Until November (Until series) (23 page)

Over the last few weeks, his skin has turned the color of caramel from working out in the sun. I bet a lot of women drive by his job sites just to see him without his shirt on. I know he takes it off to work, at least, occasionally. His tan is everywhere. He’s always beautiful, but asleep, he’s stunning. I wonder if I will ever get tired of looking at him.

My hand absently moves to my stomach. When I feel a slight flutter, I say a silent prayer that my daughter is okay. They were worried yesterday when they saw how much blood I lost. After lots of tests, the doctor found out that my cervix was bleeding due to the way I fell when I went for the gun. When I continued to bleed, they decided to keep me overnight for monitoring and put me on bed rest for a few weeks. This morning when they came to check on me, the bleeding had stopped and her heartbeat was stronger. The night doctor said that everything should be fine as long as I don’t push it. He also told me that I could be released as soon as my doctor showed up to sign me out.

“You awake?” Asher asks softly and I smile.

“Yeah,” I say, looking over at him. His eyes have dark circles under them from being awake most of the night, harassing anyone who came into the room with a million and one questions.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, sitting up and placing his hand over mine.

“Better. Tired, but much better.”

“Good.” He smiles and kisses my hand.

“Why don’t you go get a coffee?” I ask him.

“Nah, I'm good.”

“Babe, seriously, you look exhausted. Go get a coffee, walk around, and see if you can track down my doctor. This bed is really uncomfortable and I would like to go home.”

“I don’t know. We don’t have that machine at the house,” he says, pointing at the monitor for our daughter’s heartbeat. I look over at the machine and watch as her heartbeat thumps away. Then, I look back at him and can tell that he’s still worried.

“The doctor won’t let me leave if he thinks it’s too risky,” I tell him softly.

“I know, baby,” he says, bringing my hand to his mouth and holding it there after kissing my fingers. “I could have lost you both yesterday,” he says so quietly that I almost don’t hear him.

“You didn’t. We’re here and we’re safe.”

“When I heard that gun go off outside, I thought that my life had ended. I thought I was never going to see your face again, or be able to see our daughter take her first breath. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to survive without you here with me. I would take my life in order to go wherever you were.”

“Don’t say that.” I whimpered, shaking my head. “Don’t ever say that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“No, it’s selfish,” I cry. “Other people love you and count on you, not just me. No matter what happens to me, promise that you will never give up on life. That you will always fight to be happy. I'm not your only happiness.”

“No, you’re my bliss,” he says, smiling, but I can’t smile back. This is too serious.

“Promise me that you will never give up on life, no matter what, Asher. Promise me right now, because we have a daughter that is going to need you no matter what happens to me.” His eyes look so lost, but I won’t let him say stupid things like that. I wouldn’t be happy without him either, but I would still fight to live because I know he would want that for me. “Would you want me to follow you?” I ask quietly, knowing the answer.

“No.”

“So don’t say things like that,” I beg.

“I'm sorry, baby,” he says, pulling me into his arms. “I just don’t know what I would do.”

“You don’t have to worry about it. We’re here and we’re safe. Just promise that no matter what, you won’t leave our daughter behind if something happens to me.” I start to cry uncontrollably.

“I promise,” he finally says, and I curl into his side and fall asleep.

I'm sitting in my hospital bed waiting for my doctor to show up and discharge me after he decided to keep me for one more night. Asher went to the house to get me something to wear and to drop off Beast. I hear the door open and look up.

“November?” Chris is standing at the door of my hospital room.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, scooting back in the bed.

“I heard you were in the hospital. I wanted to check on you.”

“Who told you I was in the hospital?” He doesn’t answer, but walks into the room, shutting the door behind him. I press the call button for the nurse.

“You were supposed to come back to me,” he says, looking sad.

“You slept with my mom.” I will never forget that. Seeing them together was burned into my brain forever.

“Yes, and I'm sorry about that, but once I started to fall in love with you, I left you clues so that you would catch us.”

“What?”

“I wanted to have a clean start with you. I just didn’t know that after you caught us, you would ignore me completely.”

“I repeat: You slept with my mom. That’s not something that is easy to forget.”

“I know,” he whispers, looking at his shoes.

“The police are looking for you,” I tell him and pray that one of the nurses comes in soon.

“I didn’t know about the attack in New York. I didn’t know she was going to do that to you,” he says the words quickly.

“Okay,” I say. My pulse speeds up when he looks at me again.

“I’ve been watching her.” He looks around. “She’s been in town for a while now. I wanted to warn you. I tried to scare you into going back to New York, but instead you decided to stay here with that guy.”

“How did you try to scare me?”

“Broke into your apartment and left you notes.”

“The poetry?” I ask, just to clarify.

He nods, looking around again. “We need to leave soon.”

“No, you need to leave.”

“I can’t leave without you.”

“I think that you need help,” I say, as I see Kenton looking through the crack in the door.

“I love you. We were getting married.”

“Please just leave. I'm happy. Can’t you be happy for me?”

“Weren’t we happy?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Chris,” I say softly, “we were a lie that you and my mother cooked up. You were my first everything, and it was all a lie so you both could collect money that I didn’t even know I was going to receive.”

His eyes close like he’s in pain, his head tilts toward the ceiling. I watch out of the corner of my eye as Kenton steps into the room, gun drawn.

“I loved you though.”

“Love isn’t like that, Chris. I'm sorry. I hope you get help so that one day you will know what love is but that isn’t love.”

His eyes meet mine and I can see the sadness in them.

“I want you to put your hands on your head and turn around slowly,” Kenton says. Chris’s head swings in his direction. When he registers the gun in Chris’s hand, Kenton’s hands go to his head. Then his gaze comes back to me.

“I'm sorry.”

I nod my head and watch Kenton pull cuffs out of his pocket and attach them to Chris’s wrist.

“What the fuck?” Asher’s voice cracks through the room like thunder. He looks me over then takes a step towards Chris. Kenton blocks him.

“See to your girl,” Kenton says quietly. I can tell that he’s having a hard time not beating the crap out of someone. I think anyone would do for him right now after everything that happened yesterday. Me being in danger today is playing havoc with him.

“Are you okay, baby?” he asks, taking a step towards me.

“Yeah.” I nod my head as he pulls me into his arms. “It’s over,” I whisper into his chest.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

Epilogue

“Again, again!” Emma screams as Asher picks her up again, tossing her through the air and into the pool. He’s been doing the same thing for the last ten minutes. I look around for someone to help me at eight and a half months pregnant. It’s hard to get my ass out of our lounge chairs unless I roll out, get on my hands and knees then stand. There are too many people around for me to do that today without really embarrassing myself.

“Need some help?” I look up to see Kenton standing over me.

“God, yes.” I moan. “I swear, this little girl is going to be a dancer,” I tell him and watch as he smiles.

“The pool turned out awesome,” he says once he pulls me up. I look around. He is not wrong. The pool is amazing. It has a hot tub that is connected to it, along with so many flowers and plants that you would think we were in the jungle.

“Yeah, Jack did an amazing job,” I say and look over at him. “So, where is Christen or Tina or Lisa or—”

“Very funny,” he says, cutting me off.

I start to giggle and feel my belly bouncing with my laughter then I feel a kick that’s so hard, I stop immediately and grab Kenton’s hand and pull it towards my belly.

“What?” he started. Then, his eyes get big and drop to my stomach. “Holy shit!”

“Yeah, now imagine that on your bladder.” I laugh.

“That’s so amazing,” he says and his hand starts to rub my belly.

“Now, I know that it’s obvious by the huge ring on her finger that she’s taken, but if you happened to miss that, you definitely can’t miss the fact that she’s obviously pregnant.”

I laugh and see Kenton looking at Asher with something that looks a lot like envy in his eyes. I know he doesn’t want me, but I think deep down he wants his own family.

“Yeah, both those are hard to miss,” he says, smiling.

“How’s it going, man?” Asher asks him while pulling me into him.

“Good. Busy. I'm seeing someone and things are good.”

“Just one someone?” I ask, knowing his history. Since I’ve been around, there has been someone different at each event.

“Yeah, just one.” He smiles and shakes his head.

“That’s great,” I whisper, laying my head on Asher’s chest. He doesn’t look like someone in love though, so I wonder if he’s just trying to settle down because he is lonely. “You should invite her next time we all get together.”

“Baby, leave the man alone. He just said he’s seeing someone, not that he is picking out a ring.”

I scrunch up my nose at my husband. “Fine,” I grumble. His eyes go soft and he puts his mouth to mine. The kiss is sweet and soft. “I'm going inside then I'm going to visit Ms. Alice,” I whisper, biting his lower lip.

Once, I'm done in the bathroom, I track down Ms. Alice. She’s sitting in the baby’s room. It was finished yesterday with the help of Nico, Cash and Trevor. They were over most of the night, laying carpet and touching up the walls. I look around and can see all the love that went into making this room special for our daughter. I know that she’s going to have more love than she will know what to do with.

“It’s so beautiful,” Ms. Alice says and I agree. It is beautiful. The walls are a very light blue with flowers that shoot up from the base with clouds and butterflies. Meg and Liz spent a week coming over every day when they got off work to paint every flower and butterfly on the walls. Asher and his brothers sanded down every piece of furniture that we picked up from Ms. Alice and stained the wood a dark brown. The bedding is a quilt with pink and white checkers. It looks like a fairytale baby room. I think, what really means the most is that everyone helped make it beautiful. “You know that I never had a girl and Asher’s mama didn’t have a girl either.”

“I know,” I say softly.

“I'm excited that this house is going to have a little girl in it. I think all those boys needed this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, sweet girl. They’ve never really been around little girls to know how precious they are. I think when this little one comes, she’s going to turn their lives upside down, and they all need it. Each one of them needs to see that all women were once precious little girls.”

“You’re right,” I agree quietly. “But I think they all know how precious women are from you and Susan. They’re just waiting for the right woman to come along and show them how precious they are.”

She smiles and pats my cheek. “Smart girl.” I laugh.

“Well,” I say, kissing her cheek, “I'm going to go find my husband.”

“Are you ever going to have a real wedding?”

“I don’t know.” I honesty haven’t thought about it. After I got out of the hospital, me and Asher went right to the court house and got a marriage license. I was wearing sweats and sneakers and so was Asher. We just wanted to be married. The wedding didn’t matter to me. “Maybe, after the baby gets here, we can have a small ceremony.”

“That would be nice. She can be the flower girl.”

“Yeah and Beast can be the ring bearer,” I say, laughing. “Maybe me and you can start planning something small. I'm sure Mama Susan would like to help.”

“I know she thinks of you as a daughter and would love to help you. Shoot, if you let her, she would probably take over the whole thing for you.”

“I might just let her do that.” I laugh.

“Alright, go find your husband before he starts running around the house, yelling for you and scaring all the guests.”

“I’ll come back and check on you soon. Do you want a piece of the baby shower cake?”

“No, thanks. I'm on a diet.”

“Oh, lord.” I roll my eyes.

“Hey, there’s a new guy that’s kind of cute. I need to watch my girlish figure.”

“I'm leaving,” I say, laughing and walking out the door, trying to get the image of Ms. Alice and a man, any man, out of my head.

“Hey, sis, you’re leaking,” Nico says and I look down at the water pitcher in my hand. I don’t see it leaking, but I do see water running down my legs and onto the floor at my feet. I look back at the pitcher then back at my feet, and then I realize that it’s time.

“I... I'm, well, I think my water broke,” I tell him and he looks like he may fall over.

“Your water broke?” He stumbles back.

“Oh crap!” I mumble.

“What’s going on?” Cash asks.

“My water broke and Nico is freaking out,” I tell him, waving a hand in front of Nico’s face. Then I look at Cash and he looks the same as his brother. “Come on. You can’t be serious?” I groan.

“Is everything okay?” Trevor asks and I don’t even tell him. What’s the point? He’s just going to freak and I don’t have time to deal with them.

“Your water broke?” Trevor says from behind me and I notice that he sounds normal, so I stop and look at him.

“Yes, and I need to find your brother. Will you help me without going comatose?”

“Sure.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, and his other two brothers aren’t standing four feet away staring into space. He grabs me around the waist then slides his arm under my thigh, lifting me. I scream and hold onto his neck for dear life.

“I could have walked,” I tell him, digging my nails into his back.

“This would be easier if you would retract your claws there, kitten.”

“Oh, sorry,” I mumble.

“What are you doing? Put her down,” Asher says when he sees us come through the backdoor.

“Her water broke. I'm taking her to the car.”

“Your water broke?” he asks in the same tone as Nico and Cash.

“Asher James Mayson, if you freak, we’re going to have so many problems, especially after you shoved that damn baby book down my throat every day for the last nine months. You know everything that is going to happen. You cannot be surprised by any of this.”

“You tried to burn it,” he reminds me of my failure. When we finally got home from the hospital and the guys came over for dinner that weekend, they decided to grill steaks and found the baby book still inside the grill, safe and sound, not even slightly damaged by the horrible rains that we had for two days before. He brought the book inside, set it at the island, then went back out to the grill, never saying a word about it.

“That book is like the damn Chucky doll,” I complain and dig my nails into Trevor’s neck again when the first contraction hits.

“Holy mother of God, that hurt!” I say, breathing deep and looking at Asher.

“Go get her stuff. I’ll take her to the car,” Trevor tells him.

“Put me down.”

“I'm taking you to the car.”

“Put me down right now!” I yell and he sets me on the floor.

“What’s going on?” Susan asks, walking around the corner to the living room.

“My water broke and all of your sons, except Trevor, turned comatose at the mention of it. I need to get my bag and get to the hospital.”

“How far apart are your contractions?”

“I just had my first one, so I don’t really know. I haven’t timed them.”

“It was one minute and fifty-six seconds ago,” Trevor says. Asher glares at him.

I walk to the couch and sit when I feel another contraction coming on.

“Well, they’re less than three minutes apart. We really need to get to the hospital,” Trevor says and I'm wondering what the hell is going on.

I look up at him and he shrugs. “That book has been around a lot,” he says, pointing to Asher. “He carries it with him everywhere, even to job sites. When I was bored a few times, I read it.”

“Lord, save me,” I say, looking up to the ceiling then back to Asher, who’s still just standing there.

“Asher, unless you want your brother to take over for you, pull it together,” I tell him, waddling out to the car.

Nine grueling hours later, July Heaven Mayson, came into this world screaming.

I walk into the living room and look at the couch. Asher is lying on his back with July lying in just a diaper against his bare chest. One of his big hands in holding her bottom, the other is on the back of her head. She’s facing me, her hand resting against her chin. Her eyes are the same color as her father’s. His eyes are closed. I walk towards them and Asher’s eyes open and the smile that comes across his face is devastating. It’s a look of pure bliss, the look of someone who is right where they are supposed to be in life and is so overwhelmed with happiness that it comes through every time they smile.

“Hey, baby,” he says. “How was your nap?”

“Good.” I smile. “Was she fussy when you tried to give her the bottle?” I ask, knowing my daughter is picky and only wants the breast.

“No.” He shakes his head, smiling. “Trevor came over for lunch and he got her to drink from it.”

“Wow, super Trevor saves the day again, huh?”

“Yeah, Liz came with him so I think he was showing off.” He laughs and I know he’s right. Liz slipped a few days after July was born and said something happened, but never said what it was. When I tried to press her about it, she closed up and turned as red as a beet. Since then, they had kind of been avoiding each other. A few weeks ago, something else happened, and now there is no Trevor without Liz.

“I'm sure,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But if your brothers are trying to use our daughter to pick up women, I will kick their asses.”

“I’ll kick their asses,” he says, patting her bottom and he’s not lying. He’s one scary daddy bear. The other day, some woman came up to us and started to put her hand near July, and he freaked out about germs and hand sanitizer. The lady stood there in shock the whole time. Then he walked away, shaking his head, like she was the crazy one.

“So, should we get ready to take her to Grandma’s?” I ask, excited about a date with my husband. Since July came home two months ago, we haven’t had any time alone, and I was very much looking forward to it. Not that I wanted to be without my daughter, but I was ready to have mommy and daddy time.

“I already packed everything up,” he says, smirking, and I laugh.

“Well, I'm going to go shower.”

“Shower, huh?” he says, and his eyes turn hungry.

“Yes, shower. You have to watch our daughter so you can’t join me. I bend over and kiss her head of dark hair, and then kiss my husband and whisper against his lips, “Love you.”

“Love you more, baby,” he says back.

“Do you want to go to Nashville and have dinner?” Asher asks from the driver’s seat. We just dropped off July to his mom and dad.  We’re kid free for a few hours.

“Have you gone skinny dipping?” I blurt.

I watch as his dimple appears. “You wanna go skinny dipping, baby?”

“Maybe,” I say softly. I have always wanted to try it, but since the pool was finished and July was born, there hasn’t been time or opportunity.

We pull into our driveway fifteen minutes later, and before Asher can even get his door open, I’m in the house, running across the living room and pulling my dress over my head. Then I dive into the pool in my bra and panties. I surface and watch as Asher takes off his shoes then jeans. He’s going kind of slow, so I decided to hurry him along. I unclasp my bra and toss it in his direction. He jumps into the pool with his boxers still on.

When he surfaces, he’s right in front on me, pulling me to him under my arms.     “If we’re skinny dipping, these are kind of in the way,” he says, running his hands down my waist to the top of my lacy booty panties.

“Hmm.” I smile.

Then his hands fist the sides, ripping them off and tossing them out of the pool. “That’s better.” His mouth meets mine and his hand goes between my legs, his fingers hitting the perfect spot. My legs wrap around his hips, my arms around his neck, and my head falls back from the stimulation of his fingers. His lips run along my neck, licking and biting their way down to the tops of my breast. He stops and his hand fists my hair, pulling my mouth back to him.

“You have too many clothes on,” I tell him, trying to shove down his boxers. I finally get them off him, wrapping my fist around him and stroking. I bite my lip when two fingers fill me.

“Yes.” I moan. My head falls forward into his shoulder then I'm out of the pool, sitting on the edge. His hands are at my inner thighs, spreading my legs wide, then his mouth is attacking me. “Oh my God,” I whisper, holding his head to me. Right when I know I'm going to come, he stops and pulls me back into the water, impaling me on him. “Asher!” I scream in shock. I feel myself convulse around him.