Chapter Thirty-Six
Adam went back to work for a total of four hours a day when Sabrina was four weeks old. It was good for us because, frankly, being together all day, every day without a break was starting to get a little old.
And he was now dealing with the press releases, the official announcement, and the working transition over to Jordan as the new CEO of Draco Multimedia, while Adam made his own transition to the chair of the board of directors.
That gave me a few hours on my own each day. Sabrina was still sleeping a lot, though not yet sleeping through the night, requiring two feedings in the early morning hours, which kept me semi-sleep deprived. But I was attempting to learn how to use a breast pump to give me a break at night. It was a slow process, but parenting classes, and a medical residency had helped get me ready for early parenthood. In general, life was good.
And Mom was a massive help, taking over for a few hours in the early afternoon while I caught a nap. As it was January, the inn was closed, and Peter was the busy one. Come the springtime, they’d relocate to Anza and open the BB back up for the busy season while Peter switched to working remotely.
And as Adam was only working half days, he left late morning and arrived back from work just before dinnertime.
A week into Adam being back to work, we’d had a particularly hard night with the baby, taking turns walking her around until she finally slept, then dealing with her feeding just a few hours later. That day, Mom was only able to spare me an hour break due to an appointment.
By the time Adam arrived home, I was too exhausted to think about eating.I just wanted him to take the baby so I could crash before the whole thing started again tonight.
But he was also exhausted. When he headed to the bedroom to change and didn’t re-emerge after twenty minutes, I went in search of him.
He was unconscious, face first on the bed, still in his work clothes.
“Were you going to eat dinner?” I asked loudly without preamble.
His eyes fluttered open, face still pressed to the bed. “No, I’m good. Just need to crash for a bit.”
I gritted my teeth and folded my arms over my chest. “Well, that sucks because I really wanted to crash, myself.”
He still didn’t move. “Your mom didn’t come over today?”
“She had to leave early because she had a dentist appointment.”
“Hmm.”
I waited for more. Nothing came. That’s all I got. Hmm.
I tilted my head and watched him, then noted the pattern of his breathing. He’d fallen asleep again. The asshole.
“Hey, I’m tired, too. It’s not fair that you just come home and literally pass out face first in the bed and make me deal with this.”
“Hmm,” was his only reply.
My blood was beginning to boil.
“Adam,” I muttered between my teeth, and he didn’t move. What the fuck? “Adam,” I belted, a little louder.
He startled awake with a loud snore, blinking. “What, what happened?”
“You fell unconscious. Again.”
He rubbed his eyes through his lids. “Mmm, yeah, that was amazing.”
I blew out a breath of disgust. “If only I knew how amazing. I get more sleep than this on a long call shift. Maybe I should go back to work early—so I can get more sleep.”
He blinked and turned on his side but not quite enough to look straight at me. “Are you mad at me for something?”
I clenched my jaw, heat rising to my cheeks. How could he possibly be this clueless?
“I can’t possibly think of what I’d have to be mad at you about,” I uttered while I could practically feel the steam coming out of my ears.
He rolled onto his back and stared at me. And god, he did look awful. Pale, dark circles under his eyes.
In spite of my irritation, I let out a breath. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“No. I couldn’t get back to sleep whenever you took over with the baby.”
“Well, that’s your own fault, buddy. In this environment, it’s every man for himself. Don’t expect me to stay awake when you’re with her because that ain’t happening.”
He ran his fingers through his hair and stared up at the ceiling. “We need to recognize who the true enemy is, here. The one who’s depriving us of sleep. She’s a monster,” he uttered on a long sigh. “She’s enforcing sleep deprivation torture on her prisoners, so we’ll turn against each other. We’re playing right into her tiny little hands.”
In spite of myself, I laughed, rubbing my forehead. “She’s a criminal mastermind. A diminutive Dr. Evil, right down to the bald head.”
“I vote that we start referring to her as The Puppetmaster—or better yet, Baby Palpatine.”
In my sleep-deprived state, I found that hilariously funny. “Baby Palpatine! Palps for short.”
And almost as if on cue, her wails came across the baby monitor in my hand.
“Her Imperial Highness demands her dinner,” I said with a sigh.
“I’m so sad I can’t be involved in that. So very, very sad.”
“Fuck you,” I sneered with a laugh still on my voice.
He pushed up to a sitting position. “If you give me an hour or two to nap, I can stay up with her tonight until she needs to be fed again.”
I was already half out of the doorway. “Deal.” And I flicked off the light so he could get a head start on that nap.
For days after that, we referred to the baby as Her Imperial Highness or Baby Palps. Adam even ordered a black, baby-sized hooded cape for her to wear, to complete the effect.
But things got better. We had a night nurse come in to give us a break once she started taking pumped breastmilk from a bottle. At eight weeks postpartum, I started feeling a little more human. The incision had healed, and I got my strength back. I also took pains to monitor my own mental health, as postpartum depression was a common threat to new mothers. Fortunately, I was able to avoid most of it.
One night, we were even feeling up to a little gaming. So, we invited Heath and Kat over to dust off the old DE characters and run around the game for a little bit, just like old times.
Those days seemed like a thousand years ago, to be honest, back when I didn’t know who FallenOne really was, and Kat was just a voice coming over the internet from Canada.
Now we were all here together in the same room, one of the spare rooms designated as a gaming room, sitting around a table with our laptops propped up in front of each of us. But no headphones tonight as we were all together in meatspace.
“Okay so we have a solid two hours before Sabrina needs to eat again. Let’s get into something good.”
Heath frowned, sorting through his character’s quest log. “Well, there’s that fucking annoying boss—The Slayer—that we’ve never managed to get, but he’s got some amazing loot on him.”
I sighed. “Isn’t that the dude that caused us to wipe out, over and over again?”
Kat nodded. “Yeah, we tried that asshole every night for nearly a week. He’s impossible.” She darted an unreadable look at Adam who looked away quickly.
My eyes narrowed. “Wait—Kat, how do you not know how to defeat him? You playtest this game every day for your job. Don’t tell me you weren’t tempted to—”
She shook her head. “I was doing Whitebox testing for this last expansion, so I wasn’t in the trenches actually fighting the bosses.”
Heath’s forehead wrinkled. “And you weren’t tempted to go in and find out a loophole or gimmick or even a solid legit strategy on how to defeat this guy? He was frustrating as hell.”
“Well,” I said, turning to Adam with raised brows of expectation. “You gonna share?”
He shrugged back at me. “How should I know? You think I’m in there designing the new bosses on an expansion while trying to run the entire company?”
“It didn’t occur to either one of you to investigate?” I pressed further.
Adam and Kat met each other’s gaze and then both shrugged. “That’s cheating,” Kat said.
“Yeah,” Adam pointed at Kat. “What she said. I mean it would be boring for me to play with you guys if I knew all the answers.”
“That’s the only reason we keep you around,” I snapped back good-naturedly.
Meanwhile, Heath was hunched in front of his screen, scrutinizing something. “I’m on GameJunkie’s Youtube channel. They have an entire walkthrough on the mob.”
“Cheater,” Adam sneered. He hated those spoiler websites. Not like he could do much about them, because they cropped up like mushrooms on a pile of poop in a cave within hours of a new expansion going live.
Heath ignored him and then passed along some tips on how to approach the mob without giving the exact play-by-play the gaming streamer had revealed.
We were on our third try and getting really close to kicking this guy’s ass when the baby started crying.
In fact, we were so deep in the thick of it that it took a minute, and Heath was the one who said. “Isn’t that the baby?”
“The Slayer’s at thirty percent, guys. We got this.” Kat said excitedly.
Adam turned to me. “Her Imperial Highness is summoning you.”
But I was leaning forward, ready for my moment. “When the boss gets to twenty percent, he spawns all those orc adds,” I replied. “I need to be here for crowd control. Go get her and bring her here. You can one-hand it.”
Adam sighed heavily. “I don’t have any of my macros set up on this machine. I can’t one-hand this part.”
Heath was in the middle of tanking—and trying to keep The Slayer mad enough at him that it wouldn’t attack any of the squishier characters. Especially Kat. As the group’s healer, she was the most important to keep alive.
“One of you grab her and bring her back. We can do this,” Kat said breathlessly.
“Don’t take him down to twenty percent until I get back,” I shouted, half out of my chair as I pressed a couple buttons, then sprinted to the nursery to grab the baby and bring her back.
“Okay, Palps is back,” I said, returning through the doorway with her crooked in my arm. She wasn’t due to eat for another hour so I could only imagine it was a diaper change or just general crankiness driving this. After one quick check, I saw her diaper was still clean.
Sometimes, she was just done sleeping and wanted to be held or put under her mobile.
Adam had angled my laptop so that he could reach it, pressing a few buttons on my keyboard. I blew out a breath. “You took him down to twenty already?”
Adam frowned at my screen. “Put Palps in the baby swing. That should keep her happy ‘til this is done. I got this for a few more seconds, at least.”
“Two-boxing the DPS and crowd control.” Kat shook her head. “Mad respect to you, Adam.”
“If Eloisa doesn’t get back here in the next minute, it’s not going to be so impressive,” Adam replied, tension in his voice.
I carefully laid Palps in her baby swing and fastened the buckle to keep her secure. With a quick flip of the switch, the light-up mobile started to play tinny music, stars and moons rotated just above her head, and the swing swayed slowly, back and forth.
Then I raced back to my chair and plopped down, snatching my laptop back from Adam. “Wait, what? You did not fire off my group daze spell. I needed to save that for five percent.”
“I was desperate,” Adam replied, pounding his own keyboard to keep FallenOne up front and center, delivering damage with the quick swipes and fancy maneuvers of his quarterstaff, brown monk robe flying about as he kicked and whirled around The Slayer.
Me? I had to concentrate on keeping all the orc minions that The Slayer had summoned under control so they wouldn’t swarm and overwhelm us.
And apparently, the baby was having none of her swing because she started grousing.
“Your turn, I gotta keep these orc adds under control,” I said to Adam.
He didn’t reply and the baby groused again.
“One of you take care of it. I do not want to hear my niece in distress,” Heath said, staring intently at his own screen.
“She’s not in distress, she just wants to be held and Adam can do his job one-armed,” I shot back.
Again, my husband didn’t move from his computer. “She can feel your anger. Strike down these orcs with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete.”
I snickered. “Everything that transpires is according to her design, don’t you know.” I hit a refresh on the daze spell the minute it became available. Adam had done a decent job of playing Eloisa, my spiritual enchantress, while I’d been gone, but he didn’t understand the subtleties of the class. Which made sense, since I’d been playing this character off and on for over five years.
Adam returned from fetching Palps from her swing and bobbed her on his arm as his free hand flew over his keyboard to fire off maneuvers. “Anger her and she’ll execute Order 66 and then we’ll all be done for.”
Heath glanced up at both of us through narrowed eyes. “My beautiful niece is not a Sith Lord dictator of the galaxy.”
“Give her about twenty years. She will be,” Adam fired back. The baby, for her part, seemed perfectly content where she was, propped against her daddy’s chest as he balanced her on a muscular arm.
Daddy Adam was the hottest version of Adam. Not gonna lie.
But I didn’t let that thought distract me long, and ultimately, we were victorious in the fight against The Slayer and his hordes of orc minions.
In the aftermath, as we sifted through the loot, I took the baby from Adam. She immediately started to cry.
I frowned at her. “Well, I won’t take that personally. Or maybe I will.”
Adam snickered but didn’t ask for her back.
Heath appeared at my side. “Here, she wants her Funcle Heath, clearly.”
And damned if that kid didn’t stop crying the minute Heath picked her up and bobbed around the room with her. Apparently, I was just the milk truck these days.
Our old house sold, and the boats were removed to a slip at a nearby yachting club so we could still make use of them when we wanted. Meanwhile, we grew into the darling small town that was Canyon Hollow and the kind, and sometimes weird—sometimes really weird—inhabitants that occupied it.
And I still had worlds to conquer so April and Lindsay met with me the following week to go over the progress on the legal stuff and the establishment of our non-profit organization. It would be years, yet, before the clinic was up and running and ready to go, but we were getting there.
Lindsay fawned over the baby and seemed stunned by how much she looked like Adam. “I mean, I don’t see you in here at all. Do his genes not play well with others? Because that would track.”
We laughed over that. I suspected that as Sabrina grew up, there would be more of me peeking out here and there. Or at least I hoped for it.
After Lindsay left, April was gathering up her notebooks and laptop and packing them away as I finished feeding Sabrina her second lunch. Maybe we should have nicknamed her Bilbo or just the Hobbit?
But Palps had stuck, at least for a little while.
April bent toward me and asked quietly. “So hey, you can tell me if this is none of my business but...I was wondering. How did that whole situation with your senior resident resolve?”
I blinked. “Well, my maternity leave is up in two weeks, and he has three months to go before he’s done with his residency. The hospital has opted not to extend an offer to hire him as a fellow.”
Her brows twitched up. “Oh wow, and how are you feeling about that?”
I blinked. “Mixed, actually. He’ll have a good career and he’s had offers elsewhere, from what I understand. I just hope he’s learned from this experience and that he’ll look at his mistakes and correct them.”
April nodded. “Are you comfortable enough to have a conversation with him about that?”
I shrugged. “It’s not my place, and I really don’t think I need to do more than I’ve already done. It’s on him to be better.”
She smiled wide. “You are brave, girl. Braver than I would have been.”
I shook my head. “It sucks that women have been so long in the workplace and we’re still dealing with BS like this. It gets better, or at least I’d like to hope that it does.”
“It gets better when we learn to speak up and support each other to subvert the patriarchy when we can. That’s why I love our project so much. You, me, Lindsay. All powerful women. Girl bosses in our own right.”
I smiled. “You got it. It’s up to us to make this world a better place for the women who follow in our path.”
April glanced down at the nursing baby and smiled. “Oh, she’s definitely going to be a girl boss just like her mom.”
“Or hopefully, even better.” I grinned.
“So how did you keep Adam from going into attack mode when you told him about it?”
I blinked, hesitated. “Ahh.”
She immediately flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed you’d told him. Probably a good call that you didn’t.”
And that got me thinking...did I not trust my husband to handle the information without acting on it? What did that say about me and our relationship?
Adam came home that night from his last official day at the office. In the future he’d be going in on an “as-needed” basis and for board of directors’ business only.
When he walked through the door and gave me a kiss, I pulled him into my arms and hugged him tight. “Dinner’s almost ready but I wanted to talk to you really quick about something.” I directed him to sit down next to me on the couch in our front room.
His brows twitched together. “Okay.”
“Well, before I say anything, I want you to know that this is just to inform you about something that’s happened and that I’ve already handled. But in the interest of being open and honest, I think you should know about it.”
Adam kept his features remarkably schooled, but I could see a flicker of concern pass through his dark eyes. He said nothing, nodding at me to continue.
“Do you remember that guy who you noticed at the holiday party and when you came to the hospital for my birthday last year? The senior resident, Dr. Iverson.”
“I do.”
“Good, okay. Well, things weren’t great with him. I have no idea what motivated it and I really don’t care but he took every opportunity to be an asshole to me at work.”
“I remember you complaining about scheduling a lot and I did the math months ago that it had something to do with him, since that’s his job.”
I nodded. “It goes a little bit beyond that.” I then recounted, briefly, some of the encounters. Adam showed no emotion beside the sudden irritated twitch of his eyes, a slight flush of color at his collar.
“Remember, I said I’ve handled it.” I added the part about him hitting on the nurse, prompting me to go to HR about it.
“He’s still working at the hospital?” Adam asked tightly.
“Yes, for a few more months, with his scheduling and senior resident status revoked.”
“And you’re going back to work in a week. You’ll have to work with him.”
I nodded. “He’ll have no authority over me, and we’ll be on different rotations. He’s been instructed to stay away. Actually, he pretty much ignored me for months before I left for leave.”
When Adam looked at me with the unspoken question I responded. “I think, um, well I think the change in his behavior happened when I told people at work I was pregnant.”
“Seems like you should have spilled the news sooner, if that’s what finally gave the dickwad a clue that you were taken. But your wedding ring should have done that. Regardless of your status, what gave him that sense of entitlement in the first place?”
I nodded. “In a perfect world, I shouldn’t have had to worry about it at all. but some guys are clueless—”
“Assholes.”
I smiled, then met his gaze quietly. “So are you mad?”
He blinked. “Mad that some shithead doctor thought he could score with my wife? Hell yeah, I’m mad.”
I let out a little laugh. “No, not about that. Are you mad I didn’t tell you?”
He took a deep breath, let it out, then turned his head to look away, as if accessing some thought or memory. He ran a reassuring hand down my arm, rubbing it from shoulder to elbow. When he looked back, he was deadly serious. “I understand why you didn’t tell me, given the past and my need to...take charge. I’m proud of you that you had the courage to take care of it. However, I’m upset that I couldn’t be there as a support for you because you felt you couldn’t trust my reaction.”
I bit my lip. “I know you’ve been doing a lot of work on yourself. Neither one of us is perfect and we’re always still learning. But thank you. And I’m sorry I didn’t let you in so you could support me.”
Adam reached up and ran the pad of his thumb along my cheek. “Promise me you’ll tell me if he pulls any bullshit before he’s gone.”
I smiled, turning my head so I could kiss his thumb. “I promise. I’ll not only tell you, but HR will also get an earful.”
He pulled me in to press his lips to my temple. “Good.”
I smiled, leaning in close. “Thank you for being you.”
His arms tightened around me. “Emilia, you made me the man that I am. So...thank yourself too.”
And with that, we kissed and kissed some more...and I almost burned dinner because of it.