Epilogue
Logan
T wo years later…
Pulling up in front of Ren’s garage, I cut the engine and just sat there staring into space.
My life was about to change drastically.
I’d felt like this before, when Bex had come home, then when I’d moved into her house, after that it was the day of the shootings, and then it was when we found out that the Kirkwoods and Ingleston had been given life sentences, with no possibility of parole.
It’d continued even after Cinder Murphy was released from rehab and went back to Kansas, taking part of everyone’s heart with her.
After it, when I’d held Bexley’s hand as she’d gotten her elephant tattoo, with her teeth embedded in my wrist, and then I’d gotten the same one between my shoulder blades, that I knew then that life would never be the same. She was safe, and we were stronger together, with our history together inked into our skin.
I’d been in control of some of those, but this time it was different.
I was apprehensive, scared, and excited all at the same time.
I was also overwhelmed, which was why I’d come here, to this man over all of the others available .
Getting out, I walked slowly over the forecourt, searching for him.
Ren was in the last bay, glaring at the dented rear of a black SUV. Hearing my boots on the ground, he turned to see who was approaching him and then scowled when he saw me.
“Logan, man, you’ve got to talk to your grandpa about the stupid bullshit him and—” he cut off when he saw the expression on my face. “What’s wrong? Is it Gramps?”
I couldn’t blame him for the assumption, considering the bullshit our grandpas got up to together.
“No, it’s nothing like that.” Then, taking my ballcap off, I ran my hand through my hair. “Have you got a minute? I need some advice.”
Frowning, he nodded slowly. “Sure, let’s go up to the office. Jarrod had to go home to check on Katy, so we’ll have some privacy.”
I should have known that wasn’t going to be the case. See, Townsends were like sharks with blood in the water. The second you needed privacy to talk to one, or you did something stupid, they smelled it in the air, and all started circling.
I could only be grateful that today only one shark was there as we walked up the stairs—Cole.
“S’up?” he called, then stopped when he saw my face. “Ah hell, what did he do this time? Grams kept telling us being mayor would be good for him, and he’d grow up with the responsibility, but I’m thinking it was for her own sake.”
I was facing him on the stairs, so I didn’t see Ren’s expression. Whatever it was, his shoulders slumped immediately, and he blew out a breath, then perked up at something. “Wait, Grams has been a feisty little one recently. Was it her? I knew I should have—”
“Not her, either.”
“Mom?”
“No.”
“Ah, shit. It’s Tom, isn’t it? ”
Tipping my head back in frustration, seeing as how there were roughly a thousand Townsends he could go through, I muttered, “Just ask him to join us, will you?”
“Logan needs to talk, Cole. We’re headed into the office if you want to join.”
Sure enough, the nosy bastard walked in behind us into the office, closing the door loudly.
Squatting in front of the small fridge, Ren pulled out a bottle. “Want a beer?”
My reply was instant. “Yes.”
“Jesus,” Cole mumbled. “Want a whiskey?”
“Fuck yes.”
Dropping my face into my hands, I waited until they sat in the other chairs around the small coffee table, hearing the thud of bottles on the wood in front of me.
“There’s one of both.”
Reaching out blindly, I grabbed the small glass my hand hit first and tipped the contents in it back in one. Usually, whiskey wasn’t a favorite of mine, but on this occasion, I needed it.
“Need another?”
Picking up the beer, I shook my head, already feeling the comfort of the burn from the liquor in my stomach. “I’ll stick with this for now.”
There was an awkward silence as the two brothers picked up their bottles and took a mouthful, but patience wasn’t something Cole was known for—which was one of the reasons I’d gone to Ren for this.
“For fuck’s sake, man. Just spit it out before your head explodes.”
“Bexley’s pregnant,” I rasped, my throat dry even though it shouldn’t be.
“That’s great news!” Cole shouted, getting up and picking up the bottle of whiskey. “Celebration time, my dude.”
“Congratulations, fella.” Ren clasped my shoulder and shook it. “The best part of life— Wait, why aren’t you smiling? ”
Cole stopped mid-step and frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”
I was going to sound like the world’s biggest asshole, but it was tearing me up inside. “It’s a girl. We only found out last week she was pregnant, then we found out how pregnant, and now—” I gulped, struggling with the weight of it all.
Cole frowned, but his brother winced, totally understanding the dilemma of having a female child first.
“Shit, man. I get it.”
Slamming the bottle onto the coffee table, Cole snapped, “Okay, you fuckers need to get some shit straight. Having a girl is a gift. Don’t you love Crystal?” he asked, glaring at Ren. “She’s your shadow, and you spoil her to death. Is that fake?”
Slumping into his chair, Ren glared right back at him. “You don’t get it, Cole. It’s not that having a girl isn’t a gift. Fuck, I adore my baby girl more than the oxygen my lungs need, but the weight of knowing you have to keep her safe from everything and everyone… That’s fucking tough.
“Plus, I’m a man, I had no idea what to do with a baby girl, to begin with. All that is what’s going through this loser's head right now.” He jerked his thumb at me.
“I don’t know how to look after a baby, let alone a baby girl. And what if a baby boy starts flirting with her? What do I do? And when she’s older, I’m going to end up having to arrest myself for murder.”
“I’m fairly certain that’s not allowed,” Cole pointed out. “But kudos on being honest about potentially breaking the law.”
“I get it,” Ren sighed, lifting his beer again. “Having a boy first is better because he can help watch out for his sister. When it’s the girl first, you’ve got double duty between her and her mom.”
Realizing he had all of this, Cole winced and sat back down. “I get what you mean now.”
“Plus, when you have a boy, you only have to worry about one penis—his. When it’s a girl, you have every penis in the world to worry about.”
Glaring at Ren, I snapped, “You’re not helping. ”
Shifting slightly in his seat, Cole echoed what I’d said. “What part of you thought that was a good thing to say? Think about your daughter when you come out with that shit.”
Ren’s expression went from sympathetic to murderous. “My baby is an angel who’ll stay an angel for the rest of her life.”
Rolling his eyes at me, Cole gestured to his brother with his beer. “Think you’ll be locking him up way before yourself, man. He’s unhinged when it comes to his baby girl.”
This I knew. It’d taken Ren a long time to get over the fear of having a daughter and the responsibility it came with. That’s why I’d chosen him to talk to, hoping he could give me some pointers and advice to calm me down from the impending freak out I could feel coming.
There was a long silence, then Ren said, “You know, having a daughter first is a beautiful thing. Being a dad and Maya are the best things to ever happen to me, but the moment I was passed my baby girl? Fuck, there’s just no beauty like it in the world. Yes, you get scared, but you also feel something click into place inside you.”
“I felt like that with Louis, too,” Cole murmured. “It’s a different type of responsibility with a girl because we assume boys grow up to be just like us, and we know we can look after people. With a girl, there’s a vulnerability you want to protect and to shield her from the shittiness.”
“That’s exactly it,” Ren said, smacking his thigh with his hand. “It’s like they’re completely breakable, and you’re trying to protect them from being smashed.”
It wasn’t how I’d phrase it, but it fit with the worries inside my head.
Leaning forward, Cole stared at me. “Here’s your peace of mind—look at Crystal. First grandbaby, first child, and a female. That girl conquered all of us when she came into the world, but now when you look at her, she can pretty much conquer the world itself.
“You have to protect all kids as they’re growing up, but you also have to teach them how to kick ass, too. It doesn’t matter what gender they are. Every baby has to have that so they can go through life not getting beaten down by the smallest things, but also so they can fight the bigger things.”
Chewing on my lower lip, I had to agree. “That makes total sense. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“You know,” Ren added, “I was told that a son is a son until he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter for life.” We both looked at him dubiously.
“Yeah, bullshit, right? I have a wife, but all she did was expand the beauty of my family. There’s no way a real man just focuses on his wife or whatever the hell that saying means. No, a real man adjusts and adds his luck to the bounty he already has. I agree with the daughter part, though.”
“Amen!” Cole raised his beer. “And now you’ve got the added fortune of having a daughter for life…” He trailed off as he narrowed his eyes at me. “Hey, you knocked Bex up without marrying her.”
The change in subject made me smirk. “She doesn’t want to get married yet. I asked her, and she told me to ask her again in the future. I asked her again when we found out she was pregnant. She said the same thing.”
“Oh, burn,” Ren winced.
Shaking my head, I finally relaxed. “Nah, she’s never actually wanted to get married.”
“Can’t get much more tied to someone than having their baby,” Ren pointed out correctly.
“Especially when you’re living with them, too,” Cole added.
“To be honest, it makes me love her that little bit more. I want to marry her, absolutely, but I also know that it’ll be something special when she finally agrees. I don’t want to hurry into it or for her to feel like she’s doing it just because—”
“Uh, I don’t see how y’all are hurrying into it?” Cole said, frowning. “You’ve been together for how long? Two years?” At my nod, he continued, “And you’re having a baby together. How’s that rushing into it?”
Shrugging, I drained the last of the beer from my bottle. “To me, it isn’t, but I want Bex to understand and agree with that when she says yes.”
Huffing out a laugh, Ren shook his head. “You’re a better man than I am. I’d have kidnapped her and gone to Vegas.”
“There’s still time,” Cole snickered, holding his bottle out in a toast. “To Logan, his stubborn girlfriend and maybe wife-to-be, and his beautiful baby girl.”
“Amen!” Ren shouted, holding his bottle up.
“Hey,” Cole snapped his fingers. “If you want to prove you love her, go through the labor before she does.”
Ren groaned as his head dropped back onto his chair. “Not this again.”
That was impossible, wasn’t it? “How the hell do you do that? Like, carry around a bump on my stomach?”
“No,” he sat forward on his chair, his eyes sparkling. “I did it when Ebru was pregnant, and the others decided to do the same because they don’t have an original idea of their own.” Tapping his head, he winked at me. “Mensa.”
“Mensa, my ass,” Ren muttered, glaring at his brother again. “You cried like a baby and almost shit yourself.”
Whoa, boundaries obliterated. All I’d done come in for was some advice.
“I seem to recall you didn’t do much better,” he replied coolly, then turned back to me. “There’s a pregnancy experience place you can go to, but an ad popped up on my social media feed the other day for a home kit that does the same thing.
“You just pop the electrodes onto your stomach where it says to in the instructions, and it takes you through the birthing experience.”
“Without the baby, though, right?” The question popped out of my mouth before I could stop it .
“Well, obviously. Unless you’ve got the right hole to push a baby out of?”
Wincing at the thought, I pressed my knees together. “Negative.”
“Hey, hyenas have a weird birthing experience, so I never say never when it comes to something like that happening with humans.”
Ren and I looked at each other and then back to Cole. “I’m going to regret asking about this, I just know it, but what do you mean about hyenas?” Ren asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Cole’s body language changed immediately like he was a kid watching a magic show. “It was on this wildlife program that the kids were watching yesterday. Basically, female hyenas give birth through their clitoris and get this—it’s called a pseudo-penis.”
I’m going to hold my hand up and say, the mental images that popped into my head of a baby’s head coming out of my dick would give me nightmares for months.
“You’re lying,” Ren snapped, pulling his phone out. “No fucking way does a hyena give birth through a pseudo- penis.”
“Check away, my man, check away,” Cole sat back, waving his hand. “The birth canal’s only like an inch wide, so a lot of babies don’t survive, but they most definitely do pop the bambinos out via a female-hyena-wienus.”
I was staring into space and jumped when Ren clipped, “Oh, holy shit, that’s just wrong,” and grabbed himself between the legs.
“Penis babies?” His smug nod was enough, so I held my hand up and went to get out of my chair. “Thanks for everything. I feel less freaked about it now—” apart from cock births “—and I’ll think about the—” definitely not the hyena pseudo-penis babies “—birth experience.”
Standing up, Ren pulled me in for a quick hug and thumped me on the back. “Good luck, man. You’ve got this.” Then, he whispered, “Don’t look it up on the web. Trust me, you don’t want to do that.”
To say that I left the garage feeling relaxed, excited, and more determined than I went in was an understatement. But on the other hand, I felt like I needed to go and buy a metal guard to lock around my crotch.
All the worries I’d been stressing over were organized, and I had answers to it that settled my mind, but I was also going to be mentally picturing a baby coming out of my dick the next time I went to the bathroom.
Maybe if I held off going for as long as possible and looked the other way when I did, it would all be okay.
No, I had plans for the future that I was going to focus on.
I was going to be a daddy—to a baby that wasn’t coming out of a teeny tiny hole in my body.
And hopefully a husband.
Three weeks later…
I felt like shit. I was soaked in sweat and ached all over with pain like I’d never felt before in my life.
“What about if we take the sticky pads off?” Grandpa asked, poking at one of the pads with his finger.
“I’m fairly certain,” I panted, “that it’ll rip my asshole out of my bellybutton.” Then, rolling onto my side as the next wave hit, I wailed, “Leave me to die.”
“Boy, what in sweet baby cheebus’s name did you think you were doing?”
“I wanted to show Bexley I cared by going through— Aw, shit, here comes another one,” I broke off, holding my stomach and curling into a ball. When it just made it worse, I tried straightening one leg and holding onto my ass. “Ask Bex to hurry up in the bathroom.”
“Damn fool kid,” Gramps mumbled as he walked away.
Yes, I’d bought the kit that made the modern man understand what his woman went through to give birth to his kids—at least, that’s what it said on the box. It also had a man with the pads on his stomach, smiling and looking happy about the experience.
Not that I’d believe that, but when I saw the dude’s muscles tensing on the video in the ad, all he’d done was frown and then hold a thumb up. What setting did he use?
I’d been doing it for almost two hours now, and up until ten minutes ago, I thought I was doing great. That’s when it’d gone up to the third level, and I’d had to hold my ass to stop my guts coming out of it.
Seeing my reaction, Bexley had run to the bathroom to throw up, and that’s where I was at now—still holding my ass.
Picking up the monitor, I looked at the screen and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the number four.
“How’s it going? She’ll just be a couple more minutes,” Gramps said as he came back in.
“It’s on the fourth level, I think that’s the max, so it should be over soon,” I replied, rolling onto my back and thinking really it wasn’t so bad.
I was wrong. Worse than that, I was so far from right that wrong wasn’t even the word to use for it.
“Four? Cheeseless crust, boy, there’s thirteen settings on it. You’ve got another nine to go.”
“What?” I whimpered, lifting my head up.
“Says right here that the fourth setting is what the woman feels when labor is just starting to establish a regular rhythm. The contractions are far apart, and it’s just a warning to let her know the baby’s coming and to prepare. Wait until the real shit hits you, you’re gonna pass out.”
“Why are you here?” I croaked, raising my head back up to glare at him. I was never, ever taking advice from a Townsend again.
“Because you called me crying. I came over to help you, and now I’m just going to watch you poop your pants.”
Just then, the next contraction hit, and in the process of rolling into a ball, I forgot to hold my ass, meaning that a loud fart burst out of me, which got a responding howl from Doyle.
Gramps’ deep chuckles grew louder until it was bursting out of him. “Holy hell, you’re the dog whisperer.”
Apparently, that’s what Doyle reacted to—my pain farts. With each contraction, another one came out of me until all you could hear was the damn dog howling away and Gramps bellowing out his laughter in time with it all.
“You sure you don’t want to remove those? You’re only on the sixth level.”
Looking pitifully over at Bex, who was looking pale as she sat on the other sofa watching me, I shook my head. “No, I want to go through this for you. Hyenas have babies out of their clitoris, I can do this.”
I should have quit when I started sounding like Cole, but I didn’t. I got all the way to the established labor, my contractions two and a half minutes apart when I realized that it wasn’t a fart that was about to happen.
There was no way in hell I was shitting in front of anyone, so I got up and ran as fast as I could with the contraction still tearing my guts out of my ass hole to the bathroom, only just making it in time.
That might have been one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, but pooping with the machine still squeezing the life out of me every couple of minutes was a close second.
Each contraction made me yell out a higher-pitched version of my normal yell, which got Doyle and Gramps responding with their own noises.
Yeah, the asshole uploaded it to the internet. Apparently he was old and didn’t realize he’d done it, but I wasn’t buying that for a second.
The money he’d gotten got from it paid for the furniture for the nursery, though, and she had a savings account waiting for her by the time she came into the world by cesarean at thirty-seven weeks.
The second I held her, I knew I’d never felt love like that before in my life.
I loved her mom with every breath in my lungs, but the way I felt when she opened her eyes and looked at me for the first time… It was like all the oxygen had been sucked back out of them, and all that was left was her.
It was suffocating.
It was overwhelming.
It was the most beautiful experience of my life, even though it sounded far from it.
Imagine having your reason for living being a part of you. Bexley was part of me without a doubt, I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it, but our daughter, Santana Lawrie Richards, was literally part of me. I’d made her with her mom, and she was the best thing I’d ever done in my life.
Together, they made up the reason my heart was beating, and my lungs inhaled oxygen. I gave no shits if it sounded corny to people, it was the only way I could describe it.
And when I walked in from saying goodbye to our families later that night and saw Bexley holding her, I said a quiet thank you to Lawrence for keeping them safe.
I wasn’t religious, and I wouldn’t ever say religion was pointless, but I’d just never based my life around it. But I knew that old man would never leave his granddaughter alone, so he had to be watching over her.
That meant that when Bexley fainted and was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and her blood pressure rose to a dangerous level, I knew she’d be okay.
Even when she was rushed in for an emergency cesarean, and even though I was scared out of my mind, I knew he’d make sure she was okay .
I could live my life never watching her go through that again, but Bexley had Lawrence’s stubborn blood in her veins, and so did Santana, and with me watching over both of them, they would be okay.
Leaning over them both, I smiled as my baby girl twitched her mouth. “Milk dreams, she’s going to be a hungry monkey when she wakes up.”
“The nurse gave us some formula in case I can’t feed her,” Bex whispered, stroking Santana’s hand. “I’m determined to feed her myself, though.”
Kissing the top of her head, I breathed her in and felt some of the lingering tension from earlier today leave me. I could say I knew she was going to be okay, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t scared out of my mind.
“We have a plan b if you can’t, and the nurse said that some babies struggle to latch on initially, so don’t blame yourself if she doesn’t.”
“What if she gets dehydrated or won’t take the bottle? What if—”
“Bexley, we’re in the best place if any of those become a problem. Don’t worry about what you don’t know is going to happen, you’ll drive yourself crazy and miss out on her first moments. It’ll be okay regardless.”
Lifting teary eyes to look at me, she rasped, “But how do you know?”
Moving her hair away from her face, I stared down into the beautiful brown eyes I’d dreamed about for years and would be lucky to have in my life until I took my last breaths. “Because she may have my last name, but she’s got Pops’s blood in her veins.”
And later on that night, when my baby girl woke up, screaming her ever-loving heart out, she latched on and fed from her mother. Then, not even close to being full, she fed from the small bottle of formula I was holding.
That’s how it went after that. She was either the hungriest baby in the world, or she just wanted to share her feedings with both of her parents.
Her great-grandpa up in heaven got the final kick in the ass in to me, though. A majority of babies say ‘dada’ or ‘da’ as their first word. My girl didn’t.
No, she pointed at the big furry asshole who never left her side and said, “Dol!”
Three years later…
I was in so much shit. I don’t mean like the kind you get in when you make a small mistake, but like the kind you make when you’ve made the biggest mistake in the world.
Oh, and I had food poisoning. Merry Christmas!
I’d hardly slept last night after it hit at around midnight, but at one point, I’d woken up holding onto the toilet, so maybe that counted as sleep?
This morning, I’d been curled up in a ball in front of the bathroom door, begging for Bex to come out so I could go in when she’d opened the door and stepped over me.
I had no idea why she was so quiet until I’d given the bathroom a cursory glance while I was on the toilet dying and had seen the white stick beside the sink.
The prospect of how she was going to react if it was positive meant my food poisoning changed ends, and I had to jump up to bend over the bowl before I threw up on the floor.
I don’t recommend making that move and would encourage people to make a firm choice on which end you’re going to go with and stick to it.
Not that I really noticed anything, though, because all I could think about was what that white stick meant.
An alarm going off on the other side of the door made me lift my head as I flushed the toilet .
“Hey, are you going to be much longer? I left something in there… And I kind of…” she stopped, and I heard her groan. “Uh, I need it?”
That meant she hadn’t seen the results! If she wasn’t threatening to cut my balls off, and she wasn’t crying—she didn’t know.
So, mustering all the strength I had left in my dying body, I crawled across the floor and used the counter to pull myself up onto my knees to pick the test up.
There was no sign language to decipher, no cryptic code.
The words on the screen were enough.
I needed a plan.
Bexley
Six months ago, I’d had a miscarriage. I was only eight weeks into the pregnancy, which was a surprise for both of us, but we wanted that baby badly the second we knew about it. Four days later, I woke up bleeding and had to accept that our dream was gone.
I cried. No, I broke. I’d never met it, never held it, but I’d loved it from the first second I knew it was there.
Logan had been amazing. He’d held me during my downs, he’d supported me through the recovery and acceptance phase, and he’d helped me hide it from Santana so that she didn’t get upset, too.
He was always my anchor, but he was also my shield against the world, and I loved him more than life.
And my baby girl, who looked so like her daddy, but had the personality of her great-grandad, helped me realize that even though I’d lost a life, I’d still created a life, and I was so very grateful for that.
So, when I realized that I hadn’t had my period for three months, I immediately assumed it was a side effect of the miscarriage. It had to have an impact on hormones and things , right?
But after a week, I picked up a test just to make sure and waited for Logan to be comatose this morning to take it.
I had no idea that he was going to wake up after a night of puking and things right after I’d taken it.
What if it was positive ?
What if it was negative ?
What if I lost it or it didn’t have a heartbeat already ?
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t realize the door had opened until I felt a tapping on my foot and saw Logan face down on the floor.
“I realize this is the worst time to ask this,” he rasped, moving his face until he was using my feet as a cushion, “but I need you to marry me. You keep saying no, but I want you to have the same last name as Santana and me.
“I want the piece of paper that legally ties us together. I don’t know why it’s so important, but it feels more painful than the pain your Christmas dinner is giving me in my gut.”
I wanted that, too. “Yes.”
“I know it’s stupid,” he continued, pulling himself up until he was on his knees with his head on my stomach, “but not to me, it isn’t. Our lives have always been side by side and interwoven together, and I want to finally see you write Bexley Richards when you sign something. I want to see my ring on your finger and look down at work to see I’m wearing yours—”
“I said yes,” I repeated loudly, getting his attention.
Lifting his head weakly, he smiled—or grimaced, it was a close call on which one it was—at me. “Can you get the ring out of my underwear drawer, please? I bought it before I proposed to you the first time, so I think it’ll fit.”
Throwing my head back, I burst out laughing. “I’m not entirely sure this is the best proposal story to tell our grandkids.”
Sinking back down until he had his forehead on the cool, wooden floor, he mumbled, “What’s more romantic than knowing your grandpa loved your grandma her whole life and that their love story continued until they had kids and grandkids together?”
Feeling the first tear spill down my cheek, I got down on my knees beside him. “I love you.”
Turning his head sideways, he slurred, “Love you, too. Now, go and get the ring.”
I’d just gotten to my feet when he grabbed my ankle and held out his other hand. “By the way, you’re pregnant.”
That fear I had before was still there, but I had so much happiness that it didn’t cripple me hearing those words.
Then he added to it. “This one’s going to be okay, I know it. Once I can stop shitting, we’ll call the OB-GYN and get an appointment for a check-up, just so you don’t have to panic.”
My reply was easy. “Deal, but you’re taking me to see a Victorian fatberg for our honeymoon.”