Epilogue
Chloe
“It’s time.”
“You’re sure?”
I give him a look. He gives me the finger. I laugh. He squeezes me in his arms and I squeal, then double over in real pain this time.
“Fuck,” he says. Then he jumps out of bed and I watch him as beads of sweat pop out everywhere and I try not to cry or scream or look like I’m in pain. This might be a losing battle, Smitty. I can hear my grandma telling me this. She’s always right.
He runs around the room like mad, putting on pants and grabbing my clothes from the chair.
“You okay? Breathe deep.” He’s pulling my Boston Militia jersey on over my head, which is okay since I’m naked and don’t mind going braless.
“I’m fine.” I smile as proof. He looks skeptical.
“How bad does it hurt? Tell me the truth.”
“No pain. I’m in between contractions.” Sliding my legs around, I touch my feet to the floor. He’s about to slip on my super stretched-out leggings, but I stop him. “I need panties,” I say.
“WTF, Chloe. They’re only coming off as soon as—”
“My grandma always said a lady wears panties to the doctor’s. Her Sunday best.”
He smiles at me. I think he’s in love with my grandma.
Or so it seems by the way he looks every time I quote her.
I’ve taken to quoting her a lot lately, not that I’ve forgotten my father.
But let’s just say my ambition to follow in his footsteps as a sports reporter is now superseded by my ambition to be a mother.
The kind of mother I imagine my mother might have been had she lived.
The kind of mother my dad would have loved me to be. Had he lived.
The next wave of pain hits me and I grit my teeth, trying to stay upright and hide it, but Tate’s not fooled.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he whispers and holds me, caressing my hair and back and trembling with whatever emotion he’s feeling. Probably fear for me. “We need to get you to the hospital. Right now.”
I can’t argue with that as he lifts me in his arms like I’m a small person, which I am most definitely not at this stage.
I was never a skinny girl and now I’m practically a cow after gaining thirty pounds through the ice cream diet.
Tate bought me every flavor imaginable in the past six and a half months to make up for ridding the place of all whiskey and cigars.
Wrapping my arms around his neck as he carries me and my bags to the door, I laugh when he stops. Then I reach down and open it for him and he carries me down to the car.
“Did you warm it up?” I ask, shivering with the blast of cold New England air even as I huddle closer to him.
“Of course. Sorry I forgot your fucking coat,” he says as we reach the car and he maneuvers me inside, then throws the bags in the back seat. He jumps into the driver’s seat and looks at me. The love I see in his eyes takes my breath away, almost making the next wave of racking pain manageable.
“Jesus, Chloe. I don’t know if I can stand seeing you like this.
You’re supposed to be immune, tougher than anyone.
” He rubs my back and leans in, kissing my face like he’s trying to make up for labor pains, like he’s trying to erase every ounce of discomfort I ever had.
Well, I don’t know if that’s what he means to do, but that’s what’s happening to me.
I’m turning into a melting pool of love honey under his touch and his words.
I’m turning into a whole new person, one I never knew or imagined there was inside me, one who’s not trying to be her dad or her grandma. I’m turning into Chloe Smith Fontanna, a woman all her own. A woman who loves a man, who loves our child. More than life or anything else in it.
“I love you so damn much, Chloe. And I’m bursting to love our baby,” he says. Then he wipes the tears from my eyes, smiling, and I see the glisten in his eyes too.
“We’re a pair,” I say, weepy.
“Soon to be a trio.” He guns the gas to get us to the hospital on time.
# The End #
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