“He’ll be back,” Wiggy croaked still gasping for air and clutching his throat, too stupid to recognize the truth. And with those words I knew he was never going to change, so right then and there I shrugged and looked vacantly toward Hammer and knew we were both done too.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Eleven days after I left for the concert tour in support of RedA I was on my way home, quite probably bandless and Billie had been none the wiser. DisKord had done eight of the fourteen gigs planned and we were on our way home.
Earlier that morning I had spoken to my wife as usual, and nothing had prepared me for the moment when she cried because she missed me. I almost caved and told her I was on my way home, but I figured it would lift her mood more and for longer if I turned up at our door. Besides, I hadn’t wanted her to be too excited or worry about me traveling.
It had been almost 8:00 p.m. by the time I made it back from the airport. After greeting the front desk security, I had wandered toward the elevator when I suddenly feared I’d shock Billie too much by walking in on her.
Doubling back toward the desk I asked Len, our night watchman, to call ahead to our apartment, but not to say it was me.
“Yes?” she asked, her sweet voice stirring my soul inside.
“I have someone here to see you,” Len advised her.
“To see me? Who?” she asked, sounding a mixture of curious and concerned.
“How about me?” I asked, smiling into the camera and I heard her squeal with delight.
“Oh, my, goodness, what are you doing …” I heard the handset clatter to the wooden floor of our apartment.
“Billie?” I questioned, initially I thought she’d just dropped the handset, but when I called her name twice more and got no response for two straight beats my heart stopped, and then stuttered again for rhythm as I hurried to the elevator, fearing my prediction and thinking she had perhaps passed out.
My chest was bursting with the sudden adrenaline rush I had as I thumbed the elevator call button impatiently. For a moment I’d considered taking the stairs when the elevator car signalled its arrival. Drawing in a deep breath, I tried to calm my nerves and thought I’d be no good to her if I had passed out as well.
“Sawyer,” Billie gushed, as she threw herself toward me, wrapped her arms around my neck, pulled my head down, and kissed me. Her soft lips tasted of cherries as mine met hers. Holding her gently by her hips, I walked her back into the elevator car, turned the key she’d already inserted, and the door closed firmly behind us.
To say our kiss was off the charts hot would have done little justice to both of our efforts as my eager tongue slid past hers and rolled back and forth inside her mouth.
“Oh,” she breathed, it was the tiniest breathy moan, but the effect on my dick was as if she’d lap danced naked upon it.
“God, I missed you,” I muttered, my voice sounded gruff and emotional and totally matched how I felt.
“You have no idea,” she mumbled back, raking her nails in my hair and scratching my scalp. Feeling her touch was like food to my soul as a shiver of desire ran down my spine. I tried to pull her closer but her shoulders hardly moved, and I chuckled because there really wasn’t an inch of softness to her bump any more. She looked tired and drained, but still as beautiful as ever, and my heart clenched with delight when I held her in my arms again.
Breathless we broke the kiss when the elevator stopped and she smiled affectionately and cupped my cheek in her hand. “You have no idea how it feels to have you home.”
“You have no idea how good it feels to be home,” I countered. “Darlin’, I can’t believe I left in the first place.”
“What are you doing back? Is it overnight? Please say it’s overnight,” she pleaded.
“It’s overnight.” Billie let out a small squeal of delight and held her hands in front of her, like she was praying. “And tomorrow is another overnight.” Her eyes grew huge, her eyebrows in her hairline.
“We’re done, Wiggy fucked up for the last time,” I said, flatly.
“He’s back in rehab?”
“No, Hammer took him to Wiggy’s parents’ place and they’ve agreed to support him. He can’t do it anymore.”
“So he took drugs on the tour?” she asked, as I sat her down on the couch and rested her back against my chest. The familiar faint smell of her sweet perfume made me stop for a second to inhale deeply.
“No, he was chasing young girls and I mean young girls,” I said, as I lifted her hand and laced her fingers in mine. She felt like home and I sighed before I continued. “There were already some bad vibes from the guy but nothing as overt as this time, so I watched him closely. He’d always gone for the barely legal groupies in the past, but this time he appeared to be specifically targeting much younger ones.”
“I don’t want him near our children,” Billie stated firmly and I agreed. He’d never been to our home and because of Billie and Wiggy’s differences, I’d no intention of inviting him before all of this either.
“The dude was turning our stomachs and if we hadn’t been working with another band I think I’d have been home sooner. DisKord is done. Strings is out, Hammer and I don’t want to work with Wiggy anymore, and you know what? I always thought it would be a sad day if we broke up, but fuck, Billie, I was more than ready for this.”
“What will you do? Form a new band?”
“Strings has some offers he’s pursuing for bands, while Hammer and I … we think we may turn our hand to producing … you know, help other bands, lend a hand with back track music, we can still play, but the stress of touring won’t be there. Besides, if I want to gig at any time, I can always do a set in Kevy’s bar.
“Are you doing this because of us?” she asked, as she looked worriedly into my eyes and rubbed her tight abdomen. “If that is the case—”
“It’s not the case, no. This is my decision based on what I want from life. I’d never turn my back on touring if that was what I wanted to do. The time is right for change and producing fits in better with family life.
It’ll still mean traveling a little for meetings and late nights when we setup a studio, but I was thinking we could make a studio on the ground floor of the beach house. All the rooms are soundproofed already, and it wouldn’t take much alteration to close off access to the upper floors.
We could live here during the school year, over there on weekends and spread our time between here and there when I’m working.”
“My, you really have been thinking,” Billie said, still eyeing me warily. My attention fell to her and I noted again how tired she looked. I had only been gone a week and a half, but her energy levels and mobility appeared to have gotten even lower. She yawned and cranked her head from side to side.
“You’re tired. Come on, I want to spoon with you in bed,” I said, careful not to put any sexual demands on her because she looked worn ragged. In my absence she had dealt with work, Colby, the house and carrying our babies.
* * *
I used to scoff when couples used the phrase ‘we’re pregnant’, because for most of the time a baby was forming in utero, the most the father had done was come inside the mother host, provide a champion swimmer, and determine what sex their child was going to be.
Then I’d discovered hormones and their ability to strike like ballistic missiles in the daytime sky, and I seldom saw them coming until the explosion was upon me. However, hormones had nothing on the sleep deprivation I suffered while supporting my lovely wife.
During the following six or seven weeks, by then I’d lost count, I had learned to view my sleepless nights as some kind of internship for fatherhood, when I’d been repeatedly called upon to arrange and rearrange my wife’s positions in bed, most of which weren’t sexual, although I had to admit that a few of them were.
“Grr,” she growled in frustration in the dead of night and my primed body jerked and signaled an alert. My tired eyes felt gritty, stung and took several attempts to open.
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br /> Until thirty weeks Billie hadn’t been demanding at all, but all of this changed when her baby bump became ridiculously large for her small frame, and when she lay down, she had found it almost impossible to get up again. Naturally she blamed the mattress but her body was downright riddled with fatigue.
“Sorry, Sawyer, I can’t get comfortable. Can you help me move up the bed a little?” Ten minutes after I’d done this. “Oh, are you still awake?” she asked as her nails raked behind her and tickled my abs.
“Mmm,” I mumbled supportively, as I fought not to slide into unconsciousness again.
“I need the bathroom and my foot is tangled in the sheet. Can you help me get out of bed, honey?”
Then there were regular pleas. “Every time I lie down past a certain point, I get heartburn. Can you sit me up a bit?” she grumbled. Soon her behaviour had a routine of its own and it had felt almost ritualistic in nature. Like clockwork, I spent a large chunk of our time in bed repositioning her for most of the night.
She had more positions to get comfortable than sexual ones in the Karma Sutra, many of which involved padding pillows under her head, her bump, between her legs, down one side of her back and by the time she settled and was sleeping soundly I’d had to drag myself out of bed, feed Colby, and take him to school.
Still, I appreciated how cramped her lungs and other organs must have been with the short space she had between her hips and her ribs, not to mention the extra weight of two babies on that small body of hers and reasoned I’d still gotten the better deal.
At thirty-five weeks Billie still went to work and I bit my tongue after another snippy conversation when I’d insisted on driving her there.
“Oh, Lord, I can’t reach the zipper on my ankle boot,” she said, somewhat frustrated again. Can you do this for me, Colby?” She knew asking me would have led to another lecture. Colby had been on my side and as far as we were concerned enough was enough.
“Mom, you either need longer arms or you need to stop working.” He shrugged and I turned away to hide how funny his comment was.
Packing Colby’s lunch in his lunchbox, I tried again. “Listen, I know you wanted to work right up to the end, but don’t you think it’s time to do most of your outstanding work at home and pass the reins on to Tricia?” I asked in the most even tone I could muster.
“Just do my frigging boot up, I’m going to be late,” she snapped with a glare. Fuck you, hormones.
“I will if you intend on sleeping in those tonight, because it’ll be a one time deal,” I stated. “You keep telling me you’re fine, yet I’m taking you to work because the steering wheel is in the way of your bump and your legs won’t reach the gas pedal and now it would seem not only have your legs shrunk but your arms as well.”
Colby got a fit of the giggles and Billie, refusing to be beaten, struggled up to her feet and found a novelty backscratcher her son had bought her for Christmas. Both Colby and I sat mesmerized while she fed one of the fingers of the little hand on the end of it into the zipper pull of her boot and dragged it closed. With a triumphant look on her face, she stood and gave me a smugly sarcastic smirk.
“There,” she said, stamped her foot on the floor and her water broke. I had no idea what I’d been expecting to happen, but the light gray dress she had on turned dark as it became soaked. A puddle formed on the wooden floor at her feet.
Both Colby and I looked at each other stunned while Billie looked like she’d been hit by a truck. Quickly I shook my head and came to my senses.
“Wow, it looks like today’s the day. Colby go grab my cell from the table over there, and we’ll give your mom’s doctor and Uncle James a call and ask them to meet us at the hospital. Would you like me to call Tricia and let her know you may be a little late today, darlin’?” I asked Billie with a very straight face. Fortunately she saw the funny side of my comment and laughed.
“God, this is really happening, huh?” she asked, still a little shell-shocked from the sudden change in pace.
“Yep and with one boot firmly in place,” I chuckled. “Do you have any pain?”
“Nothing, I just need you to help me to the bathroom. I’ll need to change and grab some pads before we get in the car.”
“Does this mean I’m having a day off from school today?”
“Unless you’d rather go in? It may be a long day,” I offered, knowing full well he’d want to be with his mom. “Once we’ve been to the hospital and your mom has been seen, we’ll have a better idea what’s going on.”
Colby nodded, and I ushered Billie slowly to our bathroom suite and helped get her out of her clothes. “You’re so cool, even now,” Billie stated, but little did she know that inside I was quietly freaking out.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Arriving at the hospital with Colby seated in the back, Billie was careful in her conversation and reassured him everything would be fine. The way she had dealt with the hugest event in our lives to that point had looked completely casual, like she had been taking a trip to the movies. She gave me the weirdest calming vibe, which had been nothing like the expectation I’d imagined in my mind.
Strangely there had been no pain or drama when her water broke, she’d just changed with good humor, gotten into the car, and sat next to me on the journey looking as comfortable as she could be with her huge baby bump.
As we drove into the parking lot and parked, she looked out of the window and up to the sky. “You’re going to think me nuts, but this isn’t how I’d imagined the scene of coming to the hospital.”
Turning the engine off I stared at her gorgeous face, her eyes bright with a mixture of excitement and expectation in them and maybe a hint of fear, and I swear, she’d never looked more beautiful.
“What do you mean?”
“Us rushing here in the dark. James or Tricia hurrying into our apartment and you checking the list of items needed to look after Colby, I mean in my head this was how it was all planned out.”
“You can’t control Mother Nature.” I chuckled and agreed and followed her gaze to the cloudless blue spring sky. “Beautiful day for a birthday … or two,” I said, turning to Colby who’d been unusually quiet in the back. Worry etched his face and I felt so thankful for Billie’s calmness, for his sake as well as mine.
“Somehow we’ve all avoided voicing our guesses, although I’m sure you have what you think they are in your head, bud. What do you think? Two pink, two blue, one of each?”
“I don’t mind …well, maybe not two girls if I had my best wish, but if they are girls I’ll just have to take a martial arts class for when I’m older to protect them.”
When I looked into his serious eyes, my heart squeezed at how mature his thought processes were and how he felt genuinely responsible for his soon-to-be siblings.
“You’re going to be a great brother no matter what they are, bud. But first we need to get them out of your mom’s belly, and then we’ll work everything out from there.”
I glanced at Billie and saw she was having a quiet emotional moment and figured for any woman in her position; the day ahead must have been a massive deal. However, from her perspective it had arrived at a new destination in her life’s journey.
I’d suspect it was one she had never expected to go on again when she was married to Logan Drummond. But now he was firmly in her past as her life’s partner and I was her future. But the twist of it all was our babies tied each one of us to the other.
As I got out of the car, and eyed the hospital entrance, I said a silent prayer for the best outcome for my girl and our babies, while my stomach churned and my chest felt tight as my mind swayed between feelings that ranged from wildly euphoric to anguished.
Popping the trunk, I lifted out her small suitcase packed with everything she felt, she’d need. Next I opened the back passenger door and let Colby out and hugged him quickly to my chest.
“It’s going to be fine, bud and you’re going to be a brother today,” I offered and winked.
“The Boss, Head Honcho,” he corrected, and I laughed as I reached for Billie’s door handle.
Once my wife was on her feet, we made our way into the hospital foyer and up to the maternity floor. We’d called ahead, so they had been expecting us, and showed us into a private room and after the obstetric nurse had ascertained Billie’s water had broken she had been told to change.
As his mom did this, I took Colby to the waiting room. Fortunately, James arrived before the nurse came back.
“So today’s the day,” he offered quietly. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and looked awkwardly around him. Hospitals had this effect on me too, usually.
“It appears so,” I replied, nervously.
“Looks like you’re playing hooky from school today,” he told Colby, and they both grinned at one another. “Anyone called the school yet?”
“Shit,” I muttered. “I forgot all about that.”
“Don’t worry it’s on ‘the list’,” he said, chuckling because Billie had written a long list for James and Tricia to follow.
Spending another five minutes talking, we each took turns to reassure Colby he’d be brought back to see the babies at the earliest reasonable time. Following this I hugged them both and led them toward the elevator so that James could take Colby home. As soon as they had left I went back to Billie.
“Hi, I’m Louisa,” the tall blonde nurse advised me, having ignored me the first time I’d been in the room in favor of getting Billie settled. “I’ve just explained to Billie that Dr. Stevens is on his way.” As if on cue there was a sharp knock on the door before Billie’s obstetrician shoved it open and smiled as he came inside.
“Happy birthday,” he said with a chuckle. “Who’s betting they’ll be glad when they can see their feet again?”
Billie laughed. “Me!” she exclaimed with a chuckle. “Now if you could make this a painless exercise and keep me out of surgery, I’ll love you forever,” she teased back.
Dare Me, Part Two Dare Duet Sawyer and Billie: Unchained Attraction Series Page 31
