“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
She walks in and closes the door behind her, holding yet another present, and I force myself not to smile.
The room is filled with flowers and balloons. Between Kristen, Slade, and her, the room is bustling with gifts and tokens.
She sits on the end of the bed, placing the gift by my legs. Holding her arms out, I pass the baby over and pick it up once he’s in her arms.
It’s quite heavy. Tearing the paper off, I see a gorgeous blue frame with a photo of Sebastian inside. Kristen’s adamant he looks like Zach, especially when Zach was a baby, but I haven’t been able to see it. I just saw a tiny baby with a mass of dark hair on his little head. I see it now, though. He’s his father’s son.
“Thank you, Harper. I love it.”
“It’s just a little something till you have your own printed off and framed.”
In the last week, she’s become a good friend. She’s been there for me, not once making me feel she’s doing it out of loyalty to her blood—to Zachery. Kristen and Slade have only been around the last few days because I’ve given birth to their grandchild. I’m not stupid to believe it’s me they’re coming to check on. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they’re here for the baby, but it makes me feel even lonelier.
I always thought the photo I’d see would be of the three of us, with me holding the baby and Zach’s arm around me. The fact it’s not brings a tear to my eye, but I don’t let it fall. Everything happens for a reason, and life’s flowing this way because it’s meant to be. Placing the frame on top of my bag, I grab Harper’s phone where it sits on the bed, and quickly snap a picture of her with Sebastian.
“He’s perfect,” she murmurs, looking down at him with soft eyes.
I beam with pride. “I agree.”
“Are you ready to go home with him?” Looking at my packed bags, I nod.
“I mean, are you ready to do this mom thing?”
“I have no choice. But yes, I can’t wait to be home with him.”
“And what about Zach?” she asks, looking from Sebastian to me.
“What about him? He made his choice, and I’m now having to make mine.”
“He came here, though. That has to say something, right?” she argues.
I understand her plight on his behalf. She’s his cousin, and family always fights for family, but I’m not ready to let this go.
“He came here because Slade dragged him out of a bar. It wasn’t his choice.”
He may have been at the birth, but it wasn’t because he got his head out of his ass and rushed here of his own accord. It makes it worse knowing Slade had to force him to come. Actually, it makes it so much worse.
“But he’s thankful Slade did. Honestly, he’s been so different these past few days. He’s been more alert. He hasn’t smoked, and he hasn’t drank, either.”
He hasn’t smoked? I’ve been on him to give up the weed for the last couple of years, and nothing.
“It doesn’t matter to me, not anymore. Imagine if JJ did this to you. Would you be so quick to let him back in? And what’s to say when this wears off he won’t leave again?”
Sebastian starts to whimper, and she’s quick to lean over and place him back in my arms. His lips begin smacking together, so I pull my shirt up to feed him. He latches on, and it takes my breath away. The nurses say I’ll get used to this, but I honestly don’t see how. The kid is relentless when it comes to getting his food.
“I understand, but isn’t he worth the chance of finding out? To be a family again?”
I get out of answering when the nurse walks in, pushing a wheelchair.
“I was going to ask if you were ready to leave, but I see the little one needs his milk first.”
Feeding, burping, and a diaper change, followed by a clean outfit. I’m bundled into the wheelchair with Sebastian in my arms, swaddled in his blanket. Harper, along with the help of a porter, carries my bags with the balloons tied to the handles, following behind us when Zachery comes into view, waiting outside the hospital by his mom’s car.
He looks nervous. Good. No wonder he didn’t try seeing us inside, as he’s been out here all along.
“Before you say anything, my car broke down this morning, and Zach was the only one around. Sebastian’s chair is already buckled in and ready to go,” Harper murmurs, keeping her voice low while blocking my view of him.
“Out of everyone, he was the only one around?” I ask, the sarcasm not lost in my tone.
“Let him take you home. He’s been waiting out here for nearly four days.”
Wow, nearly four whole days? I’ve been waiting months for him.
“It doesn’t look like I have a choice.”
Looking at him over her shoulder, she gives a slight nod. He starts to come over, and I’m careful not to look at him. He takes the bags from Harper, and between him and the porter, they load them into the trunk before he moves on to open the back door.
Harper takes Sebastian from me, and I slowly pull myself out of the chair. The one thing no one warned me about were the stitches. I feel like I’m on fire down there, and fucking hell, peeing is worse than pushing the baby out in the first place. I feel like I could’ve been better prepared for that experience, or at least warned about it.
I take him back once I’m on my feet and head for the car. The nerves don’t hit me until I lean in and place him in his seat, fumbling with the straps like it’s a bloody puzzle.
“The guy at the store showed me how to do it. Do you want me to help?” I hear from behind me.
Gritting my teeth, a tell him, “I’m fine.”
It takes another few minutes, but I eventually work it out, worrying though that I’ve done it wrong. The nurse is still lingering close by, talking with Harper, and I call her over.
“Is he safe?”
She pokes her head inside and turns back with a bright smile.
“He’s good. And remember, you can do this. You’re a natural with him.”
Five minutes later, we’re driving away from the hospital. Harper sits up front with Zach driving, and I sit in the back with the precious cargo. Usually Zach puts his foot down, but the drive to drop off Harper seems to take forever.
I feel his eyes on me every now and then, watching me in the rearview mirror, but I don’t look his way, staying focused on my son as he sleeps.
Outside Harper’s house, JJ’s working on his bike, but he stops and heads toward us when we pull up. He has a quick look through the window and gives me a thumbs up. Harper opens the door on my side and leans in, giving me a hug.
“If you need anything at any time, just call, and I’ll come over.”
My eyes fill with tears I can’t stop from falling.
“Thank you so much for everything. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you over the last few days. It’s meant so much to me. Really, it has.”
“It’s been my pleasure.”
She closes the door with a comforting smile, careful not to slam it shut, and walks away.
Wordlessly, Zach pulls away and we set off for home, my silence continuing across town till we pull in the drive and he comes around to open my door. Before I move, I manage to figure out how to unlock his chair from the contraption he’s buckled into, and scoot over to climb out before leaning back inside to grip the handle. Walking to the front door, Zach is close behind me, and nips around me to unlock the front door.
Opening it wide for me to walk through, I settle the car seat in the living room. Sebastian sleeps on while I look around the place. It’s no different than before I left, but nothing is the same. These very rooms are the ones my mom raised me in, and now I’m going to be raising my son here, though she’s not here to see it for herself. It’s hard not to be sad about it when I think of how happy she would’ve been to be a grandma, and the memories we would’ve made with another generation in the house.
Zach comes through, dumping the bags by the bottom of the st
airs, batting the balloons out of his face when he goes to stand up.
With the baby sleeping, I head for the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. I smile at the extra packs of diapers on the counter, silently thanking Harper for her help once again.
Opening the fridge again, I find there are groceries inside that weren’t there before, and a note stuck to the fridge door under a magnet, telling me I won’t need to leave the house for anything for a few days, but to call if that changes.
Back in the living room, Zach’s sitting at the end of the couch, staring down at Sebastian. I wouldn’t let him see him in the hospital before I made him leave. Maybe I’ll feel guilty about that in the future, but right now, I don’t.
Sitting carefully on the armchair, I grip onto the water bottle too tightly, the sound of the plastic crinkling filling the room.
“He’s beautiful,” Zach whispers.
“What are you doing, Zach?” I ask instead of agreeing with him, which I do.
For a beat, he doesn’t answer. His shoulders sag with a heavy exhale, his head hanging low.
“I honestly don’t know,” he finally says.
“Okay. What do you want, then?”
We’re getting this sorted now, because I’m far too tired to make him the focus of my life when all I want to do is sleep and be with my son. He’s my focus now.
“I want the pain to stop. I just need it to stop,” he admits. “I want you and our son. I want to come home.”
I could laugh, but I don’t, because then I’ll cry. I’m so sick of crying.
“This isn’t your home anymore. You made that perfectly clear when you had Kyle come to pick all your shit up.”
“It was the biggest mistake of my life, Neen.”
“Really? You made it look so easy to walk away from us. Do you understand how cold you were? The way you looked at me like I was nothing? I begged you to come home, and I got nothing from you.”
He flinches at my words. “When I walked out that night, I couldn’t take anymore. I couldn’t tell you needed me, and I didn’t understand what you needed. All I felt was this need to be away from everything and everyone. I still can’t wrap my head around it. All I know is something snapped in me when I saw him being born.”
“I should’ve been enough for you to feel like you wanted to be home. He should be the icing on the cake,” I argue.
“You are. I guess it was easy to leave because… Fuck, I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“I’m going to be blunt, because we can’t move forward together or separately if I don’t. You left and didn’t come home. You told me you didn’t want to be a part of our child’s life, then tried throwing money at me like that was what I needed instead of you. I don’t know how we move on from this, but I know you’re not telling me everything.”
He lifts his head and finally looks at me. A lone tear falls down his cheek, dropping off his jaw and onto his chest.
“Be honest with me. It’s the least I deserve.”
“How do you do it?” he questions.
I frown. “Do what?”
“Get up every day and act like you didn’t see my sister shot dead in front of you?”
So, this is it? Has he been resenting me for living?
“I…” I pause. I honestly don’t know how to explain it without hurting his feelings.
“Come on, you can be honest with me. How do you do it?”
“I do it because I had to be the strong one. She was your sister, not mine. I have nightmares about that night. I have moments where something forces me to remember, and catches me off guard. I’ve cried for your sister, for Rayna losing her mom, and I’m scared one day it could happen to me, to you, to anyone else in our lives. You didn’t see that, though, because I was either there for you, or you just weren’t here to see it yourself.”
Another tear falls, and he swipes it away with his sleeve. “What we saw that night has destroyed so many lives. The way things have been lately, I don’t think they can ever go back to normal, or as close to normal as possible.”
“Don’t say that,” he murmurs.
“Why? I understood you were grieving. I understood that night would affect you, us, always, but I was there for you every second of every day. I knew you were going through hell, and I saw you hide your grief around everyone, but I was the one you should’ve leaned on. I should’ve been the one person you felt you could come to—”
“I saw my sister shot in the head. It wasn’t about you not being there for me through the pain I couldn’t drown out with weed. All I could see was it being you. My sister’s dead, and there won’t ever be a day when I don’t think about her. When I found out you were pregnant on the morning of her funeral, all I could think of was that my kid wasn’t going to have an auntie. I thought, how can I be a dad when I couldn’t even keep my kid sister safe? While it wasn’t about you, it was all about you. I know you were there for me when I was trying to be there for my parents. Every day I’d come home after failing to help them, we’d fight. I saw us becoming like them.”
“That never would have happened.”
“Yes, it would have. They didn’t speak for months. When they were in the same room, my mom looked at my dad with so much hatred, I could almost feel it, it was so strong. When I’d come home and we’d fight, you would look at me in a way that reminded me of them. So many fucked-up things I can’t explain properly.”
Moving across the room, I sit on the edge of the coffee table, in front of him, and look down at our son.
“I told you, you were it for me. It hurts that you didn’t have faith in me. I fought with you because it was the only way I could get a reaction out of you. I knew life wouldn’t be the same. I wasn’t trying to fix you, and the fact that you didn’t know this says a lot about us.”
“My head was fucked, Neen. Please…”
Fatigue is settling in, and the nurse said to sleep when Sebastian sleeps. I can’t deal with this right now, seeing as we’re going around in circles. Also, I need to pee, and that’s going to be a chore all on its own.
“I don’t want you to leave town,” he says quickly when he sees I’m pulling away.
“We’ll talk about this later.”
“Nina, please, don’t leave. It’s not what I want at all.”
“Fine, I won’t. But I do need to leave the room and go pee. Can you watch him until I get back?”
“You don’t need to ask me to watch my son.”
I open my mouth to argue, but I close it instead and walk out. Halfway through struggling to pee without hissing like a snake, I hear Sebastian start to cry. Finishing up as fast as I can, I rush back to the living room to find Zach hovering over him, unsure of what to do.
I nudge him out of the way and kneel down. His cries have grown into full-blown screams, and he wiggles around as I try to get a good hold of him.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s probably hungry.” Taking a seat on the couch, I arrange myself to feed him.
I grit my teeth as he latches on, biting down on my nipple. Sebastian settles quickly while Zachery sits close to me, one leg on the couch, with his body angled toward me.
We both watch Sebastian feed without saying a word as I stroke his puffy little cheek. I still can’t believe I made this little guy, or that he’s finally here.
“Thank you for naming him after my biological father,” Zach says, finally breaking the silence.
He’s talked about how he loves Slade like a son should love his father, but he’s always wondered about his real father. The only thing anyone knows of him is that he died trying to protect Alannah.
As angry as I was in the hospital and throughout my pregnancy, it seemed right. Especially when I saw his little round face. It just fit him perfectly.
“You would’ve known if you’d looked at my list,” I huff, but without the conviction to fight.
“I’ve fucked-up so bad, I’m scared I’ve permanently broken u
s. But please, tell me there’s a chance for us to be a family.”
The pain in his voice is crippling me, yet I can’t make him such promises. At this point, I honestly don’t know if there is a chance for us or not.
“I’ll beg if I have to. It’ll take time, but I’ll prove to you how sorry I am. I’ll make it up to the both of you, I promise.”
“If there is a chance, it would be your last chance. I can’t think straight right now, so I don’t want to agree to anything and regret it later. You’ve decided you want to come home, and while I would’ve let you without thinking twice about it a few days ago, everything’s changed now. You can stay tonight, but I don’t want you moving your stuff back in. I don’t want you thinking this is it. We have so much to get past before any life-changing decisions are made. We can take it one day at a time. That’ll have work for you, because if it doesn’t, then you have nothing.”
I’ll allow him to stay for Sebastian, and a part of me wants to see if he’ll still be here come morning.
“It works for me.”
Sebastian decides he’s had enough, and I begin to burp him. Zach watches every movement with fascination. I hate him for what he’s put me through, but I’m holding his son, now four days old, that he hasn’t gotten to hold himself yet.
“Do you want to hold him?”
He nods without hesitation.
“Is that okay?”
“Well, he is your son too.”
He shifts his position and I pass Sebastian over, making sure his head’s supported. Once I’m satisfied, I dig out his phone from the pocket he always keeps it in and bring up the camera app.
While he’s looking down at Sebastian, I snap a few pictures. When he realises what I’m doing, he smiles at me, and for the first time in seven months, I believe it’s real, and it breaks my heart all over again. I shut his phone off and put it back where I found it. As I go to get up, needing some space between us, his hand shoots out and wraps around my arm, keeping me in place.
“I feel like I keep saying it, but I don’t have any other words. I’m sorry. Really fucking sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“I’m starting to believe you are, but it’s still not enough, Zach. I need more than words.”
His Last Chance : Sons of Lost Souls MC Book Seven Page 8
