Three Years Later
“MAN, WHAT THE HELL IS your son doing?”
“It’s not my son.”
“Oh, like hell it’s not.” Trent brings the bottle of beer to his lips, taking a slow sip. “He’s wearing a goddamn multi-colored blazer. It’s Knight, all right.”
I squint my eyes, because it’s bright as fuck in Todos Santos on a September afternoon, and sure enough, it is my son. My four-year-old is…what is he doing, exactly? I’m not entirely sure, but knowing Knight, it can’t be anything remotely constructive, and it will probably earn him an indefinite amount of naughty spot time. This kid has seen more walls than a mural painter.
He is my mini-me on steroids. Swag, attitude, and mischief all wrapped up in an innocent smile.
“I think he just drew a giant dick on Jaime’s daughter’s forehead,” Vicious remarks, staring into his glass of whiskey like it holds the answer to the mystery of life. I sip water. For the last three years, it’s only ever been water for me. I’m not gonna bullshit you about being a born-again Christian like Donald Whittaker. Yes, I’m fucking dying for a drink. Staying sober is a sacrifice, but one I am willing to make for my family.
Vicious elbows Jaime, tilting his chin toward Knight and Daria. “If that’s not pissing all over his property from a young age, I don’t know what is. Your daughter’s in trouble. Keep an eye on that one.”
“They’re just kids, dickface. It’s called playing.”
“Playing.” Vicious tastes the word on his tongue. “You played the same game with Mel, if my memory doesn’t betray me. But with a real dick, and it wasn’t her forehead you put it on.”
That last statement awards Vicious with a punch to the arm. I flip my wedding band around my finger and watch our kids running around us, sunrays glittering between them.
“Knight!” I call out for him, and he looks up, the black marker clutched in his small fist.
Oh, fuck.
It doesn’t look like a marker. It looks like a Sharpie.
“Come here, please.” I nod toward the corner where Jaime, Vicious, Trent, and I are standing. Luna is clasping Trent’s leg like an anchor. Her gray-green eyes are wide and exploring, and she is wearing a black top, black jeans, and black Chucks.
She never leaves her father’s side.
Knight sashays toward us, swinging his arms next to his body in an exaggerated way. We’re celebrating his fourth birthday today, and all of his pre-school friends are here. Trent’s flipping steaks and burgers, there’s a hot dog stand by the giant pool, a clown, a magician, and a cotton candy machine. Only the best for my son.
I know, I know, he’s mine and I’m biased, blah, blah, blah, but I swear, this kid is something special. My wife and I knew that the minute we saw him.
“He was born on August eighteenth,” the woman at the adoption agency stated when she slid a picture of him across her desk three years ago. We came to see her right after our shotgun wedding in Vegas. My wife and I exchanged an unreadable look before we burst out laughing. That was the date we slept together for the first time. August eighteenth. Fate has a twisted sense of humor like that.
Knight looks just like me, even though he didn’t come from me. But his hair is ash brown, his eyes jade green. He is twice as tall as kids his age. Well, other than Vaughn, Vicious and Emilia’s son.
Knight (my better half called him that because he came to save the day) stands in front of me, waiting for the inevitable Spanish Inquisition.
“What did you do to Daria?” I ask, kneeling down to his eye level. Daria is two years older than Knight. She should be the one bossing him around, not the other way. But I guess it is in our blood to raise little hell-raiser, alpha-males and the girls who fight them off until they cave to their charm.
“I tattooed her,” my kid says, his voice even. He’s staring me right in the eye, and he has that what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it look on his face.
“You drew on her forehead,” I correct. “Why did you do that?”
“She asked to get inked.” Jesus Christ. No more watching Ink Master with this dude when his mom is too busy to notice.
“What did you ink…paint on her forehead, exactly?”
Don’t say a dick. Don’t say a dick. Don’t say a dick.
“A spaceship,” he answers. He turns around and calls Daria, who jogs the short distance to us. Knight proceeds to explain, his finger moving across her forehead. “This is the external tank,” he points at the head of the cock—and did I mention that my kid wants to be an astronaut and loves space just as much as I do?—“and this is the orbiter,” he points at the balls.
“And what is shooting from the external tank, exactly?” Jaime inquires, his voice stiff. I swallow my laughter and wait for Knight to answer. His eyes widen.
“Bullets, of course. Lots and lots of bullets.”
Thank God, he didn’t say cum.
I place a hand on my son’s soft, ruddy cheek. “Listen to me carefully, Knight, okay? We do not draw on other people’s body parts. Ever. Especially not spaceships.” Jaime is a friend, but I’m not sure how I feel about other fathers knocking on my door complaining that my son is drawing dicks on their daughters.
“Got it.” He nods. “No spaceships.”
“And no giving other kids tattoos, period. Now, why don’t you go play with Vaughn?”
“Because I hate him,” Knight answers matter-of-factly.
The next generation is definitely following in their fathers’ footsteps. I mess his hair. “Go check on your mom, bud.” I kiss the top of his head.
“Okay, Daddy.”
“And give me the Sharpie.”
Daria is still looking at her dad. Jaime pulls her into his leg with a hug.
“Baby, can you promise Daddy something?”
“Yes.”
“Never, ever, look or talk or play with Knight ever again.”
Daria rolls her eyes and walks off to the cotton candy machine my mom, Helen, is in charge of. Jaime, Vicious, and I laugh.
Trent is flipping burgers with a beer in his hand, shaking his head.
“Who the fuck are all these people? I don’t even know half of them.” I motion with my bottled water to the crowd. Now that we all live in Todos Santos—life away from each other felt a little too close to death, we realized, after what happened to Rosie—and live in the same neighborhood, we hang out every day.
“You did invite most of our colleagues.” Jaime shrugs.
“Did I?” I scratch my head.
“Your wife did,” Vic interrupts. “Em told her to. Networking and shit. Oh, and lookie here. Our new partner came to say hi.” He jerks his chin to a man I do recognize. His face was just plastered across the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Jordan Van Der Zee. Late fifties going on seventy. Looks like an evil version of Putin. He bought fifty percent of our shares two years ago, making us split the rest among us.
A multi-million-dollar deal that left us with more money than we can spend in ten lifetimes but less power in Fiscal Heights Holdings. We now have the time to spend with our families. Together. Van Der Zee scattered his own management team around Chicago, London, and New York, and none of us are crushed, because we took our souls with us when we signed the deal. Sue now has a new person she can call Mr. Whatever.
“Racist bastard,” Trent mutters into his beer, and we all jerk our heads toward him. He doesn’t swear around Luna, but sometimes we forget that she is around. Trent looks down, kisses his daughter’s cheek, and whispers, “Sorry. Daddy said a bad word. Won’t happen again.”
She doesn’t nod. She doesn’t answer. Just stares at him with her blank eyes.
“Come again?” Vicious asks, spinning the wheel of the conversation back to safe water. Trent’s eyes flare, the recollection of what makes him call Van Der Zee a racist flashing through his mind.
“Guy’s a racist. I had an incident with him. To say I don’t like him would be the understatement of the fu—” his eyes dart down to Luna, and he clears his throat, “of the fudging century.”
“Well, none of us are going to buy him a beer—or a fudge, for that matter. But maybe he was a poo-poo head to you for the sake of being a poo-poo head. It’s kind of his thing,” I offer, refraining from saying the words ‘little shit’ and adding, “Is that his kid over there?”
I sure the fuck hope it is, because otherwise, he has passed Sugar Daddy territory and is now in Sugar Grandpa zone. It’s hard to miss the girl beside him because he doesn’t let her move. Literally. He is clasping her slender arm in his and spits when he talks to her. She is too young for me to form an opinion about her looks. Eighteen or nineteen, maybe. Her skin is ghostly fair, she has long hair the color of the sun, two hoops for nose rings, and even though she doesn’t want her father to know, when she tried to jerk her arm away, her shirt rode up and a tattoo peeked on her abdomen. Not a small one, either.
“Edie Van Der Zee,” Vicious confirms my assessment. “Poor kid.”
Jaime laughs. “Poor, she isn’t. And since Edie is easy on the eyes, I bet he’s just trying to make sure she doesn’t get harassed by the harem of corporate dickbags we work with.”
We all frown at Jaime.
“Little Edie looks twelve,” Trent retorts in horror. It’s been three years since Val bailed on his ass, and he’s never bothered reclaiming his throne as the king of one-night stands. No interest in the other sex whatsoever. It’s like his blood turned blue or something.
“Not twelve,” Jaime says evenly. “She looks twenty. Twenty-two, maybe? Totally legal, but still taboo. Lethal combination. Danger is my favorite flavor.”
“She is eighteen.” Vicious puts Jaime out of his misery, tsking his disapproval. “Her dad just bought my old car for her birthday. Jordan believes in showing Edie money doesn’t grow on trees and all that jazz. Fun guy. And what the fuck is wrong with you?” It’s his turn to punch Jaime’s arm. “You either go for the old ones or the young ones. No middle ground for you.”
“Fuck you, my wife is not old.”
“Your wife is not old, but she is here,” Trent reminds him, and we all shift our gaze to watch a very pregnant Mel. “So you might want to stop drooling over a teenager. And while you’re at it, stop cursing in front of my kid.”
“Shit, sorry, Luna,” Vicious says. Jaime laughs. I shake my head. Our kids are going to talk like drunk sailors before they hit ten.
“She doesn’t look a day over sixteen,” Trent offers his two cents on Van Der Zee’s daughter. Yet, his eyes are fixated on her. I’m not sure what to make of it. On one hand, it’s a good sign that he is actually looking at someone. On the other, he is looking at the wrong fucking person. Story of our lives, I guess.
“Sixteen, huh? Is that why you’re glaring?” I smirk. Trent looks away and frowns before sliding a burger onto a bun, squishing ketchup onto it, and handing it to his daughter.
“We were having a conversation about her, so I stated my fudging opinion.”
“Stated your fudging opinion, or imagined how it would feel to fudge her?” I start, and Jaime cuts into our conversation.
“This is getting creepier by the second. Make me one as well.” He points at the burgers.
My dad walks over to us, holding a red Solo cup with a very virgin punch. Everyone slaps his back. I stay put, but when he comes in for a hug, I stretch my arms open and let him in. My arms, my heart, my life.
Shit, I sound like a cheese ball, but it’s true.
Three years ago, I spent a month and a half in the hospital nursing my dying girlfriend.
Three years ago, she came back to me.
Three years ago, one night, when I thought she was for sure going to die, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of beeping hospital machines. I snuggled next to her every night, one hand pressed against her heart—I didn’t trust any fucking machine other than the beating organ in my chest—and realized that her flesh was warm again. My Rachel came back to me. Fourteen years it took me, but this Jacob got the sister he had yearned for.
I love my friends, but they don’t get it. Me. I have to fast-forward everything to truly enjoy life. That’s why Rosie and I eloped four days after she left the hospital. That’s why I can’t afford to hold a grudge against my father and mother. That’s why I finally let go of the bad shit and let all the good come in, even if it cracks my cocky bastard armor.
“Knight is trying to start a fire using two rocks by the fountain,” Dad warns, tilting his head to the far end of the garden. He adds, “Vaughn is helping him.”
Vicious grins. “And you said our kids can’t tolerate each other.” His shoulder bumps mine. “Of course, they can, when there’s enough destruction involved.”
“How old is she again?” Trent asks out of nowhere.
“Eighteen,” Vicious enunciates. “And you’re thirty-three, in case I need to remind you of that, too.”
“I’m well aware, assface.”
“Then peel your eyes off of her body, dickbag.”
“Language, boys,” my dad says, and it never gets old, even when we’re thirty-three.
Trent looks away, smiles a genuine grin for the first time in years, and pats Luna’s head as she wolfs down her burger. I wonder if she understood anything from the conversation we just had, and if she did, how much of it. Her doctor claims that there is nothing wrong with her, that she is mentally in line with kids her age.
But she doesn’t speak. To anyone. Ever.
Completely mute.
“I’m going to make sure they don’t burn my house down.” I motion with my chin to the fountain, right near the swan stone benches. We sit on them every night when we look at the stars. They’re the place where I tell Rosie that I love her, that she is the only one, that she will always be the only one, no matter when she leaves me. It’s the truth. If Rosie’s lungs collapse tomorrow, and with them, my whole life, I will not bother to pick it up again. I will be there for my son—soon-to-be sons—and I will raise them the best I can, but the ride will be over for me.
“Knight! Vaughn!” I stride in their direction, and they both whip their heads around, looking guilty as fuck. I wiggle my finger before they do something stupid. “Stop trying to set the place on fire. How much trouble are you going to get yourselves into if this is what you do at four?”
“My guess is just as much trouble as you gave us.” Dad chuckles behind me.
We all get back to the house—three men from different generations—and Vaughn. I put the two boys where I can see them. The media room we set up for Knight and his baby brother.
“Did you ever check on your mom?” I ask Knight.
“Yeah. She said she is good. She also said that she loves me more than she loves you.”
I narrow my eyes. “She did not.”
“Did too.” Knight shrugs, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“Bull…’s head.” I clear my throat. Knight jumps and high-fives Vaughn.
“Told you I’d get him to say a bad word! I’m goooood.”
He is good, and I am blessed.
And whole.
And fucking alive.
Thanks to her.
What makes you feel alive?
My family. My home. My men. My belly. I’m alive. And my therapist was right. I am going to live forever.
“Dean, stop.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate it when you do that.”
“What am I doing?”
“Singing the ‘super sperm’ song.”
A dark chuckle leaves his mouth. I roll my eyes and turn on my back in bed, my huge belly poking out. I have a high-risk pregnancy. I don’t get out of the house very often. I see my doctor every other day. My body was not designed to carry another person, and while my appetite quickly caught up with the plan, my lungs are struggling to function for two. But it happened. I fell pregnant. And I fell pregnant because…
“Superrrrrr spermmm.” Dean hits those high notes, walking out of the shower and into our bedroom, his sex hair still dripping water. Not that we’ve been having sex recently. Which is a crying shame, because pregnancy makes you really horny. My hormones took the wheel eight months ago and drove me into the arms of soft porn and erotic books. Doctor Bernstein said no funny business until I pop this kid out. “Gets the fucking job donneeeee!”
Oh, yeah. The super sperm song has rhythm and double meaning. Justin Timberlake, watch out.
“Daddy, you said another bad word!” Knight calls from his room, ecstatic. It’s ten o’clock at night. What is he doing up? “This is the best bet ever. Vaughn is going to owe me a lot of candy.”
Sometimes I feel like Dean doesn’t even try not to cuss in front of Knight. I don’t resent him for it. That’s who he is, and if people have a problem…well, fuck them.
He doesn’t say that—he probably wouldn’t admit it, either—but I know that one of the reasons he agreed to sell all those shares to Jordan Van Der Zee is because he wanted to spend more time with us. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Neither do I. But I do know that both my boys are going to be in very good hands. This is the man who impregnated me after I was told that there was only a 0.0001% chance I will be able to conceive. He took that slim chance and made it happen. Since he doesn’t carry the CF gene, my son will be healthy and strong. Just like him.
“Put a dollar in the jar for me,” Dean yells to Knight, smirking at me and opening his towel before knotting it back. “I’ll pay you tomorrow.”
“There’s a twelve percent interest on that,” Knight yells back. Dean chuckles.
“Are you sure he is not biologically mine?” He gives me that look. You know, that look, that still makes me damp and begging for his dusky side to spank me.
I shrug, downplaying his effect on me. “He is the closest thing to the real you.” Other than the one that’s in my stomach.
Dean walks over, flattens his palm against my huge belly, and sits down beside me.
“Hey, Sirius?”
“Yes, Earth?”
“Why do you shine so fucking bright? You make it hard for me to sleep next to you.”
“Mmmm.” I take his hand and kiss his palm, smiling. “Thanks for the cheese, but it gives me heartburn.”
“Okay, what I’m really trying to say is that you started snoring about two months ago and fuck, I’m tired.”
“This too shall pass,” I say, teasing. “Soon, my snoring will be replaced with a baby who cries all night for the next two years.”
He kisses my temple, then my belly, then between my heavy tits, making a suckling sound. I love him. I love him so much I don’t know why I didn’t do what I should have done all those years ago. Push my sister aside when she came running into his arms and claimed him as mine.
Because he always was.
Every part of him.
The good and the bad, the happy and the sad.
Mine.
Just like I was his.
Nina died weeks after I left the hospital three years ago. Drug overdose, back on the farm she lived on in Alabama. Her husband by her side. I was there to pick up the pieces of Dean’s broken heart. To see him finally break, finally admit that he cared. That he loved her and wanted nothing but to be her son. That his heart was never going to be the same again.
Lev means a heart in Hebrew. Lev is also going to be the name of our son.
I count my blessings. Every single day.
I count them when I kiss Knight good night, when I watch Dean from the window trying to turn on the sprinklers, kicking blades of grass before remembering that the sprinklers are automatic, and when Millie and I do brunches and watch the kids play and fight and shout.
“You know what I just realized?” Dean leans down, and now he is kissing my lips and I get all dizzy, knowing that we can’t take it any farther. Not just because of the pregnancy. Knight has been known to burst into our room and negotiate his bedtime. He is getting pretty good at it. By six, he will start giving his dad a run for his money as far as trading goes.
“What?” I smile.
“Baby LeBlanc is having a baby. And it’s mine. I fucking love you. Love your face.” He kisses my nose. “Your tits.” He kisses my nipple through my tank top, biting it softly. “The kid you’re making for us.” He kisses my belly and mouths into it, “And you, too, buddy.”
“The fucking spectacular sex that we have—I’m saving all my sperm for our reunion, so be warned, I might knock you up again in no time.” He kisses between my legs. “And down to your feet, that I worship every day.” He kisses my toes.
I take a deep breath. I don’t need my inhaler. I have him.
“And I figured out one more thing.” He raises his body back up and boxes me underneath him. His arms are flexed, his bulging muscles are making it hard for me to concentrate on what he is saying, and suddenly, the room just got a little too hot for my liking.
“What?” I whisper as our lips brush together.
“Jacob got his fucking Rachel. And she gave him a baby. They will live happily-ever-after. Grow old together. It’s in the Bible, Baby LeBlanc. You can’t dispute it.”
“I love you.” I laugh.
“I love you,” he says back.
“I love you’s!” Knight bolts into the room, throwing the door open, jumping onto the bed between us, hugging my belly.
“We love you.” Dean puts his hand on my stomach, and now we all touch Lev.
And what does Lev do? What HotHoles do. Ruin.
“God, oh,” I moan.
“Yes, baby, I’m a god, but our son is here. This will have to wait.”
“No, Dean. My water just broke.”
“Oh,” we all say in unison. “God.”
And I now have my happily-ever-after. At least in this moment.
Now is forever, at least for me.
For I am not a wilting Rose, I’m in full bloom.
Thanks to him.
THE END