Adoring Delaney: The Next Generation

by Edwards, Riley

  “I can’t do this. I thought I could. I wanted to. But there’s too much between us. Too much history. Too much hurt.”

  “Don’t pull away from me. We’re gonna move forward. I promise we’ll—”

  “I hate that word, ‘promise’. Please stop promising me things. You have no idea how hard this is for me. It’s almost been a year and I still hurt. I still sleep in your stupid t-shirts because I can’t let you go. I’ve tried. I keep trying, but I can’t. If you keep promising me we have a future, make me believe it then pull away again, I won’t survive. We can’t do this.”

  Carter took a step back, took his shirt out of my hands, pulled the cute flowy top I’d worn to dinner over my head, expertly reached around behind me, unsnapped my bra, and in my stupor, I allowed it to fall to the floor. His tee was over my head, my arms were in the sleeves, and he’d done all of this without a word or my help.

  His hands were at the button of my jeans and the next thing I knew he was pulling them down over my hips and he was on his knees in front of me. I did help him finish taking off my pants but when they were tossed aside, he didn’t stand. He leaned forward and rested his head against my belly for a beat before he kissed my stomach and stood.

  The tiny gesture rocked me.

  A simple nuzzle that conveyed more feeling than words ever could.

  The emptiness I knew I would live with for the rest of my life suddenly didn’t feel so lonely. He now carried some of it.

  Carter stripped down to his boxers and moved us to the bed. I climbed in still thinking about the belly kiss, and Carter arranged us to our normal positions. Him on his back, me tucked to his side with my head on his chest, one arm on his stomach but my hand over his heart and his over mine.

  Familiar. Comfortable. History.

  All the things I was struggling with.

  But there was one thing that was new. Never had I felt Carter’s heartbeat hammer against my palm. It’d had always been a steady, rhythmic beat. Feeling it would lull me to sleep. Now it was erratic and pounding.

  Something was eating at him, agitating him, something big enough to make his pulse race and I was afraid he was going to tell me what that something was.

  15

  Carter

  I was taking a minute to gather my thoughts. Seeing Delaney’s pain gutted me. Hearing her tell me she’d been trying to let me go, erase me from her life hurt like a motherfucker. She’d said she didn’t love me anymore and that had been a lie. But this….

  I deserved no less. Her anguish mirrored mine and in a moment of extreme sadness I wondered if I was doing the right thing pushing her to stay with me after all I’d done to her. To us.

  But then I remembered.

  All the good times we’d had. All the times she laughed and smiled. All the love I had for her and I knew she had for me. It was more than history. More than the girl I fell in love with. More than our childhoods being twined together. More than me being her first lover and her my last.

  I remembered with great clarity I was the man who was put on this earth to love her. She was no longer the teenager who confessed her undying love. And I was no longer the stupid boy who feared if I made a commitment and couldn’t keep it, I’d crush her. Everyone had been right—with or without my ring on her finger, it wouldn’t have cushioned the blow of losing me.

  Sometime over the years she’d grown up. I had not. Until recently I was still that cowardly little boy pushing away the woman I loved because I was scared. Not for me, for her. I’d treated her like she was fragile instead of like the strong woman she was.

  I’d fucked up so monumentally it was a wonder I could breathe under the rubble.

  It was with that knowledge, knowing down to my soul we were destined to be together, that I made a decision.

  We were laying everything on the table. Right then, in our bed, I was going to bleed for her. Complete honesty. And I was going to have to tear her open and rip out all the bad shit she was keeping bottled up.

  She was going to fight me, it was a battle she would lose but I knew it was going to hurt her while I was mining the poison from her belly and grief from her heart.

  On an exhale I braced and asked, “Tell me about the baby.”

  Just as I’d thought, every muscle in Laney’s body coiled tight and she tried to move. My hand that was pinning hers over my heart pressed harder and my grip on her hip was relentless. She wasn’t going to pull away. Not now.

  “Carter,” she snapped.

  “Tell me. I want to know everything.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because you need to get it all out and talk about it and I want to know.”

  “What if I don’t want to talk about it?”

  She still hadn’t relaxed and if anything, I was afraid I was getting ready to get kneed in the balls as she made her escape. Which would be a damn shame, because I fully intended to plant babies in her as soon as I could. And not having functioning testicles might make that difficult.

  “Then how about this—I want to know. And straight up, I don’t mean to hurt you, but the baby was ours, not just yours. We both lost something. I’m not trying to upset you but I have a right to know.”

  “I know what we lost.”

  “Then you’ll understand my need to know. Everything, Laney. How you found out. Why you thought you were pregnant in the first place. Every detail.”

  The silence stretched a good long while before she tried to shift again and I refused her efforts.

  “No pulling away. You’ll tell me, while you’re in my arms.”

  “Stop bossing me—”

  “Talk, Laney.”

  The stubborn woman remained stiff and lapsed back into mute protest. I had nothing but time and had no issue waiting her out. I knew Delaney well enough to know, she couldn’t hold her tongue for long. She’d either tell me to fuck off and try to get out of bed or she’d break down and tell me. Either way, she’d talk.

  “It wasn’t long after you left, I started to feel funny,” she whispered after thirty minutes of quiet anger. “I thought I was getting the flu but by the end of the day after I ate, I was feeling better. A few days later other stuff started to ache and I—”

  “What stuff?” I interrupted.

  “Does it matter? Can’t I just get through this without you interrupting me?”

  “I want every detail, Laney baby. I want to know everything you felt.”

  “God. Why?”

  “Because I wasn’t here. Because you had my baby in your belly and your body was telling you and I wasn’t here to witness it. Which means all I have is what you’ll tell me. And I want every detail. I want to know everything about our baby.”

  She relaxed a fraction and I fought the urge to get up and pace. I’d told her I wanted to hold her while she told me but now, I was questioning my reasoning. I wanted to move, shake off the pain of losing our baby. Somehow walk away from it, but I couldn’t. Laney needed me to hold her and there would be no escaping the anguish even if I tried.

  “My boobs.”

  “Huh?”

  “My boobs started to hurt. Then I missed my period.” Delaney had been getting the birth control shot for as long as I could remember. I’d also heard her grumble about still getting her period, which I guess some women no longer got when they were on that form of birth control. Hers were light, a day or two at most, but she still complained. “So I checked the calendar and saw I’d messed up and was late getting my next shot. I waited a little while but my period never came but I was still feeling nauseous, my boobs were still aching, so I decided to buy a home pregnancy test.”

  Delaney paused before she continued. “I was scared.”

  “Why were you scared?”

  “What do you mean, why was I scared? Because you were gone and I know nothing about babies or being a mom.”

  “You’re great with kids and we’re surrounded by great mothers. And, Laney, this is us. You knew I’d be home and I’d b
e ecstatic to find out we were having a baby.”

  “Would you have been?”

  My heart seized, then it jumpstarted and I felt my breath was gone.

  How could she doubt I would’ve been happy we were having a baby?

  “You didn’t want a commitment,” she whispered. “I was scared you’d be mad or you’d think I did it on purpose to trap you.”

  “Trap me? Laney, I belong to you. I’m so fucking sorry you were scared and you thought I’d be mad. I need you to know I wanted the baby just as much as you did and had I known, I would have told you how happy I was. How excited I was you were making me a dad.”

  “I heard the heartbeat.”

  “Yeah? What’d it sound like?”

  “I have it recorded on my phone.” Her voice broke and more sadness than I’d ever heard crept in. “Sometimes I listen to it.”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “In my purse on the couch.”

  I flew out of bed, found Delaney’s purse, and feeling no remorse for scavenging through her bag I located her phone. I was back in bed and resuming my position next to her before I had a chance to think about all the emotions swirling in my chest.

  I handed her the phone and she wordlessly took it. Without warning the room filled with a whooshing sound. Then I heard it—the steady beat of my baby’s heart.

  “Laney.” Her name tore from my throat and my vision blurred behind the wetness.

  She pressed closer to me and my eyes drifted closed. All I could feel was the sound as if it were a physical touch.

  “Again,” I begged when the recording stopped.

  Once again the baby’s heartbeat filled the room and a pain I’d never experienced filled my chest.

  I was a dad.

  It didn’t matter I’d never hold my child, see him or her, never kiss, hug, or watch them grow up. For a few precious weeks Delaney had carried my child.

  “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I should’ve listened. If I had we’d have her.” My body went solid. Her? “He should be here. Right now, in this bed with us lying between us. We should be holding her. Counting toes and fingers. Arguing over who she’ll look like. Whose eyes he’s gonna get. I swear I wanted her. I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to watch you teach him to catch a ball. I wanted to kiss her cheeks and hug her when she scraped her knees. I wanted the baby, Carter. I promise I did. Now we have nothing. I didn’t listen and we don’t have her.”

  Delaney was shaking in my arms, the sound of our combined cries nearly drowned out the whooshing.

  Somewhere during her outburst I understood why she’d been using both genders. She didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl. I wasn’t sure if that made it harder or easier. We’d never know, we’d never name our baby, we’d never know if we had a son or a daughter.

  There was a comfort in that. But I was happy she hadn’t called the baby ‘it’. My child wasn’t an ‘it’.

  “We have more than nothing, Delaney, we have each other,” I reminded her. “You didn’t lose our baby, she was taken from us. Derek Lowe did that. Not you. Nothing is your fault.”

  “I should’ve listened.”

  “And I should’ve been by your side. We can run a thousand different “should’ve” scenarios but nothing will change. The bottom line is, you are not to blame. You have to stop believing you are.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing, Laney. It’s not your fault. Lowe kidnapped you. He hurt you. He took our baby from us. He almost killed you and Mercy. Him. Not you. He was a drug dealing lunatic. I have many regrets. There are a lot of things I wish I could’ve done differently over my life. Not marrying you the moment I legally could is among the many. Not being in the room with you when you heard our baby’s heartbeat is on the top of that list. Not seeing your face light up the first time you experienced our miracle. But the one regret that will sit sour in my gut for the rest of my life is knowing you were lying on the floor while that motherfucker killed our child and I was on the other side of the world. That Mercy was the one to end his miserable life and not me. Because, Laney, I wouldn’t have done it as merciful as she had.”

  I had to take a moment to tamp down the fury that thinking about that motherfucker invoked before I scared the hell out of Delaney.

  “I told your dad.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “And mine.”

  “Carter—”

  “I had to. When I came back up after you told me, I locked myself in a motel room and polished off two bottles of Jack. I wanted to be numb. I couldn’t face what we’d lost. I couldn’t begin to process I was a dad. So instead I drank myself into a stupor. My dad and the guys found me. I tried to keep it locked away but I couldn’t. I had to tell him. There’d been enough secrets. I did that to us. I forced you into a situation that made you keep things from those you love. It was never right. But our child will never be kept from those who would’ve loved him. Our baby was a grandchild. A cousin. A niece or nephew. He or she had a life worth celebrating. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “There’s nothing to celebrate. He’s gone.”

  “You’re wrong. We created a life. A precious life that was cut short before she ever drew her first breath. But, Laney baby, she was alive. I just heard the proof of what our love can do. She had a beating heart and that is something that’s worth celebrating.”

  Delaney rolled closer and nuzzled into my chest.

  “I should’ve told you sooner.”

  “No more of that. We’re moving forward.”

  “I know you keep saying that. But I need to apologize. It was wrong to keep it from you.”

  I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that until she’d said it. Being mad about something I couldn’t change served no purpose. Not when I understood why she hadn’t told me.

  “I love you, Laney.”

  Her reaction was swift and it was the opposite of what I’d thought it would be.

  “I know you do, Carter. I just hope it’s enough to carry us through while I try to sort my head.”

  Fuck me, that hurt.

  A fuck of a lot.

  “I love you enough. I always have. And one day you’ll trust how much.”

  “I hope so.”

  Delaney remained pressed close, her hand on my heart as she drifted to sleep. But even as emotionally drained as I was I couldn’t find it. All I kept hearing was the sound of a heartbeat I’d never get to hold.

  16

  Delaney

  I was awake and I knew Carter was awake.

  The early morning sun was peeking through my curtains and I wasn’t ready to face the day. I was emotionally wrecked. Sometime during the night, I’d woken, Carter had been awake then, too, but neither of us had spoken. I stayed cuddled to his side staring into the dark and he held on tight.

  I’d been grateful he hadn’t tried to talk but this morning I knew I wouldn’t be as lucky.

  “Morning, babe.”

  “Too early,” I grumbled.

  I was a teacher. For nine months out of the year I had to be up at the ass crack of dawn to get ready and get to school. During the summer months and school vacations, I slept in. So much so, if I could get away with it, I’d stay in bed until lunch time.

  “Time to get up to take me to work.”

  “Don’t wanna.”

  “Come on, Laney. I skipped my workout but I need to go grab some clothes before work.”

  I glanced at my clock and it was nearing eight.

  “You’re gonna be late.”

  “I think considering the reason why, I’ll get a pass. And I already texted Bernice and told her.”

  “Bernice?”

  “She’s the office manager.”

  “Never met her.”

  “Well, you will today. Time to get your sweet ass up. Come on.”

  Carter patted my ass and I rolled away from him. He rolled the other way and got out of bed. I watched him tag his pants off the floor
and head to the bathroom.

  I didn’t move. Part of the reason was, I was mesmerized by Carter’s backside. It was hot and I hadn’t tried it, but I was fairly certain you could bounce quarters off the firm muscle. The other reason was, I was taken aback by the normalcy of our conversation.

  Not that we’d never had normal conversations but I’d never been woken up by Carter asking me to take him to work.

  “You’re not up,” Carter noted, coming back into the bedroom.

  Damn, how long had I been daydreaming?

  “Just go. It’ll take me an hour to get ready. If I need to go somewhere, I’ll call my mom.”

  “You don’t need to get ready. You’re just driving me to work. And besides, you’re the only woman I know who wakes up lookin’ better than after they get themselves made up.”

  “You wake up next to lots of women?”

  My stomach pitched and my heart squeezed. He’d told me there’d been no one else, but I didn’t like what his comment implied.

  “Never woken up next to a woman other than you. But I have seen your sisters first thing in the morning. And I’ve seen plenty of women doing the walk of shame out of my house after one of my roommates fucked ‘em. None of them looked as beautiful as you as they walked out.”

  “Not sure that’s a compliment,” I told him, feeling better knowing the women he’d seen in the morning weren’t women he’d spent the night with.

  “That’s because you’re not a man. Baby, you look beautiful when you do your hair and put on makeup. But first thing in the morning? Stunning.”

  My stomach tightened again, but this time it filled with something warm. Something so sweet I couldn’t deny it. Carter had never held back his praise. He’d told me often I was pretty, or he’d look at me and his face would change. But this was different. Couldn’t explain why, but it was. More open maybe, adding the part about his roommates. People I hadn’t even known existed.

  “Laney.”

  “Fine.”

  I rolled out of bed and went in search of something to wear.