Chapter 34 Taste the Rainbow Cara #4
It’s New Year’s Day, and Emmett’s birthday, which means last night was New Year’s Eve.
We spent it at Carter and Olivia’s, like we do every year, but this one looked a little bit different.
It was just us, five couples and our kids—dogs and cats included—and somehow as equally chaotic as every New Year’s Eve party we’ve had before.
We made homemade pizzas around the kitchen island and sang karaoke until both the batteries and the cord for the microphone went mysteriously missing.
We moved all the furniture out of the living room and covered the floor with pillows and blankets, and shared our favorite snacks as we sprawled out together and talked through one movie, before the kids and the girls fell asleep minutes into the second one.
And when I woke up at midnight, it was with my son curled into my side, and my husband brushing his thumb over my cheekbone, gently coaxing me awake so he could give me my midnight kiss.
I’m not cut out for wild nights anymore, but I don’t think I mind. What I do mind, however, is that the packet of M&M’s and Skittles that I mixed together and gorged on hasn’t been sitting right with my stomach in the nearly twenty-four hours since.
I sigh, stuffing Emmett’s birthday cake into the garage fridge.
My mind’s a mess, hence why I had to run out and pick up his cake today after begging the bakery to open for me on a holiday, because I forgot to pick it up yesterday afternoon like I was supposed to.
I blame the hormones. I forgot how much those injections fucked with my mood, my head, and, well, everything.
Thank God I only had to take them for the twelve days leading up to our frozen embryo transfer, but the progesterone suppositories I’ve been essentially rocket-launching up my pussy every morning while I wait to find out if the transfer took this time hasn’t helped either.
For example, the nurse at our new fertility clinic was kind enough to offer to call Emmett with my blood test results, explaining that most preferred to hear any negative news from their partner, rather than a nurse.
I wholeheartedly agreed but forgot to tell Emmett that they were closing early yesterday, and I think the nurses did too, because suddenly they were closed, and they’d forgotten to call Emmett with my results, and now I’m stuck taking this god-awful progesterone until the clinic reopens tomorrow.
Holiday brain fog and fertility treatment brain fog are a lethal combination.
I climb the steps in the garage, pausing with my hand on the doorknob.
Olivia cocks her head. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know…” I frown, trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that has me suddenly on edge. “Do you hear that?”
The girls point their ears toward the door, brows furrowed as they shake their heads.
“No,” Jennie says.
“Nope,” Rosie confirms.
“I don’t hear anything,” Lennon offers.
Olivia shrugs. “Same, I don’t hear—ohmyfuckingfuckidonthearanything.” Her eyes widen, and she pushes past me. “No, no, no.”
I shove her out of the way as she barrels through the door and into my hallway, screaming after her husband, who is—statistically and historically speaking—always the ringleader in these types of situations.
“Emmett? Emmett, where are you? Carter Beckett, you better not have convinced my mature husband to—Oh. My. God.” I skid to a stop at the bottom of my stairs, quivering hand over my mouth.
“What is this?” I look at the mattresses.
Yes, the mattresses. Four of them, to be exact, lying on top of my staircase.
And at the bottom of my staircase? A pyramid, at least eight feet tall, made entirely of red Solo cups. “What the fuck is this?”
“Swear jar, Mama!” Abel yells from the top of the stairs, pointing at me.
My gaze goes to the men behind him. The grown men, all wearing the custom Snuggies I got them for Christmas, each with their wife’s face plastered all over them.
In any other scenario, it’d be hilarious, but in this scenario…
in this scenario, these five grown men grin down at me, beaming with absolute motherfucking pride, like they’ve had the most brilliant idea.
“Human bowling,” Emmett shares excitedly.
“Human decline bowling,” Carter corrects, gesturing at the slide.
Oh, the humans are declining, all right.
My brows rise, slowly but so fucking high. My arms cross over my chest, and don’t ask me how I know, but I am 100 percent certain that Olivia’s hip juts, even though I can’t see it.
Carter swallows. “Decline, because of the stairs,” he whispers. “And human, because of the, uh… humans. Maybe it’ll… maybe it’ll help if you guys see it. You’re just… you’re just not seeing the vision. Right?” He looks to the kids. “Should I show them the vision?”
“No,” Olivia says.
“Yes,” Ireland insists, eyes alight with mischief.
Carter straps his hockey helmet to his head while the other four slowly peel theirs off, like they’ve suddenly remembered that they know better.
“It’s simple, really.” Carter gets onto the first mattress. “You just lay face-down on the mattress, like so… and then… Emmett? Can you do the honors?”
Emmett doesn’t take his terrified gaze off me as he slowly steps forward.
Carefully, he gives Carter a nudge, and the six-foot-four hockey captain and dad of three shouts out a “Wahoo!” as he goes sliding down the stairs from one mattress to the next, until he collides with the pyramid of cups at the bottom.
He looks back at the damage as the cups scatter in my entryway, and his face falls.
“Aw, dangit. Missed one.” He starts climbing back up the mattresses. “Em, send me again. I gotta hit that last—”
“My God.” I throw my hands in the air, along with all rational and logical reasoning. “Will the fuckery never end?”
“Sorry, baby,” Emmett whispers, hanging his head.
“Sorry, Care,” Adam, Garrett, and Jaxon mumble together.
“I love you,” Carter tries, terrified gaze wobbling, throat bobbing as he clings to a mattress halfway up, like he’s too afraid to move. “I love you. You’re so… and then… and I mean…” A swallow. “I love you.”
“And you.” I grip his ankle, dragging him down the mattress contraption as he squeals. “Why are you always at the scene of the crime?”
Carter clambers to his feet, brushing himself off. “In my defense”—he holds up a finger, and I’d love to know where he found the balls to try an excuse with me—“I was left unsupervised. So.” He shrugs, then waggles his fingers around me and the girls. “That’s on you.”
I pin my arms across my chest. “Oh, is that so?”
Olivia fists her hips, brows arched. “Pardon me?”
“I… I…” Carter looks back at Emmett. “Emmett?”
“Uh… let’s…” His eyes light, and he starts hoisting the mattresses, heaving them down the upstairs hallway before he follows the kids down the stairs. “Let’s go into the living room!”
“I need a drink,” I mutter, making my way down the hall ahead of the others.
I stop at the edge of the living room, frowning at the stunning flowers sitting in a vase on the table, the pink and blue balloons floating next to them.
“Did I get those?” I murmur to myself. “I must be losing my mind. Does anyone else need a dr—” I stop short as I twist around, finding my family gathered behind me.
Waiting.
Watching.
Smiling.
“What’s… what’s going on?”
Abel tugs on Emmett’s hand. “Now, Daddy?”
Emmett nods, happy, tearful gaze fixed on me, and my heartbeat thunders.
Abel rushes past me, into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a piece of paper. He grins, bouncing on his toes. “I painted this for you, Mommy.”
“Thank you, baby. That’s so thoughtful.” I take the picture from his tiny hands, grinning down at the colorful painting, the rainbow splashed above us. “Is this our family?”
Abel nods, pointing at the people. “This is you. And this is Daddy. And this is me.”
I point at the small person next to Abel. “And who’s this?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” He beams up at me, patting his chest proudly. “I’m gonna be a big brother. That’s my baby brother or sister.”
My gaze flips to Emmett. Tracks the tears streaming down his face. Slides to the people in this world I love most, each and every one of them losing their fight with their tears. Back to Emmett, and I shake my head. “No,” I whisper. “No way.”
But Emmett just grins. Ambles over to me. Takes my face in his capable hands. And says yes.
“You’re pregnant, Cara.”
And all those Skittles and M&M’s that have been sitting like lead in my stomach since last night? They choose this moment to make their reappearance, painting the kitchen sink as I promptly empty the contents of my stomach into it.
“Huh,” Carter murmurs from somewhere behind me. “That’s one way to taste the rainbow.”