Chapter Twenty-Nine #3
I keep looking through the windshield and let the uncomfortable part happen.
"I'm glad I asked too."
Colt nods once and reaches for the ignition. "The offer stands, by the way."
I glance over. "What offer?"
"Whatever you need." Before I can answer, he points at me. "And don't make me say any more emotional shit today. I've reached capacity."
A laugh gets out of me. "I wasn't going to."
"Liar."
He starts the car, and I don't argue.
Autumn
Summer and Colt are back from Charleston before the baby, exactly as she promised they would be. Half their boxes are still unopened. She is due in two days, and I am not going to miss anything.
Sam is waiting beyond the barrier at O'Hare when I come through with two suitcases, a carry-on and no return ticket.
He sees me before I reach him.
The change in his face is immediate.
I barely get within reach before he takes both suitcases.
I laugh. "Hello to you too."
"You looked overloaded."
His hand comes up to my face, thumb resting just beneath my cheekbone. The airport keeps moving around us while Sam looks at me like the last several weeks have finally become irrelevant.
Then he kisses me.
One of my suitcases starts drifting across the polished floor, and Sam catches the handle with his foot without taking his hand from my face.
I break the kiss laughing. "Very romantic."
"I saved your luggage."
"You're a hero."
He hooks the runaway suitcase closer with his foot before looking back at me. "You hungry?"
"I spent nine hours eating airplane food, so I'm going to need something that wasn't heated in plastic."
Sam takes my carry-on before I can object. "I was thinking Roti, take it to go and eat at home."
Home. This time, the word doesn't surprise me.
I take his free hand. "Don't tease me with Roti. You don't have to ask me twice. I'm getting extra sauce. Let's go."
Summer goes into labor before I finish unpacking.
By the time the hospital waiting room starts to feel like ours, my suitcase is still open on Sam's bedroom floor and I've changed clothes since getting off the plane.
Jake gets in from Charleston looking like he came straight from work, loosens his tie within the first hour and eventually gives up on sitting altogether.
Lucia keeps finding increasingly creative reasons to approach the nurses' station until Marisol finally catches her by the wrist and tells her she's going to get us all removed from the building before Wren is even born.
Dom disappears every so often and comes back with coffee. Nobody knows where he's getting it. Nobody asks anymore.
Sam stays beside me for most of it. His thigh presses against mine beneath the low table while I refresh my phone for the fourth time even though Colt promised he'd text the second there was anything worth telling us. Sam reaches over without looking and turns my screen facedown.
I turn it back over. He turns it facedown again.
"Do that one more time and we're going to have a problem."
"You've checked it six times in ten minutes."
"Maybe the seventh time is when the baby comes."
"That isn't how babies work."
"You own a club. Stay in your lane."
His mouth twitches, and his hand settles against the back of my neck instead.
The updates from Colt are infrequent and mostly useless. Summer is fine. Wren is taking her time. Summer would also like it documented that every part of this is Colt's fault.
That one gets passed around.
Eventually Sam looks at the collection of vending-machine wrappers and half-empty coffee cups scattered across the table and gets to his feet.
I catch his hand before he can walk away. "Where are you going?"
"To get actual food."
"We have food."
He looks at the crackers beside me. "That's not food."
"It's hospital cuisine, very posh."
"I'm not letting you survive on peanut butter crackers, and you're not even the one having the baby."
He ends the argument by bending down, kissing the top of my head and telling everyone to text him if anything happens.
He comes back with enough takeout to feed twice the number of people actually waiting. The bags barely hit the table before Sam starts opening containers and passing them around. He hands one to me with a fork tucked beneath the lid.
I look down at it. "Was there a vote I missed?"
"You haven't eaten since we got here."
"That wasn't my question."
Sam drops back into the chair beside me and stretches one arm along the back of mine. "Eat."
"That sounded less like a request."
"It wasn't one."
I give him a look, but I eat anyway.
After that, the hours blur. People talk, sleep, wake up and check their phones. Sam's hand spends most of the time somewhere on me, against my knee, tangled with mine between our chairs or resting warm against my thigh.
Every time my phone lights up, we both look.
When Colt's name finally appears, I nearly drop it.
She's here. They're both good.
I stare at the words until the entire waiting room erupts around me. Jake grabs me, Lucia starts crying and Marisol immediately joins her.
Sam's hand closes around mine.
I turn toward him.
His smile is tired and enormous. "Go see her."
I tug on his hand. "You're coming."
He glances toward the hallway. "Not yet. Summer might want a minute before all of us pile into her room."
Jake catches my other hand and starts pulling me toward the hall, ending the argument for Sam. I look back once.
Sam is still beside the chairs, smiling at me. He lifts his chin toward the hallway.
Summer looks wrecked when I walk into the room.
She also looks happier than I have ever seen her.
Wren is tucked against her chest, impossibly tiny beneath the blanket, with one fist pressed beside her cheek and a deep crease between her eyebrows like she arrived already disappointed in the accommodations.
I stop beside the bed. "She's judging all of us."
Summer looks down at her daughter. "She gets that from me."
Colt sits beside the bed with one hand resting on Summer's leg. His eyes are red enough that pretending he hasn't cried would be insulting to everybody involved.
Summer catches me staring at Wren. "Do you want to hold her?"
I don't even pretend to think about it. "Give me the baby."
She laughs and passes Wren into my arms.
The second her weight settles against me, every smart thing I could have said disappears. She weighs almost nothing. Her face is pink and scrunched, her mouth working in her sleep while I stare down at fingers so tiny I could cover her entire hand with the pad of my thumb.
"Hi, Wren."
"She's perfect," I say, and my voice comes out embarrassingly soft.
Summer smiles at me in a way I don't trust myself to look at for very long.
After a few minutes, she glances toward the doorway. "Where's Sam?"
"He's in the waiting room. He didn't want everybody piling in here before you were ready."
Her eyes narrow. "Go get him."
I look down at Wren. "You understand that you're asking me to give the baby back."
"I gave birth. Hand her over and go get your boyfriend."
The word still gives me a stupid little jolt.
I carefully return Wren to her and head back out.
Sam is packing empty containers into one of the takeout bags when I find him. He looks up immediately.
"Everything okay?"
"Everybody's perfect. Summer wants you."
His hands stop. "She asked for me?"
"She ordered me to come get you."
The smile that pulls at his mouth is small, but I catch it. I hook my fingers through his and tug him toward the hallway.
"Come meet Wren."
Summer spots him the second we walk into the room. "There you are. Get over here."
Sam comes farther inside. "You doing okay?"
"I just had a person removed from my body. You tell me."
His mouth pulls into a smile as he reaches the bed. "You look like you had a baby."
"That I believe."
Colt shifts Wren in his arms and looks at Sam. "You want to hold her?"
Sam's attention drops to the baby, and every bit of ease leaves his body.
"She's fucking small."
Summer laughs. "She's supposed to be."
Colt stands and moves toward him. "Give me your arm."
"My arm works."
"Then stop holding it like you're about to defuse something."
I press my lips together, and Sam catches me.
"Don't start."
I lift both hands while Colt guides Wren into his arms.
And Sam goes still.
Sam's hands are rarely still. Behind a bar or in a kitchen, they move with the certainty of someone who usually knows what comes next. Wrapped around Wren, they look enormous.
Sam adjusts one hand beneath her head. Wren shifts against his chest, makes a tiny offended noise and settles again.
He relaxes.
"There you go," Summer says. "She survived."
Sam doesn't look away from her. "Her head is the size of my hand."
"She doesn't have much choice about that."
"She doesn't have a neck."
Colt starts laughing.
Wren's fist works free of the blanket, and Sam catches her hand against the center of his palm without thinking. Her fingers curl around one of his.
His expression softens.
His eyes lift and find mine.
He smiles.
The answer arrives before he ever asks the question.
If Sam asks me to marry him, I'm saying yes.