40. Lachlan
Lachlan
“Here we go. One fresh and clean boy before Mama gets back from her appointment.” I kissed the bottom of Reid’s feet before I slipped his legs back through his pajamas. We’d had quite the diaper disaster, but I was quickly becoming a pro at handling it.
As soon as the buttons were fastened, I wrapped the light blanket Lainey favored around his arms and legs, and we made our way out onto the porch.
She was driving back from her appointment, and I was holding on to the hope that she said everything she needed to say to her doctor.
And that her doctor actually took the time to hear what she was saying.
Reid cooed as I sat in the rocking chair, gently swaying him as my truck finally came into view.
I watched her get out, and my face fell. The end of her nose was red. Her eyes puffy. And her face was wet with fresh tears.
Lainey threw her purse and a thick packet of paperwork on the porch, her eyes locked on my arms. “Please…” Her voice strained as she reached out for Reid.
“Lain?”
She didn’t respond to me. Just took Reid and sank down to the floor.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, panic laced in my voice. Something had happened. This wasn’t the Lainey who left here this morning. The one with hope in her eyes and the tension she’d been carrying for weeks finally gone from her shoulders. “What happened?”
“They’re going to take him from me,” she whispered.
My heart dropped. “Your doctor? Lainey, if they are that worried about you, they should have offered you treatments—”
“No. No. My appointment was great. We talked about t-therapy. He thinks that I should start it and gave me some providers who s-specialize in postpartum depression and anxiety.”
“Okay. Why do you think they’d take Reid from you for going to therapy?”
“No. I don’t. It’s not…” She pointed over to her purse before pressing a kiss to Reid’s head.
“The paperwork?” I asked, my stomach sinking as I grabbed my cane and walked over to pick it all up. “What is this?”
“They were there, in the waiting room. Greg and his wife. She knows, Lach. She knows that Greg is Reid’s dad, and she wants to take him from me.”
“Absolutely not,” I growled as I made my way back over to them. “Let’s go inside. We’ll figure it out.”
“I’m scared to move. I’m scared once I do, once you read the papers and see it’s real, that they’ll take him from me.
And I just admitted to my doctor that I didn’t think I was meant to be a mom.
That sometimes I think Reid would be better off without me.
” Her glazed over eyes snapped to mine. “Oh, God. I went to get help, and they’re going to use that against me, aren’t they? ”
“No. No, baby. It’s going to be okay. They’re not taking Reid. Let’s get you both inside.”
Lainey pushed off the floor and we walked inside, my mind tumbling through everything she’d just told me.
Sniffling, she turned to me. “I’m going to take him upstairs.”
“To my room,” I suggested, quickly shaking my head to correct myself. “Our room.”
“Lach…I…”
“I know you want to hide right now. I know, because that’s what I’d want to do, too.”
She nodded, her eyes unfocused. It was almost as if she was looking through me. “I don’t want to hide. I want to run. I want to pack up everything of ours and just…go.”
There it was. The moment I knew was going to happen all along. The moment the happiness I’d let myself get used to was finally being taken away from me.
“You can’t leave me. Things feel big and scary right now, but—”
Lainey shook her head, stepping back toward me.
Her hand laid against my chest, and she smiled.
“We’re a family, Lach. I want to pack everything of ours.
Meaning me, and Reid…and you. I know I can’t run.
I want to. God, I want to run so far away that Greg and his messed up family can never touch ours. ”
God, thank you. “They’ll never get close to you again, Lainey. Never. I’m going to take care of it. I’m going to take care of everything. I’ll use every last penny from my settlement to make sure Reid is safe with us.”
Her eyes closed for a moment. “Please come upstairs with us.”
I nodded, following behind them. I tossed the papers onto the bed, holding out my hands to Lainey. “I’ll hold him while you get changed into something comfortable.”
She nodded, passing Reid to me before she stepped into my closet. A minute later, she came out wearing nothing but one of my old button down flannels. Her legs stuck out the bottom, the curves of her hips pulling at the fabric making my mouth water.
“Come on, Trouble. Into bed for you.”
I pulled back the comforter, waited for her to slide under, and draped it back over her legs. I handed Reid back to her, who instantly snuggled into her hold. Scooping the papers off the bed, I set my cane against my bedside table and climbed in, too.
“Okay. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.” I held the arm closest to Lainey out, and she snuggled right against me. Perfect. Now we could get down to business.
“Blah, blah, blah petition for sole custody…oh, they’re fucking idiots if they think—” My voice cracked the instant I saw Reid’s name listed in the paperwork. His full name.
“Lainey. What is this?”
Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry this is how you’re finding out. I hope you don’t mind.”
My heart was going to burst out of my chest. I’d never felt such a flood of pride in my life before. “That you gave him my name? I…I’m so honored.”
There in the paperwork were our names, listed right together.
Reid Lachlan Calloway.
“All this time, I was worried about him not having my last name, and he was carrying my first.”
She blinked her wet lashes a few times, a little line forming as her brows pulled down, closer together. “You were worried?”
“Lainey. I almost asked you to marry me the night you showed up on my porch. I don’t think you realize how fucking easy it is to love you. How natural it is for me to love Reid, too. I think about the both of you being Fords almost every minute of every goddamn day.”
“Because of something like this happening? We’d have more protection if we were married and you’d adopted Reid.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth.
“No. Not because of that. Not for any other reason beyond the fact that I am wildly in love with you.” My thumb brushed against her lip, urging her to release it before she made it bleed.
Her breath hitched. “How can you be? We’ve never even…” Her eyes dropped to Reid. “We’ve never even fooled around.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I have no doubt it will be amazing when you are ready for that and it happens for us. But I don’t need that to know I’m already so gone for you.
I watched you bring him into the world, sweetheart.
I watched you go through the most life changing event a human can experience, and the whole time, you kept checking in with me to make sure I was doing okay with you being in labor and giving birth.
You think you’re some selfish monster, but my God, Lainey.
I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.
How strong, and capable, and full of love you are.
I wish you could feel the love I have for you, but I’ll just have to show you in a million different ways every day to make sure you get it.
You give yourself so genuinely to me, you let me see all those beautiful, jagged edges of your soul, and you don’t shy away when I bare mine to you.
You are the reason I’m doing better. The reason I want to be doing better.
You’ve brought so many blessings into my life. You’re the reason I left the porch.”
“Lachlan.” Her head nuzzled into my shoulder, where she pressed a kiss before she continued.
“You’re so easy to love, too. And I do. I love you,” she cried.
“But I’m not the reason you got off the porch.
You are. You’re so good, and so kind, and you are so protective, that you got yourself off that porch to help me.
I see how much you love me, how much you love Reid, because you put in the work to be the best version of yourself for us.
The things you think are your biggest flaws, the things that you think you should hide or be ashamed of, are the things I love the most about you.
Your mind…I know it’s not kind to you, because mine is not kind to me, either, but the way it works to keep us safe…
and your leg. I know you’re still in pain.
That looking at your scars brings up all those awful memories, but I love those scars.
Because they remind me how close I was to never getting to have this life with you.
They’re beautiful, because they remind me of how lucky I am to get to wake up next to you now. ”
She leaned closer to me, our lips brushing before I took over, deepening the kiss with the woman who consumed me.
“This is going to be nothing but a blip in the beautiful story of our life together. I don’t want you wasting a single second worrying about Greg and whatever bullshit he’s up to now, okay?”
“I don’t know if I can promise that,” she said, her hand brushing over Reid’s hair. “But I’ll try.”