by MV Ellis
These days, nothing is certain. Not even half certain. I know what I can see in front of me, not beyond. I can see London, and the babies she’s carrying. Our babies. Her bump, which now seems to grow hourly, is testament to their presence. We fall into a daily routine, like roommates but more. So much more. She and those babies are everything to me, so whatever the deal, however she wants it, that’s how I’ll take it. Right now that means orbiting the eye of the storm, hoping it doesn’t all come crashing down to earth around us in a broken heap.
I wake up every day and head straight to the kitchen, where inevitably I find London sitting at the table, maybe typing away on her iPad or flicking through her phone, maybe reading a book or magazine, sometimes just staring into space. This reverie, what she calls “baby brain,” is increasingly becoming the norm as her pregnancy progresses. The more the babies grow, the more it seems they bleed their mother’s resources, physically and mentally. She never admits to waiting for me, just like I never admit that I’ve rearranged my morning routine, pushing my workout to later in the day, because I don’t want to miss a minute with her. But she does, and I have.
The coffee machine is always on and waiting for me to “drive” it. I produce two coffees, hers—decaf—first, and sit with her to drink mine. Every day I try to tempt her with a dazzling array of breakfast options, poised to create or order in whatever suits her whims. I’m worried about her eating enough. She’s a tiny person at the best of times, but now with two other people to feed, she seems even tinier.
She complains of not being able to accommodate much food with two small humans crowding her stomach, so I find myself trying to coax her to eat something every few minutes. She tries, and mostly fails, not to lose her shit at me, I suspect because she knows I have her best interest at heart. On our frequent doctor visits, London’s OB assures me that no matter what happens, the babies will always get the nutrients they need, though the same can’t be said for their mother. This is slim consolation—I’m just as worried about my hummingbird as I am the squirts.
After breakfast, we retreat to our separate days, separate floors of the house, separate lives like true roommates, coming and going as our individual schedules dictate. In all truth, my day is anything but separate from London’s, but the last person I want knowing that is her. As much as I try to give her space, out of sight is nowhere near out of mind. Though out of sight isn’t really out of sight either, if I’m honest. I find numerous spurious reasons a day to return home and engineer chance meeting after chance meeting, hopefully without seeming like I’m keeping tabs on her.
Most days I’m home for our dinner—a chef-prepared meal delivered to the door at eight o’clock sharp—which I’m sure London knows full well is nothing to do with my usual habit and everything to do with wanting to hang out with her—but if she’s aware, she has the good grace not to mention it.
Every evening inevitably ends with sex. Scorching-hot, raw, pregnancy sex. Like animals in heat, our unions are rough and ready and all-consuming, leaving us satiated but spent. Despite all of my depraved antics over the years, this is the hottest sex I’ve ever had—even with London—by a long shot. Wild doesn’t even begin to cover it, and I don’t know how we both live to tell the tale. Between sessions, I can scarcely think of anything else, and I’m constantly titanium-hard, and my balls are so blue they glow in the fucking dark.
I can’t get my head around the reasons why, but every night without fail, no matter how hard we’ve ridden each other or how exhausted we are when we come down from our postcoital high, London collects her clothes from the various points around the room where they’ve landed and goes back to her bed to sleep. Every night without fail, I hope it will be the night that she feels comfortable enough to stay, but it never is. After all these years of pretty much kicking women out of my bed with their panties around their ankles, the one woman I want to spend all night with can’t get away from me fast enough. What is that? Irony? Karma? Retribution? I don’t know; I just know it kills me every time.
Even if she loses the battle to stay awake once she’s come once, twice, three times, when I wake in the morning, it’s to cold sheets on her side of the bed. It’s not a normal situation, by most people’s standards, but it’s our normal, and I’m happy enough with the direction things are moving, blue balls and cold sheets aside. I hope her acceptance of the physical side of our relationship will also soon lead her to let me in emotionally as well, so that when our babies are born, we can be a real family. I’ve learned that where the two of us are concerned, no situation is permanent, so right now I’m just biding my time, riding out the calm before the storm.
“Tog, I need to talk to you.”
She looks up from her spaghetti, eying me suspiciously, wiping her sauce-stained lips on her napkin. Even this most mundane and unsexy of actions makes me want to throw her down on the table and fuck her until she begs me to stop. I swear she gets sexier with every passing minute.
“Uh-oh, that sounds like trouble. The only time you ask permission before you say something is when you know I’m not going to take it well.” She still has a tiny smidgen of sauce left at the corner of her mouth, and it takes all my willpower not to lean in and lick it away. Knock it off. “So just rip the Band-Aid off already and spit it out. What is it?”
“I’m dropping the lawsuit against Marnie for the video. Dropped, actually.” I spoke to my lawyers this morning to withdraw it. They’ve already called off the dogs.
London drops the forkful of spaghetti she was lifting to her lips.
“What the fuck, Arlo. Why?” The disappointment in her tone and eyes is as clear as the sky on a summer’s evening.
“Because Luke is in love with her, has been ever since we were in high school.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” London’s jaw hangs slack with surprise. Yeah, I know the feeling.
“Nope. I wish I was, but it’s true,” I deadpan.
“But….” There’s an extended silence, and I realize that the end of that sentence isn’t coming anytime soon.
“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I get it. It’s just about as fucked up as things get. It was a total shock to me too, which sucks, because apparently I failed to see what was going on right under my nose for about a hundred years, and according to the rest of the band, I was the only one who missed it.”
“Why…?” Her mouth opens and closes, but again, the end of her sentence is not forthcoming.
“Didn’t he say something?” She nods. “Some crazy altruistic bullshit. Even though he knew our thing wasn’t a thing, he didn’t want to hurt either of us, or some fucked-up logic. I guess it was a decision he made before he really even knew how to use his dick, and being good old Saint Luke, he stuck with it ever since, despite clear evidence that Marnie and I weren’t exactly Romeo and Juliet. I guess he enjoys martyrdom and blue balls.”
London rolls her eyes.
“I found out that he’d traced her when all this crap with the video went down, and instead of coming to me, he went to her and was holed up in her grandma’s place on Long Island with her anytime he wasn’t in the studio recording with the rest of us. I went ballistic, and in my rage, I totally refused to see the other side of the story, which is that however stupidly misguided he was, he pushed his feelings aside in favor of both of ours every day for years. I can’t even begin to think how shit he must have felt all that time. Some of the things he’s seen….”
I realize too late that the end of that sentence is going to piss London off big-time, so I decide to quit while I’m less behind. She can fill in the blanks herself.
A quick look across at her tells me she’s doing exactly that. She goes from disappointment and confusion to white-hot anger in a nanosecond. Another gift of pregnancy, but one that’s not as much fun as her new cleavage and insatiable sexual appetite. It’s not so much an emotional roller coaster, more like an F1 circuit—each bend holds a new emotional surprise. If looks could kill, I’d be stone-cold de
ad right now.
“I totally want to kick his stupid ass for it, but even I can see that whether I agree with his approach or not, he had good intentions. We all know I wouldn’t have done the same thing for him, because I’m a card-carrying asshole. On the other hand, there’s nothing like finding out that you’re going to be a daddy to twins to make you think again about your own twin relationship. As much as I’ve wanted to kill him more than I’ve ever wanted to hug him in my life, he’s my twin brother, and shit like this shows that when it comes down to it, he’ll always show up for me.
“Then the lawyers called me and told me that, although it’s almost certain that Marnie took the video, it would also appear that her phone was hacked, and the video was stolen and released without her knowledge. They said I still had grounds to prosecute for taking the video without my consent, which is what caused this whole fiasco in the first fucking place. They’ve been waiting for me to let them know how I want to handle it since then.” I pause, gauging her reaction.
“When they first told me, I just wanted her to pay for what she’s done. I’m still a long way from forgiving her, but I need to also admit that I played a big part in all this as well. I know she fucked up massively, but there’s no denying I’ve been a shit friend to her for forever, and a shit brother to Luke for even longer. That’s the main thing driving this—I want to be the one to come through for Luke for once.
“Objectively speaking, I don’t have much to gain from a court case—I don’t need the money, I don’t have the time, and I definitely don’t want to bring more attention to that stupid goddamn video. This way, I get to avoid that whole clusterfuck and do my brother a solid at the same time. Let’s hope the world forgets about it sooner rather than later, and we can all get on with our lives. I figure it’s as close as we’re going to get to a win in this whole mess.”
London’s lips press into a thin line, and her eyes well with tears. Fuck. She’s crying silently. I hate this, but in my heart of hearts, I know it’s the right thing to do.
“Don’t be upset, sweets. I’m trying to do the right thing here, but it seems like whichever way I cut it, someone gets screwed, or hurt, or both. Shhh… don’t.” I reach over to hold her face, using my thumbs to swipe away the tears as they brim over and spill from her eyes.
“I’m angry, not upset. The tears are a pregnancy thing, so you can go ahead and ignore them. Haven’t you noticed how I’ve been crying at the drop of a hat these past few months? I can’t wait until these hormones settle down and I’m back to my old self again.
“I’m not saying I want Marnie to have to go through a court case, but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem fair that she did this thing that almost completely derailed our lives, and there are absolutely no repercussions. We almost didn’t make it because of her.”
That’s true. We did make it though, and we’re here. Thank Christ.
“I know. I haven’t seen or spoken to Marnie, and have barely seen Luke either, just at rehearsals for the secret gig, but he said she wasn’t in the best shape. As much as I hate what she did and the effect it’s had on us, especially on you, suing her isn’t going to fix any of that shit. On the other hand, it might even make things worse. Looking back, I totally fucked up. Luke told me several times over the years that her feelings for me ran deeper than mine for her. Even Gramps tried to tell me, but because I’m a hardheaded bastard and I didn’t want to hear it, wouldn’t listen. I’m seriously trying to learn from my mistakes here. Surely you can see that?”
With that, she shoves my hands away with both of hers, standing awkwardly. She may not be as big as some women would be carrying twins, but pregnancy is definitely starting to affect her mobility. Getting in and out of chairs seems to need to be a planned maneuver that takes place in stages, and she has developed a telltale waddle. None of this has stopped her screwing me wildly every night, though. Thank God.
I leap from my seat also, gaining on her in two neat strides as she crosses the room. She whirls around as though she thinks I’m about to stab her in the back, or maybe she thinks I already have.
“Don’t, Arlo. I said I’m pissed. I know you have your reasons for doing what you did, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. More than anything, I hate the fact that you made the decision and then spoke to me about it, not the other way around. You claim you want us to be together, the four of us a family, but that seems to only figure when it suits you. You said yourself that the impact this has had on us both has been major, yet you didn’t feel it was something to discuss with me before you went ahead?”
Oh shit. I’m a literal doofus at this stuff.
“I’m not saying this wasn’t ultimately your decision to make, but considering the situation in question also affected me to such a large extent, I’m hurt that you had no consideration for my feelings in this. You gave me no prior clue that you were thinking this way, and then you just drop it casually into conversation at dinner as a done deal like it’s nothing, like I’m nothing? Thanks, partner.”
Motherfucker.
“I’m going to bed, my bed, to consider all of this. I think it’s best if you do the same. Or not, whatever. I just know I need to be alone. G’night.”
Without waiting for a response, she turns on her heel and walks out of the kitchen.
I want so badly to go after her, but despite outward evidence to the contrary, I do not, in fact, have a death wish. I decide not to push my luck, letting her go without putting up a fight.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
After staying up late songwriting, jerking off multiple times, and thinking over and over about my earlier exchange with London, I finally fall into a fitful and shallow slumber. I can’t shake the weird sense of uneasiness that washes over me every time I reach a certain level of unconsciousness, snapping me awake before I slip down again under the thinnest veil of much-needed sleep.
I stir again when my bedroom door swishes quietly open, bathing the room in bright light from the hall. I prop myself up on one elbow, squinting toward the door in confusion. “Tog?”
I didn’t envisage being out of the doghouse so soon, but there she is standing at the threshold of my room, loose hair spiraling around her shoulders and down her back, lit from behind like an angelic vision. It could almost be a tableau from one the great impressionists. Holding her stomach, she steps toward me. My dick needs no more invitation to stand at attention than that. Hello.
Wait. She’s not holding her belly as she walks, she’s clutching it as she staggers toward me.
“London?”
This is not a booty call. Suddenly I’m more awake than I’ve ever been. I spring out of bed and sprint across the room, closing the distance between us in a few hasty strides. As I reach her, she looks down at her hands, and so do I. We notice the blood at the same time, and as I wrap my arms around her, she finally speaks.
“I need you.” Three words I’ve been desperate to hear from her lips, but as of today will gladly never hear again. That’s all she says before passing out in my arms.
I thought I’d been scared at various points in my life before now, but nothing, and I mean nothing even vaguely compares to the fear that I could lose London for good. I feel like someone has sucked all the oxygen, blood, bones, and flesh from my body, and all that’s left is an impossibly fragile hollow shell that could break and shatter at any moment. I see everything clearly one moment, and then my vision is clouded by darkness the next. My thoughts are pinpoint sharp initially, fuzzy and foggy seconds later.
Somehow I kick my ass into gear, carrying London over to the bed in a blind panic, sitting on the edge and cradling her in my arms as I call 911. I tell them everything I know, which isn’t much. The dispatcher sends an ambulance immediately and advises me to put London on the floor in the recovery position in the meantime. She talks me through the correct way to do so, taking London’s heavily pregnant condition into consideration.
Next I call London’s doctor, recounting recent event
s to him also. He confirms he’ll be at the hospital to meet us when we arrive. I’m thankful that London agreed to switch her care to a specialist who delivers at a hospital closer than Brooklyn. He’s also the best in the area, so I know she’s in good hands.
I make another call immediately.
“Hi.” The voice on the other end is tired but clear.
“I need you.” The first time I’ve ever admitted it, but right now, it’s never been truer. I need my brother. Badly. I quickly update him on the situation and ask him to meet me at St. Mark’s Hospital. He doesn’t hesitate, hanging up the phone swiftly.
The next minutes huddled on the floor stroking London, talking to her, and willing her and our babies to be okay are the longest and most agonizing of my life. I’m not sure exactly how long we wait, but I know that in real terms it isn’t as long as it feels—like a thousand forevers, every second longer than the last.
When the paramedics arrive and scoop London onto a gurney, they fire questions at me. Mostly the same ones the dispatcher has already asked—What happened? How far pregnant is she? Have there been any complications with the pregnancy, either for London or for the babies? High blood pressure, gestational diabetes? Pre… something? Is she taking any medication? How long has she been unconscious? I answer them all, but feel like I’m outside myself looking in. My voice sounds foreign and unfamiliar, scratchy and hoarse, as though I’m out of practice using it.
As they load the gurney into the ambulance, I make to step into it also—no way am I following behind in my car, or on my bike, even.
