“Couldn’t agree more, Grandpa,” I reply, earning me a glare from my president, brother, and future father-in-law.
“I refuse to be called Grandpa, Son. We’ll have to come up with a better name and train her to use it.”
“She’s not a dog,” I protest.
“Maybe not, but if Lucy can learn to use a damn elevator, then Violet can learn to call me something more suave than Grandpa.” I chuckle at his words as we walk through the back of the house to the back door. I do not want to see those two naked and on display. Also, I don’t want those fuckers to place another eye on my girl. They’ve seen the last of her that they ever will.
Lily
Mom drove us all to the hospital in her SUV. She has the biggest vehicle, the only one that we could all fit comfortably in. As soon as the car is in park, I rush out, not waiting on the others to catch up. “Don’t fall, Lily!” Mom calls out. I wave her off over my shoulder, not once slowing down. I have one mission in mind, that’s to hold my baby and kiss my old man.
As I make my way through the maze of hallways, I finally hear my dad’s voice and follow it. They’re in the waiting room, and Dad is pissed off. “This baby was kidnapped from this hospital! She should be a priority,” he roars at the pale faced receptionist. “I’m gonna start fucking things up if a doctor doesn’t look her over!”
“Sir.” A wanna be cop comes up to my dad and says, “I’m gonna have to ask you to calm down.”
“You are not seriously saying this to him,” I growl from behind them, causing them all to twirl around, eyes wide at the vehemence coming out of me.
“Lil,” Maxum says with relief. I run to him and wrap my arms around him and our daughter. After a few seconds, I take my daughter from Maxum and pull her to me. I check her over as best as I can. I count her toes, just like I did after she was born, smell her sweet baby scent and am able to relax for the first time since she was taken from us.
Mom walks up and says, “I just called Dr. Sandoval. She’s calling into the ER but is headed here now to check Violet over and get her readmitted.” I feel the tension ease slightly at her words, even though Maxum sneers at the security officer and Dad glares at the receptionist.
“We are all staying here until she’s discharged,” Dad states, looking at Maxum. I find it funny that he’s pointing at the floor as he says this. He’s not playing around, and I’m eternally grateful for that.
“Absofuckinglutely,” my old man replies. “We’re not going anywhere and they better get used to that fact.”
I see some stuffy looking suit coming toward us. He stops in front of me and Maxum and says, “I’m Dexter Holloway, the hospital administrator. I understand we had a situation occur and want to assure you that we will do everything to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
“A situation?” Dad hisses out. “You’re calling my granddaughter’s kidnapping a situation? What kind of two-bit, inept place are you running here? Are you aware that the so-called nurse who was often in charge of her care had false credentials? No, I don’t think you understand what’s going to happen from here on out. First, we’re going to own this fucking hospital. I’ve already got Elijah Jackson working on the paperwork on behalf of my daughter and son-in-law. Second, we will be staying, all of us, while Violet is under your so-called care, so you need to put us in one of those suites and make sure there are sufficient cots for the women at least. You hear me?”
“Braxton,” Mom says, trying to calm him.
“No, Cara. This piece of shit allowed this to happen because of his shoddy hiring practices. He’s partially responsible for what happened to Violet, as well as the terror that our daughter and her old man have been going through.” I see when Mom gets it because she turns on the man.
“He’s right. If I were you, I’d go back to your fancy office and start calling your legal department because I believe when the dust finally settles, my daughter is going to own this place.” With Aunt DJ and Uncle Hatch glowering at him, Mr. Holloway slowly backs away and heads to the elevators.
“Lily?” I turn when I hear Dr. Sandoval’s voice. She’s rushing toward us and it’s obvious that she was relaxing at home because she’s not wearing her normal scrubs and white coat. No, she has a pair of character leggings and a long, oversized t-shirt on. She reaches us and gently takes Violet from my arms before she motions for us to follow her. “Let’s get this little miss checked out, shall we?”
We’re now ensconced in the largest suite they have on the maternity ward. Violet has a new identity bracelet, and each one of my family is sporting the adult version. Dr. Sandoval made the decision to bring the incubator into the room versus taking Violet to the nursery, so we’re sitting around and watching my little girl as she soaks up the light. “Those are kind of cute,” Rae admits, pointing to her blinders. “Kind of looks like a sleep mask, doesn’t it?”
I giggle because I had thought that the first time I saw her under the lamp. “It’s too bad they’re plain. They could get the decorated ones at least so the babies look cute,” I reply.
“Lily?” Maxum asks as he comes up to where I’m standing. “You got a minute?”
Maxum
I’m nervous as fuck right now, but what better time and place to ask my old lady to marry me than in front of her family. Axe had Nan go to his house and grab the ring and he gave it to me when we were on the way to the hospital. I figure this might help us all to put this behind us. She looks at me with her brow raised, so I lean in and quickly kiss her. Nothing major, of course, not with her dad and brother in the room at least.
“What’s wrong, Maxum?” she inquires.
I don’t think, I just drop to one knee and grab her hand. “Lily Callahan, you’ve captivated me for a very long time, even when I thought there was no hope you’d be interested. You’re my best friend, my lover, my old lady, and the momma to our beautiful little girl, but there’s one thing more that I need. You to be my wife. Will you marry me, Lily? Keep being the sunshine to my darkness? Give me a houseful of kids?”
I watch as tears form in her eyes and silently slip down her cheeks, my heart in my throat. “Yes, yes, yes, to all of it!” she whisper-yells so she doesn’t wake Violet up. “I love you, Maxum, so damn much, and I want to do life with you by my side.”
I slip the ring on her finger and stand, pulling her into my arms. This time, I don’t give a flying fuck who is standing around, I claim her lips in a kiss designed to show her everything I’m feeling. “Get a room!” Tig hollers. Without raising my head, I flip him off and can hear the laughter ringing throughout the room.
23
Lily
It’s been a couple of weeks since Violet returned to us. She was discharged three days after being brought back into the hospital. Maxum has a surprise for me, he won’t tell me what it is, he simply stated that Violet and I needed to be ready to go. That was twenty minutes ago and he only gave me half an hour to prepare.
“Alright, Violet, we have you changed, your bag ready to go, now all we need is your daddy to get here and pick us up.” Last week, Maxum brought home a Chevrolet Tahoe for me to drive, insisting that we needed the room for our growing family. I asked him how many kids he thought we’d be having to fill such a large vehicle. He simply smiled and told me as many as we produced. I hope he’s not planning on knocking me up every year until we can form our own football team. That’s ludicrous, and my uterus will protest profusely.
“Honey, I’m home!” I hear called out as I pick up Violet.
“I’m in Violet’s room, give me a sec,” I call back. “Okay, baby girl, let’s go see what Dad has up his sleeve.” She opens her eyes briefly as if to say, ‘let's do this’ then conks back out. Way to have your mom’s back, Violet.
Walking into the front room, I see Maxum nervously pacing. “Y’all ready?” he questions with nervousness radiating from him.
“You’re freaking me out, Maxum.” I watch him as he turns and looks over at the two of us.
> “I’m freaking out that you won’t like what I’ve done,” he states.
“What have you done?” I would place my hands on my hips in a show of domination, but I’ve got Violet bundled up next to me.
“Umm… it’s better if I show you than tell you.” He bites his lip. “Here, let me take her from you.”
“Maxum Bass, if you think holding our daughter will save you from my wrath, you have another thing coming, mister.”
“I would never use our daughter as a shield,” he claims. I can see the mischief dancing behind his eyes.
“You’re lying out your damn teeth, Maxum.”
“Am not,” he says, all but pulling Violet away from me and placing her on his chest. “I look good carrying a baby, huh?”
“Stop,” I giggle, having a hard time staying upset with him when he does things like this. “But yeah, you look good holding our daughter.”
“Come on, baby. We need to get going.” He grabs Violet’s carrier and bag.
“Alright, you do all the heavy lifting and I’ll sit back and enjoy the view.” I waggle my eyebrows at my admission. He chuckles causing Violet to stir. “Shh… I want her to sleep the whole way.”
“When does our girl not sleep in the car?” he asks. This is true, she loves the car and sleeps peacefully every time we drive somewhere. It’s my magic baby sleep machine.
Maxum
I’m not one-hundred percent sure that she’ll be happy I did this without her, but I know she’s going to fall in love with our home. “Close your eyes,” I order as we come close to the street I need to turn on.
“Really?” she questions, but complies.
“Yes, really.”
“Fine, Maxum. How long do I have to keep them closed for? I get car sick when I try to sleep. I don’t want to upchuck in my new Tahoe.”
“It won’t be long, I swear,” I state as I turn down the road leading to our place. As I finally reach our driveway, I admire the work that Jaxson did to the exterior of the house, as well as the crew he found who updated the landscaping. Pulling to a stop in front of the house, I say, “You can open your eyes, baby.”
I watch her closely as she opens her eyes and see her gasp. “Why are we at the Heyward place?” she asks.
“Because it’s now the Bass House,” I reply. I see when she realizes what I’ve said because her eyes grow wide and she practically jumps in her seat. “You want to see our new home, Lil?” I ask.
“Uh, not to sound like a kid but duh, Maxum. I’ve always loved this place; how did you know?”
“Because every time we drove by, you’d say you wished it would go on the market. Now, you stay put, I’m getting you out then I’ll get the baby.” I chuckle as I hear her seatbelt unclick and know she’s doing all she can to keep from rushing up the steps of the wraparound porch. As I open her door, she launches herself into my arms and starts kissing me.
“I love it already, Maxum, just because you remembered something so small,” she says between kisses. “Now, grab our daughter and give me the tour,” she demands.
When we both get to the top of the steps, I set the carrier down and unlock the door. “Hold on, baby, gonna do this shit right,” I murmur, before I scoop her up and carry her across the threshold. Once she regains her feet, I turn and pick Violet’s carrier up then snag Lily’s hand in mine. “Let’s do the tour, baby.”
Lily
I’m blown away with the attention to detail that Maxum put into the renovations and upgrades. Years ago, when this house was on the Christmas lights tour, I saw the inside and fell in love with the high ceilings and openness of the rooms. I vowed then that if it ever went on the market, I wanted it as my very own and he made that dream come true.
He’s made all my dreams come true.
“Maxum, the bed is huge,” I whisper, looking around the master bedroom. He showed me the rest of the house, but saved ‘our room’ for last.
“Jaxson decided we should have a custom-sized bed,” he states. When I glance at him, he waggles his eyebrows at me and I feel myself reacting.
“Oh, really?” I tease, swaying my hips as I walk closer to him and place my hand on his chest.
“You minx, we’ve still got a few weeks to wait,” he replies. I can see his erection through his jeans and a thrill runs through me that despite still being a bit chunky from the baby weight, he doesn’t care.
“I can’t wait, Maxum,” I whisper. “It’s been too long.”
“Tell me about it, baby,” he grits out as I press myself closer.
“Why do we have to wait again? Can’t we start christening our new house?” I ask.
He takes a deep shuddering breath before saying, “Because you need to get cleared by Dr. Sandoval and make sure everything’s back where it should be or some shit. How the hell should I know why they make us wait? I just know that’s what the doctor said and so do the books, so as hard as it is, we’re waiting.” He uses that growly voice I love so much and I want to do nothing more than sink to my knees and take matters into my own hands and mouth. Hmm, something to think about for later!
“If you say so,” I reply, sticking out my lower lip and pouting.
“Baby, I’d like nothing more than to bend you over the end of the bed and pound into you until we wake up Violet, but I refuse to do anything that could hurt you so I won’t. But I will kiss you.”
“Fine,” I grumble. He growls at me and before I know what’s happening, he’s kissing me breathless. “I know we can’t make love, but maybe we can find something else that’ll ease some of the tension, biker boy,” I whisper when we finally pull apart.
“What did you have in mind?” he asks, a grin forming on his handsome face.
I feel my face heating and look over his shoulder as I say, “I can always go down on you.”
He tilts my chin up and replies, “I think we need to go make that happen for both of us, baby.” Then he kisses me again until I’m panting and my panties feel like they’re soaked.
“Take me home, Maxum. I want our first time in our new home to be when we can make love, not just fool around like teenagers,” I state.
“Anything you want, sweetheart.” He picks up Violet’s carrier and takes my hand in his. “I’m glad you like the house, Lil. I was so fucking scared you’d get mad at me for doing this without you.”
“I love how you take care of me, of both of us,” I reply, nodding at Violet. “Even when we were apart, you were still trying to take care of me by seeing Dr. Graves. I’m so glad you found her because she’s been a huge help to both of us.”
And she truly has been because I nearly lost my mind when I found out who had taken Violet. Maxum held me while he told me that my birth mother, the person who dumped me with Aunt Paisley as a baby, lied about her credentials and then stole Violet. When he advised me that his father was seeing Daria and was at the house where they had taken Violet, I lost my shit. I went for my gun, intent on finding where the Nelson brothers had taken them so I could look them both in the eye and put a bullet between each of their eyes. Or maybe multiple bullets, seeing as I had two extra clips ready to go. Maxum called Dr. Graves and she got us in that same day, Violet tucked between us. She helped me come to terms with the fact that I would not likely know what happened, but the reality was that the Nelson brothers would take care of it and it was over.
My nightmares stopped that night. Oh, it’s not always smooth sailing as we adjust to living with each other. I love sleeping with a fan on and Maxum doesn’t. I smile when I remember how he came home with a small fan for my nightstand on the same day I brought him an electric blanket for his side.
“What has you smiling, Lil?” he asks as we make our way home.
“I was thinking about how much Dr. Graves helped after, you know. And how we’re learning to compromise since we started living together.”
“Baby, I love you. If we have to compromise so that we keep growing as a couple, so be it. It’s our relationship, no one else’s,
and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it growing stronger.” His words bring tears to my eyes and I reach over to take his hand in mine, the diamond of my engagement ring sparkling.
“Have I ever told you how much it means that you gave me Nan’s ring? I remember when I was a little girl, I would pretend with it and one day, when I was about ten, she told me that someday, it would be mine when the right man came along and asked my dad for permission to marry me.”
Epilogue
Lily
Today is the day. I become Mrs. Maxum Bass in a little less than thirty minutes. I’ve been primped and pampered at the salon. My hair is styled to perfection, my nails are freshly manicured and I had a relaxing pedicure. I’m wearing a short-skirted wedding dress, not white because I would have it dirty in no time, but it’s a soft baby blue color. I’m wearing my new cut over it proclaiming I’m the property of Maxum. It finally came in two days ago and I haven’t had the heart to take it off since he gave it to me at my ceremony.
“Lily! Stop daydreaming and let me put the final touches on your makeup,” Mom demands as she sighs, but gives me a small smile in return.
“Sorry, Mom. I can’t stop thinking about all the good things that have happened in my life.”
“I remember those days well,” she grins in response.
“Will it ever get old?” I ask her.
“Will what ever get old?” she asks back.
“This feeling. Like when Maxum walks through the front door, my heart beats so fast I fear it’ll jump from my chest. When he smiles, I can’t help but smile back.”
“Being able to finish each other’s sentences?” I laugh when she says this. “It’ll never get old, Lily, but it will always feel like the first time you ever saw him. You’ll never go a day without loving him, admiring him and wishing you could stay in his arms twenty-four seven.”
Maxum & Lily: Rebel Guardians Next Generation Page 15
