Chapter 34 – Damara
December, Three Days After I Gave Birth
Of course my dramatic ass offspring had to arrive on Christmas Day.
Magnum brought me ham and sweet potato pie in the hospital, but spending all of Christmas Day pushing out a baby is not what I thought Santa would send down the chimney for me.
When our baby got here though, it was like the hate in my heart from pushing so hard melted away and I just felt…
love like I never felt before. It was serious.
Strong. I felt like I would kill just to protect the innocent creature I was holding onto.
There was this rush of emotion I felt, like I could never imagine hurting a child and was suddenly able to sympathize with the little girl version of myself that so many people had thoughtlessly hurt.
I knew I wouldn’t put that out into the world.
I couldn’t. Magnum and I argued a little about her name, but in the end we agreed: Noelle Sinclair.
She’s the best Christmas gift I ever got in my entire life.
Even if she bites down so hard on my nipples to feed that I bleed everywhere.
Nobody warned me about that part of things and researching all that birth stuff scared the crap out of me.
I’d put it so far out of my head throughout my life that I almost felt like the research would curse me.
It would have helped to have some Aquaphor on hand before Noelle’s more violent feedings…
Her crying wakes me up out of my first connected forty-five minutes of sleep since I brought her home.
I know it’s wrong for me to think, but in the depths of my exhaustion, I sometimes wish that I had the strength to sleep through her cries just a little bit longer.
I feel like a zombie. By the time I get to her crib in the corner of our bedroom, I stub my toe against something gigantic.
“Ow!”
“Sorry,” Magnum grunts. “I got her.”
“How did you get over there?”
He sleeps less than I do, which he doesn’t have to, but his attentiveness to Noelle borders on psychopathic.
“Walked,” Magnum whispers, somehow finding me perfectly in the dark and kissing the top of my head. I can smell Noelle’s baby smell as she gets closer to me and I reach to hold her. Magnum gives her over to me reluctantly. We both always want to be the ones holding her.
“Is she hungry?” I ask.
“No,” Magnum mutters. “Shit herself.”
I’m surprised I didn’t smell it sooner. It must be the sleep deprivation or the fact that her previous dump singed the hairs on my nostrils. Fuck.
“I’ve got it,” Magnum says, taking her from me with ease.
“You did the last one.”
He gets stern. “You pushed her out and you need sleep. I can change my daughter.”
See what I mean about his protective urges? I know I only want to start a fight over it because I’m tired. So instead of saying something mean or stinging, I bite my tongue and mutter, “Thanks. I love you, babe.”
“I love you too,” he says. “Now get some sleep. Please.”
Again, I’m way too tired to argue. I nod and don’t even remember how I get from my spot near the crib back into bed again. I wake up a couple hours later to hear Magnum on the phone with someone, sitting at the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know why you feel the need to come here,” he says. “We have a newborn, Isaac.”
Isaac. Sinclair? That’s not a name I’ve heard in a while. I shift slowly and try to go back to sleep, but Magnum’s conversation wakes me up, especially because I can only hear his end of things.
“Yes. I understand and trust me, I want my money too.”
…
“With the kids?”
I roll myself out of bed and stumble to the bathroom, pretending that I’m not just doing it to overhear Magnum’s conversation with his cousin.
Luckily, I have the very real need to pee going on, even if I thought my bladder would relax once the baby came.
Peeing has also been a process involving a lot of these weird postpartum diapers, so I guess I have an excuse to listen up.
“I’ll explain the situation to Damara.”
Okay, he used my name. I officially have the right to listen in on this. Magnum knocks on the door right as I’m sliding my sweatpants back up.
“Are you still busy in there with these childbirth panties?” he asks, implying that I might need help with them, which I have already threatened to smack him over before.
“I’m fine,” I respond to him, hurrying over to the door before Magnum gets all overprotective and breaks it down. He sighs and leans on the door frame with a mixture of relief and deep concern for his safety when we make eye contact.
“I have good news and bad news,” he says. “And please… don’t hit me.”
“I haven’t done that in a while,” I mutter defensively. I don’t know why this white boy stays bringing up old shit, but I have been trying out this new emotionally mature rule where I don’t start arguments when I’m tired. It’s common sense anyway to only fight a man when you have energy.
“Okay,” Magnum says. “Come out here. Noelle is fast asleep, we can sneak out.”
“You’re lucky that phone call didn’t wake her up.”
Magnum grunts. “We’re all too tired to think.”
I can’t argue with that. We sit down in our living room together and Magnum brings me a much needed mug of hot coffee so I can stare into our electric fireplace and watch the sun coming up over the horizon through the window behind it.
We moved to a home based off of the winning house from Season 5 of HGTV’s Rock The Block because I added that seemingly impossible task to Magnum’s “Relationship To-Do List” and he wanted to start off on the right foot.
Our house isn’t in Colorado, we still live just outside of Santa Fe where Magnum owns most of his properties in one of those giant suburban subdivisions far away from any drama.
I love mornings here. But I don’t know how I feel about Magnum’s pending news. If he’s afraid I’ll hit him… maybe I should have figured out how to tap his phone. I’m sure Tamiya has access to that type of technology by now.
“Isaac and Tylee are getting a divorce,” he says, sitting down from me with a look on his face like a dog with an upset stomach. I didn’t know he was that much of a hopeless romantic.
“He seemed like a ride or die for her,” I say softly, more focused on getting the next sip of coffee into my mouth, despite my general interest in biker drama. The newborn exhaustion was too real.
“Tylee flew off the handle at him over the money, then she threatened to kill herself and all the kids so… Hunter and Wyatt took that pretty seriously.”
“Sounds like she’s having a mental breakdown.”
“They’re both no good for each other,” Magnum says. “Never have been. Just because you’ve grown up around the same type of people your whole life, doesn’t mean that’s who helps you to grow. Know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Like… Just because all I’ve known is loud women who run my pockets without knowing how to cook, clean or fuck doesn’t mean I have to settle.”
“First of all, I’m loud and I run your pockets.”
“Yeah,” Magnum says, leaning over to kiss my neck. “But I like the way you fuck and fight with me. I would have done anything to make you my baby mama without Tylee’s fucked up scheme.”
He kisses my neck again and I can feel myself getting distracted.
Considering how long it’s been for both of us, I can easily see myself losing control and fucking Magnum right here on the couch.
The thrill from my neck goes straight between my legs and I squirm with frustration as I suppress my desire to rip his clothes off.
“We have to focus, Magnum,” I say with the most pathetically strained voice I’ve ever heard. Magnum groans, but he knows I’m right. And we have somehow both become mature enough not to rip each other’s clothes off without a care in the world for what happens next.
Magnum doesn’t care about anything other than kissing me right now, but he does the mature thing for both of us and thankfully pulls away so we can discuss this like adults.
“Can a biker gang divorce end without division and bloodshed?” I ask, putting out all my fears right there on the table. Magnum promises he’ll do whatever I ask him, right? If there’s even going to be a whiff of the drama I want to leave behind, I’m ready to go on the run again.
“This one might not,” Magnum says honestly. “Isaac wants to stay here and lay low and he makes some good points. Plus… he can work off his debt.”
“Can’t you just write it off?”
Magnum’s face hardens like a real gangster who doesn’t play about his money.
I hate how it turns me on a little bit, because I really need to be focused on us not getting a divorced white male in his forties.
No offense, but that demographic can be a little questionable around firearms and we have a baby.
“I start writing off debt, people start walking all over me. Remember that trip to Croatia you’ve been planning. No more yacht charter, because I let a gambler play games with my money. I wouldn’t be keeping my family safe if I did that.”
“Okay, baby. Fine. But we have to let him move in with us?”
“If we do that, we don’t have to take any of the kids.”
“Why can’t the kids be with them?”
“Wyatt said they were using the kids as pawns, so they’ll be going to Hunter and Ryder.”
Better them than me. We won’t have to drop Isaac off at school or pack daily lunches or anything. This might be the best outcome after all but I don’t want to let Magnum off the hook that easily.
“What if the man is a nightmare?”
“He won’t be. Truth be told, Isaac is the type of idiot who married the first girl he ever saw. There’s a big, beautiful, diverse world of women… Maybe he would be better suited to one of them.”
“As long as he doesn’t turn our house with a baby into a brothel because he hasn’t been single since Obama was in office.”
And don’t we all wish that’s where he still was…
“He won’t. I’ll keep him busy. And… I’ll let you add another destination to that euro trip if he bothers your spirit in the slightest.”
“I’m listening.”
Magnum chuckles and we share another deep kiss.
I don’t want to let go of him. His body gets closer to mine and my hand wanders against his chest. The big, broad chest feels like home to me now.
We probably only have a few more minutes before Noelle wakes up and I want to savor this moment of connection with Magnum.
Especially since I just agreed for us to get a new roommate – Isaac Sinclair of all people. All I know about him is that he has a gambling problem, most likely a drinking problem, an ex who wants him dead, and he just got his kids taken away. Not a ticking time bomb at all.
“Thank you,” Magnum says with a big exhale. “I love you, baby. I think we could really cheer Isaac up.”
“How?”
“Well,” Magnum whispers. “You’re perfect, funny, and every time I’m near you, I feel much better.”
“That’s the sex talking.”
“And the love,” Magnum says. “And the fact that you’re perfect. Fucking hilarious. Have sexy pink hair and a big juicy–
“Magnum? I think you’re getting distracted.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs, kissing my neck again. “Forgot my point. Or maybe it’s just… I love you.”
“I love you too,” I return his sentiment, holding back from the overexcited fluttering I feel deep in my chest. “If this is a mistake, we’ll send him packing.”
“Yes, we will,” Magnum says. “But he won’t give you any trouble. I swear.”
“Will his work include guarding the baby so we can get a little sleep?” I respond with a yawn, the sleepiness creeping up on me again.
Magnum laughs. “Not so sure about that but… if you want him on vacuum duty, I’ll make sure he does that.”
I don’t even remember kissing him before falling asleep in his arms. It feels good to lose track of myself like that without the influence of any drug, but just because I feel so safe with Magnum. The love of my life. The father of my child. The crazy biker I couldn’t help but fall in love with.
The End