by Mj Fields
I look around my empty dorm room and try to take pride in the fact that I made it through my freshman year of college, on the dean’s list. Even though this entire year has been difficult, I made it.
I made it through the threats in my inbox when Ines leaked the video she had taken of her and Bass having sex, when he was underage, trying to ride de la Porte coattails. And yes, I was the asshole who ensured it was spread like a disease all over the internet under a fake account. It ruined her. As well it should have.
I made my friendship with Stella, and Aaron, even stronger, by communicating more, talking to them, more, leaning on them, more. Allowing them to help me. Stella was now one semester away from being here in London, with me.
And I made it through my first heartbreak, caused by my fake boyfriend.
I made it.
The plane ride back to the US was freaking epic. My mom decided to go into labor over the Atlantic Ocean. I Googled how to deliver a baby and Maisie took notes. Bass held her hand between contractions, held her when she curled up after them, and I prayed the entire time that I didn’t have to bust out a YouTube video and deliver my sibling.
When we arrive at the hospital five hours later, Oliver is there. I hate seeing him, hate it, because it is when he is closest that I miss him the most.
I don’t know if is the scent of the hospital, or the realization that I will see him all summer that causes me to feel sick, but it hits me and hits me hard.
When I think I’m going to throw up, I stand quickly, and collapse. Of course, Oliver catches me.
“Sit down and relax.”
“I’m fine,” I pull away from him as soon as I can.
“Put your head between your legs.”
“Why don’t you put your head–” I snap my jaw shut when one of his dark brows creeps up.
“Natasha, honey, you should listen to him. Man’s got a purple heart,” Maisie gushes over him.
“And I bet you thought I had none at all,” he whispers knowing she can’t hear him.
“Where’d you get it, Tin Man, the wizard?”
“Yeah, same place you got those panties.” He pushes on the back of my head, forcing me to put my head between my legs.
“Different wizard,” I sigh.
“Same wand,” he whispers so I can barely hear him.
I heard the nurse who walked past into my mom’s room asking if the young woman in the waiting area was ill.
“No, no, no,” I groan.
I feel a hand on my back and a whispered, “Shhh.”
“Get your freaking hand off me.”
“Just trying to soothe you, sweetheart.”
I sit up quickly at the sound of Maisie’s voice and Oliver chuckles right before I almost heave.
I apologize to Maisie and ask her to do it again. When I feel her hand on my back, moving up and down, I sigh, “Thank you.”
“Ang, you need to be in bed,” Bass warns Mom.
When she kneels in front of me, I look up. “When did you eat last?” she asks.
“This morning.”
Looking at Oliver, she shouts out orders, “She needs ice chips, then ginger ale, then crackers, and lastly, a lollipop. In that order, Oliver.”
He gives her a tight smile and stands. “Be right back. You need anything, Bass? Maisie?”
“They’re fine.” Mom starts out stern and whimpers the word fine.
“Mom, really, Bass is right, you need to get back in bed.”
“This baby will wait. This one,” she squeezes my knee, “needs me now.”
When Oliver returns, I sit up. He has everything Mom asked him to get. “Thanks.”
I take the ice chips and eat a few, then he opens the ginger ale and puts a straw in it. When I reach for it my hand shakes. He says, “I got it.”
Through a contraction Mom yells, “She throws up sometimes when she drinks.”
“I’m aware.”
When I glare at him, he gives me that smirk, the kind you don’t know if it was real or imagined.
“Drink, Natasha.”
I hate that he’s here, but I’d hate if he wasn’t, because of Bass, and Maisie, and even Mom probably thinks he’s Christ incarnate, too. And you know, I’m sure for somebody… someday, he will be, unless she looks like Grace. Then he’ll bat her around like a cat does a mouse, toying with her until she feels like she’s safe, and then snap her emotions around until she feels like she’s lost her damn mind.
Mom cups my cheeks. “Baby, why are you crying?”
I hadn’t realized I was, but that makes me sound crazier than I already think I am. “I’m excited,” I lie.
“Okay, but crackers and lollipop.” Her head whips left and through her clenched teeth she grits out, “Crackers and lollypop.”
Oliver smiles, a genuine smile, and hands me a cracker. When my mom’s head drops to my lap and her whole body tenses, I see Oliver stare at Bass and Bass back at him.
“Mom.” She looks up. “I’m good, okay? I’m super.” I give her a thumbs up and smile. But if you don’t get in bed–”
“Bass!”
“Ang, I’m right here.”
Once they’re in the room, Oliver nudges me with his knee. “What flavor?”
He holds out a handful of suckers.
“Cherry.” I put another cracker in my mouth and hold my stomach as I watch him unwrap it.
“You feeling better, sweetheart?”
“Yeah, Maisie, thanks.”
“Do you think you have a bug or something?”
“Maybe jet leg?” I shrug.
“Yeah,” she nods. “I’m sure that’s all.”
Two hours later and I’m in Mom’s hospital room sitting beside her and holding her hand, as I wait my turn to hold my baby brother while watching Oliver help Maisie hold him. The way they look at him melts my heart. I already know he is going to be loved beyond measure.
I adore the way Bass looks at Mom and at Joshua. The way he includes me in the smallest ways, with a wink, or a nod. I patiently wait my turn to hold the baby, knowing I’ll be the last to hold him, so I can take my time with the most beautiful little baby boy, my brother, Joshua Jean Josephs.
When Mom passes him to me, I hold him and am overcome by peace. “You are so precious,” I whisper to only him as he looks up at me, or the ceiling, I’m unsure of which it is, so I decide it’s me. His hair is black and thick, and his eyes are blue like Mom’s.
“I love you, Joshua, I already love you so much,” I whisper as I kiss his sweet chubby cheek. “I love you so much that I promise you no one, and I mean no one will ever make you feel less than perfect. Happy birthday, little man.”
I decline the offer from Oliver to drive me back to the Hamptons with he and Maisie. I want to stay in this moment, the calm, the love, the joy a new life brings, and I want to stay in it forever.
34
Oliver (Two and a half months later)
I try to think about where the summer went as I stand next to Maisie, waving to the kids in the van as they leave their two-week long summer vacation with Maisie in the Hamptons back to wherever it is they came from.
We’ve had ten groups of eight to ten kids every two weeks. Some have learned to swim next door at Bass’s place. He had a pool put in last summer for that purpose, and a hot tub for another. I happen to know he hadn’t been in the hot tub, for his intended purpose, all damn summer. Things had changed since his boy arrived.
Some of the kids saw the ocean for the first time. Some roasted marshmallows, fished, rode on a boat, went tubing, and slept under the stars for the first time. Some were able to close their eyes and sleep, actually sleep, without worry, for the first time. Some ate until they were full for the first time. But all of them saw and experienced how a parent should love and care for a child. And all of us, including me, have been forever affected by it.
The girls, they got an extra treat this year with having Natasha and her friend Stella around often. They pampered them. They taug
ht them how to apply makeup, paint their nails and toes, braid and fix their hair, how to draw, paint, dance, sing, laugh, dream, and imagine.
Only a couple of them recognized Natasha, and she swore them to secrecy, but secrets and teenagers are like a drop of ink on paper, its sure to spread.
The boys, well, they experienced Natasha and Stella too. Mostly by getting busted spying on them. One little shit, Darrious, told me that older women were hot, and I told him he needed to make sure, if he wanted a woman like that, he took care of his self, first.
I stayed away from Natasha as much as possible. But saying I didn’t admire her from afar would be a lie. Watching her with kids, her friend Stella, baby Joshua, and Maisie reminded me of everything I wanted, but still could never have.
Tonight, she is hosting a little get together because in three days she was heading back to London for her sophomore year. I know Aaron Esposito… Aaron Esposito… Aaron Esposito… will be here and I will avoid that at all fucking costs.
I had planned to leave, but Maisie was a little off tonight, and she asked me if I’d sit with her until she fell asleep. She must have forgotten I was supposed to head back to the city. Which was probably Karma smacking me in the face for hurting a girl like Natasha.
Sitting on the deck, rocking in a chair next to hers, sweet tea in hand, she asks me what my plans are.
It catches me a little off guard. “Well, I’ll head back in the morning and return this weekend.”
“You know Natasha leaves in two days, right?”
I don’t correct her by telling her it’s three, I simply reply, “I do.”
“And then after the Labor Day party, Bass, Angela, baby Joshua, and I are supposed to head back to Paris.”
“And I’ll do my best to make it there as–”
“I’d rather you not.”
“Is that so?” I laugh.
“Mmm hmm.”
“You know, Maisie, a normal man would take a little bit of offense to that,” I laugh.
“You’re not normal, and you’re not ordinary, Oliver, you’re extraordinary and someday I want to rest peacefully, because I’m tired, son, so very tired of forgetting things, being in pain–”
“Do you need your meds?”
“They make me tired, they make me sleep, they confuse me and they make me miss moments like this.”
“But if you’re in pain.”
“My biggest ache is the one in my chest, and it’s because I know you deserve as much happiness as Bastien does, yet you won’t accept it.”
“My biggest ache is in my ass Maisie because you have been hell bent on chewing it this summer,” I laugh, and so does she. “If I ever meet someone I fall head up my aching ass for, they will get a whole man, not one who’s broken. I will not expect a woman I love to fix me or save me. If I fall in love, it will be when I am ready to give away all of who I am, and not pieces for them to put together.”
“You are one of the most put together men I know, Oliver.”
“Not yet, Maisie, not yet.”
“You know I love you, Oliver?”
“I know, Maisie.” I hold her hand and sigh.
After a few minutes of silence, I am pretty sure she is asleep. I lean back and look up at the stars and catch the glimpse of a blonde stepping out of the shadows.
“Everything alright, Natasha?”
“No, it’s not.”
I stand and turn around to face her and nearly fucking lose my shit when I see her.
She’s wearing a tiny little white bikini. I’m not even sure you could call it a fucking bikini, it’s strings holding fabric swatches. In her hand, a poker with a burnt marshmallow on it.
“What the hell is that?”
“This?” she asks, pushing one side of the bikini top down, showing me half her tit. Swear to Christ, I saw areola. “It’s a tattoo.”
“You got a tattoo?”
“I got a couple.”
“You got a couple.”
“Natasha is beautiful.”
“Natasha is beau–” I stop when she laughs, and I realize what a fucking idiot I sound like repeating everything she says.
“Why? What does it say? When did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to. This one says warrior.” She pulls the top down slower and I definitely see areola. “And I did it a couple weeks ago.”
“Where’s the others?”
“Why?” She puts her hand on her hip.
Trying to hold in my annoyance, I keep my lips tight. “For your employee file, Natasha.”
“Wow, are all yours listed in your employee file, Oliver?” I narrow my eyes at her. “That thing must be,” she pauses and looks down at my shorts then up my body to my eyes, “This big?”
She holds her hands out about eight inches apart and bites her bottom lip, not her top. I prefer her biting the top, because that’s sweet Natasha, not Natasha in dental floss and fabric swatches making jokes about my dick size.
“Add a couple inches and answer the question.”
Smirking, she lifts her foot up. “This was the worst.”
“I can’t see it.”
“It’s worth going down for.”
I licked your fucking fingers after you pissed at the club, I know what I’m missing, I think.
“Have you been drinking?”
She shrugs, “A couple glasses of wine.”
“You’re not legal.”
She lifts her foot higher, so it’s nearly in my face. “I promise, you’ll love it.”
I lean in and see a tiny footprint on her foot, above it in script it says, With You Every Step Of The Way. “It’s Joshua’s foot print.”
I nod. “And the other?”
She smirks, “That’s just for me.”
She sticks the poker in my face. “Give this to Maisie from me when she wakes up?”
She starts to turn around and stops. “Tell her I love her, and Oliver, it wouldn’t hurt you to tell her the same.”
“She knows.”
She rolls her eyes. “Tell her, Oliver.”
When she turns around and walks away, I see her thong outlining the nicest little peach of an ass in the universe, above it a tramp stamp that says, Imagine All The Possibilities.
“I need to get the fuck out of here,” I whisper.
I swear I hear Maisie laugh and when I walk around in front of her to see, her eyes are closed, but she has a smirk on her face.
“Natasha brought you a marshmallow, burnt, just the way you like it.”
When she opens her eyes, I know damn well she heard the whole conversation. “Was she wearing the new suit I bought for her?”
I cross my arms in front of me. “If by suit, you mean dental floss and pasties, yes.”
The night before Natasha leaves to head back to school, I promise Maisie I’d come back to have dinner with the family. When I arrive, Bass and his son are sitting in the living room with Maisie.
When I walk around in front of them, she’s asleep.
“Hey man,” Bass whispers and stands to move out of the room.
I follow him to the kitchen and out the side door. Once the door shuts behind us, he sighs, “She’s fucking confused today.”
I nod and don’t want to point out she has been for weeks now, months even, but he’s been pretty preoccupied. Not his fault.
“She refused her pain pill all day until an hour ago, when I basically begged her to take it.”
“Nothing we can do.”
“I know, but fuck, can’t we sneak her a pill or dose her sweet tea?”
“And take the chance it would be the one time she’s on point?”
“Right,” he sighs. “Ollie, do you think she’s well enough to travel?”
“Honestly, no. But if she knows she’s holding you back from going, she’s gonna be pissed.”
“But if we leave, she’s going to be heart broken. I can’t do that to her. I won’t.”
“Then how about we cross that bridge whe
n we get to it.”
He looks down at his son. “You wanna take him so I can start the grill?”
“Yeah, I’d love to.”
When Natasha and Angela return, I hear the car, and Maisie’s nasty little dog yip as he runs across the deck, wearing a bow in the only four hairs that remain on top of his head, and he runs right into the chair I’m sitting in, bounces back with a yelp and shakes his head so the bow comes loose.
“Snuffleupagus, you’re looking pretty spiffy,” I laugh.
Bass looks back. “That damn thing is a walking case of the clap.”
“Be nice,” Natasha says as she kneels down and tries to fix the bow. “He’s precious.”
“Choose another word, Natasha, for the love of God, you call your brother that.”
He sneezes, and Natasha scrunches up her face and wipes whatever the hell came out of him on her ass.
“Oh come on, buddy, you look much more put together with a bow on.”
“That thing hasn’t been put together in a decade,” Bass says before kissing Angela and taking the bag she’s carrying.
Natasha looks up and smiles at me. “Hey.”
I lift my chin and say it back.
“I’ll take him, he’s about due for a feeding,” Angela says and takes the baby from my arm.
“Maisie up yet?” Natasha asks Bass, shielding her eyes from the setting sun.
“No.”
“I hope she’ll eat with us.”
“She will, her favorite son’s here,” he says and points the tongs at me.
Sitting next to Maisie’s bed, I watch her sleep. She did get up to eat, she didn’t eat much, and she nearly fell asleep at the table, but she was there.
“Hey,” I hear Natasha come in the room and turn around. “She okay?”
I shrug.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. You?”
She walks over and sits on the foot of the bed. “I’m fine.”
