Chapter Twenty-Four
EVA
The waiting room at the hospital was packed. It also would appear that we had all decided to use this as a party location. There was cake that Trisha and her daughter Daisy had made. Trisha was married to Rock, one of Marcus’s oldest friends. When you looked at him, he was scary, with his bulging muscles and bald head. Then when his little girl, Daisy climbed up in his lap, he morphed into a teddy bear with tattoos.
Amanda had shown up with fried pickles from Live Bay and at some point someone, and I think it was Cage, had ordered pizza. Soda’s littered the tables, and we had all managed to take over the small area.
If anyone else was having a baby today, their relatives weren’t hanging out here with us. But then again, there was no room. Preston had his younger brother in a headlock while his younger sister, Daisy, pulled on his long hair.
“Look, Daddy! I got him! I got him!” Daisy said, smiling over at Rock. To anyone else this would be a normal family activity, but to a pregnant woman who knew the story behind that scene, I was having a hard time keeping my tears back.
Not too long ago those kids had lived in a house with a druggy for a mom, and Preston was doing everything he could to take care of them. After their mother died from a drug overdose, Preston had faced losing all three of them to the system. Rock and Trisha had stepped in and asked to adopt the kids.
I watched Rock’s face as Daisy called him Daddy, and the emotion in his eyes had me blinking back tears.
“The first time she called him Daddy he went into our room and cried for about thirty minutes. I’d honestly never seen him cry, and we’ve been together since we were teenagers,” Trisha said as she took a seat beside me. I hadn’t meant for anyone to notice me getting emotional.
“Y’all look so happy,” I said, wiping the one tear that had threatened to get loose.
Trisha glanced over at the boys as they now both had Preston in some form of a wrestling hold. “We are. I’m beyond blessed. Brent hasn’t called us mom and dad yet, but the other two have. I think he’s coming around though.”
“Manda! Manda! Come see! I’m curling Preston’s hair,” Daisy called out, and Amanda moved from her seat beside her mother, who she had been talking to and over to Daisy.
“She’s learned to say her r’s very well.”
Trisha nodded. “It was cute, but she’s so proud of herself now. I try not to miss it.”
“Oh, snap,” Trisha muttered, looking over at the door.
I turned to see what she was staring at.
“What does she think she’s doing?” Trisha said as she stood up to go intervene. I was glad because someone needed to. Low’s sister had just walked into the waiting room with her daughter on her hip. Normally this would be an expected thing. However, considering that Low’s sister, Tawny, was the woman who had broken up Marcus’s parents marriage, this was bad. Marcus’s mom had been invited. His father hadn’t been. I glanced over at his mother, and Amanda had taken a protective stance in front of their mother.
It still amazed me that Low and Marcus had found a way to get over this.
“Oh, hell,” Preston said loud enough for everyone to hear him. The entire waiting room turned to look at her.
No one had expected to see her today.
“Y’all can stop with your staring at me. She’s my sister. I can come see her kid if I want to,” Tawny said with an annoyed tone.
Cage walked back up behind her. Larissa, Low’s niece, threw her hands up and squealed, “Cay!” Cage had been a big part of Larissa’s life once. He’d been the only man in her life who never went away. Because he was taking care of Low, he was also helping Low take care of her niece while her sister ignored her.
Cage winked at Larissa and reached out to take her in his one free hand. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said to the little girl, then lifted his eyes to meet Low’s sister. “Tawny,” he acknowledged her. But you could tell by the way his jaw tensed that he didn’t like her. “Probably not the best place for you to wait on the baby. If Larissa wants to stay with me, I’ll watch her and I’m sure Manda will too. But you need to go wait elsewhere. Today isn’t about you.”
The redhead looked like she’d been slapped. If I didn’t know how evil she was, I’d think she was breathtakingly beautiful. To a stranger she probably was. “So you’re willing to keep Larissa, but you’re kicking me out, Cage York? You’re just white trash pretending too. With your pretty little”—she paused when she looked at me, and I watched as she took in my stomach—“pregnant girlfriend,” she finished. Then she let out a hard laugh. “You knocked her up. Perfect. I bet her family is real proud of her now.”
Amanda and I jumped up at the same time. Amanda went and took Larissa from Cage’s hands. Once the little girl was free, Cage took another step toward Tawny until he was towering over her. I reached between them and pushed him back before he could explode.
Once I positioned myself between them, I got in her face. “Listen, bitch, the only white trash in this room is the one who slept with a married man. An old married man at that. You call my man one more name and I will knock those ridiculously high heels out from under you. So back the hell off before you end up on your ass.”
I heard someone smother a laugh from behind me and I didn’t have to look to know it was Preston. Then someone started to clap. I glanced over to see Dewayne stand up from where he’d been reclining with his feet propped up. He was clapping with a pleased grin on his face. Then someone else started clapping. Rock had stood up to join him. Slowly, one by one, everyone in the waiting room was on their feet and clapping.
Tawny’s face was redder than her hair. She snarled then spun around and stormed out of the room, leaving her daughter behind with Amanda, who had taken her to the restroom to get her away from the scene she’d been afraid Tawny was about to cause.
Once she was gone, Cage wrapped his arm around me and handed me my bottle of water. “Here you go, mama bear. You need to rehydrate yourself after that performance,” he informed me.
“Damn, I was hoping she would stay. I wanted to see Eva take her down. That’d have been hilarious,” Preston said, reaching over to give me a high five. I slapped his hand and laughed.
Amanda slowly walked back into the room holding Larissa. “Is everything okay? I heard clapping.”
Instead of answering her, everyone started laughing.
CAGE
After Low was in labor for ten hours, Marcus came to announce that she had given birth to a healthy, five-pound-seven-ounce boy. His name was Eli Cooper Hardy and, according to his father, he looked just like Low.
Marcus’s eyes were red like he’d been crying, and I wondered if he had. The grin on his face was huge as he answered questions about Low and the baby. I watched Eva as she listened to everything he said. She was soaking it all up.
“You gonna let your baby be born without your last name?” Preston asked me in a low whisper as we stood at the window of the nursery, waiting for Marcus to bring the baby so we could all see him. I glanced over at Eva, who was talking to Trisha. Her hand was protectively on her stomach as her eyes kept looking over at the other babies in their bassinets in the nursery. I wondered what she was thinking.
“No. I’m working on that,” I replied.
Preston nodded. “Good. I’ll let you go first since you have a pressing matter to attend to,” he replied, pointing at Eva’s swollen stomach.
“What do you mean you’ll let me go first? Are you gonna propose to Amanda?” I asked.
He smirked and tucked some of his hair behind his ear. “Yeah, I gotta talk to Marcus about it first. He needs time to warm to the idea or he’ll blow his shit again if I just spring it on him.”
I chuckled, remembering the night behind Live Bay when Marcus had beat the hell outta Preston when he found out Amanda and Preston were seeing each other. “Yeah, he’ll need a heads-up.”
The door to the nursery opened, and Marcus stepped inside holding a small bundle. Literally. It looked like a rolled up blue blanket. It wasn’t big enough to be real.
Eva stepped back and grabbed my arm, squeezing it tightly as she looked at the baby that was in fact in that blanket. Its small face peeked out of it, although his eyes were closed. I couldn’t tell that he looked like either Marcus or Low. He was all squishy.
“He’s beautiful.” Eva sighed, leaning into me.
I wouldn’t call him beautiful, but I wasn’t going to argue with a pregnant woman. I wrapped my arms around Eva’s stomach and held her close to my chest. Everyone prattled on about the baby and who he looked like while Marcus held him up. Obvious pride on his face.
Low finally had a family. One that would love her and cherish her. It was something she always wanted. She didn’t need my french fry Fridays anymore to make her happy. She also didn’t lose her shit if I didn’t have Jarritos in my fridge when she came over. I didn’t supply her favorite drink anymore. Marcus did.
And I was happy about that.
Convincing Marcus to let Low come over to the house and entertain Eva with Eli today had been hard. Eli was two weeks old, and this was Low’s first official outing. Not because she didn’t want to get out, but because Marcus was too damn protective. After explaining to Low why I needed Eva to be distracted, she’d packed up the baby and informed Marcus they were coming over with or without him. Luckily, he’d come with them, because I needed his help if I was going to pull this off.
“I still can’t believe you’ve got us over here on Christmas Eve. Could you not have picked another time to do this?” Marcus grumbled as we set the piano down inside the barn.
“Shut up. You’ll have Low and Eli home in plenty time for Santa Claus,” I replied. Then I threw the blanket we’d used to protect the piano off the instrument, and Jeremy helped me fold it up.
“How you gonna get this thing tuned in time?” Marcus asked.
“My mom’s on her way over,” Jeremy answered for me. That had been one of the biggest surprises. When I’d told Jeremy what I wanted to do, he’d offered his mom’s help. I hadn’t expected her to help me, but she had. And she’d worked a miracle.
Marcus just chuckled and shook his head. “You’re crazy, you know that, right?”
I just smiled. Because he just might have been right.
“I need to go on. Eva will notice my truck down here if she looks out the window. Mom will have it working like a charm in no time. Just leave the door unlocked and she’ll get everything ready for you.”
I thanked Jeremy before he left. Then I turned to look at Marcus. “Well, guess we’re done. You can take your crew home and get ready for Santa to come.”
“I got four more weeks before Santa brings me my present,” he said, following me to the door.
I glanced back at him. “Why four more weeks?”
Marcus smirked. “You don’t know, do you?”
I didn’t know what? “Not following you, man.”
Marcus slapped me on the back and let out a loud laugh. “And I get to be the one to break the news. Cage, after Eva has the baby, you can’t have sex for six weeks.”
What? I stopped walking. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Marcus laughed even louder and headed out the door of the barn.
Six weeks? For real?
