way more than one time. Remember that time when I came home and—”
“Don’t even,” I cut her off, but I was smiling. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant there was one time we didn’t use something…and he was still careful.”
Edie covered her ears. “Really, I don’t want to know anything about my brother’s sex life or anything he might have done with his…”
She shivered and stuck her tongue out, making a gagging noise, and it made me laugh again, the tight clenching around my throat and heart loosening just a tad.
We sat for a minute, me continuing to pick at the cookie and Edie eating hers. “When you found out about your baby,” I said, barely able to speak, “did you automatically know you were going to keep it? Did you ever consider…” I trailed off.
How was I going to actually go through with it if I couldn’t even say the words?
“Honestly,” Edie said, “we were too far along before I realized.” There was no judgment in her tone. “I guess we still could have, but it didn’t seem right when it had toes and fingers and…”
“It has a heartbeat,” I said, tears escaping. Edie dug in her purse and handed me a pack of tissues. When I was done blowing my nose, she squeezed my hand.
I said, “You’re already so prepared. I don’t even have a purse with me. Just my phone and my license and an ATM card. You have a bag full of motherly goodness.”
Edie laughed. “I grew up with Wynn as a mom. I’m perpetually prepared. That has nothing to do with whether I’m prepared to actually be a mother.”
“You’ve already been a mom. To all of us. You helped take care of us all the time.”
“Being stuck babysitting, again, doesn’t make me mom material.”
“Are you nervous?” I asked her.
She looked out the window and nodded. “I’m nervous about a lot of the same things you’re nervous about. Unsure if I’m going to be able to do this.”
“You didn’t want kids, right?”
Edie shook her head. “Neither Garrett nor I did. We were happy with it being the two of us.”
“Doesn’t Garrett want to keep the distillery in the family?” I asked.
“There are some cousins who work for the family business who would be more than happy to inherit it. His only concern is passing it down to someone who will love it as much as he does. Having a child doesn’t necessarily mean that child will love it the same way.”
That was true, because neither Mayson nor I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer or run the horse ranch that was in our families. And my cousins Ty and Eliza didn’t want anything to do with the family car dealership, even if their sister, Ginny, had always shown an interest in it.
“Stephen’s mad because you’re thinking about aborting it,” Edie said.
Aborting sounded so much nicer than killing. Stephen had said killing it. Killing the baby. I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if I did do it. Which was why I’d wanted it to be a choice we made together, so we could help each other out whenever the guilt was too much for one of us to bear. I certainly hadn’t wanted it to be the choice that tore us apart.
I nodded at her.
“Seeing me all bloated and huge isn’t helping either,” Edie said.
“It’s not that. You’re beautiful. You look like a glitter cloud. Like you could be your own constellation.”
Edie laughed so hard I thought she’d fall off her chair. “I’m glad you think that. It certainly isn’t how I feel. I feel tired and exhausted. My boobs hurt constantly, and the baby is, right this minute, pushing a foot up inside my ribcage in a way that makes me want to hurl the cookie I just ate.”
I started crying again. More stupid tears.
Edie moved into the chair next to mine, wrapping me in her arms like Stephen usually did, which only made me cry a little harder. I wanted him to be there, making this decision with me.
“’Ley. You need to make the choice that is right for you, and your life, and your future. If you want Stephen to be a part of that future, you probably need to include him. But…” Edie drew a shaky breath. “Even coming to an answer together doesn’t mean one or both of you might not regret it later. All you can do is make the one that seems the best, for both of you, right now.”
“I just. I just want to have the future we saw. Traveling to see the stars. Staying out late to watch them. I won’t be able to do any of that with a baby.”
“Who says?”
I looked up at her. “Oh, come on, take a baby with us to Bali?”
“Why not?” When I rolled my eyes at her, she shrugged. “Okay, maybe when it’s a tiny baby you might not want to expose it to all that travel, but you know either of our moms would be thrilled to watch it while you two took a trip.”
“What? Just leave my baby for weeks at a time?” And as I said it, with indignation in my voice, I realized just what it meant. If the thought of leaving my baby for a few weeks with my mama was enough to get my feathers ruffled, how could I really think about ending its life before it even began?
Edie smiled at my indignation, and my thoughts must have reflected in my face because she asked, “Do you want to hear some of the good things?”
“Good?” The doubt was clear in my voice.
“You get to feel flutters, like butterfly wings inside you. And your heart expands a gazillion times because of the little critter growing inside you. Seeing the expression on Stephen’s face when he feels those flutters with you…it’s priceless. You get to see a life you created out of love grow and blossom into its own being. And you’ll get to watch it smile and laugh and find joy.”
I just sat there, taking in all her words and seeing in my head the glorious smile that would take over Stephen’s face at all of those things. Feeling the baby move. Holding our baby. Watching it grow and smile and laugh.
Edie squeezed my hand. “The grandparents are going to be over-the-moon excited. And our little ones will be less than a year apart. They’ll grow up like the rest of us did. With cousins who were there when we needed them to have our backs.”
“My daddy is going to kill Stephen,” I said with a snort.
Edie smiled. “I bet our dad will have some choice words for him as well. He might even hold him down while Blake roughs him up for defiling his baby girl.”
I leaned my head on Edie’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Edie hugged me. “And the very best part? We really are going to be sisters now.”
“Don’t even start on me about getting married. One huge life event at a time,” I retorted , but there was a smile on my face because I was pretty sure Stephen wasn’t going to let me off the hook that easily. He’d always planned to propose, and I had a feeling the baby was just going to push him into doing it earlier. Marrying Stephen had never felt like a maybe to me. Being married to him didn’t scare me the way having a baby did. Maybe because marrying him wouldn’t be any different from the way we’d lived our lives up until now. We’d always been forever at each other’s side.
Stephen
SANTA BRING MY BABY BACK TO ME
“I just need my baby's arms
Wound around me tight.”
Performed by Elvis Presley
Written by Schroeder / Demetruis
I slammed my way through the house and into my room in a way I hadn’t done since I was a teen and Dad had grounded me for getting home past curfew—after getting Khiley and me both home way past curfew.
Just like then, Dad followed me to my room. I hadn’t realized he was back from the studio where he, Derek, Mayson, and the rest of the band were putting final touches on another Watery Reflection album. Dad was much more than just the band’s bassist; he was the sounding board for Uncle Derek’s songs, guiding them down a path that had allowed them to top the charts for over three decades.
Dad knocked and opened the door, leaning against it. His bulky frame was the sa
me as mine. It was why Aunt Mia had nicknamed him a lumberjack. It was why I’d always felt like a giant out of its natural habitat…except with Khiley. She was the only one who made me feel normal. Everyone else made me feel like my size was something to gawk at.
“You want to talk?” Dad asked, rubbing a hand through the scruff on his face that was mostly gray these days. He didn’t look old, per se, but there was a layer of age to him that hadn’t been there a few years ago.
My tantrum made me feel like a teenager instead of a man almost ready to graduate and start his own family. Maybe Khiley was right. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. Maybe we couldn’t. Maybe neither of us was ready.
My gut twisted harshly, because I couldn’t imagine putting an end to the baby we’d created. The one our bodies had sparked to life with a twist of DNA and magic. Because creating life was magic. It required something more, in my opinion, than just an egg and a sperm. It required determination. It required love. I knew that was ridiculous. Babies were created out of hate as much as love. But I still felt like the baby we’d made could never be considered anything but magical.
Khiley’s Christmas present—her engagement ring—sat wrapped on my desk. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and then set it back down, slouching down into the desk chair, head in my hands.
Dad was still waiting for a response, and I finally answered him. “No. I don’t want to talk.”
Dad pushed off the doorframe and came into the room. He picked up the tiny gift decorated with a bow bigger than the present itself. Khiley was the bow to my box. She was the universe of stars to my small, round Earth.
“The engagement ring?” Dad asked, setting it back down.
I nodded. I’d talked to him and Blake about the engagement before we’d found out Khiley was pregnant. I’d wanted to propose to her at Christmas. With our families there. I’d wanted to end college and start the rest of our lives together at the same time.
“Are you nervous?” Dad asked.
I shook my head. I wasn’t nervous about proposing. At least, I hadn’t been. Now, I wasn’t sure what Khiley wanted. The baby had put crazy ideas in her head.
My phone buzzed, and I lunged for it. Disappointment coursed through me on seeing Ty’s name instead of Khiley’s.
TY: I need a beer. I’ll be there in five. Don’t disappoint me.
He wasn’t quite twenty-one and shouldn’t have been allowed to drink anywhere, but age didn’t matter in a town that had always treated him like a god. I damn sure wasn’t in the mood to go out. I definitely wouldn’t be good company, but I also didn’t want to sit here avoiding Dad and thinking of a baby that might not come to be.
“It’s Ty. I’m going to call him back,” I said with a wave at Dad and a thumb hovering over the call button.
“Okay. Well, let me know if you change your mind.” And he left, because Dad was good at giving me my space, knowing I’d eventually come clean. I always had.
I hit call. “Are you trying to back out?” Ty asked.
“No,” I said without any hesitation.
“Wow. Normally you hem and haw and tell me we have to bring Khiley. What’s wrong with you?” Ty teased, his voice a deep guttural growl, which the majority of the female population at UTK found enthralling.
“Nothing. I just need to drown some thoughts in alcohol.”
“I really don’t know what to say to this unusual twist of events. Walk down to the end of the drive, and I’ll pick you up.”
I pulled my heavy coat back on over my UTK sweatshirt and took off down the long windy drive to the gates. Both our childhood homes sat along the cliff overlooking the lake, but you couldn’t see either house from the other. The road we shared was lined with gates, security cameras, and alarms that were needed with Watery Reflection still topping charts. Even with our dads approaching fifty and starting to show their age, the fanatic fans showed up, trying to get glimpses of them.
By the time I got to the end of the drive, Ty was idling there in his rebuilt Roadrunner. I slipped through the gate and slid into the passenger seat. The Roadrunner roared to life, and he took off down the road at a pace that was all Ty.
We drove in silence, Ty’s music blasting until we got to the edge of town where the bar was located. When I emerged from the interior’s warmth, I shivered. The air had dropped to the freezing level, but it hadn’t snowed yet. It was still holding off, waiting for who knew what.
As we walked into McFlannigan’s, Ty was greeted with a crowd of people hollering his name and beckoning him over. Some were people we’d gone to high school with, and some were older. Like the owner, Phil, who’d put up the UTK banner sitting above the bar in honor of my cousin.
Ty waved and smiled but didn’t join any of them. We took two stools at the far corner of the bar, and I ordered tequila shots and a pitcher of beer. Ty just eyed me in the mirror glimmering behind the bottles of alcohol, and I ignored it until after we’d slammed our first round.
“I was joking earlier, at Gram’s, about the trouble in paradise, but…you guys okay?” Ty asked quietly—or as quietly as his booming voice would ever let him.
I shook my head. We weren’t okay. We were so far from okay I didn’t know what to do.
“Remember the time Jackson Blakey asked Khiley to homecoming?” Ty asked.
I grimaced. It was our freshman year of high school. Khiley and I had shared a few more kisses by then. Tentative kisses. We hadn’t done much more than that, even though every time we kissed, it felt like the rest of the world faded away into nothing. Like there was nothing but me, Khiley, and the stars she adored. But I hadn’t made her mine officially. I had, ignorantly and arrogantly, assumed she and everyone else knew she was mine. I hadn’t known I needed to publicly claim her.
To my complete horror, Khiley accepted Jackson’s invitation and went to homecoming in a dress showing off all the curves I was just getting used to her having. I was determined to watch after her and went solo, standing in the decorated gym, glowering at the two of them. Then, Jackson grabbed her ass while they danced, and I marched over and punched him so hard he slid a good two feet along the waxed basketball court like some cartoon character. Khiley was pissed and stormed out the doors. When the teachers chaperoning asked what happened, no one said a thing, not even Jackson.
Khiley was halfway down the street by the time I caught up. She thundered at me for about five minutes while I stood and took it. The basic gist was for me to shit or get off the pot. My response was to pull her to my chest and kiss the hell out of her. Kiss her until we were both breathless and I was hard and straining against my dress pants.
“I’m yours, Khiley, you know that. That means you're mine back. You can’t go out with another guy. It’s like giving the finger to the universe. One of those stars you love is going to fall out of the sky and crush us all if we don’t do what the universe has planned. You. Me. Forever.”
“You’ve never said that before. You’ve never asked me out. You’ve never asked me to be your girlfriend,” she said, but she didn’t remove herself from my arms. She just laid her head on my chest, and my world was right again.
“I didn’t know I needed to,” I told her.
“You’re a dumbshit. Of course a girl needs to hear the words.”
The memory made me wonder if that was what Khiley needed from me now. Words. Words about how we were going to be okay. Words about forever. Maybe I needed to give her the ring before Christmas. Maybe I needed to give it to her tonight.
I slammed down the second shot Ty had ordered. “How did you know about homecoming and Jackson? You weren’t even in high school yet.”
Ty smirked, and I swore there were at least five women in the room who were watching him smirk and removing their panties to give to him at the same time.
“Melissa Anderson told me the next day. She and I were…well…friendly back then.”
“God. You’re kind of disgusting.”
; Ty shrugged. “They all wanted to say they’d been with me.” But it wasn’t said with arrogance. He said it as if it was just a fact.
“Khiley’s pregnant,” I said. I grimaced as soon as I said it. I didn’t know how I’d gone from talk of high school and punches, and Ty’s love life, to the issue sitting on my shoulders like its own entity.
“What the fuck?” Ty asked.
I nodded, holding up the shot glass at Phil and getting a nod in return. “We screwed up…one fucking time…”
“Dude. Didn’t you get the ‘keep it covered’ talk from Lonnie?”
“Hell yeah, but don’t tell me there’s never been one time—”
“Never,” he cut me off. “I always keep it covered. I don’t want some chick telling me I got her pregnant just because she wants to ride along on my coat strings.”
“Still doesn’t mean you won’t end up with some love child. Condoms are only ninety-eight percent effective.”
“I know. I’ve seen the Friends episode.”
“Plus, they say because of human failures, it’s really more like eighty-five percent,” I kept going.
“So, you’re telling me that because you and Khiley have had sex more than eighty-five times, it was bound to happen?” Ty joked.
“Well…let’s see, we’ve been having sex since we were sixteen, which would be at least twenty times a month times five years—”
“Dude, you waited until you were sixteen?”
I shoved him with my hand, and he didn’t budge. I may have been a lumberjack, but he was a rock wall. “Asshole. I wasn’t ready to just deflower the girl I loved until she was truly ready.”
“Did you just use the word ‘deflower’?” Ty laughed, huge guffaws of sound pouring from him.
“Asshole.” I drank the shot Phil had placed down and filled up my pint glass again. My buzz was moving toward drunk fast with no food in my stomach since the cookies at Marina’s.
“I don’t really want to hear about the times and length and shit with Khiley and you. It would be like hearing about Ginny’s or Eliza’s sex life. I’d have to off you,” Ty said with a growl.
