Chapter 51
ANDERSON
“I think the baby’s coming this weekend,” Georgie announces from her spot on the couch.
She’s holding a bowl of popcorn in her lap between Ava and me as the three of us try to agree on a movie—and by “we”, I mean Ava.
Ava recently showed Georgie the Twilight movies, and they’ve become a staple in our household over the last couple of months.
“I agree,” I say, reaching into the bowl, grabbing a handful, and popping it into my mouth.
“I don’t want a Halloween baby,” Ava says as she holds the remote up to the TV, scrolling through the five different movie options for the Twilight franchise.
“My friend Benji said that a baby born on Halloween would be immune to evil spirits,” Georgie says matter-of-factly, and I don’t have to look to know Ava is rolling her eyes at the mention of Georgie’s friend, who is constantly coming up in conversation.
“And before you say you don’t care what Benji says, like you always do,” Georgie says, and my lips twitch.
“I looked it up, and it also said they can possess a deep, transformative nature.”
Ava snorts. “That’s fitting,” she says before settling on the first Twilight film.
Georgie was supposed to go see a movie with a group of her friends tonight, but since it was the weekend of Halloween, they chose a scary one.
Ava was fine with her going, but Georgie didn’t want to—worried that it would make her nightmares come back. And selfishly, I’d rather her spend the night here with us anyway.
Georgie hasn’t had a nightmare all summer and even into the new school year. I thought they might start back up again with her starting eighth grade this fall, but we’re almost two full months in, and she’s been fine.
She promised to tell me if they ever come back—but so far, so good.
“I think she’ll come after her due date,” Ava says, just as the initial credits of the movie start rolling. “They say that’s common for your first baby.”
“Nah,” I counter. “I bet she takes after you and comes right on her due date.”
“How is that taking after Ava?” Georgie asks, half-distracted. Her eyes are glued to the screen as the title card flashes.
“If there’s a plan, she sticks to it,” I answer.
Ava laughs, her head falling back onto the couch, her smile bright as she turns to look at me over Georgie’s head. She’s been giving me more of those smiles lately, and they're as beautiful as I dreamed of.
I quietly close Georgie’s door behind me, not wanting to wake her up.
She fell asleep halfway through the movie, even though she said she wasn’t too tired after a week of school, soccer, and piano.
She’s always asleep by nine o’clock on Friday nights, exhausted from the week, but we pretend we don’t know that when she insists on popcorn and a movie.
Ava’s cleaning up the kitchen and straightening up the living room, so I head to the bathroom, drawing her a bath. Her feet have been swelling in these last few weeks, and I know her body can get sore after a long day.
Turning on the water, I hold my hand under the faucet until it gets warm, then plug the drain to let the bath fill. I add in some Epson salt, which I learned helps with the swelling and Braxton Hicks contractions—which Ava has been having a lot lately.
I grab the tray she likes to use, so she can watch something on her iPad, and I light a candle, setting it down on the tray before turning off the water so the bathtub can cool down a little bit before she gets in.
With how far she is into pregnancy, the bath can’t be too hot, and she can’t sit in there too long, but even fifteen minutes helps with the swelling and the soreness enough for her to get some sleep—something that’s been hard for her to come by in this last trimester.
I’m grabbing her iPad from where it’s plugged in on her bedside table in our bedroom when my phone rings.
Pulling it from my pocket, I see it’s my uncle calling.
My anxiety immediately spikes.
I know my uncle. He texts for weekly check-ins about Ava and the pregnancy, makes sure to see me during my shifts at the station, but he never calls me.
Which means something is wrong.
I don’t want to worry Ava—not when she’s so close to giving birth. I don’t want her stressed about anything, especially not with how well she’s been doing with her ERP and keeping her compulsions in check.
The last thing I want to do is cause her anxiety. But if I try to hide something from her, she’ll know, and that will spike her anxiety anyway.
Heading to our bedroom, I answer the phone quietly. “Uncle Artie?”
“Are you home?” he asks, his voice strained. His lack of a greeting immediately has me going into Fight or Flight.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, keeping my words low.
“It’s Auggie.”
Auggie?
“What about Auggie?”
I haven’t talked to him much aside from texts here and there the last few months.
He’s checked in a few times to ask about when the baby is coming or how everything’s going with Ava’s pregnancy.
But, just like the conversations with my brothers and my mom, it feels like he’s asking more out of obligation than anything, the conversation never going much further than my answer and him sending a thumbs-up to my message.
“He’s in the hospital.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” My words come out rushed, my stomach in knots. “Is he okay?”
“He’s stable for now, but he hasn’t woken up yet. Not since they got him out of surgery.”
“I’m on my way,” I say, the words coming out on instinct. I don’t even know the full story, but I’m already grabbing my wallet and keys off the dresser.
My gut was telling me something was up with Auggie, the way he’s been acting, the questions he’s been asking. I should’ve pushed him more, answered those calls from Alex and Archie, and called my mom more to check in.
“Sonny,” my uncle starts, but I’m already changing into jeans and throwing a hoodie on.
“I didn’t call you to have you come save the day.
” His voice is stern, the same way he talks to us at the station—the kind of voice that makes you stop what you’re doing and listen. “I just called to let you know.”
“I appreciate it, Uncle Artie, but I have to go. I’ll be there in a few hours. Call me if anything changes.”
The words come out of my mouth, but they don’t feel like they’re mine—not anymore.
My feet feel like they’re melting in the ground, refusing to move, but there’s a pull inside me. One telling me I have to get to my brother, make sure he’s okay, and make sure my mom and the twins are okay, too.
“Anderson?” Ava’s voice calls out just before she appears in the doorway. An arm rests over her belly as she leans against the door frame. Her brows furrow when she sees I’m no longer in my sweats. “You going somewhere, sunshine?”
What started out as a way to get under my skin, to remind me that we were nothing but a joke—nothing serious, nothing real—has become a nickname that she holds on to.
And I never really minded it coming from her lips.
Leaving her—leaving Georgie—driving two hours back to my hometown feels like ripping something vital straight out of my chest.
My eyes catch on her without permission.
The soft curve of her stomach stretching her tank top, the way her sleep shorts sit low on her hips like she doesn’t have a single thing to guard against in this moment.
She looks safe.
She looks like home.
And I’m supposed to walk away from that.
I can’t leave her. Not because she isn’t strong enough—she’s stronger than anyone I know—but because the thought of not being here, of something happening while I’m gone, claws at my ribs until I can barely breathe.
He’s in the hospital.
My uncle’s voice doesn’t just echo—it burrows, digs in, won’t let me think past it. Every second I stand here, I see my brother hurt and alone, needing me.
And every second I look at her, I see everything I could lose if I walk out that door.
“What’s wrong?” Ava steps closer, her voice soft, but her eyes already searching, already knowing something’s cracked open inside me.
The truth surges up, hot and immediate.
Tell her.
Ask her to come.
Don’t do this alone.
But then I look at her again—at the weight she’s carrying, at the exhaustion she tries to hide—and the words die before they ever make it out.
She deserves rest. Safety. A night where nothing touches her.
Not this.
I swallow it all down, every ounce of panic and guilt and fear, forcing it into something smaller, more manageable.
I can do this.
I can go and come back before she even opens her eyes.
I have to.
I wrap my arms around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head, missing her before I’ve even left. “You need to sleep.”
She hums against my chest. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she says, but it comes out half-hearted with how tired she is.
Despite the anxiety tightening around my lungs, I smile—my wife’s sass has no limit, and I hope she passes it on to our daughter, just like the traces of it I see in Georgie.
“And I prepared a little surprise for you,” I tell her, grabbing her face in my hands and bringing her gaze to mine.
Her face lights up. “An orgasm?”
“No, love,” I say with a laugh, a jolt of desire running through regardless. “I drew you a bath.”
She tilts her head back and lets out a sigh before her eyes meet mine again. “I don’t want to take a bath. Can you draw me a picture of you giving me an orgasm?”
I press a kiss to her forehead. “Just make sure you set a timer for fifteen minutes.” I give her a light tap on the ass, and she giggles into my chest. A sound I spent months wishing I’d hear from her, and now she gives it to me so willingly.
Ava lifts her head, resting her chin against my chest, looking up at me. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
Letting out an exhale, my mind races with what to tell her.
A lie—no, a half-truth—is on the tip of my tongue.
“My uncle called,” I start, ready to tell her that it’s no big deal—that I can take care of it, like I always do—but it already feels wrong, like I’ll break everything we’ve built between us the second the words leave my mouth. “It’s my brother.”
Ava’s eyes soften, her brow furrowing, and I swear I feel her arms around my waist tighten. Like she’s ready to protect me on an instinctual level, holding me as close as she can with her swollen belly between us. “What happened?”
I bring my hand to the back of her head, gently pulling her back to my chest. I’m sure she can hear how fast my heart is beating as I tell her everything my uncle told me about Auggie being in the hospital, while trying to ignore the guilt piling high on my shoulders.
“But what happened?” she asks.
I let out a dry chuckle, one completely free of humor. “I didn’t even ask,” I admit softly.
Ava pulls back, meeting my eyes. “Well, whatever it is, we have to go.”
We.
“Ava.” I try to pull her back to me, but she holds strong.
There’s a sense of urgency overwhelming my senses, but holding her in my arms is settling it more and more as each second ticks by.
“You and I both know that you need to be there,” she tells me, and I usher her to sit, wanting her off her feet, but she stays standing, crossing her arms over her chest and resting them on her bump.
“If it were George, or Phoebe, or Jasmine, I know you’d be telling me the same thing.
And I know you’d be right there with me. ”
My eyes prickle at her words, the way she says them without a semblance of doubt.
And she’s right.
But she can’t come with me.
“You need to rest,” I tell her. “And someone needs to be here with Georgie.” I watch as her lips part to protest, but I press a quick kiss to her lips just before I continue. “I’ll go, and I’ll be back before you even wake up.”
She shakes her head, but she doesn’t say anything. The exhaustion is thick in her features and the way she shifts her weight back and forth.
“Fine,” she finally agrees. “But I don’t care how late it is—wake me up when you get home,” she says, reaching up to hold my face in her hands. “And keep me updated.”
“I will.” I wrap my hands around each of her wrists, and it honestly feels like she’s the one keeping me standing. Giving me the strength I need, reminding me that I don’t have to be the one holding it together on my own.
Because she’s here.
“I love you,” she says, pressing a kiss to my lips.
“I love you more.”
And when the bathroom door closes, the heaviness in my chest doesn’t lessen.
Georgie is asleep.
Ava is relaxing.
And I need to go make sure Auggie is okay.
But why do I have this sinking feeling in my stomach?
Like everything is about to go wrong.