#Fate

by Cambria Hebert

  Maybe it was because my emotions were already frayed and raw. Maybe it was because of the tiny baby who was soothed by my presence. Or maybe it was knowing that this kid had obviously had it rough and was trying to figure out what was coming next, but tenderness consumed me.

  I shook my head, trying to collect my emotions. “No way. I’m just rocking her until she falls asleep.”

  I wasn’t sure he believed me, and honestly, I didn’t blame him.

  Gesturing to his fist, I asked, “What do you have there?”

  Holding out his arm, he showed me the toy clutched in his hand.

  It was a Matchbox car. A mustang. Smiling, I asked, “You like cars?”

  He nodded.

  “Me too. I have a mustang too.”

  “They go fast.”

  Tightness squeezed my throat. Fast cars weren’t really that cool to me right now. “What other kinds of cars do you have?”

  He glanced down at it, not answering. I wondered if maybe it was his only car.

  “Show me how it drives,” I said, pointing at the floor.

  He glanced at his sister first, then dropped down to “drive” the car across the floor.

  When he crawled off after it across the room, Mary came closer. “That’s his foster mother out there. She brings him every day. Sometimes she leaves him here for hours at a time.”

  “Can she do that?”

  “Travis is a handful, and he’s fiercely protective of his sister. The only time he really behaves is when he’s here with her.”

  “They’re Asian?” I asked, sliding a glance back to the boy who was reaching under an empty bassinet for his car.

  She nodded. “Their mother was Korean. From what we know, his father is American.” Leaning closer, she whispered, “They don’t have the same father.”

  I digested that.

  Peanut started moving restlessly against me, her mouth searching around for food. “Do you have a bottle?”

  Mary smiled and went to get it.

  Travis came running back, car clutched in his hand. “My sister is sick.”

  I nodded. “I know. She’ll be better soon.” I wondered how long it took babies who were born to addicts to recover. I wondered if there would be any permanent side effects this baby would have to live with.

  Mary handed me a premade bottle. Noting Travis still watching, I said, “Is it okay if I feed your sister?”

  He thought about it, then nodded.

  “Do you want to help?”

  He hesitated, not knowing what to say. He was clearly very apprehensive around people, which made me kind of sad. He wasn’t anything like the boys we had running around our compound, with open, trusting smiles.

  “C’mon,” I urged once Peanut was in my arms and had the bottle in her mouth. “You hold it.”

  He reached out, but his thin arms weren’t long enough. Lifting him by the waist, I sat him on my knee and motioned for him to take the bottle. He held the bottom of it while his sister sucked the nipple.

  “You’re better at this than I am,” I told him.

  He didn’t say anything, but the smallest of smiles curled his lips.

  31

  Drew

  * * *

  The longer I was awake, the more awareness set in. Yes, there had been pain from the minute I opened my eyes, but I was almost instantly focused on everything around me instead of within me.

  After lying still for a CT scan, getting some bloodwork, and enduring another X-ray I’d had some “quiet” time to process everything.

  The stitches in my head itched, but when I went to scratch them, my head screamed with pain.

  What? I was gentle. It’s not like I was trying to rip them out.

  My entire midsection was sore and stiff, breathing wasn’t as effortless as before, and the bandages wrapped around my midsection made me curious as to what was beneath them.

  The cast on my leg was heavy. All of my limbs felt weak.

  It hurt to talk. It hurt to swallow. Fuck, it even hurt to think.

  I want Trent.

  When he wasn’t standing in the hall we’d left him in, a surly, irrational grumpiness came over me. I wanted eyes on him. I wanted eyes on him every minute.

  How hard had it been for him to be forced to keep his eyes off me?

  “When can this come out?” I complained, motioning toward the IV taped to the back of my hand. That hurt too.

  “Might be a day or two yet,” Patrick said, pushing past the place where Trent had knelt in front of the wheelchair.

  Inside the elevator, Patrick pushed some buttons, then settled against the nearby wall. “Don’t worry. He’ll be upstairs.”

  My eyes lifted to his.

  He smiled. “He’s always here. Even when they tell him to leave.”

  Frowning, I asked. “They told him that a lot?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “But you let him see me.”

  “A couple times. I did what I could, but it wasn’t much.”

  “Because you’re gay?” I asked, not mincing words. I almost died. Almost dying cut out a lot of bullshit in life. “Or because you got a thing for my boyfriend?”

  Guess I wasn’t exhausted enough not to claim my guy after all.

  “Both?” Patrick shrugged.

  I grunted. The action hurt my throat and made me cough. “Least you admit it.”

  “He’s hot, a fact I’m sure you are well aware of.”

  I choked again.

  “Calm down.” Patrick patted me mildly on the shoulder. “I’m not the type to steal someone else’s man.”

  “Like you could.” I threatened. I might be in a wheelchair, but I would kick this guy’s ass. I was starting to regret telling T to keep him around.

  “I definitely couldn’t,” he said as the elevator slid to a stop and the doors readied to open. He positioned himself at the back of the chair, and I grabbed onto the IV pole to help him out. Even my finger joints were sore.

  “He’s one hundred percent devoted to you.” The nurse continued as we went into the hall. “Most men, including myself, would turn tail and run off if they had to listen to some of the things I heard said to him.”

  Lowering my head into my hand, I sighed.

  “Drew!” My mother’s voice rang out a little farther down the hall.

  Groaning, I looked up.

  “Oh, honey,” she crooned, rushing forward. I hadn’t seen her since Nova’s last birthday party. Ivy never invited my parents to my niece and nephew’s birthdays, but they came anyway. I just stayed away from them and tried to avoid a fight.

  Lesson learned. Avoiding a fight had been the wrong way to handle this thing.

  “Mom,” I said, not bothering to smile. My lips hurt too.

  “We’ve been so worried.” She reached down and patted my arm. “Here, let me help,” she said, reaching for the IV pole.

  “No.” My voice stopped her.

  “Andrew,” my father said, coming out of the waiting room to stand beside my mother.

  Looking at him turned my stomach and made my hands tremble.

  “We—”

  “Not now,” I said, trying to sound firm. “Just go.”

  “Go? We’ve been waiting almost a week for you to wake up!” Mom exclaimed. “We’ve been worried sick.”

  Anger burst through my exhaustion. “Worried? If you were that worried about my health, then you wouldn’t have kept the best medicine away from me.”

  Mom’s eyes widened.

  Dad’s lips thinned into a line. “If you are talking about that man—”

  “He’s not that man,” I snapped. “He’s…” My voice faltered, my brain stuttering out. Calling him my boyfriend sounded insignificant. It sounded like an insult. It wasn’t a good enough word to describe everything Trent was to me. To describe everything my parents tried to take.

  “Don’t even know what to call him, do you?” Dad said, low.

  I turned away. “I don’t want to see you r
ight now.”

  Patrick started walking again, pushing my chair down the hall. The security guards who were stationed at the door (not sure why that was necessary) came the rest of the way down, flanking the chair.

  “Keep them out.”

  Mom gasped behind me.

  Doesn’t feel too good, does it?

  “Wait,” I told Patrick, and he stopped the chair.

  I tried to glance over my shoulder, but my body didn’t rotate and my neck hurt like hell. So instead, I just lifted my voice. “I don’t want to see you right now. But I will. Just wait.”

  Without saying anything, Patrick pushed me the rest of the way into my room.

  It was empty.

  The bathroom was dark.

  Unease curled low in my belly, and the toes on my unbroken leg curled under. Had he gotten into it with my parents again? Had they said something that sent him over the edge? Is he sitting alone in a darkened hallway again?

  I need him.

  “Hey!” I rasped out.

  One of the guards peeked around the doorframe. “Me?”

  “Where’s Trent?”

  “He was here awhile ago.”

  “Let’s get you into bed,” Patrick offered.

  “No.” I refused. “I want to know where Trent is.”

  “I’ll find him for you once we get you settled.”

  “I’m not getting in that damn bed until I know where he is!” I bellowed.

  Then I gagged.

  Real tough, Forrester. Real tough.

  It didn’t matter how much I hurt, how much I wanted to lie down. I wouldn’t be able to rest until I had eyes on him.

  “Well, there is somewhere he might be.”

  “Take me there,” I ordered.

  “It’s not far, so I guess it would be okay.” He agreed.

  Halfway down the hallway, I had a thought. “Why is it you know where he is?”

  “Nurses talk, honey,” he drawled.

  I didn’t even bother asking. I didn’t care.

  The nursery came into view. You know, that place where all the babies stay behind the glass wall so people could stare at them like they were zoo animals.

  “Why are we here?”

  “Because that’s where your man is.”

  Furrowing a brow, I glanced up. “What?”

  Patrick didn’t answer right away, but the second we were in front of the glass, he made an affirmative sound. “Found him.”

  “Where?” I said, unable to see through the window because of this damn chair. I started to push up, but my arms trembled under the effort and one of my feet was not available for standing.

  “Hang on,” Patrick cautioned, going around the corner and opening a door.

  When he came back, I scowled at him.

  “You’ll want to see this for yourself,” he explained, pushing me forward into the doorway of the nursery.

  “Why—” I started to ask why he thought Trent would be in the nursery, but then I saw.

  Words perished. My heart stumbled, then paused. Every ache and pain throbbing in my system muted, and he was literally the only thing in focus.

  The only thing I felt.

  Raising my hand for Patrick to stop the chair, I paused in the doorway and stared.

  What happened inside me was an oxymoron. A war of opposite emotions, fighting so hard they fused to form something I’d never experienced before.

  It eclipsed all.

  And in the center of it was him.

  Trent had fallen asleep again, but this time, it wasn’t wrapped around me. This time, it was with two tiny people wrapped around him.

  His wide frame filled a wooden rocking chair, head tipped to the side. His hair was rumpled and messy, his normally clean-shaven face stubbled with shadow. One arm rested across the armrest. The other was wrapped around a baby who looked frighteningly small against his chest.

  His shirtless chest.

  I was out for five days. How had he picked up the habit of not wearing a shirt?

  I couldn’t even be salty or jealous, though, because his shirt—which was actually my shirt—was draped over the baby curled against him.

  In his lap was another child, not a baby, who was also fast asleep, leaning his head against T’s other side. The boy had a car clutched in one hand and a baby bottle in the other.

  Fierceness and tenderness melded in my chest. My heart, which had stuttered, was working again, thumping unevenly while the strange sensation of butterflies filled my stomach.

  They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. They were right.

  But that was nothing.

  Nothing compared to seeing your future spelled out for you as plain as day.

  The desire to possess was so strong it hurt, but I embraced that pain. It was the kind of pain I liked. It was the kind of pain that made everything else fade away.

  No. I couldn’t call T my boyfriend. I couldn’t even call him my person anymore.

  If it seemed like an insult before, it was downright cruel now.

  The sight of Trent sitting in that chair, cuddling kids I’d never even seen before, realigned everything. Including the beat of my heart.

  Patrick started to move around me, but I caught the hem of his shirt and tugged him back. “Let him be,” I whispered. Let me look at this sight just a little longer.

  My voice woke up the boy sleeping in Trent’s lap, making him turn toward us and rub his eyes. The second he noticed they weren’t alone, he jerked up. All the innocence I’d seen cloaking him in sleep completely evaporated.

  The boy’s movement made the baby startle and start to fuss.

  Trent jolted awake, tucking the baby closer against him.

  My heart clutched. I always thought…

  Trent looked first at the baby, then at the boy, who pointed in our direction. Following his aim, Trent saw me sitting there. In the briefest of seconds before realization settled in, our eyes connected, and with that connection, a much deeper one formed. As if he, too, had just been introduced to our future.

  He smiled.

  I smiled.

  The baby started to cry.

  “Drew?” Trent said, bursting whatever weird moment we just had, eyes widening. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tests are done. Couldn’t find you.”

  He started to swear, then grimaced, glancing at the kids. “I fell asleep. I’m sorry.”

  “Who’s that?” the boy asked, staring at me.

  “That’s my other half,” Trent explained as if the kid would understand. “His name is Drew.”

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “Drove my car too fast, and I broke it.”

  “You must not be a very good driver,” the boy said.

  I started to laugh but ended up clutching my middle.

  Trent’s jean-clad legs appeared in my line of sight, and he leaned down to my level. “You should be in bed.”

  “That’s what I said,” Patrick quipped. “He refused to do anything until we found you.”

  Trent’s thumb and finger curled around my chin, lifting my face so our eyes could meet, and he whispered, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry I wasn’t waiting in the room.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked, glancing down at the baby.

  Pulling back just a little, Trent adjusted the baby so she was cradled in his arms and I could see her face.

  “It’s a girl,” he cautioned.

  “Of course she is.”

  He glanced up, surprised. “How’d you know?”

  “Like a face that beautiful would belong to a boy.”

  “That’s my sister,” the little man said, inserting himself in my view of the baby.

  “Your sister?” I asked, feeling my brows rise. “I have a little sister too.”

  “Travis!” a woman called, coming into the room.

  We all turned to see a nurse and a harried-looking lady step in.

  “Hey, Mary.” Patrick waved at the nur
se.

  “It’s time to go, Travis.”

  “I don’t want to!” he yelled.

  The baby started to cry, her body shaking in a way that made me frown. Trent stood, bringing her with him, tucking our shirt around her body, then tucking a hospital blanket around that. He held her tightly, and I almost wanted to tell him to be gentler.

  “I said it’s time.”

  “No!” Travis fussed, stomping his foot. His little face was drawn into a fierce scowl.

  “You’ll bring him back later, right?” Trent asked the woman.

  She blinked up at him as though she just noticed he was there. “Uh, sure. I’ll bring you back tomorrow, Travis.”

  Travis’s lower lip quivered, and Trent lowered in front of him. “I have to spend the night here tonight,” he said. “Drew is sick like your sister. So how about I keep an eye on her for you until you get back?”

  Travis nodded once.

  Trent held his fist out to the boy, who looked at it, confused.

  Chuckling, Trent stretched it out to me instead. I pounded mine against it under Travis’s watchful gaze.

  Once we finished, Trent held a fist out to him.

  This time, he smacked his against it. The difference in size between that little boy and my man made my heart quiver.

  When the boy and woman were gone, Trent carried the baby into the corner of the room, putting her down in the bassinet. I watched him pull his shirt away, and I heard her instantly start to fuss.

  He lowered the shirt again, and she quieted.

  His eyes found mine.

  “Better leave it,” I told him.

  “She really likes him,” Mary, the nurse, said to me.

  It seemed a little weird that Trent had this new world he was part of that I knew nothing about.

  “You’ve been in here before?”

  “A couple times,” Trent answered, turning from the baby.

  I glanced past him and frowned. “Who put that baby in the corner?”

  Trent tossed up his hands. “That’s what I said.”

  “That’s where the heat lamp is,” Mary explained.

  “Thanks for letting me hang,” Trent said.

  “Thank you for giving the entire floor a break from the crying.” And her eyes dropped to his naked torso.

  What was it with the people around here? Women and men checking out what was mine.