DUE TO EVERLY’S HEALTH, she stayed in the hospital for over two weeks until she regained her strength and the doctors were convinced she was past the point of infection. Our daughter stayed as well, and I spent every day with them.
Linda made sure the house was ready for us since we were a little ahead of the time frame and therefore behind on the nursery. Per usual Linda style, she went a little overboard in the decorations, but neither of us minded.
“She’s beautiful, Ev. Thank God she looks more like you than this ugly SOB,” Cam says, and I smack him in the back of his head. I’d like to do more, but he’s holding my daughter in his arms. I hate to say it, but I’m jealous of my best friend right now, because I want to hold my little girl and never let her go.
She’s perfect in every way. Perfect from the wispy brown hairs on her head to her tiny feet. She’s still small, but she gets bigger every day, just like my love for her.
“Okay, time’s up, Uncle Cam. She wants her daddy.”
“No, she doesn’t. She’s sound asleep, you dick!”
“Watch your language around my daughter, asshole. I don’t want her first words to be penis.”
Cam holds the baby tighter to his chest, preventing me from taking her from his arms without waking her, and I want to punch him.
“You do realize that you just scolded me for saying dick and not penis after you called me an asshole, right?”
“That’s because you are an asshole who needs to watch his mouth around my kid. Now give her to me.”
“You two are seriously twisted. Give her to me, Cam. I need to wake her anyway to feed her.”
“Of course! Can’t have my niece being hungry. After all, Uncle Cam is going to make sure she has lots of fun and is spoiled fucking rotten!”
Carefully, Cameron places Faith into Everly’s good arm. She still has the cast on, but is managing better than I thought when it comes to holding the baby.
Fuck, I almost can’t stand how much I love seeing Everly with our daughter.
“Cameron!” I growl at my best friend, and he shrugs his shoulders.
“Deal with it, penis. She’s going to love me more,” he says. I shake my head and decide internally if I want to kick or punch him in his nuts when the doorbell rings. “Saved by the bell. I’ll get that. I don’t want to see my sister’s boob when she pulls it out to feed my princess.”
“Seriously?” I say to his retreating form.
Whatever. God, he’s an asshole sometimes. I take a seat next to Everly on the bed as she nurses our child and the most calming feeling of fullness hits me.
I’m happy.
I love Everly Hayes, and I’m so in love with our daughter that I don’t know what to do with myself.
“I want more of these,” I say as I caress the top of Faith’s head.
“More of what?” Everly says, looking down at our daughter while she helps her to latch onto the other breast to feed. It’s only been a few days since she’s been able to breastfeed her, the drugs finally out of her system, but it seems to be going well.
“More little Everlys.”
Her head comes up, eyes looking into mine. “I think we should probably hold off on more babies for a while. I mean, we just had this one; let’s get used to being parents of one before we start adding little Nikos to the mix, okay?”
“Little Nikos?” I ask with a smile. She doesn’t say no to more, and that makes me happy for right now.
“Of course little Nikos. I thought we were having a boy the whole time I was pregnant with this little angel. I’d mentally prepared myself for a boy. Hell . . . I might have even seen my therapist more than once with panic attacks over the fact that there was going to be a walking, talking smaller version of Niko Callahan with your DNA and some of Cameron’s, seeing as he is my brother. I love our baby girl to death and wouldn’t trade her for the world, but now that I’ve adjusted to the thought of a little Niko, I’d love a son.”
“With me? You want more babies with me?”
She rolls her eyes. “What kind of question is that, Nikolas Callahan? Of course with you! God, Cam is right, you are a penis.”
I can’t help it. I start laughing, and it does nothing to wipe the scowl off Ev’s face. In fact, it makes me laugh harder.
“What is wrong with you? You sound like a hyena. Be quiet. Faith is falling asleep!” she hisses at me, and I stop laughing, wiping the tears from under my eyes. I stop and watch her pull Faith up and onto her shoulder, lightly rubbing her back. I stare at them both in awe.
I can’t imagine my life without them. What I’d be doing right now had Everly not moved home and back into my life when she did. I don’t want to live another day without her and Faith by my side.
“Marry me,” I say, and I mean it. I feel it with every fiber of my being.
“W-what?” Everly stammers out, an insecure expression on her face.
“I said, marry me, Everly Hayes. You are my reason for everything. Until the day you walked through that door at the pub, my life was shit. I just didn’t know it. I was living, but my life was meaningless until you. You and Faith are my life. I don’t want to miss a day in hers. I want to be there every step of the way. From her first tooth, first word, first steps. Hell . . . I want to be there when she goes on her first date when she’s thirty-five. I want to buy a shotgun in preparation for the first unworthy asshole that tries to break my baby girl’s heart, and I want to practice shooting his dick off for doing it. Marry me, Everly Cassandra Hayes. Be my wife. Have more little Everlys with me. Be my family forever.”
She blinks at me, and when she speaks her voice is soft. “You know you can still be there for her, by her side for everything you just said without us getting married. I’d never stop that, Niko. Never.”
“I know you wouldn’t. That’s not what I want, though, Ev. I want you. I want you and her. I love you. I want our family to be a real family. I want the big house, and the minivan and—”
“I am not driving a minivan! I’m also not getting rid of my BMW.” I stare at her for a few seconds. Waiting. Hoping that I’m not wrong about this. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated because of Faith. I’d understand.”
“Everly!” I growl at her. Gently, she manages to put Faith down into her bassinet and turns to me.
“I just want you to be sure that we’re what you want for the long haul. I just—”
I cut her off and slide my hand into her hair as I pull her mouth toward mine. The kiss is urgent, intense, and full of everything I feel for her. I want her to feel what she means to me, and right now, this is as far as I can go considering she just had our baby and is still on the mend.
“I’m so sure about this that it’s all I’ve been able to think about. I’ve wanted to marry you for a long time now, but I knew you wouldn’t believe my reasons for asking you, so I waited. I thought I lost you when I found you, unconscious on the bottom of those stairs. I thought I lost both of you and it knocked me off my straight line. Everly, you’re in my bloodstream, baby. Don’t make me bleed out. Say yes. Say yes, and make me the happiest man alive, because any man on this earth that doesn’t have their own Everly Hayes by their side, well, I don’t want to think about that man because he’s a dead man without you. Make me the lucky one. Say. Yes.”
“Okay,” she whispers and wipes tears from her eyes.
“Okay? What’s that? It’s yes or no, baby. Not ‘okay.’ Christ, you’re a handful!” I smile and look down at her beautiful, tear-streaked face.
“Okay, yes. I’ll marry you,” she says a little louder this time. “But only if you repeat it.”
“Say what again?”
“Say that your life was meaningless without me and that the baby and I are your life.”
“You are my life, baby. You and Faith are everything and more. I’m not letting you go.”
I don’t get to say any more to her as the loud shouting from downstairs interrupts the rest of what I wanted to say. Instead, both Ev and I turn at the sound of loud voices in the hallway, and as much as I don’t want to spoil our moment, it’s already ruined when the tone of my best friend’s voice has me getting up and making my way to the front of the house.
“Stay with the baby. I’ll see what that’s all about,” I say without giving Everly time to respond. I make my way toward the two heated sounding voices, but I stop and listen where I am rather than making my way to the end of the hallway.
Huh . . . oh, this should be interesting. I have no idea what is going on between the two of them, but I now have an idea. I can’t wait to throw this in his face.
“Turnabout is fair play, brother,” I say to myself and listen for another minute, deciding that they can handle this without an audience.
Turning on my heels, I make my way back to my soon-to-be-wife and daughter. The thought alone has me grinning like a lunatic even when I hear the front door slam shut.
When I get back up to the bedroom, Everly’s snuggling a pillow, her eyes shut as the lack of sleep takes over. I climb up on the bed and pull the pillow form her arms, earning a furrowed brow and some groans before I pull her to me and have her snuggle into my side.
This is how we were always meant to be.
“Are you coming in or not? I don’t have time to stand here all day, sweetheart,” I say, knowing it will piss my sister’s best friend off.
I’ve known Alyson since she was a teen. Alyson and Everly went to high school together, and we have never gotten along. We had a very small window of civility a few years back after her brother died. I thought things between us would change, but I was wrong. My tolerance level for Aly is usually zero on a scale of one to ten, and that’s being nice. I don’t know why the fuck she always pisses me off, but I’m usually delighted to know that those feelings are mutual. I fish, and she gives it right back. Although, something has changed between us, and as much as I want to regret it, I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I have to be nice to her or even like her.
“Fuck it! Stand out there all day if you want. I’m going back upstairs.”
“What’s your problem?” she asks.
“My problem? I don’t have a problem, sweetheart. You have a problem?”
“Whatever, Cameron. Excuse me. I’d like to see my friend and her daughter if you don’t mind,” she says with the haughtiest attitude I’ve ever seen on a woman.
Well, fuck her. “Whatever. We both know running away is what you’re good at. So run along, little girl.”
She stops dead in her tracks and whips around toward me, fire in her eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she had smoke coming out of her nose. Huh . . . interesting.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. You’re used to running away when you don’t like something, so go ahead and fly away, little bird.”
“I’m not running. You’re crazy.”
“If you say so. It looks like you’re running to me. Why is that, Alyson?”
“I don’t run!” she screeches.
“Obviously you’re running from something, with all the nameless fucking you’ve been doing.”
“Really? And what are you running from, Cameron Hayes? Because from what I’ve seen, you do plenty of your own nameless fucking!” she says, seething.
Oh good. She’s mad now. When isn’t Alyson Payne angry?
“First off, babe, I’m not running from shit, and I always get their names. Sometimes I even get breakfast in bed. Eggs and bacon or Mickey Mouse shaped fucking pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do, asshole.”
I ignore her comment and keep going. This fucking woman infuriates me to no end. “You know why I always get their names, have breakfast, and sometimes even dinner? Because I’m not a bad guy. I might see them again or I might not, but I don’t run. I walk, and I always make sure that when I leave satisfied, she’s satisfied, and if she’s not, well, I rectify that shit real fast, so we are both happy. So, no, baby, I don’t run. You, however, run through men like water.”
“So now you’re saying I’m a whore?”
“No. You just said that. I said you are running from something. What is it, Aly?”
“No. What you just said was that you could fuck whoever you want, get their names, have them make you Mickey fucking Mouse pancakes, which by the way is fucking ridiculous all by itself, and you’re somehow not a whore? What are you, ten?”
I start to answer her smart remark, but she keeps going and doesn’t breathe between words.
“You need your man card pulled, buddy. Maybe someday you’ll get it back when you don’t eat fucking Disney shaped pancakes, but that’s beside the point. You’re saying it’s okay for you, but if I do it as a woman, I’m running from something or a whore. That’s just some bullshit, Cameron. It’s a bullshit double standard.”
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“Really? Then what are you running from, Cam? You’ve no wife. No girlfriend. Just fuck buddies. Why is that, huh?”
“I keep telling you, and it’s not because I’m running. I just haven’t found the right one that I felt was worth settling down with.”
“Well . . . don’t fucking look at me!”
“Oh, trust me, sweetheart, I’d never make that fucking mistake again. I’m looking so far away from you it’s not even funny.” She glares at me before pushing past me and taking the stairs two at a time. I shut the door and follow behind her, but keep far back enough that she can’t kick me down the stairs. I don’t trust her evil ass for even a minute and would put nothing past her. I reach Ev’s door as the she-devil my sister calls a best friend knocks lightly on, and I stand to the side.
“I don’t hear anything,” I say. “Maybe they fell asleep, and you should just come back later, preferably when I’m long gone.” She turns, and if looks could kill, I’m confident I’d have died twenty times already.
“Well, gee, dumbass. Maybe you should go and come back later when I’m gone. You’d do us all a favor if you weren’t here polluting the air with all the bullshit that comes out of your mouth. That and noise pollution.”
A throat clears from behind both Aly and me, and I turn to see Niko standing there with the door to Ev’s room open.
“Oh, hey, Aly. You here to see Ev and the baby?” Niko asks her with a bit of an uncomfortable look on his face. I’m sure he’s heard enough.
Aly snorts out a sound that sounds like a cross between a pig and a wounded dog, and I just stare at her and try and look disgusted. “Well, I’m certainly not here to see this asshole. Are they awake; can I go in?”
“Sure. Ev just fed Faith, but she’s always hungry, so I’m sure she’ll be awake soon. Go ahead in and tell Ev I’ll be back in a sec.” Niko gives her a half smile, but I know this look. I’m not in the mood to explain this to him right now, but fuck if he’s going to leave it alone. He grabs my arm, dragging me down the hall before he stops and crosses his arms over his chest.
“What the fuck was that, Cam?” Niko asks.
“What was what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, brother. You know damn well what I’m talking about, but just so we can cut past all the bullshit I know you’re about to spit at me, be blunt. Are you fucking Alyson? Your sister’s best friend?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You do realize you fucked my sister, right, and that you were my best friend when it happened?”
“Was?” he asks, his eyebrow raises as he looks at me.
“Still are, but that doesn’t mean I have to explain to you who I am or who I’m not fucking, so cut the shit, Niko.”
“Fucking hell! You are!”
“No, I’m not!”
“Dude, I’ve known you since we were kids.” Niko quirks his brow. “I know when you lie, and fucker, you are lying right now.”
“I’m not lying because I’m not sleeping with Alyson.”
“Not now, but you have. I just heard the two of you, and the sexual tension between you two would cut concrete in half right now, so spill it.”
“Fine. We fucked around, but it was a long time ago. End of story.”
“I knew it! How did I miss this? I’ve known you for years and didn’t put two and two together until today. That explains the hostility the two of you have. Explains a lot! Why not just sit and talk to her?” Niko says with that dumb as fuck smile of his.
“What the fuck, Niko, are you my friend or fucking Dr. Phil? Just drop it. I’m going to see my niece. Stay out here and hold the door for thing two in there as I’m sure she’ll be leaving as soon as I enter the room.”
“Who’s thing one?” Niko says, and I ignore his question. Now that he knows, I’m positive he’s going to bust my balls whenever he sees Alyson and me in the same room. Asshole.
I turn and haul down the short hallway to see my sister and niece before Niko has a chance to dig any further. It’s none of his damn business anyway. I may not be sleeping with her right now, but that doesn’t mean the thought of that attitudinous mouth of hers wrapped around my cock in the near future isn’t on my to-do list. Now I just have to get her on the same fucking page, which is easier said than done. Alyson Payne gives new meaning to the phrase, “Game on,” but I’ve never backed down from anything in my life, and I’m not about to let a girl with the big mouth and attitude take me down to her five-foot-four-inch level.
“Game on, sweetheart. Shit’s about to get real fucking interesting.”