28. Nyah
NYAH
Dear Diary,
I’m going to thank YouTube for this one.
Days slid into each other, one after the other, each one a blur of nothing. Luca and Lynx left the clubhouse to train their hockey team, while I stayed behind, getting bigger by the day.
But even feeling the baby kick inside me didn’t bring me much joy when his father wasn’t here to feel it with me.
I called Dax’s phone and left messages on his voicemail, talking to it like it was him, telling him about the baby, about Luca and Lynx, telling him he could come home anytime and take back the spot he’d carved out in my heart.
It would always be there.
He didn’t answer my calls, and I had no idea what else to do to try to find him.
I’d tried to report him as a missing person, but when the police had questioned me about him, and I’d admitted he’d called and said he was going away to fight, they’d looked at me like I was crazy.
When they’d talked to his brothers and they told him Dax had done this before, the police had dropped it and told me the man clearly didn’t want to be found, and I’d just have to deal with it.
Violet came over to keep me company. We sat together, while she told me about how she was preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas with her new family, and I couldn’t help but smile at her excitement.
I was due a couple of weeks before she was, but there was a good chance we’d both have December babies, and she brought me little red-and-green rompers that matched with ones she’d bought for her own baby.
She talked a lot, because I didn’t talk much at all.
She glanced up when Lynx came back to the clubhouse, and I sensed more than saw the silent conversation the two of them had over the top of my head. The one that went something like, “I tried to keep her busy while you were gone, but fuck, she’s a sad sack.”
With Lynx silently replying, “Thanks for trying.”
Violet quietly left, and Lynx sat beside me.
“Okay. Enough of this.”
I squinted at him. “Enough of what?”
He waved a hand at me. “This. The moping over Dax. He’s not here, and I can’t stand seeing you sink farther and farther into a depression over a man who told you with his own words he didn’t want this.”
“What if someone forced him to say them?” I asked.
Lynx shook his head. “You can’t think like that. You’re making yourself crazy.”
I glared at him. “You’re a brave man calling a woman this pregnant crazy.”
He grimaced. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. But fuck, Nyah. You’re scaring the shit out of me. I’ve never seen you like this. So I have a new mission. It’s cheer up Nyah day.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Does it require my participation? Because that sounds like an awful lot of effort for someone who really doesn’t want to get out of sweats.”
He grinned at me. “It will require you getting out of sweats, but I think you’re going to like it.”
I eyed him. “Is it sex? Because I’m a beached whale and I doubt I’m even capable of it right now.”
He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “It’s not sex. It’s better. I think. But it requires some preparation. So I need you to close your eyes while I set it all up.”
I squinted at him and the excitement written all over his hopeful, handsome face. “You’re really excited about this, huh?”
He swept a strand of my hair back off my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. “I’m scared more than excited. I don’t want you slipping away because you’re mourning Dax like he’s dead.” He stared at me. “He’s not. He chose to leave.”
I knew it was what everyone was thinking. Hell, I’d had days where I tried to convince myself Dax had willingly walked away. Because I swear, it would have been easier to let him go if I did.
But I was the only one who truly knew him. Who truly knew there had to be something more than him just disappearing. I just didn’t believe he had.
But I was at a dead end trying to find him. And so was everyone around me.
So I forced a smile for Lynx, because he’d done nothing wrong, and it wasn’t fair for him to have to put up with my low moods. “I’m closing my eyes now. I could use a nice surprise.”
He kissed the top of my head, and then the Slayers’ clubhouse door squeaked open. I thought about peeking but decided he was right and I did need something nice. Something fun. And he’d clearly gone to a lot of trouble to plan whatever this was, so I didn’t want to ruin it for him.
So instead, I just tilted my head against the back of the couch and rested, while he dragged things in and out of the doors and into his room. Whatever he was doing sounded like it required quite a bit of equipment, so I quickly ruled out rose petals on the bed.
When the loud whirr of something mechanical started up, I got really confused. “Lynx? Are we renovating? Because as much as your bedroom probably does need the floors sanded and the walls patched, that’s not really my idea of a fun, relaxing afternoon…”
He kissed me upside down on his way back out to whatever car or van he was unloading. “You’re so cute. Don’t peek. It’s nearly done.”
More weird noises came from his bedroom.
The hissing of air, which had me questioning if he was setting up a bouncy house in there.
Which probably wasn’t the worst idea. I’d pee myself, for sure, but I was getting awfully pregnant, and perhaps a bit of jumping might start getting my cervix ready for labor.
But then came the rush of water, and I was confused all over again because I was pretty sure that there was not room for a waterslide in the Slayers’ clubhouse, and that even if there were, War would allow it.
“Lynx…”
“Nearly done! I swear, you’re gonna love this so much. Do. Not. Peek.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He was the cute one. I didn’t know how this man who was running around, gleefully putting surprises together for me, was the same man who could end a man’s life in such a brutal way that he’d earned himself a serial killer name, but he wasn’t that man around me.
Around me, he was just sweet and protective and did things to my body that made me want to have a hundred more babies, just for the chance one might look like him.
“Okay, stand up. But don’t open your eyes.”
I did, and he came up behind me and put his hands over my already closed eyes and leaned down so he whispered into my ear, “It’s ready. I hope you love it.”
I already knew I would because he’d gone to so much trouble. If it really was a bouncy house with a water slide, we’d just invite X over and watch him fight the kids for a turn.
I stifled a giggle at the thought, and Lynx shuffled along behind me, steering me toward his room. We stopped in what I knew was the doorway, and he took his hand off my eyes with a flourish.
“Ta da!”
It took me a second for my eyes to adjust after being in darkness for the past twenty minutes. But when they did, I had to blink a few more times to actually take in what he’d done.
Just outside the bathroom door was some sort of blow-up pool. But not a little kid one. The kind that was deep enough for a fully grown adult to sink down into and have warm water engulfing them. Even one as pregnant as I was.
I spun around and stared at him. “You brought me a bathtub I can actually fit into?”
He nodded. “You said something a few weeks ago, at Carlos’s party. About not fitting into the tub anymore. I got the impression you missed them. It’s actually a birthing bath. I thought—”
I raised an eyebrow in alarm. “If the next words out of your mouth are, I thought I might deliver the baby here in it, I’m going to have to stop you there.
This baby is only coming into this world in a hospital, after I have had a blissful epidural and can’t feel a thing.
You are good at many things, Lynx, but I don’t want to find out if being a midwife is one of them. ”
He chuckled. “I was going to say, I thought we could leave it here until the big day. You might want to use it before the contractions get bad enough to go to the hospital.”
I loved baths so much. And that sounded like the best plan I’d ever heard.
I’d given absolutely no thought to the day this baby decided to make an appearance.
I’d almost completely blocked it out of my head, at first because it had so much stress and fear around it.
Not because of the birth itself. I definitely would be getting that epidural.
But because of what Carlos would do once the baby was actually here.
That fear hadn’t gone away, even with Luca claiming paternity.
But Lynx had noticed and taken all of it into his own hands, making sure it wasn’t yet another thing I needed to worry about.
I turned in his arms and lifted mine to wrap around his neck. “You are the sweetest soul,” I whispered. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
He pressed his forehead to mine and then kissed my mouth. “Good. Now get naked and get in that bath before it gets cold. When you get out, I’ll give you a massage.”
He pointed to the corner of the room, where a table had been set up.
I’d been so concentrated on the huge blow-up bath, I hadn’t even noticed the other addition.
I gawked at it and then laughed. “Is that hole for my belly?”
Lynx grinned. “Absolutely. I know you’ve been missing sleeping on your stomach. Now you can, at least for a bit.”
My heart squeezed at the realization this man actually listened when I spoke. He paid attention when I stated what I wanted, what I missed, what I was scared of. And he did something about it.
I kissed him again. “I know it’s not why you did all this, but I am going to give you the best blow job of your life as a thank you.”
He snorted on his amusement and shook his head. “Just get in the bath, Nyah.”
He didn’t have to tell me again. I peeled off the oversized sweats I’d stolen out of Luca’s closet and kicked them to the corner of the room.
The walls of the bath were quite high, and I wasn’t particularly tall, so I wasn’t exactly sure how I was supposed to get in until Lynx swept me up in his arms and lowered me over the edge and into the warm water.