Chapter 31
THIRTY ONE
DARCY
The car was dinging, alerting me to the door being open. I moved a hand to close it, but found cool, unfamiliar plastic in its place, which is when I remembered that it couldn’t be the car door. The truck had hit me in the side, lodging it closed.
The beeping persisted rhythmically, and I fought against heavy lids to open my eyes.
All I could see for a handful of seconds was white—my first thought that I died and somehow made it to heaven.
God must really not check your Kindle history.
But then the room came into focus, and I remembered more.
I was in the hospital.
I’d gotten into a car crash.
They’d transported me to the hospital.
I needed an emergency C-section.
My baby.
Frantically surveying the room, my gaze landed on Archer. He was here, sitting in the corner of the room, arms resting on his knees, as he stared at the floor.
My mouth was dry, my lips peeling apart somewhat painfully as I went to speak. “Archer?”
His head snapped up, green eyes crashing into mine. Then he was moving across the room to my side, hands reaching out like he was going to pull me into a hug before he thought twice about it.
I shifted into a sitting position, wincing as I did. Everything hurt. Not in a broken way, but in a way that confirmed the wreck hadn’t been a nightmare.
“Are you okay? What can I do?” Exhaustion had given him dark circles, and my chest throbbed at the barely-concealed concern in his eyes.
“Where’s our baby?” I demanded softly.
Archer brushed a hand over my head, careful to avoid the cut on my temple. “He’s okay. He’s upstairs in the NICU.”
I sucked in a breath of air, then began sobbing in earnest. “He? It’s a boy?”
Archer nodded, a smile curving his lips. “Yeah. It’s a boy. Doctor Ambrose says he’s doing great. He’s got your nose.”
“You saw him?” My voice cracked, my heart beating too vigorously in my chest.
His face fell slightly, as he misinterpreted my question. “Is that okay? I figured you wouldn’t want him to be alone, and I—”
“Archer, stop. He’s your son too. I’m glad you saw him.” I smiled, reaching out to hold his hand.
Resting his forehead against mine, he took a shaky breath, one that carried far too much panic in it. “I was so scared, Darcy. You have no idea.” His voice broke. “We got on the scene, and I saw your car, and I–I–I just . . . I was so sure I lost you. Lost both of you.”
My heart broke at the raw pain etched into his face, into his tone. I couldn’t imagine how he felt, with what he went through with his mom, and then showing up to my accident. He must’ve been in a full blown panic. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. We’re both here.”
He pulled away, watery eyes scanning my face.
“I love you. I should’ve told you sooner, but I’ve never said that to anyone, but then I thought you might be dying or already dead and I never told you.
I love you, Darcy, with every broken piece of me.
And if you’ll let me, I promise I won’t let another day go by without me telling you, without me showing you exactly how much. ”
Was it weird that I could feel the change in the way my heart pounded? Before it’d been racing out of worry for my baby, but now it was thrashing in my chest because this man, this beautifully broken, good man, was telling me he loved me. “I love you too.”
He lowered his head back to mine and brushed a barely-there kiss across my forehead, as if any amount of pressure would break me.
Then he lifted his head. “I used your phone to call your sister. She and your mom are on their way here. I’m sorry I didn’t contact them sooner.
I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He still seemed shaken up even though I was right there in front of him, alive.
“It’s okay, Arch. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Garrett and your dad should be getting on a plane as we speak.”
I rolled my eyes, but not out of annoyance. It was such a classic Adler move. Of course they dropped everything and boarded the first available plane as if I’d gotten hit by a semi-truck and not a pickup.
He placed another kiss on my forehead, lingering for so long I’d wondered if the exhaustion had finally caught up to him, but then he pulled away. “Let me go get a nurse. Then maybe you can meet our son.”
I watched him stride out of the door and disappear into the hallway, and then I let my head fall back against the pillow.
We had a son.
***
Our son was perfect.
An hour after the doctor had come in to check on me, and after I kindly kicked my overbearing sister and mother out of my room, I was in a rocking chair, holding and admiring the baby that was inside me not even six hours ago.
I was mesmerized, unable to look at anything other than his cheek smushed up against my chest. It took some arranging with all his tubes and wires, but when the nurse said he was stable enough to be held, I cried.
I hadn’t stopped yet, despite the grin on my face.
Archer stood behind me, peering over my shoulder at the same face we’d been staring at for thirty minutes now. “Have you thought about what you’re going to name him?”
I laughed gently, glancing up at him. “What I’m going to name him? You don’t want a say?”
“I want as much as you’re willing to give me. I want all of you—of both of you.”
Smirking, I looked back down at where our son slept peacefully. “Good. So what were you thinking?”
I felt Archer shrug, as he squatted down beside me. “I wasn’t. I mean, I was so sure he was going to be a girl, I never thought about boy names.”
It was such an Archer thing to say, and I couldn’t say I was surprised. He’d spent the last two months talking about the baby, so sure of his prediction, it was almost as if he’d done a gender test.
We fell into a contemplative silence, and I tried to wrack my brain for the names I’d tossed around throughout pregnancy, but none of them seemed fitting now.
I spent so long thinking about names that I could almost feel the concussion the doctor had talked about, which had me thinking about the accident, and then his name came to me.
“What about Casey?”
Archer stilled beside me, and I turned to make sure he was still breathing.
“That was my mom’s name.”
I offered him a soft smile. “I know, you mentioned it a while back.”
“You don’t have to do that.” He shook his head.
“I know, but I want to. Who knows? What if she’s the reason he and I are here right now?” Looking back at our son, my smile widened. “Casey Jackson Mack.”
Archer reached a hand out and gently stroked the top of his head. “Casey.”
***
Turns out, Casey was every bit as stubborn as his father and me. He spent the following six-and-a-half weeks in the NICU, waiting for his lungs and digestive system to catch up to the rest of him, but he was a fighter through and through.
The hardest part was the day I got discharged, but he didn’t.
We didn’t get to go home one happy family, but Archer and I were back at the hospital every day watching him grow and hit the doctors’ milestones they wanted him to achieve.
He was able to get his feeding tube removed fairly early into his stay, taking bottles like it was his job, and after a while on the steroid they had him on, his lungs developed enough that he could come off the oxygen as well.
In short, Casey was amazing, and we were obsessed.
It was the last week in April when we got to take him home, and it felt like I was finally being allowed to pick up a piece of my heart. The sun was shining, we were picking up our son, and Archer was doing the hot dad walk out of the hospital.
I pulled my phone out, trailing slightly behind him and Casey so I could video it. I’d gotten a good five seconds when Archer looked back at me.
“What are you doing?”
I laughed and ran to catch up to my boys. “Shayna said I had to video the walk so I could watch it again whenever I wanted to.”
“The walk?”
Shaking my head, I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
Once we were in the elevator, I bent down to peek at Casey who was looking around taking everything in. How strange it must be to spend the first two months of your life never leaving the same room.
“Ready to go home, bubbas?” I cooed, tucking his blanket in around him. When he didn’t cry, I took that as a yes.
I turned to Archer. “Ready for day one of official parenthood?” The first couple of weeks being home without Casey were hard.
It felt like we were being robbed of his beginning, of our beginning as parents, and that was a tough pill to swallow.
There were a lot of tears, but eventually we came to terms with it.
Our start on the journey to being parents might’ve been different than the typical story, but it made us that much more appreciative of it all.
We weren’t going to miss a single moment.
He smiled down at me. “More than ready.”
In the parking lot, we loaded Casey into the new blue Jetta I’d bought with the insurance payout from my old one, Archer triple checking the base was installed correctly before clicking the carrier into it.
Climbing into the back seat next to Casey, I let Archer drive us home.
It wasn’t that I was scared to drive, I’d driven plenty since the accident, but in the wake of everything that had happened to us all, Archer coped better if he had more control over situations.
I hadn’t noticed when Archer drove past my street, too consumed by the little human quietly snoring in the car seat next to me to pay attention. It wasn’t until we pulled into his driveway twenty minutes later that I realized we weren’t at my apartment.
“Uh, Archer? Wrong house, hun.”
His eyes met mine through the rearview mirror. “I know, I thought maybe we could come here first so I could grab some stuff.”
My eyebrows scrunched together skeptically. “I thought you already packed a bag to stay at my house for a couple of days.”
“I did, but I realized I forgot a few things.” He exited the vehicle, then opened the back door, and pulled Casey out. I took that as my sign to get out too, still very confused.
“You didn’t want us to wait in the car?” I made sure my tone was light, so he’d know I didn’t actually care.
“Nah.” He opened the front door and motioned me to walk through. “It’s going to be a minute or two. Plus, he’s probably due to eat soon, and my couch would be more comfortable than the car to give him a bottle.”
“True,” I conceded.
Archer set Casey’s carrier on the floor in the dining room, then turned back to me, dropping a kiss on my forehead. “I’ll be quick.”
I smiled. “No rush.”
With that, Archer dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, while I unfastened Casey from the car seat. He made a soft mewling sound against my chest as he scrunched his legs up underneath him.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, grabbing a bottle from the diaper bag and heading into the kitchen. The way I prepared a bottle with one hand while holding a baby in the other felt award worthy, but I’d settle for Casey’s contented sighs as he ate.
He had just about finished eating when Archer called down from upstairs. “Hey, can I get your help for a second?”
“Want to go help Dada?” I sing-songed, as I rose from the couch and headed up the stairs.
Archer was in his bedroom, searching around in his dresser when I poked my head in. “What do you need help with?”
“Can you check the guest room to see if I left my gray sweatshirt in there?” he asked, giving up on the dresser and moving to the closest. It wasn’t like him to misplace anything, not with how immaculate he kept everything, but then again, our brains had been pretty occupied the last couple of weeks.
“We sure can.” The response was for Archer, but came out in the high pitch I reserved for talking to Casey.
Padding down the hallway, I pushed open the door to the guest room, and stopped dead in my tracks.
I gasped. “Oh my . . .”
The guest room was that in title only because at some point, and I had zero clue when or how, he converted it into a nursery.
The walls were the same shade of green as the nursery back at my apartment, and as I spun slowly in the middle of the room, taking it all in, I realized he’d gotten everything I had put on the baby registry.
The crib, the dresser, even the reclining glider I’d been obsessing over since I started shopping for furniture.
It was all here, assembled, and in place.
Of course, Archer had put his own spin on the room too.
Cream curtains hung from rods with little fire hydrants at the ends, and the bookshelf in the corner was the same natural wood as the crib, but shaped like a firetruck.
It was tacky in the cutest way possible, and I loved it.
By the time I’d done a full three-sixty around the room, Archer was standing in the doorway, watching me intently.
Rapidly blinking against the burning sensation in my eyes, I shook my head and beamed. “How? When?”
He smiled and closed the distance between us. “I had some help from Harrison, and Linnea. We started the day after you got discharged from the hospital. It really wasn’t all that much work.”
I stepped toward him, and he wrapped his arms loosely around my waist, holding me without squishing our son. “You did all of this for him?”
“I did all of it for both of you.” Archer regarded me with an intense sincerity that had me holding my breath.
“I want you two here with me. Not just some of the time either. I want to go to work and come home to the two of you making breakfast in the kitchen. I want to be here for his first laugh and his first steps. I want to be with you for real. I want us to be a family.”
I swallowed hard against all the emotion in my throat. “Are you asking us to move in with you?”
He chuckled. “I kind of thought that was obvious from the room and the whole ‘I want you’ speech.”
Smirking, I rose up onto my tiptoes and brushed my lips against his lightly. “It was. I just wanted to hear you say it.”
Archer’s hands found my hips and gave them a firm squeeze. “Brat.” Then his mouth descended on mine, claiming and consuming me with a ferocity that had my toes curling. “Move in with me.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the nursery—the fuzzy blanket draped over the back of the recliner, the crib sheets that matched the walls, the basket already holding diapers on top of the dresser, and smiled. “Yes.”