Jack & Coke (The Uncertain Saints Book 2)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Once I’d lathered up my hands, I nervously held them out.

  Mig placed his baby into my arms, and I started to cry.

  Not pretty tears, either.

  “Oh, Mig. You did so good,” I whispered.

  I looked up at him.

  He was looking at me, looking at his son.

  “I thought I would hate him,” he started.

  I knew that, too.

  I knew that was why he hadn’t bought any clothes.

  I knew that was why he really refused to know what the sex of the baby was.

  I knew that was why I’d never heard him talk about his excitement at having a baby.

  Because this baby was made, not out of love or passion, but desperation. Hate.

  Jennifer had done that to him.

  Had hurt him.

  And Mig hadn’t been able to let that go. Hadn’t been able to celebrate like most expectant fathers do.

  And he’d been in pain.

  So much pain that I could see it on his face now.

  “Mig,” I started.

  He started to reply, but shook his head when he saw someone come out after him.

  “I’ve got the extra band if you’d like to have it,” a new nurse said, offering it to Mig.

  “Can you put it on my fiancé?” He asked.

  The nurse jolted, and I could hear the other nurse’s scoff at my side.

  I didn’t bother looking at her.

  “Yes, I can do that,” she confirmed.

  So that was how I’d been given the hospital bracelet that the mothers wore indicating that the baby was theirs.

  Mig had an identical one on his wrist, albeit much larger.

  “Well, if y’all want to follow me to the nursery, we’ll get baby Vitaly cleaned up for you, and then we’ll give you a room of your own,” the nurse said, sounding jovial.

  I would love this job.

  Who wouldn’t want to help deliver life every day?

  “Do you…do you think,” Mig said once he got to the door. “Do you think you could go in there with him? I need to go sit with Jennifer while she wakes up. Explain what’s going to happen now. But I don’t want him to be alone.”

  My heart hurt.

  Jennifer may have been a bad person, but I knew that this had to be hard on her.

  “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll go in there with him,” I whispered. “Then we’ll wait for you in the room they give us. Do you think you can wait long enough to tell your Nonnie which room?”

  “It’ll be the same one we had the mother in earlier,” the nurse at my side said. “We’ll move Ms. Konn to another room.”

  I nodded.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Mig wrapped his arms around both me and his son, pressed his lips against my forehead, then left.

  “I hope you got your camera ready,” the nurse said. “Because you’re about to get some good pictures of us cleaning him up and giving him his first bath.”

  I was nervous.

  I looked down at the little boy that looked so much like Mig that it hurt, and I smiled.

  “Yeah, I’ve got my camera ready,” I confirmed.

  And boy did Mig’s boy scream.

  Vitaly Andrew Konn was going to be a bruiser, too.

  He was eight pounds and twenty inches long, a healthy weight for a full term baby.

  “His lungs sound great, don’t they?” The nurse asked.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, they do,” I confirmed, snapping another picture.

  I looked up when someone tapped on the glass, then grinned and waved.

  All of the members of the Uncertain Saints were outside, looking through the glass at me and Vitaly.

  Peek, Wolf, Ridley, Core, Casten, and Griffin.

  Then there was Alison holding Wolf’s son, Nathan, squeezed in under Peek’s arm.

  She gave me wide eyes, and I held up my fingers, signaling he was eight pounds.

  “Looks like you’ve got an excited bunch out there,” the nurse observed.

  I smiled and studied Mig’s brothers.

  They were excited, even though they’d never admit it.

  They were all badasses…it was badass rule number one: do not show any emotion other than badass.

  And, apparently, being excited about a tiny little baby wasn’t allowed…not that they were hiding it well.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty excited,” I agreed.

  “Here, I’ll let you do this,” she said, handing me the diaper.

  I looked at it, then looked at Vitaly.

  He was still screaming, and even though the room was warm, he most certainly was not happy about being out in the open where he could flail his arms.

  “Okay,” I took the diaper, then opened it.

  Then I studied Vitaly to see how best to pick him up and get his underneath of him.

  “Here,” she said, placing it down on the table.

  Then she lifted his legs, which pulled his little booty in the air, and placed him back down on top of the diaper.

  “Now do it,” she ordered.

  I did as she instructed, and I had to admit, I was quite proud of myself.

  “It’ll get easier the more you do it,” she laughed. “Now I’ll teach you the art of swaddling.”

  And damned if she didn’t swaddle Vitaly up like a little baby burrito.

  She even did it better than Chipotle.

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re good at that.”

  She winked, then placed Vitaly into my arms.

  His eight pounds felt like a solid, secure weight in my arms, and I wanted to hold him forever and ever.

  Mig might protest that, though.

  So I’d be nice and give him a turn…every once in a while…when I felt like it.

  “Alrighty,” she said. “I’ve got your feet and hand prints. We can take him back to your room now, and I’ll bring you a bottle in just a few minutes so you can feed him.”

  “Okay,” I said hesitantly.

  She caught my hesitance and laughed.

  I walked slowly out of the room, smiling widely when I was bombarded by men at least a foot taller than me.

  “Let me hold him,” Peek demanded.

  “No. He’s mine,” I glared at him.

  Then skirted past him, walking into the room.

  Sadly, I did end up giving him up to not only the Saints, but also Mig’s mother, father and Nonnie, as well.

  I’d just gotten him back into my arms with a bottle in his mouth when Mig walked in.

  He looked haggard.

  Terrible, in fact.

  His photos of this day would forever be a bittersweet reminder of Mig’s immense joy as well as his pain.

  But the minute he saw me holding Vitaly, feeding him a bottle, his face split into a smile.

  “You want him?” I asked when he made it up to my side.

  I was sitting on the bed, reclining as I fed the baby.

  He’d already scarfed down about a half an ounce.

  “No,” he said. “My arms about to fall off, and I’m scared if I try to hold him, I’ll hurt either him or me.”

  I scooted over, only then realizing that he was dead on his feet.

  “Lay down,” I ordered him.

  He didn’t argue, which only went to show just how poorly he was feeling.

  He laid down next to me, completely ignoring the others in the room, and leaned his head against mine.

  Then he fell asleep, his hand on my leg, just underneath where Vitaly was resting against me.

  And he slept.

  The others spoke around us, but I was lost in this new world.

  A world where Vitaly Andrew the Third and Vitaly Junior were my sole focus.

  Chapter 26

  Shh, there’s wine in here.

  -Coffee Cup

  Annie

  Hours later, I was still in the little world
Mig had created for me.

  I’d just gotten up, leaving Vitaly to Mig, and stretched my legs.

  Plus, I had to pee.

  Mig had practically fallen asleep on top of me, and he’d not moved for a very long time.

  People had slowly trickled out, and now we were left with only Nonnie, and his parents.

  They were all discussing what they were wanting for dinner, so I took the chance to get up and leave.

  I needed a few moments.

  My chest felt so full right now that I needed somewhere to just let it out.

  And I found it in the bathroom stall at the very end of the corridor, near the waiting room.

  And I cried.

  I cried hard.

  I didn’t know why.

  Well I did, and I didn’t.

  Mostly, it was because today was eventful.

  Today had been terrible…and oh so beautiful.

  I’d nearly lost Mig, and I never even had him completely to myself.

  I wanted him.

  I wanted his son.

  I wanted to be a mother and a wife.

  And I couldn’t say that, because Mig was going through enough as it was.

  He didn’t need me adding to that.

  I was in limbo.

  I would be until I got this off my chest.

  But I wouldn’t say a word about it until I got home. Until Vitaly was a few weeks old. Maybe even more.

  I was crying so hard, in fact, that I didn’t even realize I wasn’t alone anymore until two huge, strong arms went around my middle.

  I’d been sitting on the toilet, fully dressed.

  I’d gone into a stall, and had ensconced myself inside, thinking surely Mig would never follow me here.

  I was wrong.

  “Why are you crying?” He asked gruffly.

  I couldn’t tell him that.

  But I could tell him that he’d scared me today, which I did.

  Loudly.

  “You scared me,” I sobbed. “I almost lost you.”

  Mig groaned and took a seat on his ass, leaning his back against the tiled wall.

  It was gross to sit on the bathroom floor, but I didn’t tell him that.

  He had a weird look on his face.

  “I was convinced I was going to die today,” he admitted.

  I looked up at him, tears streaming down my face.

  “Don’t say that.”

  I needed him to tell me he knew he’d be ok…not agree with me.

  “I did. And it was all because of some woman who used me. Got herself pregnant against my will. Then got me to marry her,” he said, leaning his head against the tile and looking up at me.

  I didn’t say anything.

  What was there to say?

  What Jennifer had done was awful.

  Beyond awful.

  But could I say anything against her when she produced something as lovely as Vitaly?

  Yes, I could.

  But Vitaly was a light at the end of the tunnel.

  He was proof that if God brought you to it, God would bring you through it.

  “And as I was telling her that she’d never see her son again, besides the picture you sent me,” he rasped. “I felt bad…for her. At what I’d done to her.”

  I didn’t say anything to that.

  “And as I was leaving, I realized just how much I love you,” he said. “When I got to the room and saw you feeding my son, I realized that I’d never be able to live without you again. The thought of you not there when I wake up physically hurts.”

  “That’s your bruised ribs,” I teased.

  My tears were slowing, but they were still there.

  However, I was always ready for a good joke.

  And I’d do anything to get that look off Mig’s face.

  Defeated.

  “I want to ask you to marry me…but I don’t want you to think it’s only because of the baby,” he said, making my heart start to pound.

  I waited.

  And it was good I did, because he wasn’t finished.

  “But then I’m a selfish fucker, and I couldn’t wait. I needed you to know that I love you, and that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So I followed you out here, and broke in when I heard you crying in the bathroom,” he said, finally turning his eyes to me.

  They were bruised.

  Huge purple and blue bruises lined his face.

  His lip was still split.

  His nose was slightly crooked.

  And he was the most handsome man in the entire world.

  “I love you, too,” I said quietly.

  He smiled.

  “That’s why I want you to marry me. You’re gonna say yes. And we’re going to build a new house, way the fuck away from any of our old memories,” he said. “We’re gonna make new ones. We’re gonna live our life. And we’re going to be fuckin’ happy.”

  I wanted to laugh.

  He deemed it, so it would be true.

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, dropping down to my knees at his side.

  He nodded.

  Simple. Easy as that.

  “And what makes you think I’ll say yes?” I teased, running my thumb over his lip so slightly that it barely even registered as a touch.

  “You’ll say yes.”

  My brows rose.

  “And how do you know that?” I persisted.

  He grinned.

  Even though I could tell it was painful, he did it anyway.

  Hooking me around the waist, he stood up, then walked out to the bathroom counter and set me on top of it.

  I blinked, surprised at the sudden movement.

  Then he walked to the door and flipped the lock.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, starting to get down.

  He was there in the next instant, stilling my movement with a hand on my belly.

  “Stay,” he ordered, pushing up the skirt I was wearing in ungodly slow movements.

  I bit my lip.

  “You’re hurt,” I tried.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not too hurt to prove to you just why you want to marry me,” he informed me, yanking my hips to the very edge of the counter.

  I gasped when I was suddenly up against his hard erection.

  Very hard.

  Then my panties were shoved to the side, and I was being filled up with Mig’s hard cock.

  I groaned.

  “We need to get you some more slip on pants,” I panted.

  He didn’t reply, but I could tell he liked the thought of easy access for me by the way he started to thrust.

  Frantic.

  All consuming.

  I watched him as he watched me.

  His eyes stayed on mine even when mine started to go hooded.

  His balls smacked against my ass at the frantic movements.

  His breathing was rough.

  Mine was even more so.

  His hard, thick cock plowed into me.

  He was out of control, but then again, so was I.

  We were having sex in a public bathroom.

  He was hurt.

  I was desperate.

  And the entire moment was fucking beautiful.

  We went over the edge together.

  His come filling me up, and his love repairing my nearly shattered heart.

  “So is that a yes?” He asked.

  I smiled against his neck.

  “Yeah, that’s a yes,” I told him.

  He rumbled in happiness, then leaned back and reached into his pocket, only wincing slightly when his bad shoulder started to make itself known again.

  And he produced a ring, a simple silver band.

  “I was going to get you a big diamond,” he said. “But I wanted you to be able to wear it when you were cutting hair or massaging your clients.”

  I looked into his eyes as he slipped the ring over m
y finger.

  And when it was finally in place, I leaned my head forward, placing my lips against his heart.

  “I think you’ve just made me the happiest woman in the world,” I informed him.

  He grunted.

  “I know.”

  Epilogue

  My sister said I treat her like a child, so I gave her a sticker for standing up for herself.

  -Text from Annie To Mig

  Mig

  Two weeks later

  “If you ever...ever tell anyone I took lessons for this dance, I will kick your ass and make sure your face matches your arm,” I growled at Casten.

  Casten grinned unrepentantly.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do this justice, though,” Casten jeered.

  I narrowed my eyes, but decided to let it go.

  “Just make sure you get the stupid fucking music up so I can get this shit done,” I growled, tugging my shirt at the back of my neck and pulling it over my head.

  I threw the shirt on the floor next to the pile of clothes I was to wear, glaring at the stupid monkey suit I was supposed to be wearing.

  “I can’t wear this,” I muttered to myself.

  Then I smiled.

  I’d wear it…but only the pieces I chose.

  ***

  The moment my eyes lit on Annie as she exited the little cottage at the front of the lawn, my lungs froze in my chest.

  My God, she looked beautiful.

  So fuckin’ beautiful my heart hurt.

  The feeling in my chest started to spread and soon nothing else existed but her.

  God, she was something.

  Her frown didn’t even make me wary.

  The beautiful smile she gave me when she got mid-way to me and could see my complete outfit made me happy, though.

  She knew me.

  And she didn’t care that I only wore half of what she’d asked me to.

  I had the white button down shirt. The dress shoes. But my jeans and cut finished the ensemble.

  It was me, and I liked that she liked it.

  But she frowned when she was two rows away from me and started to look around in confusion.

  Then her eyes lit on Vitaly, my son—our son—and she smiled.

  She patted her father on the arm to get his attention, then broke off from her father’s hold and walked to Nonnie who was holding Vitaly securely in her arms.

  Nonnie gave Annie a glare when Annie gestured for the baby, but nonetheless handed him over.