Chapter 27 Gabi
GABI
Maddox
I miss you.
The sound of Maddox’s text pulls me from my deep concentration as I’m about to add a peanut butter drizzle over a batch of chocolate peanut butter brownies. I’ve never had them on the menu until today and that’s only because I was craving them.
Owning a bakery and having massive pregnancy cravings is a win-win situation if there ever was one.
Gabi
You’ve been at camp for four hours.
I still miss you.
You realize that if it were this time last week, you’d have not seen me for the same amount of time?
And I missed you then too.
You’re too much.
You love me.
I do. Wait. I didn’t think I was going to get to talk to you until tonight?
We’re finishing up lunch. I only have a few minutes before I have to go back to playing football. Blah.
Don’t pretend you aren’t having a blast. You were a kid skipping out of the apartment today on his first day of school.
You’re right. I am. There’s an energy here today. Everyone came to camp in amazing shape and ready to go. I can’t describe it. And it’s not because we won last year. It’s something different. I have a good feeling about this year.
I love that for you. And the Fury.
Thanks. Doesn’t hurt knowing that you’re going to be in the stands this year.
Pregnant as hell scarfing down nachos.
So fucking hot.
Go back to playing football with your friends. Be safe. Love you.
Love you too.
The smile on my face is ear to ear as I set down the phone, doing my best to try and get comfortable on the stool that I now use every day when I bake.
I mean, what’s there not to smile about?
My pregnancy has been as smooth as it can be, despite the early sickness I felt in the first trimester.
We have the keys to the new house and move in is going to happen once Maddox gets back from camp.
And the best news that I didn’t think I’d be as excited about but I am?
Beau forcing me to hire that second baker.
Josie—a.k.a. my angel—has become my godsend.
Not just for her baking skills. But because she asked to work the four a.m. shift.
I love her almost as much as I love Maddox and these brownies.
“What’s the pregnancy craving of the day?” Josie asks as she tosses her apron into the laundry hamper I keep near the office. “Oh! Brownies!”
“Not just any brownies,” I say, holding up my piping bag so I can give her a little taste of the drizzle. “Chocolate peanut butter brownies.”
She takes a lick of the peanut butter sauce off her finger and the sound she makes is one I hope all women in their lifetime make—but not from brownies. “Those are fucking amazing.”
“Why thank you,” I say as I set them aside. “You taking off?”
“If that’s okay?” she asks. “I’d like to run a few errands before school pickup.”
“Absolutely,” I say as I wave her away. “And you’re one thousand percent, absolutely sure, you’re good with coming in at four each weekday?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s the best schedule I could ask for,” she says as she digs for her keys out of her massive purse.
How she doesn’t lose them in there I have no idea.
“It helps me get my eight-year-old to bed at a decent hour, especially with summer coming to an end. And since I live with my mom, I won’t feel guilty about not being there for the mornings and I’m back in plenty of time to pick him up. It’s wins all around.”
“I’m glad,” I say as one of my favorite songs of all time comes on over the Bluetooth speaker.
That’s the other great thing about Josie—we share the same musical tastes.
She might be a few years younger than me, but it’s nice to have someone who appreciates my millennial music.
It makes for fun mornings when I get in around nine and we have a few hours baking away together. “Again, I know I’ve thanked you—”
She holds up a hand. “I should be thanking you. Seriously. I was suffering at my last job waiting tables. The schedule sucked and the money was worse. Being able to do a job I love and not feel like I’m the worst mom in the world? It’s more than I could ever ask for.”
“Damnit Josie,” I say, wiping a tear away. “You know I’m not stable enough for words like that.”
“Sorry boss,” she says, walking behind me and giving me a small hug. “I’ll leave now so you can stop crying.”
“I appreciate it.”
I turn my attention back to the brownies, which are ready to be cut and plated, as another one of my favorite songs comes on.
My playlist isn’t missing today. Before I realize what I’m doing, I hear myself singing along.
Not loud. The walls aren’t that thick and I’d hate to interrupt anyone’s experience with my renditions of 2000s pop ballads.
But how loudly I’m singing isn’t the point. It’s that I am.
Because I’m happy. Happier than maybe I’ve ever been in my life.
I stand up to get a better angle to slice into the brownies when my phone vibrates on the counter.
I forgot to ask you! Can you take a video of Phyllis and Kitty when they come in today? Especially if they’re extra spicy. A few of the guys don’t believe they exist.
You’re talking to your teammates about Phyllis and Kitty?
Of course! And you and the bakery and Josie and the rest of the workers. I’m telling them everything.
Why?
Because I love you. And the bakery is part of you. And I want everyone to know about it.
I think I’d be crying now even if I wasn’t overly hormonal.
How did I get so lucky? How did I go from a man who practically hid me away from the world to a man who’s shouting about me from the rooftops?
I love you. So much.
Not nearly as much as I love you.
“How was practice?”
The moan Maddox lets out could be confused for another kind of moan if I didn’t know what he went through today. Add in the wince on his face and I can tell it was a rough day. “It’s days like this when I question why I chose this career.”
“Because you love the game?”
“Yeah… there’s that.”
I laugh as I sit back against the headboard of our bed, ready to shut my eyes the second Maddox and I hang up from our nightly FaceTime.
He’s been at camp now for almost two weeks, and this part of the night is always my favorite.
After their nightly position meetings and dinner, Maddox heads back to his room so we can have a few minutes of phone time, just the two of us.
Even though the call usually comes around eight, I’m always a few minutes from falling asleep, my body tired from the day and carrying around a baby that’s somehow on the weight track to be a lineman rather than a safety like his dad.
“But you said it wasn’t full contact, right? ”
“It’s not, but that first day a player hits you, even in the controlled setting we’re in, it always reminds your body of what it hasn’t been feeling for the past six months, and what you’re about to feel for the next six.”
“I can’t imagine,” I say as the baby decides to kick me with his full weight. “Then again, I feel like I was tackled from the inside by your son, so maybe I can.”
“Just like his daddy.”
I shake my head with a smile. “Do you know one thing we haven’t done yet? Or maybe you have and you haven’t shared the notebook with me yet?”
A terrified look comes across his face. “What did I forget?”
“You didn’t forget anything,” I say, trying to reassure him. “I was thinking that we’ve never talked about names.”
He lets out a breath, but he’s still slowly blinking. “Are you trying to remember if you have a spare notebook to start jotting down names in?”
My observation takes him back a bit. “How did you know?”
I shrug. “You’re not the only one who notices things Gallagher.”
Maddox is the king of noticing the little things.
And not just noticing, but then acting on it.
He never asked what my favorite soda was.
He’s never asks what my current cravings are, yet I’m always supplied with whatever it is.
So getting a chance to do this for him, to show him a little of what I feel every time he does it, hits me square in the heart.
“I did have a spare, but then I used it today. And you know I can’t mix football notebooks and baby notebooks.”
“Of course you can’t,” I say. “But did you find the one that’s in the front of your suitcase?”
This takes him aback. “The front of my suitcase?”
I smile as I slide down into my bed, needing to take the pressure off my lower back. “Go check.”
He carries the phone with him as he walks across his room. I hear him open the zipper and I’m so glad he kept the phone to his face, because his reaction is priceless.
His face is lit up like a kid on Christmas Day. His eyes are wide and his jaw is dropped.
“You got me notebooks?”
The little hitch in his voice gets me a little choked up. “Surprise.”
“When did you do this?”
“I slid them in when I left for the bakery the morning you left,” I say as I grab my best friend—also known as my pregnancy pillow. “I know you had some, but I thought you might need a few extra.”
“Gabi.” His voice is in awe as he opens the first one. “Wait. Did you…”
“Read it.”
He looks up to me, then back to the inscription, tears pooling in his eyes:
Number #35 on the roster.
Number one in our hearts.
Love, Gabrielle and Tiny Tot
“Gabi… I don’t know what to say… thank you.”
“I know it’s cheesy,” I feel myself quickly saying, but Maddox cuts me off before I can finish the thought.
“It’s perfect. You’re perfect. I love them. Thank you.”
I let his words run through me, hating that even after all these months of healing, from time to time I fall back into habits. But that’s the process, right? As long as it’s two steps forward, and only a step back every once in a while, you chalk that up as a win.
“You’re welcome.” I say, but a yawn follows right behind.
“Get some sleep,” Maddox directs.
“No I’m good.”
The second yawn I let out says otherwise.
“Get some sleep. Plus, I have a long night of notebook filling to do.”
“No weird names. And I’m not naming him Maddox Junior.”