The Best Laid Plans

by Lauren Gallagher

  Janice introduced Shahid and me to her. After handshakes all around, Nimat turned to Kendra. “So you’re a teacher? Like him?” She nodded toward Gabe.

  “I am. I teach biology and physics.” Kendra gestured at Gabe. “We actually work in the same department at the same high school.”

  Nimat laughed. “So this baby will be a science fair champion, then?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Uh-huh.” Kendra rolled her eyes. “Or she’ll be a history junkie, and Gabe and I won’t be able to help her much.”

  “That’s where I come in,” Shahid said.

  “And if she’s a musician?” Nimat asked.

  Shahid, Kendra and I exchanged grimaces.

  “Private lessons,” I said.

  Kendra and Shahid nodded in agreement, and Nimat laughed.

  The five of us sat down and spent a while discussing logistics. The baby was due in six weeks, and Nimat’s pregnancy had been uneventful. She didn’t drink or smoke, had never taken any recreational drugs of any kind, and aside from an appendectomy in her teens and a broken foot when she was seven, she’d been the picture of good health since infancy.

  After we’d discussed the nuts and bolts—health, our beliefs about parenting, our beliefs in general—Shahid glanced at me. He lifted his eyebrows slightly, and my mind went back to that conversation we’d all had in the parking lot.

  Heart pounding, I nodded.

  He cleared his throat and faced Nimat. “There is, uh, one more thing about us that I think you should know before you make your final decision.”

  Nimat folded her hands on top of her swollen belly. “All right?”

  Shahid took a deep breath. “We want you to be aware that Kendra doesn’t just live with us.” He took Kendra’s hand. “She lives with us.”

  Janice stiffened, and I swore she was about to facepalm.

  Nimat’s eyes darted from Shahid, to me, to Kendra. “So you’re not a couple? You’re three?”

  “Yes,” I said, and put a hand on Kendra’s shoulder. She hesitated, then put her hand on my knee.

  Nimat blinked a few times. Janice sat up, clearing her throat and opened her mouth to speak, but then the young mother laughed. “That’s wonderful!”

  Everyone sat straighter.

  “It is?” Shahid asked.

  “Nimat,” Janice said. “This is a very nontraditional arrangement. It—”

  “You don’t say,” the young mother said with unexpected venom.

  All four of us jumped.

  Nimat eyed Janice. “How many times did you tell me that choosing a gay couple meant choosing two fathers and no mother?”

  Janice fidgeted, glancing warily at us.

  Shahid and I exchanged looks. As I bit down on an “Oh really?” Nimat gestured at us and Kendra. “See? Two fathers and a mother. This is perfect.”

  Kendra’s hand twitched on my leg. “Really?”

  Janice squirmed in her chair. I had a feeling she was barely resisting the urge to wrinkle her nose. “Nimat, are you sure you’re comfortable with—”

  “Oh, I am.” Nimat rested her hand on top of her belly. “I wanted my baby raised to love Allah. Being raised in a house with two fathers and a mother, and where three people love each other…” Her smile broadened. “What’s not to love?”

  Janice glanced at us. “Well, this is certainly an unusual arrangement.” She cleared her throat. “The adoption can still only have two names on it, though. I assume Gabe and Shahid will still be the legal adoptive parents?”

  We all nodded.

  “We’ll talk to our attorney about Kendra’s legal rights,” Shahid said. “But as far as the adoption goes, yes, it’ll be in our names.”

  “Very well.” She shifted in her seat. “Nimat, do you have any more questions?”

  Nimat glanced at the paperwork. “Shahid, you’re from Pakistan?”

  He nodded.

  Nimat looked at each of us and then looked right in Shahid’s eyes. “Will you promise me something?”

  Shahid swallowed. “Okay?”

  “I don’t care what nation or what language,” she said softly, “but will you give her a Muslim name?”

  Shahid’s lips parted. He stared at her for a moment, eyes wide in palpable disbelief. “Really?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  He exhaled. Then he lowered his gaze, wiping a hand over his face, and not so subtly swiped at his eyes. That didn’t work, so he covered them.

  I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “You okay?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Just…” Wiping his eyes again, he cleared his throat and looked up. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nimat said. “If it’s—”

  “No, no.” He shook his head, and smiled. “We’ve been turned down a few times because mothers didn’t want a Muslim father raising their child. So it caught me by surprise. Overwhelmed me a bit.” He glanced at me, and I nodded. So did Kendra. To Nimat, he said, “And I promise, but under one condition.”

  “Yes?”

  Shahid smiled. “You’ll help me choose the right name.”

  Nimat smiled back. “Deal.”

  * * * * *

  Kendra

  Shahid came down the stairs, his expression peaceful as it always was after his salat. He gazed at me, then at the sleeping infant on my chest, and smiled.

  “Finally got her to sleep?” he asked softly as he joined me on the couch.

  “Finally?” I rolled my eyes. “She was out cold two minutes after you gave her to me.”

  “She must’ve worn herself out,” he muttered.

  “You want to hold her?”

  He shook his head as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “She looks comfortable. I don’t want to disturb her.”

  “I don’t either.” I met his gaze. “But I really have to pee.”

  Laughing, he lifted his arm and reached for Hadiyyah. “In that case…”

  While he and the baby settled on the couch, I got up, stretched my numb legs, and made a beeline down the hall.

  In the two minutes it took for me to come back, Shahid had almost drifted off already with the baby’s head tucked beneath his chin.

  As quietly as I could, I took out my phone and snapped a quick picture. At the sound of the camera, his eyelids fluttered. He looked up at me, and we both smiled. I sat down beside him, and he shifted a little, holding the baby with both arms as he put his feet up on the coffee table.

  I cuddled up next to him. He put his arm around me, and for the longest time, we just sat there, watching the baby sleeping in the middle of his chest with his hand gently resting on her back.

  “Is Gabe still asleep?” I asked.

  “Probably.”

  “I don’t blame him.” I yawned. “Amazing how much a little monster like this can cut into your sleep.”

  Shahid laughed. “Yeah, but she’s worth it.” He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of the baby’s head, which was covered in thick, jet-black hair. “Did you get some sleep?”

  “Yeah. Gabe took over around two, so I got in a few hours.”

  “Good. I’m off for the next couple of days, so we can all catch up on some sleep.”

  “Yes, please.” There was something to be said for dividing nighttime baby duties with three people. It was still exhausting, but spending three or four hours at her beck and call was a lot better than doing it all night long.

  My mom had warned me that the first few months were the most brutal. After that, it would be hard, but it would get easier. If this was the worst of it, then we were going to be just fine. And even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t imagine sharing the grueling, messy, back-breaking newborn period with anyone but Gabe and Shahid.

  In fact, these days, I coul
dn’t imagine spending my life—baby or not—with anyone but Gabe and Shahid. People said if you want to be happy, marry your best friend. My best friends happened to be married to each other, and I fell in love with both of them, so I couldn’t complain. This wasn’t the arrangement I’d envisioned since childhood, but it was so much better.

  It was more complicated too. When Gabe and Shahid got into it, or when I got into it with one of them, it was difficult for the third person not to feel some unspoken pressure to choose sides, though we all made an effort to keep that pressure off. Not that any of us squabbled much, but stress and sleep deprivation took their toll on anyone.

  We were adapting, though. Slowly, we were even getting back to the sex life that my surgery and the baby’s arrival had put on hold. How Gabe had any energy left these days, I had no idea, but whenever possible, he made sure both Shahid and I were satisfied.

  Shahid and I were intimate in ways I couldn’t explain—and didn’t bother explaining—to people who got nosy. Maybe he wasn’t sexually attracted to women, but there was nothing that said we couldn’t curl up on the couch together, or that we couldn’t kiss just because—labels be damned—we enjoyed it.

  Coming out had been a slow process. We’d started telling people after the guys had signed the papers to adopt Hadiyyah, and by the time she was born, we’d figured out who was going to accept our little family and who wasn’t. As far as anyone at West Midlands High School was concerned, this was a roommate arrangement, and I was helping them with their new baby. Our families knew there was more to it than that, and they were, to say the least, divided over it.

  My parents had been devastated for me when they’d found out about the hysterectomy, so they were much more willing to accept my relationship with the guys when they realized Gabe and Shahid were taking care of me after the surgery. When my mother found out Shahid had taken a week off work, and that he’d been a drill sergeant about enforcing my doctor’s orders when I tried to insist I was okay, she’d decided right then and there that he was her new son-in-law. And of course, when she found out about her new granddaughter, she didn’t care what our arrangement was as long as she had carte blanche to spoil the kid rotten.

  Shahid’s parents weren’t sure about the situation, but they were so thrilled about Hadiyyah, they couldn’t imagine Allah would have blessed us with her if He didn’t approve of our strange little family, so they let the issue drop.

  It was Gabe’s family who were the slowest to accept things. Maybe because mine had seen me go through a bitter divorce and infertility, and Shahid’s had seen him denied a family because of his sexuality and his religion, our respective clans were able to understand that a traditional family was much less important than a happy one. Gabe’s had blamed Shahid for their inability to adopt. To them, it was less about being dealt a shitty hand and more about lying in the bed Shahid had made.

  So when Gabe broke the news that they were adding me to their family, the initial response was not great.

  “You’re going to confuse this child,” Gabe’s mother had told us over the phone.

  “Actually, I don’t think we will,” he’d shot back. “This baby’s going to grow up seeing that people can define their relationships and their identities however they want to. She’ll never have to hide her sexuality from us, and she’ll never have to ask ‘Am I weird?’ or ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ because of what she’s seen between the three of us.”

  Okay, so his mom wasn’t happy with that answer, but we were. And most importantly, Nimat was, and though she’d struggled the day she’d had to hand Hadiyyah over to us in that hospital room, she’d been at peace with her decision.

  And when Gabe’s parents had grudgingly agreed to come visit, they’d taken one look at us—and their beautiful grandchild—and realized they were being idiots. The only thing left was figuring out how to juggle holidays, which would be a lot easier if Gabe stopped teasing his mom about spending Christmas with Shahid’s parents.

  But we’d figure it all out. For now, we were enjoying this new life we all had together. The three of us. The baby. The extended family who really were doing their best to get their heads around our funny-shaped arrangement.

  Curled up on the couch with Shahid and Hadiyyah while Gabe snoozed upstairs, I couldn’t help smiling. No, this wasn’t the life I’d envisioned. No, it wasn’t normal or traditional in any sense of the word. Nothing had gone as planned.

  But I still wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  About the Author

  L.A. Witt is an abnormal M/M romance writer who has finally been released from the purgatorial corn maze of Omaha, Nebraska, and now spends her time on the southwestern coast of Spain. In between wondering how she didn’t lose her mind in Omaha, she explores the country with her husband, several clairvoyant hamsters, and an ever-growing herd of rabid plot bunnies. She also has substantially more time on her hands these days, as she has recruited a small army of mercenaries to search South America for her nemesis, romance author Lauren Gallagher, but don’t tell Lauren. And definitely don’t tell Lori A. Witt or Ann Gallagher. Neither of those twits can keep their mouths shut...

  Website: www.gallagherwitt.com

  Twitter: @GallagherWitt

  Look for these titles by Lauren Gallagher

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  Writing as L.A. Witt:

  Now Available:

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  You can’t thaw a heart that was never frozen.

  Retired at thirty-five, billionaire Matt Coolidge should be enjoying the fruits of his workaholic years. Instead, he’s got migraines from butting heads with his mother. If Matt doesn’t get a matrimonial move-on, she’s threatening to will the family farm to his brother, who’ll turn it into a strip mall.

  Then Matt’s childhood best friend rolls back into town, bringing a complication that’s not entirely unexpected—or unwelcome.

  Years ago, with Matt’s help, Dara Marley froze several embryos before cancer treatment stole her fertility—and before a stupid argument tore their friendship apart. Now alone, she’s taking the most logical step to ensure the child she’s carrying has a father. Returning to Matt—and hoping bygones will be bygones.

  Baby and all, Matt’s on board. And when Dara finds out Matt’s career kept him too busy for a relationship—even sex—she’s more than happy to bring him up to speed.

  But a decades-old grudge between their families means keeping quiet about their good news—and the feelings they never knew went far deeper than friendship.

  Warning: Contains a virgin who’s been waiting a long time for this and a woman who’s happ
y to show him the way. And they’ve both had it up to here with narrow-minded gossips and small-town grudges.

  Sworn to have their lover’s back, front, or any other side that needs covering.

  Secret Service agent Kent Sinclair, head of POTUS security, thought himself prepared for every contingency. Until the First Lady—a woman who barely tolerates his presence—approaches him with a request that startles the hell out of him.

  Carlene Broderick is frightened. With the weight of the country and impending war on his shoulders, her husband, James, is buckling under the strain. The key to helping him cope is the name he calls out in his sleep—and it’s not hers. It belongs to his fellow ex-SEAL team buddy. His ex-lover. Kent.

  Without hesitation, Kent plunges into treacherous emotional territory, only to realize it’s not really him that James needs. The Commander in Chief needs to give up complete control in the bedroom.

  To relieve that much pressure, Kent and Carlene must work together and declare a truce that rapidly heats up into something more. Something that leaves James caught deep in forbidden territory—torn between his beloved wife and the man he’s never stopped loving.

  Warning: Contains three forty-somethings discovering whole new sides of themselves, a rejuvenated marriage, and plenty of kinky fun. All brought to you by an ex-SEAL in a wetsuit, a bisexual President, and a First Lady with a tattoo on her ass

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  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  The Best Laid Plans

  Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Gallagher

  ISBN: 978-1-61923-254-9

  Edited by Linda Ingmanson