Chapter 32 Carter Beckett’s Double Cream Pie Cara #2
She’s been making these for every home game this round, and apparently the internet really likes me. I mean, I knew that, but it’s nice that everyone else knows too, ya know?
I scroll through my feed, 99 percent of it game-related from various sports news outlets, and anything else Lennon catches on camera and graces the world with.
I laugh at a video of the boys pregame, playing keep-up with a soccer ball.
Garrett hoofs the ball into the rafters, which turns into Jaxon on Emmett’s shoulders with a hockey stick, trying to poke it free, which turns into Garrett on Carter’s shoulders doing the same because we can do it better, which turns into a chicken fight, sans the required pool, meanwhile Adam is setting up a ladder in the background, quietly scaling the rafters, and dislodging the soccer ball, which he then uses to bounce off Jaxon’s head in such a strategic way, it ricochets off and hits Garrett’s too.
10/10, I comment on the video. Give your social media manager a raise. She never misses.
My phone pings, and I switch back to my messages, grinning as Emmett’s start piling up.
Emmett (sports, huge dick, exquisite taste in women, *tongue emoji*): Baby, we all know whose name you moan when you come.
You’re sending me the audio even if we lose.
Baby, send me the video, plz. Now. Firefly, the audio.
Please??? *prayer emoji* Nah, that’s cool.
For sure. Quick question though: you ever had a boner while wearing a jock?
Guess what, it’s not fucking fun. You know what?
I don’t need the audio. Gonna fuck you so hard tonight you’ll be singing in my ear for hours.
That’ll be enough for me. Cara, baby, please. The audio. Now.
Me: Sorry babe. Gotta go!
Snickering to myself, I knock on the bathroom door. “You okay in there, Abes?”
“Yeah!” my sweet guy hollers back as I hear the toilet flush. “I was just poopin’!”
“Right on, dude.” I head back to Instagram, flipping mindlessly through more posts while I wait.
There are a handful of pictures I’ve been tagged in today, with Abel always by my side, and I untag myself as I go.
I get that as long as he’s with us at events like these, there will be pictures, but it bothers me to no end that people can’t respect that he’s a little boy, that they have no idea what the circumstances of his care are, and feel so comfortable posting his face online.
I move past another picture, then quickly flip back to it.
Abel’s standing off to the side in it, on the verge of tears, while I have my hand over my stomach, looking a little like I’m going to vomit.
He’d dropped his ice cream cone, hence the tears, and I’d told him he couldn’t have it despite Uncle Carter’s five-second rule, because he’d dropped it straight onto the ground, and somebody’s hair was smooshed into the blue and green ice cream, hence my extremely justified I’m gonna puke reaction.
But the picture doesn’t show the ice cream. And the caption?
Are Emmett and Cara Brodie finally expecting? Cara arrived to the game tonight looking to be proudly sporting a visible baby bump, and it looks like their foster child is already getting shafted as the mom-to-be keeps him at arm’s length.
It’s a horrible caption for an equally horrible post. Sure, I’m pissed that a girl can’t have a fucking tummy these days without somebody feeling like they have the right or authority to comment on it, but insinuating that a baby could or would replace Abel is what disgusts me right down to my bones.
It’s true that, beyond wanting to give Abel a place he felt safe, a place to call home during this time of his life, I longed to fill a space in my heart.
It’s true that it might not have happened, that we might not have connected the way we did, if it weren’t for years of negative pregnancy tests.
But it did happen. The negative tests, and bringing him home.
Connections forged as we built a relationship, a new and healing kind of love formed when I wasn’t sure I deserved it, all because we found one more piece of our family.
Truthfully, though? It’s the comments. Comments from thoughtless, inconsiderate keyboard warriors.
She’s sooo pregnant. Look at that tummy!!!
Oh she’s got that first trimester morning sickness!!!
Wow she got big fast *surprised emoji*
I’m surprised they didn’t just pay someone to have the baby for them. Then she wouldn’t have to ruin her body. It was perfect before, now it’s gonna be saggy and gross. *sick emoji*
How long you think until they send the kid back??? Lol everyone’s thinking it!!!
I’d put her at 25 weeks. That’s a prominent belly!
She’s def prego, but probably only 10ish weeks. She’s tiny!
Baby where?? She’s so skinny, it’s gross. Gain some weight, please!
I feel like they only fostered him for publicity anyways.
There are those comments, and if I’ve learned anything in my years with Emmett, it’s that there always will be, because those types of people will always exist. But you know who else will always exist?
@oliviabeckett: FAKE NEWS!!!!! GET A LIFE.
@jennieandersen: @oliviabeckett I think you mean GET FUCKED
@oliviabeckett: @jennieandersen, thank you, autocorrect got me. GET FUCKED.
@jennieandersen: imagine being this unhappy with yourself lol embarrassing
@lennonriley: oh no :( someone’s mommy didn’t hug them enough and it shows
@marvelousmittens: meow hiss scratch!
@rosielockwood: I hope you find peace and healing from whatever hurt you.
@rosielockwood: And therapy. Because you clearly need it.
@rosielockwood: Also, your parents/guardians/friends/loved ones would be incredibly disappointed with all of you.
“Cara! Guess what!” My head snaps up as the bathroom door opens, Abel adjusting his pants as he emerges. He wipes his wet hands on his pants and then holds them up, jazz fingers on full display as he wears the brightest, broadest grin. “I wiped my bum all by myself!”
“What? You did?” I grab him around the waist, hauling him up into my arms and spinning around.
“You did it!” Hugging him to my chest, I close my eyes, breathing out the negative words, the people who mean nothing to me.
That’s the only way to give space to all the right.
The right words, the right people, the right support, the right kind of love.
And as Abel clings to me and I to him, I breathe it in.
This is right.
Him in my arms is right.
This life… it’s all right.
“I’m so lucky to be your Cara,” I whisper in his ear, hugging him tight.
“And I’m so lucky to be your Abel,” he whispers back.
WE MAKE IT BACK TO our seats with seven minutes to spare before the start of the third period, only because Carter has been telling us for the last three days that something iconic and groundbreaking is happening at the five-minute mark.
One look at the mini packs of Oreos everyone has in their hands, the blue-and-green packages with Carter’s face on them, tells me what I already knew: that Cart and I have different definitions of iconic.
I grab a pack of his limited-edition double-decker Oreo—chocolate banana cream pie—off the teenager stationed at the end of the row as we walk by, and Abel manages to snag himself four packages and a T-shirt with a picture of Carter holding up an Oreo on it.
I’m happy to see they didn’t take his suggestion for the T-shirt slogan.
The rest of us told him Oreo would never put CREAMPIED BY CARTER BECKETT on a T-shirt, the same way we told him they’d never allow him to name the flavor Carter’s Double Cream Pie. As usual, he had to ask anyway.
“Commercial?” I ask Olivia as I find my seat next to her, taking baby Hunter into my arms. “Hi, little man,” I coo, rubbing the tip of my nose against his as he giggles, slapping his hands all around. “Is your silly dada debuting his big Oreo commercial today?”
Olivia doesn’t have a chance to answer me before my phone pings, right along with the rest of the girls’. I shift Hunter to my side, fishing my phone out of my pocket.
Carter: Everyone ready???
Me: Shouldn’t we be asking you that?
Adam: *sigh* he’s not talking about the game
Jaxon: Somebody PLEASE shut him up already I can’t TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!
Emmett: Literally if nobody could entertain him, that’d be great.
Garrett: The last time I EVER get ANYONE a thoughtful gift.
Carter: ya, it’s my big day. my big debut. carter beckett, NHL captain, DILF extraordinaire, Oreo connoisseur, two-time Stanley cup champ, about to be three, and after today? actor.
Olivia sighs the sigh of all sighs, rubbing what I assume is stress or sheer exhaustion—probably both—from the spot between her brows.
“I can’t wait for them to finally air this Oreo commercial.
He hasn’t let anyone see it, even me, meanwhile I catch him watching it on his phone at least three times a day, chuckling at it, whispering nailed it to himself. ”
“I’ve seen it,” Hank offers, waggling his brows right along with his smug smile. “Guess I’m special.”