Clutch

by Drew Elyse

  I took it, using all of my restraint not to rip it from her hand. I didn’t need to freak her out and have security called. My son was here, and apparently, I was all he had left. The manila folder made the shaking in my hands obvious. Rage flowed through me, and if I didn’t get a lid on it, I was going to need to get the fuck out of there.

  “I’ll give you some time,” the nurse stated in a nervous voice before backing out of the room.

  I didn’t acknowledge her again. Instead, I tore into the envelope, ripping the flap around the clasp. Letting the folder drop to the floor, I stared at the first sheet of paper. It was the still incomplete birth certificate form. She’d filled in her information, but nothing else.

  Beneath that was a letter. I had no idea what it would say, what she could possibly say after running out on my son. I sank into a chair in the corner of the room, fortifying myself to read the words.

  I really fucking wished I wasn’t alone.

  My phone rang while I was in the bathroom changing. After the scene with Nathaniel and the emotional conversation with Gauge, I decided a bath was the only thing I could do for myself. I soaked in the hot water for a long time, trying to relax while images of a beautiful baby boy invaded my head.

  When Gauge asked if I wanted to see a picture of his son, declining had been the only reaction I could muster. I was not ready—or, I had not been ready. Yet, since he left, all I could do was wonder what the baby looked like.

  I wandered back into the main hotel room, still blotting my hair dry, and went to check my phone. Before I could, it came to life again.

  Surprisingly, it was Ham calling.

  “Hi, Ham,” I greeted.

  “Cami, you need to get to the hospital,” he said without preamble.

  My entire body tightened, going on alert. Was the baby okay? Had something happened to Gauge? “What’s wrong?”

  “Stacey bolted. Gauge really fuckin’ needs you.”

  No. No, that could not be real. I had not trusted Stacey, but I never believed she would do something to hurt Gauge. I thought I would be the target. If she left with…

  “Did she take the baby?” I demanded, terrified.

  “No. Just fucking left him there. Seriously, Cami, Gauge is a fucking mess.” Ham sounded desperate.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I told him.

  “Thank fuck,” he muttered. “I’ll be out front when you get here to bring you to him.”

  We both hung up without goodbyes. Within the space of a minute, damp hair and all, I rushed out of the hotel at a run. I had one concern and that was getting to Gauge as fast as humanly possible.

  It was getting dark as I drove, the sun well into its descent. It almost felt like I was racing against its disappearance. Some time during the drive, it got into my head that I had to get to the hospital before dark. I had to keep pace with the light trying to fall before the horizon or it would be too late.

  It was foolish, completely illogical even, but it was something to keep me focused and moving.

  My turn into the hospital parking lot was fast, so fast the tires squealed and I was forced to maneuver the truck quickly to keep the back end from spinning out. Still, I decreased my speed only a touch. I had never driven so recklessly. Beneath the stress and concern, it was kind of thrilling.

  As I drove past the front doors to the visitor’s section, Ham flagged me down, waving his arms and thrusting out his palms to tell me to stop. I did, slamming on the breaks, not caring that it sent my body jolting forward. He jogged over to my door with Dad at his heels. Ham pulled the door open as I unbuckled myself. Only when he gave me a hand getting down did I realized the way the adrenaline from the drive was making my arms quiver.

  Dad placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze as he said, “You get in there, girlie. He needs you. I’ll take care of the truck.”

  Whether the “okay” response that went through my head was actually spoken aloud, I have no clue. I was too focused on rushing in, Ham keeping himself a pace ahead of me, leading the way.

  Hoffman Medical Center was a place I was reasonably familiar with, but it had undergone some much needed revitalizing since my last visit. Still, none of the improvements made any impression on me as I hurried through the main building. My entire focus was on Ham, following him and silently cursing him for not going faster. Faster, in that case, would have meant breaking into a dead run, but that was not out of the question to me.

  Ham came to a halt at one of the room doors. I did not slow as I pushed it open and stepped in. Stone looked over his shoulder at me right away and gave a firm nod before turning and walking out the door. As he stepped away, I got my first look at the room. The bedding had been torn from the mattress, which was hanging slightly off kilter on the raised frame. There were papers scattered on the floor. The mess was admittedly limited, but so were the means for making one. Gauge had been on a destructive path, and the formerly neat room had given in where it could.

  Gauge himself, my strong man, was sitting off to the far corner of the room in a chair that hardly seemed big enough for him. Hunched over, he looked beaten down in a way I had never seen, and would move heaven and earth never to see again. He had not looked up when I came in, just continued to rest his head in his hands. I wondered if the guys had told him I was coming.

  “Gauge,” I called softly.

  His head shot up, bleary eyes landing on me. “Cami?”

  I guess that was a no on the count of the guys mentioning I was on my way.

  His face as he looked at me standing there was one of despondency, fury, confusion, and the smallest hint of relief. I forced myself to move, despite the way his emotions pinned me to the floor. Once I managed the first step, I all but ran to him and threw myself into his lap.

  “I am so sorry, baby,” I told him.

  “How could she? How could she abandon him?” His words held none of the sadness I had seen, only a rage seeming to be nearly too much to contain.

  “I don’t know,” I murmured.

  “She just…” He shook his head when words failed him. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  He scoffed. “Left a note.” He halfheartedly motioned to the papers scattered across the floor. “Didn’t even pick a name for him. Just fucking blew out of here like he meant fuck all.”

  I gently extricated myself from his lap and collected the sheets of paper he’d thrown aside. One page was indeed an incomplete birth certificate form. Only Stacey’s sections were filled in. No name. Gauge would have to pick his son’s name on his own and fill in the rest of the information. I mentally made note that I could help with that. I needed to know what I could do to ease Gauge’s mind even a bit.

  There were a few pages of information she must have been given about the baby when she had attempted to check out. Records and test results, nothing that stood out much to me. Then, I found the note scrawled on the back of a piece of paper detailing HIPPA guidelines.

  Gauge,

  I’m sorry. That probably doesn’t mean much, but I am.

  I can’t do this. I can’t be a mother to a baby. I can’t be a mother at all.

  I’m leaving.

  I tried so hard to be happy about all of this. I thought if I could put a smile on my face every day it would start being real. But it didn’t.

  The baby is better off with you. You have so many people around you that will help. You have Cami. You’ll give him what he needs.

  I can’t do that.

  I’ll make sure the furniture you bought for my apartment is returned and you are refunded the cost. The other things, diapers and clothes we bought and received, I’ll have sent to you.

  I’m sorry.

  Stacey

  I must have read the letter five times, trying to make sense of it. She was abandoning her son. Her baby. In all the months of distrusting her, I never imagined she would do something to hurt the child. Even I had thought she was h
appy about the pregnancy.

  Dropping the papers onto the skewed mattress, I moved to Gauge and allowed him to pull me back into his lap. He gripped me hard, a force born of desperation. I was glad to be his anchor, but I wished he never had to know a situation where he felt the need to reach for me that way.

  “Don’t know if I can do this alone,” he said.

  “You can,” I assured him, “but you won’t.” He looked up at me in confusion, and I held his eyes intently for my next words. “You won’t have to do this alone. You have your brothers at your back. You have the old ladies who wear the Disciples’ patch. You have your mom who will shower that boy in affection. But most of all, you have me. I will be with you through it all.”

  He blinked hard, stared into my eyes, blinked hard again. It seemed like he was waiting for me to pull the rug out from beneath him. He was waiting for the catch, to wake up and realize it was a dream or a delusion.

  It wasn’t.

  “I promise,” I whispered.

  His arms squeezed me back against him until I could hardly breathe, but I did not say a thing. Gauge needed that moment. He buried his face in my neck, his breathing labored. With all he had gone through, he was barely holding it together. He could clutch onto me until I broke if he needed it.

  “You are my angel,” he murmured into my skin. “Fuckin’ heaven sent. I don’t deserve it, but fuck if I’ll let you go.”

  That statement made anything to come, any struggles or frustrations, any fights or disagreements, every single moment of strife we might face, worth it.

  “Take me to see him,” I instructed.

  Without a word, Gauge rose to his feet, keeping me in his arms as he did. Once he was standing, he kissed me long and deep. I could feel the raw love and gratitude he poured into it. If I lived to be one hundred, I would always remember that kiss. For stolen moments in the midst of absolute chaos, Gauge poured his whole heart into that contact with me, and I absorbed it all.

  “I love you, darlin’.”

  “I love you, too.”

  He set me down carefully and took my hand with a tenderness that was out of character. Gauge held my hand frequently, but he always took it with a firm hold that told me I was his. That time, he took it gently, like he wanted me to know first and foremost, he was mine.

  The hall was quiet. Distantly, there were sounds of what might be another delivery in progress, but the door muted them. The staff seemed inclined to give Gauge a large berth. The occurrence was not uncommon when around the Disciples, so I had learned to ignore it. He didn’t seem to notice it at all.

  Gauge’s focus was entirely on leading me to meet his son. As we went down the hall, I wondered if I should be nervous. I certainly had been before. Anxiety had been my first reaction when the baby was mentioned, when I saw Stacey’s very pregnant belly, when Gauge asked me if I wanted to see a picture of him. Yet, as I walked beside Gauge to meet his son, I was not nervous at all.

  “It should be time to feed him,” Gauge said as we walked. “Nurse came in a little earlier and mentioned it.”

  “Do they know he will need a bottle?” I asked as delicately as I could.

  “Yeah. Tank talked to someone, filled them in,” Gauge said more tightly.

  I gave his hand a squeeze of reassurance, which he returned. “It will be okay.”

  We went into the nursery, moving directly to a little nook with a rocking chair. “Sit here. I’ll get him,” he said.

  He walked directly to a nurse, who went with him to one of the little beds. A minute later, he was walking back toward me with a bundle in his arms that seemed impossibly small compared to his large frame.

  “Little man,” he murmured to the bundle, “meet Cami, the most beautiful woman your old man has even known.” He looked up at me with adoration for his son that melted my heart. “Darlin’, meet…” He paused, and then his face became resolute, “Levi.”

  “Levi,” I echoed on a whisper.

  I held my arms open, accepting the most precious thing I had ever held. He was so small, so fragile. He fussed a bit and then looked up at me. His little face was adorably scrunched, his cheeks puffy. He had Gauge’s coloring, his dark eyes, a little tuft of the same black hair. He was my incredible man made over in a sweet, tiny package. I never wanted to let him go. I wanted to hold him right there where I could protect him forever.

  “He’s beautiful,” I said, not having it in me to look away from the miracle I was holding as I spoke to his daddy. “Hello, little prince.”

  I ran my finger down one of those precious cheeks, and he reached out to grab ahold of me. As his little fist closed around my finger, I knew. I would never hold a baby I gave life to in my arms, but it no longer mattered. That love could come in unconventional ways. In my case, it snuck its way in through accident and what might have been tragedy, but I would never let Levi feel the pain of what had happened that day. I would give him everything I could to make sure he never felt abandoned. I would see to it he always knew he was loved. And I would love him for the rest of my days, just as I loved Gauge.

  “One day, when you’re able, you can call me Mommy,” I murmured.

  One Year Later

  I walked around the corner, pausing at the doorway to listen to my favorite sound in the damn world.

  No, it wasn’t the perfectly balanced rumble of my v-twin. Not anymore.

  “Your uncles are going to love this. Everyone is going to want to get a look at the birthday boy’s awesome onesie.”

  Fuck, but my woman was cute. I loved that she didn’t coo at Levi like he was a puppy or some shit. She talked to him like she was talking to anyone else—hell, she’d have whole one-sided conversations with him. Probably talked to Levi more than she did me.

  “Oh yeah,” she admired, “you look ready for the first cook out of the year. And it’s all for you.”

  Cami lifted him up, settled him on her hip like the pro she was, and then turned and saw me standing there.

  “You always sneak up on me,” she pointed out. “You could announce yourself. Or we could get you a collar with a bell.”

  “Darlin’, you wanna get a collar, we can do that. But we both know it won’t be me wearing it.”

  She sucked in a breath and I could see the way her body responded in her eyes. Shit. Looked like that might be something to think about.

  Shaking herself out of it, she grinned down at Levi and then me. “Wanna see Levi’s first present?”

  “How’s he got presents already? He just got up.”

  “Deni gave it to me yesterday so he could wear it today,” she explained.

  With nimble movements, she moved him around in her hold so the front of his black onesie was visible. There, in white, was the Disciples’ patch with the words “Future Disciple” flanking it. Damn, Deni did good.

  “That onesie’s the shit.”

  “I know,” Cami gushed. “Deni had it custom made for him.”

  Levi started to squirm in her arms, reaching toward me. I took him from her hold and kissed his head. “Happy Birthday, little man.”

  “I can’t believe he’s one already.” Cami was getting misty. She did that shit a lot with Levi. About a week before, he’d said “mama” for the first time. No shit, Cami was straight up crying. I was still waiting to get a “dada” out of him. It seemed Levi was a momma’s boy, not that I could blame him. I was fucking enthralled by her, too.