Chapter 25 Penises,If You Will, Penii Cara #2
“I’m always going to show up for you,” I murmur, resting my chin on her hair. “Just like you show up for me.”
“We’re good at that, huh? Showing up for each other?”
“It’s second nature.”
“Because that’s what true friends do. That’s what healthy, safe relationships look like. Showing up in whatever capacity you can without fear that you’ll be punished for it, because at the end of the day, your relationship is rooted in empathy, respect, and love.”
My eyes fall shut as I sink into Olivia. “I knew you were my soul sister the moment I saw you.”
“When you shoved a tequila shot in my hand at ten a.m. and said I was the perfect size for you to boss around?”
I smile at the memory for the second time today. “Yes.”
Olivia squeezes my hands. “I knew then too.”
“Mama! Auntie Cawa! Wook!” Ireland skids to a stop before us, pointing at the pink glitter Play-Doh hanging from both nostrils. “I gots boogies!”
“STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.”
Olivia blinks at me from her bed, where she’s propped up against a mountain of pillows, watching me finish my nighttime skincare routine. “Like what?”
“Like you wanna marry me.”
She cracks a wide smile. “We would’ve been okay, you and me.”
“Okay? Just okay?” I smooth my overnight lip mask on before tossing it in my makeup bag, gathering up the essentials, and taking a seat beside Olivia.
Twisting her away from me, I start running my fingers through her brushed-out curls, weaving them into a thick French braid.
“We would’ve been a dynamic power couple.
People would have trembled whenever they saw us coming. ”
She sighs as I tie off her braid. “There’s still time for us.”
I move in front of her, dabbing brightening and de-puffer serum beneath her eyes, spreading my favorite softening and firming serum over her face, topping it off with my holy grail soothing sleeping mask moisturizer.
“I still think one day women are going to realize that most men are too emotionally immature to satisfy them, the ones that aren’t are unicorns who are already taken, that life is just generally more fulfilling with women who are largely capable of fulfilling the emotional needs of other women.
That we don’t actually need men, just their sperm, and queer women everywhere will take over the world.
” I whoop a fist through the air to really drive the point home. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“I think that would solve, like, ninety percent of the world’s issues.”
“At least.” I throw my stuff back in my bag, collapsing next to Olivia with a sigh. “But we’d miss our unicorns.” I turn onto my side, trying to get comfortable. “Do you really need all these pillows?”
“I really need all these pillows, otherwise my organs will be crushed by the babies stealing all of my nutrients, energy, and willpower. That or I’ll vomit up fire.”
“Valid.” My gaze coasts to her belly like a magnet, my chest tightening as I watch those babies moving around in their cozy home. “Can I?” I ask quietly, and Olivia nods, taking my hand and guiding it to her belly.
“This is Twin A. A little bit bigger than B, and a lot more aggressive. Twin A will be born first, I just know it.” She moves my hand until it slides over something firm, and when it wiggles beneath me, I gasp and giggle. “Twin B. Docile. Gentle. But a Beckett nonetheless.”
She releases my hand, and I spend the next couple of minutes sliding it over her tummy, feeling the tiny souls below, nearly ready to come out.
I marvel at the gift, the insanity of how something so miraculous is created out of something so little, and I hope that one day… that one day I get to feel it too.
When I look up at Olivia, blinking back my tears, I see hers sliding freely down her face.
“Tell me something,” she whispers. “Something you’re scared to say out loud.”
I open my mouth, but choke on the hesitation, shaking my head.
“Please, Care.”
“I would never wish what I’ve been through on anybody.
Not my worst enemy and certainly not you.
And yet sometimes… sometimes I wish I could give you my pain for just a minute.
A single minute, not so that you hurt too, but to help you understand how much this has damaged me.
I think that would make me feel less alone, and sometimes I wonder…
if I felt less alone, would it make getting out of bed a little bit easier?
” Shame forces my gaze down. “I want you to know that I’m happy for you.
I always have been and always will be. I’m just… sad for me.”
Olivia catches my hand, squeezing it firmly until I look at her. “Every day I wish I could take your pain, help you hold it, just so that you’d feel like you had someone who understood. So you didn’t feel alone. I would do it in a heartbeat, Cara. I’d do anything for you.”
I sniffle, nodding, because truly, I know. Wanting to lighten the mood, I roll my eyes and say, “Good, because I might need your uterus.” I snicker, but Olivia doesn’t.
Olivia sits there, holding my hand and my gaze, all the love in the world loaded in those warm eyes.
“Oh, God, Liv. No! I was just… I was just joking!”
“I would,” she tells me softly. “If you decide to go that route… I would.”
A fist closes around my heart, squeezing. “Ollie…”
“We don’t have to talk about it right now. I just… I want you to know, that’s all. Wherever this road takes you and Emmett, Carter and I are here.”
I watch her carefully for a moment. “You two talked about this already.”
Pink dots her cheeks, and she nods.
I don’t know what to say. Truthfully, I’m not sure the words exist to tell her how much it means that they think about our journey on such a level that they’ve had this conversation and come to this conclusion together. That they would do something so life-changing and selfless… for us.
So instead, as we turn on the TV above the fireplace in time to catch the last two periods of the game, I snuggle next to her, her head on my shoulder, and mine on her head.
When she complains about a headache that comes on so strong the lights burns her eyes, I get up to turn the lights off and rub her temples until she passes out.
I know the boys will call when they get back to their hotel room, same as they always do, so I ask Emmett for a five-minute warning and start slipping out of bed when he delivers it.
Olivia stirs, groggy and yawning. “Where you going?” She lifts herself off the pillows, wincing and clutching her head. “Ah, fuck. My fucking head.”
“Here.” I hand her my glass of water. “Still bad, huh?”
“Worse, somehow.” She keeps her eyes squeezed shut as she chugs the water, one hand moving over her stomach. “Fuck, I feel nauseous.”
“Can I get you something? Tums?”
She waves me off, shifting herself higher on the pillows. “Probably just sleeping too low.” She stifles a yawn, but snaps awake when my phone rings. “Is that the boys?”
I nod. “I was going to take the call downstairs. I didn’t want to wake you.”
Olivia pats the spot next to her, so I slip back into the warmth, accepting the call as she lays her cheek on my shoulder.
“Ollie, if you guys have another baby, I need you to fucking find out the sex before it’s born,” Emmett bites out as the video connects, my man freshly showered, making me wish I was freshly fucked.
He drags a hand down his tired face. “I cannot listen to your husband go on and on for months about what ‘limbs’ he may or may not see on the ultrasound pictures.” Tired blue eyes shift to me, and a grin so wide, so beautiful, splits Emmett’s face. “Hi, baby.”
“Carter, why do you not believe the ultrasound technicians when they assure you, over and over again, that the only pictures they give us are ones where you can’t see the sex?”
“Why, Ollie? Oh, I dunno. Maybe because they might be trying to pull a fast one on us. They think we don’t know enough to distinguish penis from vagina, but I know.”
Olivia rolls her eyes, head flopping so she can look at me. “Carter’s been doing a lot of research online. He thinks he’s a professional.”
“I’m just saying, I know what I saw.”
“And what did you see?” I ask, brows raised.
“Penis,” Emmett answers for him.
Carter nods. “Or penii, if you will.”
I’m afraid to ask, but: “Penii?”
“Penis, but plural. Penii.”
“Oh, for fuck’s—” Olivia claps a hand to her face, grumbling out something incoherent before glaring at him. “Carter, multiple penises are called penises, not penii!”
He crosses his arms over his chest and points his nose to the ceiling. “Some of us are more cultured than others, and it shows.”
Olivia rolls her eyes. “It certainly does.”
I make a show of looking around the room. “Is the cultured person in the room with us?”
Emmett and Olivia bark out a laugh, and Carter narrows his gaze as he twists an Oreo apart, licking the icing. “That’s it. Laugh it up. I’ll be the one laughing when I’m rocking my two boys in my arms.”
I’m not sure how long we stay on the phone. One minute Carter’s pitching us Oreo flavor ideas, and next thing I know I’m waking up at the ass crack of dawn to Ireland singing a butchered version of “Livin’ on a Prayer” at the absolute top of her lungs.
I hoot and holler when she finishes, clapping as I yell out, “Again!” and Ireland happily obliges from down the hall as I slip out of the empty bed.
“Liv? Where are you?” My arms go above my head as I yawn, and when I hit the light in the bathroom, I find her hugging the toilet. “Oh shit.”
“I think I have a migraine,” she moans. “My head hurts so bad, I can’t stop vomiting. Everything is blurry.”
“Blurry?” I frown, kneeling at her side, my hand on her back as I look her over. “Hey,” I murmur as her breath turns staggered and frantic. “Breathe. Nice and slow, Ol. Breathe with me.”
“I—I… I can’t,” she cries, chest heaving. Her eyes come to mine, wide with fear. “I feel like I can’t… like I can’t… breathe. Cara, I—I—I… I can’t breathe.”