But then I’d lose his hand. And strangely, I’m finding the hand, if not his single word directive to c’mon, comforting.
I’ve been alone for so long. Alone and on my own. That’s the way I wanted it. The way I insisted it would have to be after I decided to move to North Carolina.
But Stone’s hand…I need it. I hold on to it and squeeze it as the nurse directs me to use energy I don’t have to push and push some more.
“C’mon,” he says when I break down crying and tell the nurse, I’m not sure I can do this. “You’re doing this. C’mon.”
It’s been ten hours since I arrived in this unexpectedly nice birthing suite. Whatever strength I had coming in was spent on withstanding all those contractions. But Stone squeezes his hand around mine and somewhere, someplace I find the will to bear down two more times.
Then Stone says, “I can see her. I can see her head!” and my baby girl comes wailing into the world.
I feel a lot of things after I finally push the baby out of my body. Embarrassment that Stone saw everything below my waist as I went through the birthing process. Anger that he took the scissors from the doctor and cut the cord, like he had any right whatsoever to be here. Resentment at the unemotional thumbs up he gives me after the nurses finishes taking the baby through her AGPAR tests.
But as soon as the nurse places the surprisingly pink little girl in my arms, joy immediately wipes out all that embarrassment, anger, and resentment.
“You’re here!” I cry, smiling down at her.
She settles in my arms, like she’s been waiting for this moment, too. And soon after, all I hear in the room is the beep of the monitoring machines, and the sound of her soft baby snores.
“She all right?” Stone asks above me, his voice quiet. “Fell asleep awfully quick. She just came down the slide.”
I let out a chuckle at his observation, probably because I’m still high on just-had-a-baby euphoria. “She’s fine. She’s just worn out.” But then I have to ask, “Why are you still here?”
“Ssh!” he answers. “The kid’s trying to sleep.”
I quiet, fret my lip, then ask, “Stone?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you already tell Luca?”
A wary beat. Then, “I called him this morning, and told him you were pregnant. But that was before I had all the details.”
“So he doesn’t know the baby is Rock’s.”
“Not until I tell him.”
“Could you not tell him?” I ask, scrunching up my face hopefully. “If you tell him, then he’ll tell Amber. And this is already complicated enough as it is.”
I expect questions. Maybe even another accusation of being a lesbian.
But instead Stone goes silent. For a long, long time. Until, finally, he looks down at Garnet, then back up at me and says, “Okay.”
Chapter Six
Stone eventually leaves. Not the several times I ask him to, but sometime in the night, while I’m fast asleep.
No goodbyes. I wake up in the early morning to the sight of an empty couch.
I don’t want to be surprised, but I am.
I’m not leaving your side. The memory of his words floats through my mind as I gingerly get out of bed to pick up the baby. But I guess he’d only meant during the birth.
Good. I’m glad he’s gone. At least that’s what I tell myself as I put a lot more mental power than I currently have in reserve into trying to coax the baby to latch on to one of my breasts.
It’s not until she’s drank her small fill and nodded back off that I see the item now resting on my nightstand.
A phone. My phone!
Oh my God, yes! I snatch it up, to see a screen full of notifications. From work colleagues, cousins and aunts. They all seemed to know I had a baby girl. And a few of them even mention the pictures being “so cute.”
Apparently, Stone contacted my boss and Aunt Mari, who then let everybody else know I had given birth. I shake my head at the phone, not sure how to take that. Normally I’d feel grateful. But this isn’t a normal situation. And Stone for sure isn’t a neighborhood saint.
I think about the marriage documents on the breakfast table. Who does that? Who breaks into his brother’s ex-girlfriend’s apartment with a marriage license form to fill out, then makes sure everyone on her phone tree knows she’s given birth?
Before I can come anywhere close to answering those questions for myself, the pediatrician comes into the room to check the baby over.
“Looks good,” he says after taking several measurements. “Have you decided on a name?”
“Garnet,” I answer, a sad pang squeezing my heart.
I’d named my daughter after my favorite character from the animated series, Steven Universe. But in that moment, a memory hits me. Hugging my then client Amber after she told she’d been accepted into Columbia Law.
I’d believed in her and encouraged her to apply, and I couldn’t have been prouder of her for getting into New York’s world-famous law school.
“If I ever have a little girl, I’m going to name her after you,” I’d told her in that moment. “Because I want her to be fierce and bold and brave. Just like you.”
But I’d found another gem to name my little girl after. And my friendship with Amber feels done now. For reasons I still can’t fully explain—to myself or Amber.
The pediatrician’s visit, small as it is, takes a lot out of me. I snooze some more, until my doctor wakes me up. She looks over my charts on a tablet, tells me both the baby and me look great. “Would you like to be discharged tomorrow morning or stay on for a couple more days to recover?”
I frown surprised, since my insurance paperwork clearly stated that, barring any complications, I’d only be allowed to stay for 48 hours in the hospital after giving birth. “I can stay longer? I didn’t think my insurance would be good with that.”
The nurse and the doctor exchange looks before the nurse says, “You can stay as long as you want, hon.”
Wow… But no, I decide. I want to go home the next morning. As homey as they’ve made this birthing suite look, I’m already dreaming about my own bed and maybe even a bath. In hot, not lukewarm water as all the books I read insisted. Ooh, maybe I’d even order some sushi. It’s been so long!
“I’d like to go home tomorrow morning. Thanks though.”
The staff actually looks disappointed. I guess they don’t get people in the birthing suite as often as they’d like, and they were hoping for a few extra nights.
The next morning, I eat some breakfast, then call Aunt Mari while I’m waiting for the discharge paperwork.
“Mi amor, why didn’t you call on the Facetime,” she demands as soon as she picks up. “I want to see the baby.”
It’s funny how little I use Facetime after growing up with visually impaired parents and then taking on a former best friend who had also no need of it. “You can see her in person when you come pick me up,” I answer with a laugh. “I just got discharged.”
“When I pick you up? But I’m already setting up at the casa,” she says. “That boyfriend of yours said he’d get you home. By the way, mija, why didn’t you tell me there was a new man in the picture. He’s so guapo. Quiet and a little scary. But guapo. Like my movie boyfriend, Vin Diesel, just without the pointy head.”
Usually I’m only slightly chagrinned by Aunt Mari’s beauty over everything value system—and her inappropriate obsession with Vin Diesel—but today, I can’t even.
“Okay, I’m not sure what Stone told you. But I definitely need a ride home. Do you mind coming to get me?”
“Yes, I mind. I still have cleaning to do before you get here. Why can’t you just let your boyfriend bring you? You see, this is why you young girls stay so single. You can’t let a man be a man.”
“I’m single by choice, Aunt Mari,” I remind her.
“I wouldn’t be single by anything if I had a man looked like that in my bed.”
“He’s not in my bed. And he
’s not my boyfriend…”
“Hey, you ready to go?” a now familiar voice interrupts our argument.
I look up to see Stone at the suite’s door, wearing a white linen suit and black everything else.
Chapter Seven
For a moment, I forget my words. Something hot and unfamiliar tumbles inside my belly. He’s so…and this is weird to say, because I dated his twin…but Stone’s arresting in a way his brother just wasn’t.
Rock had stayed smiling from the moment we met. He was so animated, I never got a good chance to see his sober face. Not until he dumped me.
But Stone’s face is a perfect work of art. Sharp everything and clean classic lines. I can actually see how he and Amber’s preternaturally gorgeous husband could be related. He is…I realize then. He is guapo. Just like my aunt said.
“Is that him?” my aunt demands on the other side of the phone. “Tu novio muy guapo? Tell him hola for me!”
I hang up on Aunt Mari. Then tamp down a strong urge to adjust my hair. I can’t help but notice how hot he is and how hot I’m not in the moment. Add that to the fact that he’s wearing a well-tailored suit, while I’m wearing a weird diaper made of mesh underwear and industrial pads under my hospital gown, and yeah….cue all the self-conscious feelings.
But then I remember the circumstances. That I’m a woman who just gave birth. And that he’s a man who intruded on that birth. A man who keeps on intruding on what should have been my magical moment with my baby.
“Why are you here?” I ask, irritation dissipating that silly bout of self-consciousness.
“To take you and the baby home,” he answers, like I’m an idiot for asking. “Would have been here sooner, but I was finishing up the crib when I got the call you’d been discharged.”
My heart all but gives out in gratitude that I won’t have to figure out the crib when I get home. But then it occurs to me to ask, “Wait, why would they call to tell you I was being discharged?”
“Why do you think? Because I slipped the nurse a couple of hundys. Keep up.”
I’m trying to keep up. Believe me. But talking to Stone feels like trying to swim in quicksand. The harder I fight, the more stuck I feel.
“They’re coming through with the wheelchair soon. You need me to get your shit together?” he asks.
Before I can answer, he’s opening the cabinet and grabbing my purse. I guess that was a rhetorical question.
“Stone, wait, I don’t want…” I try to sit up straighter, so he’ll take my next words seriously, but the action is painful, and makes me feel even weaker. “I don’t want you to take me home.”
Stone stops, turns to look at me, his eyes two cold, dark pits.
“Naima, pay close attention to my next words. Only one of the three people in this room give a shit what you want. And that person ain’t me.”
Wow. I’m from freaking New York, but for moments on end, all I can do is sit there. Completely stunned that anybody could be so rude.
“You ready to go?” Stone asks impatiently, like he has a whole list of places he’d rather be than here, helping me do anything.
There are a bunch of excuses I could try to give about why I let him take me out of the hospital after talking to me that way. Especially since I’d made a vow to leave Too Nice Naima behind in New York.
But listen, I just had a baby. My energy was seriously on the flag, and I plain didn’t have any fight left any me.
Less than half an hour later, I find myself dozing off in the front seat of Stone’s goon car, not waking up until he kills the engine in front of…
Wait, a minute. My eyes pop all the way open when I see the structure now standing in front of me. Not my homey apartment building.
But a house. An actual house with a yard and a picket fence, like I heard about while watching shows set in suburbs on my TV in Queens.
“What the heck?” I demand. “Where are we?”
“At the new crib. It was a bitch to get it all closed up in one day. I’m talkin’ bags of cash. But it’s ours, and a notary’s stopping by tomorrow so that you can sign the rest of the paperwork. We still got a lot of furniture shopping to do, or we can hire somebody if you want. I think they have interior designers down south, too. But I got the baby’s room set up right next to the master suite.”
I splutter. Then splutter some more, choking on my outrage, before I finally manage to get out. “I’m not going in there with you. I’m not going anywhere with you!”
He stills. Looks at me. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, his voice filled with lethal menace.
And I shrink back. Remembering the table. Remembering how he held the cocked revolver to my head as he talked to Amber. Then dragged me out of my own house at gunpoint. “Don’t be stupid,” he warned, when I tried to fight him as he opened the back door of a Suburban. Then he’d shoved me in the backseat. Easily.
But I had been stupid.
Not only had I done nothing to try to escape from the swanky Manhattan condo Luca had imprisoned Amber in, using my life as leverage over her. I’d decided to take Stockholm to the next level by getting involved with Stone’s identical twin brother. Then I’d somehow convinced myself everything would work out. Until it hadn’t in ways that left Rock dead and Amber and me estranged.
I’d been so, so stupid back then.
But not now. “I will scream. I will call the police,” I tell him, all my Queens coming out to shine.
But Stone just gives me a cold Jersey smile and answers, “Yeah, do that. I love these small towns. Everybody’s so easy to pay off. Ask for Romano when you call 9-1-1 or don’t. He’s the captain. He’ll come out himself regardless of whoever dispatch tries to send.
“I hate you,” I tell him, uncharacteristic rage washing over me in vile, vicious waves. “I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life.”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Stone says with another cold smile. “But what’d I tell you at the hospital about me and your feelings?”
Before I can answer, he gets out of the car. A moment later, the back door opens, and he grabs the carrier with my sleeping baby in it. Leaving me behind, like I’m little more than an afterthought.
This is a nightmare, I tell myself as I watch him carry the baby into the…okay, I want to hate it, but I have to admit, it the house he bought looks fantastic. It’s a large, two-story colonial with a cobblestone walkway, two charming bay windows, and a huge front porch. Everything someone born and raised in a two-bedroom New York duplex could want after moving to the much cheaper and warmer south.
But whatever. I will not let this stand. I need time to get my mind and body right and then I’m figuring a way out of this mess. I refuse to let Stone get the better of me.
Chapter Eight
Three months later
I find Stone waiting for me when I get off work. He’s leaned up against his car, like a bald-headed Jake from Sixteen Candles.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my heart glowing happy at the sight of him.
“I heard you had a good first day back.” He pushes off the car and comes forward to stand right in front of me.
“You heard, but how…?” I start to ask, before breaking off with a knowing, “Slipped somebody a couple of hundys, huh?”
He takes another step forward, staring directly into my eyes. He’s close now. As close as you can get without kissing. “Everybody in North Carolina’s so easy to bribe. Makes my job real easy.”
“And what is your job again?” We’re standing so close, my stomach is doing somersaults, and for some reason I can’t for the life of me remember what he does for a living.
He bites his lip, and the look in his eyes… it makes me feel like I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. Not some weird Haitian-DR hybrid.
“My job is making you happy, mija.” he answers, his voice soft and full of emotion.
Then he leans forward to kiss me. But…
“Wait.” I place a hand on his chest befor
e our lips can touch. “When did you start call me mija?”
He leans back, and the “you’re so beautiful” look disappears. “Don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not. I’m not being stupid,” I answer. A heavy anxiety replaces the fluttering butterflies in my stomach.
His face has gone cruel now. No, not cruel. Emotionless. Back to its usual setting. He’s no dreamy rom com hero. I remember that now. He’s someone much, much worse.
I take a step back to tell him, “I think there’s something honestly wrong with you. Something I’m not seeing. What are you hiding from me?”
“Don’t be stupid, mija. It’s time to wake up.”
The mija…it bothers me even more than his “don’t be stupid” catchphrase for some reason.
“Why are you calling me mija?”
“Mija, wake up!”
My eyes pop open to find Aunt Mari standing over my bed and shaking me.
“Oh, you’re awake!” she says as if she had nothing to do with me being ripped out of dream land. “I’m making mangu. Come, come get up, so you have enough time to eat a good breakfast before work.”
I glance at my phone charging on the nightstand. It’s six in the morning, but my aunt is already dressed in one of those bodycon dresses that cling to everything you want men to notice and hides everything you don’t. I have never in my life been able to find a dress that does this for my own body, but my aunt has a closet full of them. And of course, she’s also sporting her signature dark red mermaid tresses and full makeup. Aunt Mari is like the “beauty” version of the army. She does more to get pretty before 9am than most people do all day.
“How did you even get in here?” My voice is little more than a sleepy croak as I sit up on one elbow and watch her throw open all the curtains in my room.
I locked the door last night. Just as I had every night since Stone forced me to move into this house.
Not that I think he really wants me like that.
STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer: 50 Loving States, North Carolina Page 4
