29. Chuck
29
CHUCK
I whistle through my teeth as I get back to work, the warm spring air dancing around my bare chest—it’s a bright enough day that working in the garden calls for me to be stripped to the waist to avoid overheating. Oh, and I also happen to enjoy the way Charli steals glances at me out of the corner of her eye when she thinks I’m not looking.
Now that it’s starting to get closer to summer, I’m planting up everything I can to get ahead of schedule. I want to make sure we have a healthy crop this year, since we’ve got a new member of the family to feed. Of course, Charli has been insistent on pulling her weight here, telling me that she doesn’t want to sit around on her butt and do nothing while the rest of us are working overtime to get everything done. No matter how many times I tell her that I’m perfectly fine with her ass, provided it’s close to me, she wants to help, and I’m not going to argue with some assistance around the garden.
She’s in the greenhouse, and I’m just finishing up another set of tomato plants along the outside edge—it’s meant to be particularly warm this year, so growing them isn’t going to be too hard. She’s already suggested turning some of them into jams and conserves. Not something I know a whole lot about, but I’m willing to learn from her, just as she seems willing to learn from me.
“Hey, you need a hand?” Dax calls to me from inside the house. I shake my head.
“Nah, we’re all good,” I reply, shooting a look over to the greenhouse, where Charli is still working. But as soon as I see her, my heart drops—something’s wrong. I can tell at a glance.
She’s leaning heavily over one of the plant pots, her face pale, and she looks as though she’s about to pass out at any moment. I rush over toward the door and throw it open, concern pulsing through my system.
“Charli? You okay?”
She doesn’t look up at me. Her eyes seem bleary, a little distant—I can tell something’s seriously off.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she mumbles. “Just a little, uh…”
But before she can finish what she’s saying, she stumbles, and I rush forward to pull her into my arms.
“Hey, hey, you’re alright,” I promise her, smoothing down her hair. “Did you have one of the flashbacks again?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” she replies, her voice shaky. “I’m just…I don’t feel right.”
“Don’t feel right how?”
“Like I’m too tired to stay on my feet,” she explains as best she can. I can hear how distant she is, her voice laced with discomfort, and I pull her against me firmly.
“You need to come sit down.”
“No, let me carry on, I’m so close to being done…”
“No way,” I tell her firmly. “Into the house. Now. You need something to drink, something to eat. You can’t stay out here in this heat and not expect it to hit you…”
I finally convince her to come inside once more, and Dax is waiting there, concerned, when she steps in.
“What’s going on?”
“I just got a little dizzy,” she mumbles, and she sinks down into the couch. Callum goes to grab her something to eat, but when he returns with some dried mango, she twists her head away and clamps her hand over her mouth.
“No, no way,” she protests. “That smells disgusting. Can’t you tell how off that is?”
We all exchange a glance.
“Charli, it smells fine to me,” I reply, and I reach up to rest a hand on her hand. She feels warm, a little clammy, but my instincts are telling me that there’s something going on here that shouldn’t be.
“We need to get you to the doctor,” I tell her firmly, and she groans.
“No, no, please, I really don’t need all of that. I’m okay. Maybe I just need to get some sleep, or?—”
“Not a chance,” I tell her, leaving no room for argument. “Something’s up. Dax, pull the car around. Callum, help me get Charli out there. I’ll call the doctor on the way, he’ll be able to fit us in…”
Despite her protests, eventually she seems to concede that she needs help, and she allows us to get her to the truck and toward Killinsbury a few miles away. She sits in the back of the truck with me the whole time, clinging to my hand tightly as though she might shoot off into space if she doesn’t do everything she can to keep herself pinned to the earth.
“You’re going to be fine,” I tell her softly as we pull the truck up outside the doctor. He argued about not having room for her today, but after a firm talking-to from me, he changed his mind and figured he could squeeze her in for a quick exam.
I help Charli out of the truck. She’s still a little shaky, but she leans on me, hanging on to my arm. Dax walks behind her, his hand on the small of her back. I know he’s grown closer to her these past few weeks, since they’ve been attending therapy. I didn’t think there was a damn person on earth who could convince my stick-in-the-mud brother that therapy was the right call for him, but damn if she wasn’t able to do it—and he’s been managing a lot better in the meantime. He still has a long way to go until he’s totally better, if that ever comes at all, but at least he’s on the path to it.
Inside, we’re hurried toward the exam room when the receptionist sees how wobbly on her feet Charli is. The doctor arrives a few minutes later, and I quickly run down the symptoms that brought us here as Charli sinks onto the exam table, her face pale and her eyes distant.
“I’m going to run some blood tests,” he replies with a nod. “Could be a deficiency that came out because of the hot weather. Stay here, I’m going to call in my tech…”
She screws her face up and draws her gaze away from the needle as he takes the blood, and when he goes out to run the tests, she glances up at the three of us.
“It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?” she asks quietly. I don’t see her scared much, not these days—but there’s a flash of terror in her eyes, as though she can see all of this slipping away from her.
“Of course it is,” I assure her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her tight against my chest. I know how she feels. The thought of losing any of this, any of this life that has started to fall into place for all of us, it hurts. I can’t stand the thought of it. And I won’t let anything take her from me. I don’t care what we’re up against, it’s not going to take this woman away from me…
Tense silence fills the room while we wait for the results, and when the doctor steps through the door, there’s a smile on his face.
“Well, I’m glad to reassure you that nothing serious is going on,” he replies. “Just some low blood pressure and tiredness. You and the baby are fine, Charli.”
The world freezes for a moment. The words hang there. Baby. And the baby. Charli’s eyes nearly bug out of her head as he speaks, her voice trembling as she asks for some explanation.
“The…the baby? What are you talking about?”
He frowns, glancing between us—I wonder who he thinks is her partner here. Me, probably, though he has no idea that it’s actually all of us.
“You’re pregnant,” he replies. “Did you not…did you not know…?”
She stares at him. I can feel her trembling beneath my grip, clearly unsure what to make of this revelation. My own head is spinning, my ears ringing, and I’m sure Dax and Callum are in the exact same place too. A baby…a fucking baby…
“I’ll give you a moment,” he replies. “Let me get a test from our pharmacy…perhaps I…”
He continues to mutter as he rushes out, leaving the four of us alone in the room together, trying to make sense of whatever the hell just happened.
“Did he say…did he say that you’re pregnant?” Dax asks finally, breaking the quiet hanging in the air between us.
“Yeah,” Charli whispers. “Yeah, I think he did.”
“Is he right?” Callum demands, beginning to pace. “I mean, they can make mistakes with these kinds of things?—”
“No, he’s right,” she replies, shaking her head. “I haven’t had a period in a couple of months. I guess I just didn’t think anything of it, what with the stress that’s been going down, and I…fuck, I don’t know. I didn’t…”
She trails off again. She’s in total shock, that much is obvious. Dax takes her hand and squeezes it tight, but he doesn’t say anything.
She looks up at me, her eyes glimmering with tears.
“I didn’t want to ruin everything,” she whispers. “But…”
“What the hell makes you think that this has ruined everything?” Callum cuts in sharply, his gaze narrowing almost angrily as it lands on her. She looks over at him, her eyebrows raised.
“I mean…having a baby, it’s not what any of us planned…”
“Yeah, and we didn’t plan to have you crash into our lives the way you did either,” he points out. “But it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Who’s to say that this baby won’t be the same?”
I nod. As shocked as I am, there’s nothing I want more than for her to be happy. Nothing will convince me that she’s not meant to be here with me—that she’s not meant to fill out our family, our cabin, our lives. And if that means adding another member to our family…shit, maybe it was meant to be.
“But…but we don’t even know who the father is!” she protests, as though she’s groping around for some reason this is a terrible idea.
“Does that matter?” Dax remarks with a shrug. “I don’t care who actually—I mean, it doesn’t matter to me who got you pregnant. Our DNA is the same anyway, it doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“Me neither,” I echo.
“Me three,” Callum agrees. “I don’t see why that would be a problem.”
She falls silent, still searching for some way to make a problem out of this. But she knows, even as she sits there before us, that she’s not going to find it. Even though this clearly comes as a shock, all of us are ready to step up and do the right thing, to become a father to this child.
“So, what…?” she begins, chewing on her lip. “We go back to the cabin, we raise this child together, we…we start a family? Three dads, one mom, and a baby?”
Callum cocks an eyebrow. “You know, that sounds pretty good to me,” he replies. “I’ve always wanted kids.”
“Me too,” Dax adds, surprising me. I’ve never thought of him as the paternal type, but clearly, the time he’s been spending in therapy has unlocked something in him that he didn’t even know about himself before.
“Yeah, I can see it,” I agree. “Teaching them to garden, to read, to cook…”
“Running them down to school in town when they’re old enough,” Dax remarks. “We could take turns doing the school run.”
“The school run,” she laughs, and she closes her eyes for a moment, a tear leaking down her cheek.
“What? What are you crying about?” Dax asks with concern, and she shakes her head.
“I’m sorry, I’m not—I’m not sad,” she assures him quickly. “I’m just…I never thought I would get to do something as normal as a school run. It—for so long, my life felt like it was totally out of my control, and now…”
She looks between us, her voice hitching in the back of her throat before she continues.
“Here the three of you are, telling me that you want to help me raise a child. And it’s…it’s a shock.”
“The good kind of shock?” Callum asks with concern, and she laughs, wipes away her tears, and then nods.
“God, yes,” she replies. “The best kind of shock. I mean, it’s going to take some getting used to, the idea that I’m going to have a baby, but…”
She gazes down at her stomach and rests her hands there for a moment, as though cradling the little unborn child within.
“But I want this,” she murmurs. “I want it with all of you. And I want this baby’s life to be filled with so much love that they don’t know what to do with all of it.”
“And it will be,” I promise her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and squeezing her in close. “It will be, Charli.”
“We’re going to have to build an extension onto the cabin,” Dax muses.
“Does that mean I’ll finally get my own room?” she asks, with a slightly shaky laugh.
“Hey, and make me miss out on sleeping next to you every night? Not likely,” Callum protests, kissing her. Just as his lips meet hers, the doctor returns, and he pulls back swiftly, clearing his throat. God knows that we don’t need any questions about what’s going on between us—that cabin has been a welcome respite from all the demands that normal society would have on us, and none of us are particularly interested in the scrutiny about our nontraditional relationship.
“I brought another test, if you’d like to take it,” the doctor tells her, proffering her a small plastic strip.
“Sure,” she replies, still a little shaky, but able to reach out and take the test from him. “I’ll take this. Maybe we could…uh, have a talk about what comes next, if it comes back positive?”
“I think that’s a great idea,” he replies, glancing between the three of us. “And maybe you gentlemen could wait outside…well, apart from the father?—”
“I think we’re going to stay,” I tell him firmly. He raises his eyebrows slightly, and I’m sure he’s got all kinds of questions for us—but he doesn’t have the nerve to ask a single one, much to my relief.
“Alright, well,” he mutters, backing toward the door. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it.”
“I suppose you will,” I reply. And with that, he heads outside, leaving all four of us alone together once more. None of us could have guessed that this was the direction this day was going to take. But now that we know? It feels as though everything has fallen into place.
As though everything is exactly as it should be, even if it’s not how any of us could ever have predicted.
But hasn’t that just been the story of our lives, since Charli came into them?