Fighting to Stay (Fighting Madly Book 2)

by Ziegler, S. L.

  “Reed, please, tell me you didn’t find another place to build that house, because the land we had was perfect, and the foundation was poured months ago.”

  “Oh, my hot-as-shit Hadley, no, this isn’t that. Take a look around, walk some, and see if you recognize it.”

  He leads me up the path and into a clearing where the chapel sits, full of its beautiful glory. “Reed, you did this? You did all this for me?”

  He laces his fingers through mine, and as we approach, I see a sign he placed on the side. This is a real one, a company one.

  Sparrow and Star’s Haven

  “What is this?”

  Reed drops his hold on my hand and shuffles his feet. “That day when I found out the news about it really being done for good—my career, I mean. I got in the car, and the damn picture of this place was tucked in my visor.”

  “I put it there when you left to get the other test. A hint of sorts, and totally forgot about it. I’m glad my subtle hint led you to this. But what is it exactly?”

  “Not so subtle, but that’s really about this. Did you know the land is over forty acres? That’s not a lot, but enough for what I have planned.”

  “And what is it that you have planned?”

  “A place where kids can come and be kids, a place where, if their dad is a jackass, they can come and get a break. A place where, if their mother is dying, they can come and let loose. A place where kids in this crazy world can fucking be kids for just a little bit longer.”

  “Why, Reed, why would you do this?”

  “Imagine this, Hads. I don’t know what happened. I always knew I wouldn’t fight forever. I mean, could you imagine me fifty fucking years old flipping over fuckers on the mat? Yep, that wasn’t going to happen. But I wanted to go out on my terms, my own terms. Not by some injury beating the shit out of me, an injury that was some fluke fucking accident.

  “But the thing is, it wouldn’t have felt like my whole world was shifting if I saw the bigger picture, if I knew there was a bigger one out there. And this, Hads, is the big-ass, mother-fucking picture. Kids will come here, know their worth from the beginning. I’ll get Kenny and Lance to teach some boxing and wrestling classes once the gym is built. Laura, who don’t kill me, knew about this, is on board to help kids with some art classes, since she is some closet artist. I found a chef that will do some cooking classes. Bash said he will help the computer guys, and that guy Xavier from your group shit said at our engagement party that he wanted to settle down and teach music. Maybe he could do that here?”

  “You have been busy as hell. But what’s the chapel going to be used for?”

  “Well, first order of this chapel once raised from the dead, is to get us hitched. So my family has the same last name. After that, it will be used for groups. Any groups… I remember you telling me yours meets in the basement, and it’s a breeding ground for spiders. And this gives a killer view to look out to when talking about fucked-up, emotional shit.”

  Reed surprises me all the time, but this takes everything he’s ever done and raises it by a hundred. I wrap my arms around him. My belly prevents me from seeking the closeness I really need, to show him how I appreciate all of this hard work he’s done. “You’re kind of scaring me. This new outlook. What happened to my Riker?”

  “Babe, I will always have that shit inside me, needing to get out. He’s my demon, but now I’ll have to battle him a new way. I can’t fight it out anymore, but I’ll find a way to.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, it was like I didn’t exist to you for months.”

  “If you got your hopes up and I couldn’t do this, if I fucking failed… Well, it would be another lose for me. And it wasn’t my intention to hold you at arm’s length. I was fucking pre-occupied and honestly fucking in a lot more physical pain than I let on, and well, I’m a jackass and I made a mistake.”

  “Reed, a mistake is one thing, but if you make the same mistakes over and over, it becomes a decision. A judgment call. You made the decision to do all those things. I can’t handle it anymore. I can’t teeter totter on this in any way. You are all in. From now on. You, Reed Collins, understand that?”

  Reed places his hands around my neck, his eyes locked on mine. “Don’t keep a record of my wrongs, because that list will be fucking miles long. Hads, you are who I want to be with. We will never be perfect for each other. A fact we fucking proved tenfold. It’s you though, you, I want to look over at when shit turns sour, and you that stands next to me. You that I want watching my tattoos get that old-skin look. Babe, our love is fucking it.”

  “I love you, but I’m not going to even try to lie. For the last couple of months, I didn’t really like you very much. Didn’t like you at all. I’m talking most of the time, I had the urge to stab you with a spoon, so you know it wouldn’t do a lot of damage but still hurt. All except when you got me food. I like food all the time. Now that’s some type of love.”

  “I know you do. Your ass shows it now.” He presses his hands on the curve, cupping it and pushes me closer into him.

  I roll my eyes and the corner of my mouth quirks up. “Your love for my ass and tits knows no bounds.”

  “It sure doesn’t.” Reed cocks his head to the side, his voice deep and full of bragging.

  “This plan of yours is mad.”

  “Mad, babe. Everything about us is mad. Mad about you, mad about me, mad about this fucking life. But with you, who would know we would not only break all the rules, but crash that shit up.”

  “Hurricanes can’t stop our sparrows.”

  “Dork, Hads, pure dorkiness.”

  I stand up on my tiptoes and press my lips onto his. “And yet you still love me.”

  “Fucking madly, babe. Forever.”

  “Pinky?”

  “Fucking pinky.”

  Forty weeks.

  Forty long weeks.

  And twenty of those weeks were me lost, and another twenty making up for lost time from the fuck-ups.

  You know, the normal shit I always do. Because I fuck up, it’s what I do, who I am. Yet, she loves me for all of it, accepts me for it all. Made just for me and me for her.

  My poor girl can’t tie her shoes, can’t sleep longer than twenty minutes at a time even with twelve pillows to support that monster child of mine, and of course, our baby would be a stubborn ass and be stuck in there. And so now Hads, after a day in the hospital with drugs pumping through her with no damn luck getting my boy out of her, has these words flying out of her mouth that make my face flush. I’m dressed in blue scrubs, watching my girl getting prepped to get her stomach cut open.

  Hads’s damn blue eyes well over as her arms are strapped to a table. “Reed, I don’t know… I wanted to hold him right away, and I can’t if I do it this way. Maybe I should have waited just a little longer. Labor wasn’t that bad.” Her voice is hollow, her fucking chin shakes as she talks, and her face drains of all that natural color I fucking love to see.

  Labor not bad, yeah right. My fucking bruised-ass hand begs to differ, and I would switch spots with her in a heartbeat, but that’s one thing I can’t do for her. “Babe, you got this. You didn’t carry him this long to down and out. I know you wanted to hold him, but look, I got my camera and I’m ready for his debut with all the guts and bloody mess.” Yes, I’m now one of those guys that’s going to have a big-ass camera around his neck and click a picture when their kid fucking shits.

  “Don’t get the cutting-open stuff, that’s gross. But once he’s out, get that finger ready. You pinky?” she pleads, her voice unusually strained from her nerves. The nerves that she isn’t even trying to bottle up.

  “I pinky that shit. Focus on me, okay, not Dr. Lewis. Not anyone else but me and this kick-ass mask I’m wearing.”

  She grits her teeth. I peer up at Dr. Lewis as he looks down, his whole damn body covered by the sheet separating us from him. He’s cutting my babe up, hurting her. I tighten my hands into balls and have to remind my fists that t
here’s a good fucking reason for it, but fuck, if I don’t want to hit his ass for causing her pain.

  “Are you sure about his name?” I ask, my solution at getting her mind off all of this.

  “Reed, we’ve gone through months of discussions over this. You can pick fun at all the names. Mine was ‘Have you had Hads yet?’ It happens to the best of us. So you will just have to teach him to fight, for when the picking turns to bullying.”

  “You’re going to let him fight?” Since this moment, Hadley’s mind was set she wasn’t going to let him.

  “If that’s what he wants, I will.”

  “Nope, don’t believe you.”

  “Will do. Oh, shit, that’s a lot of pressure going on down there.”

  Yep still not believing her, must be the drugs they gave her.

  “I’m sure, but focus on this stud of a fiancé’s eyes. The house should be ready soon. What place do you want to christen first?”

  “We can’t have sex for six weeks, Reed.”

  “Say what?” Six weeks? No one told me that shit.

  “Camera better be ready, Reed,” Dr. Lewis interrupts.

  “Is that—”

  A loud cry crashes through the room.

  Dr. Lewis lifts our baby over the curtain. Our huge-ass baby over it, and I press that stupid button at rapid speed, not missing a beat of this moment.

  “Ten fingers, and ten toes. One heck of a set of lungs on him.”

  He hands him over to nurses. I’m stuck with a choice to stay with Hads, or with our child. Fucking first decision of a parent and already a wrong one.

  “It’s okay, go with him, Reed. Go with our boy.”

  The stool slides out from under me as I climb, my legs wobbling, and I drift to the screams bellowing out of my son’s mouth. Our son. My eyes land on him, full of blood and yuckiness covering his whole body, and his face vaguely looks like he could be actually from an alien.

  Yet he’s here.

  Half me and half Hads. And I’ve never wanted to pound my chest and scream at the top of my lungs more.

  My girl was always sexy, hot as shit. But her holding our baby in her arms is fucking beautiful.

  “You ready for the crowds to feast?” Hads questions. She’s dead tired, but her face beams.

  “Not really, I want a little more time with just us. The three of us.”

  “It’s going to happen whether we say it or not. Either we open the door, or they kick it down.”

  “Like fuck they will.”

  “Watch your language, Daddy.”

  “Daddy, I think I need to be his Pops. Daddy doesn’t sounds like me. And he better get used to it. Those words have been in my vocabulary for as long as I can remember, and I turned out all right,” I say, a smirk plastered on my face. I sent a text to Hads’s family seconds ago.

  “I beg to differ about you turning out all right.”

  Hads’s whole family, Lance, Courtney, Laura, Bash, and James burst through the door, the room filling with the crazy people. Everyone we love is here. All wanting to get a look at my son. I glue my sights on my son, being passed around by all these fuckers like a hot potato. He’s going to be safe. No one will drop him, everyone will wash their hands before they touch him or hold his neck wrong on my watch.

  My arm drops on Hads’s shoulder then her hand comes up, her tender touch settling my nerves. “We should probably tell them his name since we kept in under lock and key.”

  “What’s the fun in that when they haven’t asked yet?”

  “Reed, do it. Grab the attention of the room.”

  “Hey, hey, calm down.” My loud voice booms against the walls. “We gathered you all here today.” Hads pinches the skin in my hand, fucking hard. “All joking aside. Our son, all nine pounds twelve ounces, was born this very afternoon, and we figured you wanted to hear a name. Which the new hot mom is going to tell you.”

  Hads’s hold tightens on my shirt, pulling me down to her level, terror on that face of hers. “I’m going to lose it.”

  “You’re not.”

  Courtney places our son in Hads’s arms and her fingers drift over his sleeping face. “We had a hard time with names. Reed wanted to make sure no one could pick on him, and we both wanted something with meaning, not just something picked out in a baby book. At first, we were going to name him something that means faith because of one of the last conversations with Mom, but we didn’t need to remember our faith anymore because of this.” Hads peers down, so much emotion written on every line in her own face. “He is our faith now. So after many Google searches and nights fighting not to fight over names, we picked out the perfect one for him: Owen Jace Collins. Owen means young warrior, a fighter like his dad; Jace means Moon to go with his sister Astra in heaven; and well, Collins because I won’t be a Thomas much longer.”

  I peer around and there’s not a dry eye in this room. There’s Hads’s family—who have also become mine after all the shit we went through—my friends who became hers, and that damn James who I put up with because killing him would’ve hurt my girl. They will all watch over Owen. He will fucking never know what it’s liked not to be fucking loved, not a damn clue what it’s like not to have someone want the best for him.

  It’s damn near out of this world.

  Hadley is my one person, the one designed just for fucking me.

  Our hellos, our ugly-ass goodbyes.

  Like a clock that ticks off beat, our time was off by fucking years.

  But we got here, in this damn moment.

  It brought Owen to us in this very spot.

  Now that shit is right on time.

  My dress, my perfect blush-rose wedding dress—which I had to squeeze my body into—the strings drawn tight on my back causing my breaths to come up short. My hair pinned to the side, curls drape over my shoulder, and I’m on constant motion to settle my nerves.

  This needs to hurry up, I’m ready to marry him.

  I peer out the window to the people waiting just above the line of trees, all in the glass chapel ready for our lone minutes turned to hours, hours morphed to months, and months flashed to years, but the day has come for my dream to become my reality. To become Reed’s wife. Almost a decade in the making, tears, laughs, and memories to get here. But we’re here.

  Ready to cross over the next bridge.

  My reality.

  Ours.

  My father walks in the room, places three wrapped presents down, and the silence lingers between us as he stares at every inch of me. He clears his throat, a soft grin forming on his face. “Baby girl…wow… I mean, I’m speechless.”

  “Does the dress look okay?”

  One nod and my father gathers me into his arms. “It’s perfect, truly. Are you nervous? If you don’t want to get married, I’ll sneak you out.”

  “Nope, Reed is it, and strange, but no second thought nerves. Just anxious nerves to get to it. It’s been too damn long in the making. But I wish Mom was here. I had a hard time getting dressed because, well…”

  His hand lifts up my chin and the tears cascade down his face. “Hadley Marie, she is. With every step down that aisle, she’s with you, and umm, one minute.”

  He bends down and places the largest box in my hands. My lips part and my heart seems to freeze. My fingers graze over my mother’s delicate handwriting. “Daddy, what is this?”

  “Something your mother did when she knew she wouldn’t be here for you. Open it.” He steps back, his hands to his sides, and his face so torn between joy for me and sadness for missing his wife today.

  My fingers carefully remove the tape, savoring every second of the last present my mother has given me. I open the box, and in it lays an old pair of ivory ballet slippers with crystals over the top. And an envelope with my name on it lays over them. My hands shake as I open it. My stomach quakes because my mother’s handwriting is still fresh like she just wrote it yesterday, instead of when she was riddled with cancer.

  My precious Hadley,
<
br />   The time has come for you to walk down the aisle. I’m not sure to who or when that time is. But let me give you a few words of wisdom I have learned being married more than half my life. Marriage is beautiful and stressful, and sometimes, that same person you love more than life, you could also smother with a pillow. It’s in those times you must remember the great, soak up all the good. Because when those bad times hit—and they will, baby girl—you are going to need the light times to bring you through it. And live through the mundane day-to-day things. It’s life and love. And the best gift we can get.

  And you, Hadley Marie Thomas, are one of the three best things to happen to me. It was a pleasure to be your mother, raise you, and watch you grow. I’m beyond proud of you.

  I hope you have your “something blue,” “something new,” but I wanted you to have these as your “something old.” They aren’t high end, or made from the best Italian designer. I bought them at a thrift store the day before I married your father. I know, I know, your mother wore these, and not to mention they aren’t heels. But we had no money and I wanted fancy shoes, so these are the ones I found.

  I so unbelievably wish I was there to help you pin your hair or tie your dress or hold your hand when those nerves of yours get overwhelming, but sadly I am not. And I’m sorry for that.

  Yet I want to able to walk with you down the aisle, and this is the only chance I’ll have to do it.

  Enjoy this day, and don’t you dare ruin your makeup with those tears from this. It was meant to be a happy thing, not a sad one. You hear me? Or I’ll have to call in some favors and make it rain on your big day.

  Love you to the moon and back!!

  Mom

  PS. If it’s not Reed you’re marrying, you need to do a double check on this marriage thing.

  “Daddy…did you…did you know about this?” My eyes are already drained from the tears. My mother gave me this gift on one of the days I would miss her most.