Chapter 48 Why aren’t you listening, feet?
Why aren’t you listening, feet?
Josie
THE CROWD OF newspeople swarms him, and Sean hands off the puppet and announces in his Captain Footwork voice, “Tune in to Hugo Valencia’s show. You’ll get all your answers there!”
Then he heads straight to me, stopping about a foot away. “Hi.”
I throw my arms around him, burying my face in his neck. “I was so worried about you! I’m glad you’re not dead or ruined!”
“I am ruined. I ate street tacos, and they might have had brains in them.” He holds me tightly, like he never wants to let go. “I was worried about you, too,” he whispers into my hair. “I thought you were going back to Florida. I didn’t realize you were disappearing.”
“Well, you know, that’s part of the whole disappearing thing. It doesn’t work if you see it coming.”
Around us, everyone is jockeying for a closer look at the resurrected (refurbished?) Chuy. Everyone except Emmy, who looks peaked and unhappy.
I frown. “Sean, I can’t wait to hear all about what just happened here, but I think we need to get Emmy home.”
Sean takes one look at her and raises an eyebrow. “Agreed. I’ll text Snack to catch up with us.”
I say goodbye to Yesenia and tell Miguel and my family that I’ll meet up with them later.
Jason joins us, and we head for the parking lot.
Emmy is quiet. Too quiet—not at all like her.
Halfway through zigzagging our way through the studio lot grid, she says, “Guys, I need to sit down.” We walk her over to a shaded outdoor garden set with a tinkling fountain and a stone bench upon which she gingerly balances one butt cheek.
“Honey, are you okay?” Jason asks.
“I don’t think Braxton and Hicks are going to the bar today.” She meets his worried gaze with one of her own as her nostrils flare with a deep intake of breath.
“Okay! All right! We’ve got this!” Jason bounces on his toes. “We’ll call the midwife and meet her at the house.”
Emmy makes a noise I’ve never heard come out of a human before. It sounds like a siren for an incoming airstrike.
“Call the midwife,” Sean says with zero humor. “Call her now, Snack!”
Emmy’s not a big cusser, but she’s opened up the f-bomb water main. Jason’s flailing to find the right number in his phone. While I stand paralyzed with no idea how to help, Sean kneels next to Emmy.
“Do you feel pressure?” he asks, voice calm as he takes off his jacket and lays it on the fake grass at her feet.
“Midwife’s on her way!” Jason announces, eyes wild.
“To the house or to here?” Emmy asks.
Jason’s face falls. “Oh, crap!”
“Call her back, Snack,” Sean says in the captain’s voice. “Josie, see if you can find something to give us some privacy.”
I don’t do well with emergencies. I tell myself to go and grab the trellises leaning against the building next to us, but my feet don’t listen. Why aren’t you listening, feet?
“Josie, go!” Sean gives me a nudge. It short-circuits whatever loop I was in, and I lurch into action.
By the time I get a privacy area set up, Sean’s got Jason’s Hadron jacket off and draped over Emmy’s lap as she perches on the edge of the bench.
Jason looks like a bouncy ball, the good-looking boy-next-door version.
Now Emmy’s f-bomb main line has ruptured.
It’s a profanity tsunami up in here. I take a seat next to her on the bench. “What can I do?”
Emmy stops cussing long enough to whine in misery, “I can’t believe Sean O’Sullivan is catching my baby! He’s never going to shut up about it.”
“I’m not catching your baby,” Sean says. “Your husband is. Snack, you’re needed down in engineering—stat!”
Jason drops to his knees on the faux grass. “What do I do?”
“Check and see if there’s a head.”
“How do I do that?”
“Use your imagination.”
“There’s a head!” Emmy shouts, writhing on the bench. “I can confirm it!”
Jason confirms it, too. Now he’s got his own profanity leak underway.
“You’re going to catch it when it comes out, just like a little medicine ball.”
“How do you know how to do all this?” I ask Sean. Meanwhile, Emmy grabs my hand and squeezes it so hard, I’m afraid that she might break some bones.
Sean hesitates. “Siobhan would kill me if she finds out I ever told anyone, but… I actually had to catch my second nephew when he was born.”
“What?”
“Yeah, we don’t talk about it.”
“Oh my God, it’s coming, it’s coming!” Jason yells.
“Hello!” someone calls from behind the barrier. “I’m a set medic. Can I help?”
“It’s all under control. We’ll shout if we need you,” Sean says. When I give him a baffled look, he grins. “Snack’s got this. Let him have his moment.”
The two of them do seem to have everything under control. Jason is murmuring encouragement to Emmy, who has gone quiet and purple-faced during pushes but clearly knows what she’s doing. She even manages to smile at him in the lull between contractions.
I wince at another bone-crunching squeeze of my hand and mutter, “If I ever have to go through this, I get to dress it in stripes. Nothing but stripes. That’s a deal-breaker.”
“I like stripes.”
I shoot Sean a sideways look. “Tell me you did not just offer to sire my striped baby.”
“I mean, it could happen. If you plan on sticking around long enough.” His eyes flicker with hope before shifting to his go-to nonchalance.
“I owe Miguel a party, and I could use some help getting Robert Downey, Jr. there. He might feel a little sheepish after beating me out for the Thunderstrike role.”
“You didn’t get the part? I’m sorry,” I say, matching his blasé tone. “For what it’s worth, I’m sure he’ll do a much better job.”
He breaks character, finally, shaking his head in amused disbelief.
“Too soon?”
I smirk at his struggle to maintain his straight-man facade. His hand rises to his mouth to hide a chuckle à la Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love, and then he straight-up bursts into laughter. He keeps laughing. He can’t stop.
It’s contagious. I try to hold back because my best friend is literally pushing out seven-to-ten pounds of human being right next to me, but I fail. Hard. I don’t think Sean and I have ever laughed together like this. Actually, I’m sure we haven’t.
“It’s not your fault,” I go on, fighting the giggles. “After that Hamilton performance, you’ve probably been typecast. Try auditioning for Bridgerton. Or Outlander. By the way, whatever happened with the hat?”
“I’m off the hook,” he sputters. “The police found the real hat thief.”
“Sounds like something the real hat thief would say.”
At this point, our outbursts have become completely inappropriate, but I’m having too much fun to care. Laughing like this feels amazing. It’s like all my pent-up feelings have finally found the escape hatch. Laughing with Sean feels even better.
“Oh my God, she’s here! She’s here!”
Emmy slumps against me, and I look down to see Jason holding a wet and slippery-looking baby of dubious coloring. He’s beaming like it’s an Oscar.
Híjole, it’s like magic. One minute there’s nothing, and the next—a whole new person.
Tears well up, and I try to hide them by looking over Emmy’s shoulder as I fold her into a hug. “Look what you did,” I whisper. “You’re a freaking superhero. You’re my idol.”
“Congratulations!” Sean announces, the edges of his mouth still quirking up with unspent laughter. “Well done, Snack. Give her to Mom. She did all the work.”
Jason carefully passes the baby to Emmy. She’s mewling and already looking more pink than gray. She’s tiny and perfect and beautiful, and I can’t believe I got to be here for her grand entrance into the world. I also can’t believe I almost missed it.
What a fool I would’ve been to let myself miss this.
Sean moves the barrier aside so the medic can come in with one of those silver blankets and a stethoscope. We step away to give them space, and Sean’s arms find their place around me, easy, confident, comfortable.
“That was amazing!” I gush, the sarcasm temporarily ripped from me. “Wasn’t that amazing?”
“It was pretty amazing,” Sean agrees.
“And you almost ended up catching Emmy’s baby after all!”
“Trust me, I never wanted to. I just said all that stuff to give Snack the confidence in case he had to do it. Second babies come fast.”
“Siobhan would know, huh?”
“I told you, we don’t talk about that.” He kisses my temple and whispers into my hair, “I’m so glad you’re back. I mean, I don’t know if you’re, like, back back.” He pauses. “But I hope you are.”
I hesitate. It feels surreal, this moment, like it shouldn’t be happening, like the laws of physics shouldn’t allow it. I’m in LA with Sean, I’m jobless, my cover is blown, and, to top it all off, my family is here.
The sky has fallen, and yet, when I look up, the sun is still there.
“Well, you know, back back is a strong way of putting it,” I tell him, watching Emmy and Jason marvel over their new daughter, both of them grinning like maniacs.
“But Emmy’s going to need some help, and the slums of San Francisco are surprisingly overrated…
plus, I’d really like to see where things go with this amazing guy I’ve been dating. ”
Sean cups my face and touches his forehead to mine. “I’m glad to hear that.”
I trace the ringed fingers caressing the line of my jaw. “If I’d said no, were you going to kidnap me and put me in that locked room of yours?”
“Yes, I was. And I’m so relieved because now I don’t have to remodel it. I was really struggling with the color palette.”
“I hope you weren’t going to go with yellow. Being a kidnap victim is stressful enough.”
“For what it’s worth, I was gonna put a hot tub in it for you.”
“Nice. We can soak in it together—you, me, and Seamus.”
“Seamus is gone. I called a family meeting, and together we convinced him to go into rehab. He needs more help than any of us can give him.”
“Did you punch him until he cried first?” I joke.
He chuckles. “I tried, but he’s a fast little bugger.”
I study his face. Something’s changed in Sean.
His smile is wider and more genuine, radiant and relaxed.
It dawns on me that all this time he’s been holding back, putting on a mask, controlling the narrative with me, maybe even with himself.
It doesn’t feel like he’s doing that anymore.
Being with him now, like this, feels real. Authentic. Wonderful. Limitless.
I give him a brazen, uninhibited kiss, even though there are cameras everywhere and this place is literally crawling with paparazzi. Let them take their pictures. Let them talk. Let them judge, for good or bad. I’m never hiding again.
I guess something’s changed in me, too.
“I can’t believe you drove to Mexico and dug up Chuy from a graveyard for me,” I murmur against his lips. “What kind of a weirdo does that?”
He pulls me in tight. “The kind who’s completely and totally obsessed with you.”
“Good.” I don’t suppress my smile. “Because I’m completely and totally obsessed with you, too.”
He kisses me slowly, deeply, and the world disappears.
My neurons all self-destruct, my blood boils off, and I start to wonder if this is what all those losers out there mean when they talk about being quote unquote happy.
I’m not just talking about the kiss, either, although if kissing Sean O’Sullivan for eternity were my fate, I assure you, there would be zero complaints.
I’m talking about my Schr?dinger’s life.
I’ve opened the box, and yet it still feels like anything is possible.
I’ve got these people in my life—Sean, Emmy, Peyton, Jason, and my family and friends in Mexico.
Their love is the brand of love I need. Our narrative is the one that matters, whether I’m canceled or not.
I break our kiss, much as it pains me to do so. His mouth really is a portal to sexy Narnia. “So, uh, the next time we’re at your place, would you put the Han Solo costume back on for me?”
“Sure thing.” He kisses me some more, and I try not to fall completely apart. “You like it, huh?”
“I do. I’d like to dress you in it and then undress you, over and over again, like a Ken doll.”
He smiles against my lips, and it’s sexy as hell. “In that case, I can’t wait to show you what’s really behind that locked door.”