Seven

by Susan Renee

  “I’m…umm,” Mrs. Sanders looks to her husband and me. “I’ll just go check on Savannah.”

  Mr. Sanders is quiet for a moment when he sits down in the chair next to me. He leans his head against the wall, deciding on the words to say.

  “Bryant, you’re right. The doctor told us when we were here that night that it looked as if Savannah was pregnant. Assuming it’s yours…”

  “Yeah, it’s mine, sir. Your daughter’s not a piece of trash. She doesn’t sleep around.”

  “Well I hope you’ll understand then that when you were here with us that night and never mentioned a baby, I knew that meant that you didn’t know, and it wasn’t my place to tell you. For what it’s worth though, from what I’ve heard these past couple days from people in the Bardstown community, and from some of your friends, you’re a pretty great father. Probably more patient and stronger fighting than I ever was for my baby girl. For those reasons alone I know you’ll be a good father to this child too.”

  “Sir, I can’t even be certain that Savannah will want me involved. This is all my fault too. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “Did you force yourself on my daughter, Mr. Wood?” he asks. I turn my head towards him, immediately offended that he would ever think I could hurt Savannah. “Never! Dear God, I would never do that to a woman.”

  “Then I think it’s safe to say this isn’t all your fault.” When I make eye contact with Mr. Sanders, he winks at me. He fuckin’ winks. “We’re all adults here Bryant and everyone knows how babies are made. It happens. Do you love her?”

  “More than the air I breathe, sir.”

  I see the side of his mouth rise up in what I’m sure is a tiny satisfied smile. “Then don’t run away too quickly, Bryant. You two are in this together and she’s going to need you now more than ever. I’m too old to deal with the hormones that are going to be coming your way…the hot flashes, and the late night pickles and ice cream runs. I’m just an old man trained and ready to spoil my grandchild with all the love in the world.”

  “But what if something happens to her, sir? Or the baby? She can’t…I can’t…”

  “Perhaps it would be better for you to stop focusing on all the what-could-go-wrongs, and steer your thoughts towards the what-could-go-rights. It’s okay to let your faith be bigger than your fear.”

  I nod my head slightly while I stare at my coffee. “I’ll give her all that I can, sir. You have my word on that.”

  “I’m not the one who needs to hear those words, Son,” he says. “Let’s go check in on my baby girl.” He stands up and walks out of the waiting room. I follow quietly behind him.

  Chapter 33

  Savannah

  He walked out.

  He left me here, broken and alone.

  And I don’t know if he’s coming back.

  This is all my fault.

  It was that damn couch. We’ve always used protection but that day we were in the moment. It wasn’t planned. Neither of us were really thinking with our brains. It was one of the best moments of my life. I needed him so badly that day and I hadn’t even known it.

  “Savannah, not that you really want or need to know this,

  but Ivy was conceived on the couch in my shit hole of an office at the bar.”

  Damnit, what is it about the couches in his office. I can’t imagine what he must be thinking right now. I walked out on him a couple days ago, landed in this God forsaken hospital and now this. A baby. Our baby. Another child, that I could’ve easily put in harm’s way by driving through all that rain. Bryant has to be pissed with me. I’ve loaded a lot of extra stress onto his shoulders. Stress that he and Ivy don’t deserve. I’m sure it’s all too much for him.

  “Knock, knock!” Mama stands in the doorway peeking in to say hello. As soon as I see her in the doorway I burst into tears.

  “Savannah…what is it? Are you okay? Are you in pain?” She rushes to my side, checking me over quickly to see what the problem is.

  “No, Mama. I’m fine. It’s just…I…I’m…”

  “Is this about the baby? Is that why you’re crying?” she asks softly.

  “He left me, Mama. Bryant left me here, and I don’t know if he’s comin’ back.” I cry.

  “Baby girl, don’t you cry. Of course he’s comin’ back. He was just in the lounge down the hall getting a coffee out of the vending machine. Your daddy’s with him now.” She lightly brushes my hair back off of my face leaning in to kiss my now pounding forehead. Crying does nothing to soothe a headache.

  “He is?”

  She chuckles. “Well of course he is, you silly girl. You didn’t think Bryant Wood was going to walk out of this hospital and never look back now did you?”

  “I…I don’t know what to think. What if he doesn’t want this baby, Mama? Ivy is a lot for him to handle with all of her medical appointments and all. I can’t put this stress on him too.”

  “Yes you can, and yes you will.” Bryant steps into the room with my dad. Immediately I feel the tears burn my eyes as they trickle down my cheeks.

  “Bryant.” I cry.

  “Savannah. I’m sorry.” He’s at my side in an instant taking my hand in his. “I didn’t mean to run out on you, I just…I needed to take a breath. This was all a little sudden and not at all how I thought it would go when the time came.”

  “What? What do you mean how you thought it would go?” I ask.

  Bryant turns to my parents. “Would you guys mind giving us just a minute alone?”

  “Not at all. We’ll just slip outside.”

  Bryant is still staring at me with a pained expression when my parents leave the room.

  “Bryant what is it?”

  “I thought…” He breathes. “I thought that one day we would get here. I saw a forever with you. I could see us having a family together, but, I just never saw it starting on the damn couch in my office. Savannah, you deserve someone who lays you down on the softest mattress and makes love to you repeatedly. You deserve all the love a man can give you and I…I ruined that for you. I never meant to hurt you. I hope you can believe that. I’ll do whatever you want me to do for this baby, but I’ll also understand if you don’t want me to be a part of the journey you’re about to take.”

  “Whoa, hold up.” Through tear-strewn eyes, I squeeze his hand. “Is that what you think? That I don’t want you to be a part of this with me? That I don’t want you in my life now that I’ve learned that we’re pregnant?”

  He clears his throat. “Well, I just thought…”

  “I don’t give a damn what you thought. Bryant Wood, I love you. You’ll be a great father to this baby, just as you have been a great father to Ivy. I’m just sorry this was a surprise for both of us. I swear to you I didn’t meant for this to happen. I wasn’t trying to replace Pey…” I choke on my words as well as my tears.

  “Hey, hey, hey.” Bryant whispers, holding my face in his hands. He sits on the bed next to me and gently wipes the tears from my eyes. “Don’t you dare put that on yourself. Don’t you allow Jamie Henders to take over your brain and your heart. She’s a bitch who knows absolutely nothing about what we have. I know it was an accident. Most pregnancies are, and I’m not the least bit upset about the fact that I’m fathering another child, because for the first time in my life I’m in love with that child’s mother. I don’t plan on you doing any of this alone. Do you hear me? You’ll never have to be alone in this okay, Sev? I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”

  I study his face through my tears. I’ve missed him. I’ve missed him so much. The way I feel when he touches me, the comforting taste of him when kisses me. His warmth, his playfulness, his compassion. Looking at him makes me feel like I’ve been asleep for much longer than a couple days. I lean in towards his face a little and he meets me halfway, our foreheads touching. His hands still holding my face I see his eyes dart to my now parted lips. “Please, Bryant.”

  “What, Baby?”

  “Kiss me. Ple
ase.”

  Delicately he brushes his lips over mine. They connect in softness moving together like slow, gentle waves. He tastes of coffee. The stubble from his unshaved face tickles my skin but I relish it.

  “Do you love me okay, Bryant?” I ask in between kisses.

  “Baby, on a scale of one to four…” he says. “I love you Seven.”

  *****

  It’s been four weeks since the accident, and since I found out I was pregnant. I’m through the first trimester and luckily for me it wasn’t that bad. It’s a humbling feeling every time – knowing that a woman’s body can grow another human being inside it. From all the books I’ve been reading I should be feeling the baby kick soon, and in about four more weeks we have an ultrasound appointment to hopefully learn the sex of the baby. With any luck by then I’ll be out of these damn casts and not bound to this fucking wheelchair. Nausea hasn’t been a huge problem for me during this pregnancy, but my fuses are much shorter these days. I’m not nearly as patient as I once was. I’m tired of being broken. I’m tired of people needing to help me do everything for me, including helping me get to the bathroom so I can pee. I can’t use crutches because my right elbow is in a cast so there’s no way to move myself. This wheelchair is stuck to my ass all waking hours of the day, until Bryant lifts me and carries me to bed. Physical therapy is going well for my arm and elbow, but I still have to wipe my ass with my left hand, and that’s not easily done for someone who is right handed. It’s the one thing I refuse to let anyone help me with. I need some form of dignity left.

  Bryant enjoys helping me out every morning and evening. He likes to help get me dressed because in his words, “It means I have to get you undressed first.” He also likes the sponge baths he has to give me so that my casts don’t get wet. I will admit though, it’s nice to have someone else do my hair. A couple days a week, Rachel comes over and does it up nice for me so I feel like a normal human being. Even little Ivy gets to help me out some days by keeping me entertained. She reads to me, and by read, I mean makes up her own stories to every book she pulls off the shelf. She helps Daddy make me breakfast and dinner and tries to brush my hair for me after Bryant washes it. She and Bryant have been my biggest super heroes through all of this, and I’m forever grateful that he insisted I stay here since I can’t live in my second floor apartment, nor navigate around my parents’ two-story home. I just wish I could shake the frustrated feeling I seem to be getting more often. It’s obviously the hormones.

  “Hey. Let me help you with that,” Bryant says. He just got Ivy to sleep, without me helping of course since I can’t walk up the steps. I’ve wheeled myself around his bedroom to try and put some of our laundry away. Anything I can do to be of service to him, I try and do it if I physically can. It’s just my little way of trying to pay back all he’s done for me. This time though, I completely dropped the pile I had resting on my lap, watching helplessly as it fell to the floor. As much as I’ve tried to reach for it, I can’t get to it.

  Damnit!

  “I can do it, Bryant!” I huff.

  “It’s okay, Babe. They’re just socks.”

  “Yeah to you they’re just socks. To me they’re…they’re another fucking reminder of the mundane things I can’t do like put socks away.” I blow the hair hanging near my eyes in an irritated fashion.

  He stops and kneels down at my chair. “Hey. What’s wrong? You’re not normally this…edgy.”

  “Well I’m sorry if I can’t do everything you can do as fast as you can do it,” I retort.

  “I never said any of that was a problem,” he says gently.

  “I’m sorry I can’t make you happy.”

  “You make me extremely happy,” he assures me with a smile.

  “You haven’t asked for anything…in a long time…from me, I mean. You don’t want me anymore, I get it. I mean look at me!” I gesture to my whole sorry self, sitting helplessly in a wheelchair.

  “Whoa little pony. Back the truck up. What do you mean I don’t want you anymore? What is this all about Sev?”

  “What do you think it’s about?” I can feel the heat invading my cheeks.

  His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, like I’ve called on the one kid in the classroom who hasn’t been paying attention. “Uh…I…really have no idea. I mean, I’m crazy about you, Sev. You know that. I tell you every day, so you tell me. What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”

  I’m silent for a moment mulling over whether or not I really want to be honest with him.

  Fuck it.

  “You haven’t asked me to touch you since we got out of the hospital.”

  Bryant looks at me for a moment, befuddled, before a smirk slowly emerges on his face.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “Is what what this is about?” I argue.

  “You’re frustrated,” he snickers.

  “Huh?”

  “Sexually. You, my little sex kitten, are sexually frustrated.”

  I scoff. “As if.”

  Ugh I can’t believe how embarrassing this is.

  Bryant laughs. He can see the blush on my face and knows he’s hit the nail on the head. “Admit it.”

  “What? No.”

  He leans in closer sliding his hand up my thighs. That spark I felt when I first met him shoots immediately to all the places I wish it wouldn’t. “Admit it.”

  “Never. I’m perfectly fine,” I pant.

  “No, you’re not,” he says. His hands roam up my torso as he leans in to leave a playful kiss on the side of my neck. “You’ve been pent up in this wheel chair for weeks…void of a good release huh?”

  “I don’t need anything from you.” My voice falters. There’s no way I said that with any conviction whatsoever.

  I want it all from him.

  Damn these casts.

  Damn this wheelchair.

  “No, no, I get it. I’ve missed that connection too. It’s been too long. Let me make it up to you.” Swiftly he slides his hands under my legs as he does multiple times a day and lifts me, cradling my body against his. I close my eyes breathing him in, committing his delicious smell to memory. He carries me effortlessly to his bed where he lays me down. His eyes roam down my body and back up to meet my hungry stare.

  “Lucky for me, we put you in a sundress today,” he says with a wink.

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  He kneels onto the bed, spreading my legs so that he can sit between them. He bends my left leg so that my foot is flat on the bed, resulting in the riding up of my dress. I can’t help but roll my eyes when he looks at me like a damn kid in a candy shop, but when his left hand moves swiftly up my thigh, and he reaches the apex, I gasp much louder than I probably should.

  “Easy access,” he teases.

  His playfulness makes me chuckle. Finally, I feel the tension start to roll off my shoulders, only to allow an entirely different kind of tension to take its place.

  “You know I think I’ve done a damn good job of taking care of you these past couple weeks…” He states. “But I guess I have been neglecting some of your more…personal needs.” He leans forward so that he’s hovering over top of me, careful not to put any weight on my body. As he leans in he pushes my dress up and over my head, helping me carefully to take it off before admiring the half-naked body he sees lying before him. Swiftly, and because he knows I’m not much help, he pulls his shirt up over his head and throws it on the floor behind him.

  “But your lips aren’t broken.” He traces my bottom lip with his tongue, prompting me to open them for him. He takes full advantage of my eagerness, kissing me until my lips are plump and swollen.

  “Your neck isn’t broken,” he says as he trails his nose softly down my neck, kissing me up and around my ear before heading south.

  “And these babies right here…” he says fondling my now swollen breasts. “These are definitely not broken.” Bryant’s touch on my blissfully sensitive
pregnant breasts ignites my carnal need for him. I don’t care about the lovey-dovey stuff. I just want his hands on me now. Right now.

  “Bryant,” I whisper.

  “Shh, shh, shh.” He answers. “I need to take care of you, Baby, and I’m not finished yet.” He works his way down my torso, kissing and sucking along the way. My baby bump has started to fill out a little bit so there’s a little more of me for him to play with. He looks up at me with his sexy brown eyes and in one startling move, rips the pink panties I had on completely off my body.

  Well that’s one way to get them over my cast.

  I laugh out loud at my thought but quickly gasp when Bryant says in between licks, “And I don’t think anything is broken down here.”

  “Oh my God!” I mewl.

  “You like that?”

  “Mmm hmm…” is all I can say. I’m breathing harder and grasping at the sheets around me.

  “Good. Because you taste so good right now, I’m not sure I could stop if I wanted to.”

  It doesn’t take long for me to find the release I so badly desired. And it doesn’t take long for Bryant to figure out how to navigate around my broken limbs in search of his own release.

  “Roll over on your side.” He says to me as he unbuckles his belt. I hear him shoving his shorts down and stepping out of them. With my broken limbs resting comfortably he slides into the bed behind me. His left hand adjusts underneath my head where he now has easy access to my bare chest. His right hand coming around to play as well, Bryant spends the next several minutes exploring every surface and crevice of my body, his hands answering every one of my moans and groans.

  “Are you ready for me?” he asks.

  “Yes!” I spit out almost too eagerly. With his hands around my waist he pulls me back towards him so that our bodies line up perfectly. He guides himself inside me and with one hand resting on my pelvis pushes himself in as far as he can go.

  This connection.

  This is what I needed.

  What I desired.

  “Savannah…” he whispers in my ear as his breath escapes him. “Dear God you feel so…mmm…so good.” He very slowly slides in and out, in and out, working himself up to what will be his inevitable explosion, but what I didn’t anticipate was the overwhelming desire to explode with him. As his pace quickens, his fingers begin to latch on to me, pinching me, rubbing me, pinching me again until I can’t hold back anymore.