Them (Him #3)

by Carey Heywood

  He buries his face in my neck and kisses me there. Neither of us moves to stand, both content to let him stay within me for as long as we can. If there wasn’t the chance of Logan coming to look for one or both of us, Will probably would have moved us right from the shower to the bed. Being responsible adults sucks sometimes.

  “Surprise!”

  I look up, my mouth dropping open before spinning to smack Will’s chest. “You knew.”

  He grins, leaning down to kiss me before Sawyer hugs me from behind.

  I turn, doing my best to wrap my arms around her. “Are Jared and Pascal here, too?”

  She pulls back, nodding, a Cheshire-like smile gracing her face. “They’re camped out at Mama Price’s but are coming over here for dinner after your shower.”

  I turn back to Will and glance back and forth between the two of them. “How?” I don’t wait for an answer before I point my finger at Sawyer. “I talked to you yesterday.”

  She is clearly better at keeping secrets than I am.

  She just laughs and happy-dances in front of me. “Best surprise ever, am I right?”

  I lean forward to kiss her cheek. “Best ever.”

  She loops her arm through mine and pulls me into our streamer and balloon-covered living room. My mom, Will’s mom and Christine all stand to hug and greet me.

  “You guys shouldn’t have done this.” I spin, looking at all the gifts and baby-themed decorations around the room.

  “My co-workers threw me a shower and we knew that since you’re all by yourself work-wise, it was up to us to make sure you didn’t miss out on all the fun.” Christine nudges Sawyer with her elbow. “Sawyer planned everything.”

  She shrugs and her eyes meet mine. “You go all out for your best friend, just like you did for me.”

  I sniffle as my eyes well and, not trusting my voice, mouth a thank you.

  Her eyes crinkle, then she looks over my shoulder to where Will and Logan stand. “Go hang with Jared and Miss Muffet for the next couple of hours. We’ll try to save you some cake, but it looks amazing so I’m not gonna make any promises.”

  After the party, the boys come back to the house. Will and Jared man the grill while I get to hang with Sawyer.

  “You guys need to move to New England,” she moans, fanning herself.

  “It’s not that bad,” I argue.

  “Right.” She lifts her arm and points to her armpit. “I was outside for five minutes and I’m sweating my ass off.”

  “It’s the humidity,” I explain. “It makes it feel worse than it actually is.”

  “Will it still be this gross at that laser thing?”

  Before I can answer, Logan dashes into the living room. “We’re going to the laser show at Stone Mountain?”

  Sawyer cringes since she knows it’s supposed to be a surprise.

  I shoot her a look before turning to face Logan. “We are.”

  He pumps his fist into the air. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “Sawyer and Jared have never been, either.”

  His brow’s furrow. “Is Pascal coming?”

  I shake my head, glancing at Sawyer’s daughter, who is playing on the rug in front of us. “The music can get loud and it won’t end until after her bedtime, so Mama Price is going to babysit her.”

  He drops to the floor and crosses his legs in front of him. “You are going to have fun with Mama Price,” he murmurs to Pascal.

  She grins up at him and offers him a block.

  “Thank you.”

  Sawyer motions for me to look at her and once my eyes meet hers she mouths, ‘He’s so sweet.’

  I nod and mouth back, ‘I know.’

  Before long, Logan gets up to go hang out with Will and Jared.

  As soon as he’s out of the room, I turn toward Sawyer. “He’s amazing.”

  “Did you see how cute he was with Pascal?” Her question is clearly rhetorical.

  “I know. He’s a great kid. He offers to walk Rascal every day and is a huge help around the house.”

  “How’s he dealing with everything?”

  I shrug. “He was seeing a therapist every week, but at her recommendation he’s going to be going twice a month now.” I pause to look at her. “That has to be a good thing, right?”

  She nods. “Sounds that way. Are you still thinking about adopting him?”

  I lean forward to put one hand on her knee while smacking my forehead with my other hand. “I completely forget to tell you. I blame these pregnancy hormones; I swear I can’t remember anything these days.”

  Neither of us says anything for a minute until Sawyer laughs. “So, what’d you forget to tell me?”

  I cover my face as I laugh. “God, I’m such a mess. Okay, we talked to Logan about it and we are going to adopt him.”

  She moves forward to wrap her arms around me. “That’s fantastic news.”

  I curl my arms around her back as my eyes start to sting. “We were so nervous he wouldn’t want us to.”

  She gives me an extra squeeze before leaning back into her seat. “Why would you think that?”

  I dab at my eyes and look up at the ceiling as I blink tears away. “We were wondering if he’d think we were trying to replace his dad.”

  “Oh, honey,” she whispers, squeezing my knee.

  “It turns out he was scared we wouldn’t want him after the baby came.”

  She shakes her head, pressing her hand to her chest. “That poor boy.”

  “I’m trying not to cry,” I grumble before taking a deep breath.

  Sawyer waits patiently while I pull myself together.

  “He just fits us, you know?” She nods, so I keep going. “He skateboards and plays lacrosse with Will, but he also grocery shops and watches my movies with me and we go for walks just the two of us sometimes with the dog. I’ve heard people talk about how difficult teenagers can be, and maybe he’s trying extra hard to be good because he’s scared we’ll send him away.”

  “He has to understand by now that you guys would never do that,” Sawyer argues.

  “I hope so.”

  Before I can say anything else, Logan comes back into the room.

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  So our northern friends won’t melt, we eat in the dining room. Will told Logan we were leaving for Stone Mountain as soon as his mom got to our house. After the third time Logan asked where she was, Will mock-threatened to leave him at home if he asked one more time.

  Logan did his best to not laugh. Sawyer and I fail, though, and giggle. Will as a disciplinarian? He shoots me a look and it only makes me laugh harder.

  When the doorbell rings, Logan leaps from his chair, exclaiming, “She’s here. Let’s go!”

  “That’s an order if I ever heard one,” Jared remarks, pushing his chair back.

  Will quickly clears the table while Sawyer picks up Pascal from her travel booster seat and together, we go greet his mom. She only has eyes for Pascal, her smile from ear to ear as she reaches for her.

  Sawyer puts her arms around my waist and says, “Yep, you are going to be covered babysitting-wise once Baby Price is here.”

  I hadn’t ever thought of it before, but her comment makes me wonder what they do since Jared’s dad lives in Colorado and his mom is in Alaska.

  Sawyer is eerily observant to my inner musings and answers my unspoken question. “We have amazing neighbors who love to babysit whenever we need a break.”

  I don’t say it, but I wish we lived closer. I can’t fault her for not wanting to move out of her grandmother’s house, though. If Atlanta wasn’t home for us, I could see Will and me moving to New England. On second thought, Will hates cold weather, so maybe not.

  Once Sawyer points to where all of Pascal’s things are, we head out. Jared sits up front and since she’s the smallest, Sawyer rides in the middle of the back seat. At every red light, Will and Jared play air guitar to whatever song is on the radio while the rest of us laugh at them.

  Lo
gan pulls out his phone to record them, threatening to post it to YouTube. By the time we’ve parked, I don’t even care about the laser show. I’ve already had one of the best days of my life just having all of my favorite people around me.

  Will

  “You know you want to wait.”

  Sarah’s forehead wrinkles as she pouts up at me. “I’m not sure I can anymore.”

  I smooth my hand down the side of her face, all the way to the column of her neck, and let it rest there. “We’re so close, darling.”

  “I know,” she whispers, her eyes holding mine.

  “We can do it.”

  She bobs her head, bringing her hand up to grip my forearm. “I’m sorry I even mentioned it.”

  “Hush,” I murmur, leaning down to silence her with my lips.

  We’ve reached the stage of her pregnancy where we’ll be visiting the doctor each week going forward. That seems to have Sarah panicking that we don’t know the sex of the baby. There’s no way I’m repainting the baby’s room, though, so we’re sticking to our original waiting plan.

  “Did you think it was weird, what he did?” Sarah asks when I pull away.

  “The part where he fisted you?” I joke, making her blush.

  “I have to ask Christine if her doctor did that, too.”

  During our appointment today, Sarah’s doctor confirmed her cervix is softening and that she’s already dilated a bit. Enough so that he massaged the top of the baby’s head. He said that would encourage and stimulate the baby to stay head down. Sarah’s eyes almost bugged out of her head when the doctor said that.

  From where I sat, all I wanted to know was exactly how far he had to reach to do that. Makes me rethink sex. Last thing I want to do is give my kid a concussion before he or she is born.

  “You let me know what she says.”

  I walk her into the house and call out to Logan so he’ll know we’re back. Logan and I have gone to the high school every day since he’s been back from camp to practice lacrosse moves. He’s dead-set on trying out for the JV team next year and wants to be ready for it.

  There’s a private league he’s signed up to play on this fall. They also have a spring season, but he wants to play for his school. If he’s still all about lacrosse by next summer, we’re going to look into him trying out for their travel team. The fact that he wants to share this with me is what has me dragging my ass into the heat to practice with him every day.

  There will come a point where he won’t think I’m cool. Growing up, all I wanted was my dad to spend time this way with me. I’ll never be able to replace Logan’s dad, but hopefully I can honor his memory by giving my time to Logan.

  “I need five minutes to change. Want to grab the gear and meet me at the car?”

  “Yep,” he replies, spinning to do what I asked.

  Sarah slowly lowers herself onto the sofa, lifting her feet onto the coffee table. Her ankles have been swelling, so she’s doing her best to keep them elevated. I make a mental note to give them a rub for her when Logan and I get back.

  I jog up the stairs and into our room so I can change out of what I wore to the doctor and into an old t-shirt and some gym shorts. By the time I make it out to the car, Logan is already there waiting for me. I pop the trunk for him to load all of our gear.

  “How was the appointment?” he asks as he slides into his seat.

  “It was good. Baby’s good, Sarah’s good, everything is good.”

  He nods. “Do you think I can come to the hospital when she has the baby?”

  I glance over at him, surprised he’d even ask. “Of course you can. If it ends up taking a while, we’ll have to touch base about you staying the whole time.”

  “How long does having a baby take?”

  “No clue, man. They say it’s different for everyone. Sarah knows someone who said it took her 24 hours.”

  His mouth drops. “That sucks.”

  “Yep. So, if it takes that long, we might need to send you home with someone to get some sleep.”

  “That makes sense.”

  One thing I like about Logan is how level-headed he is. With the exception of the time right after his dad died, when he was dealing with more grief than any kid his age should, of course. Other than that, as long as you explain stuff to him, he’s happy to go with the flow. He doesn’t argue but also doesn’t have an issue letting Sarah and I know what he wants.

  “We’ll have to wait and see how it goes.”

  “Is she going to do the thing where they cut the baby out of her?”

  “A caesarean?”

  He nods.

  “Nope, she wants to do it the old-fashioned way but with painkillers.”

  “It’s supposed to hurt a whole lot, right?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Last night, I got to feel the baby kicking.”

  “Where was I?” I get selfish when it comes to hogging all of the baby’s kicks.

  Sarah never misses a thing, since it’s all happening real-time for her. Half of the time, when the baby starts kicking, by the time I get there he or she has stopped. My future son or daughter has already learned how to toy with me.

  “You were washing dishes.” He laughs.

  Once I park, I turn and point at him. “You’re on dish duty for the next week.”

  He cracks up. The fact that the baby always stops kicking once I touch Sarah’s stomach has become a running joke between the two of them. I swear it’s like everyone is against me.

  “I should make you do laps,” I mumble as we walk onto the field.

  Instead, we work on passing until I’m out of breath. Then I defend the goal and have him try to score on me. His confidence has gone way up since camp, so now the only thing going against him is his height. Unless they’re built like a tank, it’s the smaller guys who make great forwards. They’re fast, and their height makes a smaller target for the defenders to go after.

  Logan is taller than I was at his age, and I’m 6’3.

  “Have you considered playing defense?” This isn’t the first time I’ve asked him this question.

  “Defense is boring,” he moans.

  “What about midfield? You can run as much as you’d like if you played midi.”

  He frowns. “Am I that bad at playing forward?”

  Shit. “It’s not that. I only want you to understand that your height is working against you. This has nothing to do with your ability.” His shoulders slump and it’s clear he has his heart set on playing attack. “How about X?” I hazard.

  He lifts his eyes to mine. “The forward who plays behind the goal?”

  “Yep. You’d still be a forward, but your strategy would be more as assists than scores. X is not an easy position to play. Your passing has to be flawless so the other team won’t tag your passes mid-air.”

  The hint of a smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “You think I can do it?”

  I slip off my glove and reach to muss up his hair. “I think you can do anything you set your mind to.”

  I send him behind the goal to practice passing to me as if I were a forward facing the goal. We pass back and forth until I call uncle. I miss the days of unlimited energy. There’s a better chance than not I’ll be hobbling out of bed tomorrow.

  When we get back to the house, Sarah takes one look at me and offers to run a hot bath with Epsom salt for me to soak in. Before I follow her upstairs, Logan asks if he can go over to Amber’s house, because her neighborhood has a community pool. Part of me wants to tell him only if I can go with, but I’m too tired to joke around so I nod.

  Amber lives close enough to our house that Logan can ride his bike or skateboard there.

  By the time I make it upstairs, the bath is almost full. Sarah is bent over it, one of her hands on the lip. At first, it looks like she’s pouring something in it, but then her head turns and her eyes meet mine. I see then that her other hand is clutching her stomach. That and the wild look in her eyes send a shive
r straight up my spine. Something is wrong.

  Any soreness I had is forgotten and I’m at her side in an instant. “Sarah, what’s wrong?”

  I try to ease her back to sit on the toilet but she’s rigid, locked in that curled-forward position.

  She hasn’t answered me. Instead, all she does is pant and rasp. The only woman I have ever seen in labor, and I’m assuming that’s what’s happening here, was Christine and she acted nothing like the way Sarah is acting right now.

  I drop to my knees in front of her and look up at her. “Please talk to me, baby. What’s wrong?”

  All she does is shake her head, so I pull out my phone and call 911. Part of me wonders if I’m overreacting, but Sarah is the strongest woman I know and her fear is palpable. While I’m on the phone with the emergency operator, I turn off the water and run downstairs to unlock the door. I almost carry Sarah down with me so she’ll be closer to the EMTs when they arrive but don’t want to risk accidentally hurting her or the baby in any way.

  She hasn’t moved an inch by the time I’m back by her side. She hasn’t spoken other than to cry out or whimper in pain, either. Each one hits me like a physical blow. The love of my life is in pain, and I’m powerless to take it away from her. It’s an agony I had not known existed.

  It takes five seemingly unending minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Sarah cries out as they ease her onto a cart and then down the stairs, my hands clawing at my shirt to stop from reaching out for her. What would that do? I’d have to push an EMT helping her out of the way while they’re busy navigating the cart down our stairs.

  It’s not until she’s in the front yard that I can touch her again. The EMT has the presence of mind to close my front door, since my attention is only on Sarah. We’re loaded into the ambulance and I clasp her hand in both of mine. An EMT who, once I’m in such a confined space I finally notice, is checking her. He is an older Hispanic man, his voice smooth and sure as he relays information to the EMT driving. Half of the words out of his mouth mean nothing to me. They could be good or bad.

  A heart rate is elevated. Sarah or the baby’s? Can pain elevate a heart rate? Why is she in so much pain? Is this labor? This is early; we’re not supposed to be going into labor for another month.