The sun was creeping up. I was thankful it was the weekend. I didn’t have to get up and run off to work, and I had no surgeries scheduled. Which was good, because I would have been pretty damn worthless in the operating room anyway. I’d hardly slept all week. I was like a walking zombie. I didn’t sleep last night either. Instead, I held her in my bed for the first time in ten years. I breathed in her scent and spent the night debating what I was going to do now. Because, clearly, what I’d been doing hadn’t been working worth a damn for either of us.
The last week had been hell. Every night, I’d come home from work and taken the elevator up to her floor and stood outside her door, staring at it. I wanted to go in there so damn bad. Some nights I’d hear her banging on her drums and I was like a wild animal. I wanted to tear down that door and ravish her mouth—tell her I loved her.
I shouldn’t have even gone up there. That wasn’t the point of all this. The point was to distance myself, but I couldn’t seem to do it. She called to me, this pixie of a woman with her smart mouth and her kind nature. Somehow, over the last month and some odd days she’d become so much to me. I should have known it was going to happen. After all, she’d stolen my heart in just one night years ago. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, her ability to totally obliterate my soul. And she had, a little at a time, day by day, until she owned me. And I’d never wanted to be owned by somebody before until her. So, I let her take bits of me, and I gobbled up pieces of her until there wasn’t a Kelly or an Anthony anymore. There was just an us. It was wrong. I saw it coming, but I was helpless to stop it.
I knew it had to have been her knocking so late last night. I’d been worried something was wrong with the baby, so I’d opened the door in a panic only to find her there so angry, so hurt. I couldn’t even look at her. I was being a pussy. Every pass my eyes made over her anguished face made me sick. I’d done this. I’d caused her and the baby undue stress. I just wanted to hug her and tell her everything was going to be okay, but she wouldn’t let me touch her. God, that had destroyed me. Even weeks ago, when I wasn’t even sure if she liked me, she’d let me touch her. Rub her feet. Hug her. All I could think was that she hated me now. She couldn’t stand me. That should have made things better, right? But it didn’t. Because I still loved her. And that was where we had our problem.
I couldn’t love her and save her baby’s life. It was unethical. It was wrong.
I had to tell her.
I pulled her closer to my body in the bed and twined her legs with mine and laid my hand on her stomach. It was large now. She’d be here before we knew it. We had to be ready. We had the fight of our lives ahead. I wanted us to be armed with every available resource I had. I couldn’t do the surgery myself, but I could make sure we had the very damn best. And I would.
She stirred beside me. She was going to be pissed this morning. I knew her through and through, so I knew she was going to wake up raging mad that she’d fallen asleep. That I’d carried her to my bed and cuddled her all night. But she’d exhausted herself. She needed to sleep and I needed to hold her. It seemed like a win-win to me. She wouldn’t see it that way, of course. She was just going to have to get the fuck over it. I was done playing games. I was done wishing I didn’t love her. I was done messing around. She was mine. That baby was mine now, too. It was time she knew it.
She pushed her face into the crook of my neck and I pulled her even closer, until most of her small body was draped across mine. I’d removed her sweatshirt and pants last night so she’d be comfortable. All that she was left in was a pink cami and some panties. That was going to piss her off, too. I didn’t care. Besides, she looked beautiful. Pregnancy looked damn good on her.
I was readying myself for the inevitable argument. Yes, and when I got her ass calmed down I’d tell her everything. We’d figure it out together. We could do anything as long as we did it together.
Moaning a little, she stretched and I became very still, waiting for her to realize where she was, who she was with.
Her body went from languid and lazy to ramrod straight and that was my sign. She was awake and pissed.
Untangling her legs from mine, she sat up, eyes narrowed on me. I ran my hand across the stubble on my chin, trying to hide my smirk. I loved her fire. I would’ve stood in it all day every day if I wasn’t so sure it would burn me.
She flung the covers back and looked at her legs before glaring down at me again. “Where the hell are my pants?”
I motioned to the chair in the corner. “Over there.”
She shot up and over to the chair. Well, as fast as a woman that was heavily pregnant could shoot up.
She sat in the chair and started to hustle herself into her black leggings and I wanted to laugh. It was pretty damn cute.
I sat up and put my feet to the floor but stayed in the bed. I thought if I got up, she’d forget about trying to put her pants on and just take off for her apartment. “We need to talk, small fry.”
She shook her head, breathing hard from pulling her pants up. “No, you don’t get to do that, Anthony.” She gave me an eat shit look. “You don’t get to call me adorably sweet short girl nicknames anymore. Only my friends get to do shit like that.” She grabbed her sweatshirt.
Her head popped through the neck of the hoodie, her angry eyes still on mine.
Finally, I stood up. She was going to leave. I couldn’t let that happen. Walking toward her, she took in my bare torso and boxer briefs, and I hoped that meant she was attracted to me like I was to her.
But her eyes darted back to my chest over my heart when they stopped. She stared, and then squinted before the shock registered on her face, her eyes wide. “What the hell is that?”
Placing my hand over the tattoo that sat above my nipple and right over my heart, I just stared. This wasn’t how I wanted this conversation to start. I didn’t want to talk about that night.
“What the fuck is that? Is that a tattoo? Does it…” she trailed off and sat back down in the chair, placing her head in her hands.
God, I was a fuck up. She was emotionally drained and now this.
Her head came up, her eyes trailing over the tattoo again, the slight sheen of tears in them. “Does that say what I think it does?”
It did. And I wasn’t sorry it was there. I was only sorry that she had to see it now. When she was already so upset.
The words The Music Of Life sat right over my heart. A few EKG waves and music notes scattered around the words. A little of me. A little of her. A little of him.
I nodded slowly and swallowed, scared she’d get up and run. She wouldn’t understand. That morning had been so awful, but that night had meant so much to me. That night would get me through the dark days that had lain ahead. That tattoo was a reminder of her. Of him. And of the promise I made myself the day I got it.
“How long have you had it?” She was coming toward me now and I stood so still, so quiet. I was terrified she’d run off on me and I’d never get to tell her how I loved her. How I wanted that baby almost as much as she did.
I swallowed down the fear. “Nine and a half years.”
Standing close to me, she asked, “But why?” And I knew she wasn’t just asking why I’d tattooed her words on me. She was asking why I’d thrown her out then. Why I’d tossed her aside now.
I couldn’t make the words come. I was frozen. I couldn’t tell her that her greatest fear, I’d already experienced in a sense. It would crush her soul, her spirit, her hope and we’d need an abundance of those things in the coming months. Hell, years.
She traced the music notes around the tattoo and smiled sadly, like I was already a lost cause. She knew I wasn’t going to tell her. She knew I couldn’t.
Cradling her face in my hands, I forced her eyes to mine. “We have to talk.”
She snatched her head away. “What? You want me to find another place to live now?” She stormed through the bedroom door and into the living room. “Fine!”
“Stop, Kelly.” I tried to keep my voice even.
With her hand on the front door she turned to me. “What is it? You want to break my heart a little more? Or do you want to be the one to throw me out? Is it not enough that I leave on my own?”
She was fucking killing me. Jesus, this was a fucking mess. I had a feeling no matter what I said right now, she wasn’t going to listen.
Walking over to the couch, I said, “Come sit down. We need to talk about the baby.”
Any anger on her face evaporated into thin air only to be replaced by fear and trepidation. Her hand immediately went to her stomach. “What about the baby?”
“Come. Sit.” I patted the cushion next to me. I could do this. She was going to cry and be upset. I’d remain calm. I could do that, for both of us.
She waltzed over, her face wary, making sure to sit as far away from me as she could on the couch. I didn’t care, I just moved into the center of the furniture so I could be closer. She’d need me. And I wanted to be there to lean on.
I wanted to pull off the Band-Aid quickly, so it hurt a little less. I took a deep breath and counted to three. “I can’t do the surgery, honey.”
Panic colored every feature of her face and I felt terrible, sick for her, but she had to know this was coming. She had to understand what I had to do. For her. For us.
Her head shook back and forth slowly. She grabbed my wrists tightly with both hands, clutching them in her fists and pulling.
“No, no, Anthony. I need you. She needs you.”
I pulled her hands away from my wrists and cradled them in my own, holding them firmly, using my thumbs to caress the insides of her small palms. I wanted to soothe her. I wanted to help her get through this, but I didn’t know how.
“I can’t do it, baby—”
“But why?” She sobbed.
Her cries destroyed me; her pain my own.
I cradled her face in my hands. It was my way. I loved her small heart-shaped face. I wanted to plant tender kisses all over it.
“You know why, honey.”
She shook her head again, tears springing to her eyes. “No, no. I don’t.”
I brought my face close to hers. “You do,” I whispered.
“No,” she said again, but I could read the emotion all over her face. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she knew exactly what I did. That I loved her. That I loved that baby.
She knew it long before I did.
“Please don’t do this. Please.” She squeezed her eyes shut like she could make me disappear. Make this moment dissolve into nothing when I knew that in the years to come this moment would mean everything because it wouldn’t just be the day I told her I couldn’t operate on her child. It would be the day I told her I loved her, too.
“Baby,” I whispered raggedly, rubbing my thumbs along the apples of her cheeks. “I can’t do that surgery and you know why. You knew it before I did. I’m in love with you.”
“No, it has to be you,” she said. “I trust you. I only trust you. It has to be you.” Her hands covered my hands, gripping hard, like she was holding onto the past. And perhaps she was. Maybe she was clinging to that day in the parking lot at the office. But so much had changed since then and we couldn’t go back. We could only move forward.
“I tried. I really did, little bit. I tried to stay away from you, but I just can’t.” Not that it would have mattered. I was crazy thinking a few weeks would change how I felt about Kelly. She was the love of my life and part of me had known that for ten years.
“Please,” she begged. I didn’t know what she was begging for. Maybe she was begging me to stop talking. Maybe she was begging me to take it all back. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t take back a single minute of our time together the last six weeks. They had meant the world to me. It wasn’t ideal, this situation, but it was us and we could get through anything together.
I looked deeply into her eyes so she didn’t misconstrue or misunderstand me. “I can’t do the surgery because I love you and because I love her.” I dropped a hand and touched her stomach gently.
Tears poured down her face.
“Because it wouldn’t be just her heart and your heart on that table, it would be my heart, too.” I used my thumbs to angle her head toward me. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes and I hoped she saw the love, the truthfulness in mine. “It’s okay, baby. I’m gonna make this right. I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna take care of her. I’m gonna take care of us.” I pressed a chaste kiss to her tear-soaked lips. My heart bled right along with hers, but I was making the only decision I could.
“I’m good, but I’m not the best. I’ll make sure she has the best. I promise. You said you trust me. So, do it. Just trust me.” And I would make sure she had the best. I would call in every damn favor I could. I’d beg. I’d bargain. I’d steal. This baby girl would have the absolute best doctor I could find. I’d die trying.