Friday
The volunteers came around with water bottles and Paul sent Sam to get us all lunch in the middle of the day, but by five o’clock, I’m starving. The boys put their shirts back on when it starts to cool off, and our line starts to dwindle. We weren’t even supposed to be here this long, but we couldn’t turn down the people in line. They were all waiting so patiently.
Paul dips his paintbrush into a cup of water and rinses it out. “I think I’m ready to be done for the day,” he says.
“Me, too,” his brothers echo.
Everyone helps clean up. Emily bends over to pick up a piece of paper she dropped, and her shirt slips up her belly. I shake my head because Logan has painted a big basketball on her stomach. It looks like the real thing but even bigger. Once she’s down there, she can’t get back up.
“Logan!” she cries pitifully.
But Logan is looking the other way, and he can’t hear her. Paul rushes over to her and offers her a hand, but as she stands up, she scowls and grabs for her belly. “Uh oh,” she says. She looks down at the water that has splashed all over the pavement and Paul’s shoes. “Sorry.”
Paul looks everywhere but down. “Either you just spilled your water or that baby’s ready to make an appearance.”
She holds up a full bottle of water that still has the cap on it. “Sorry about your shoes,” she says. She sits down, clutching her belly like the baby might try to crawl out her belly button. “Can you get Logan for me?”
Sam smacks Logan on the shoulder and points to Emily. Emily crooks her finger at him. “I think it’s finally time,” she says.
“Holy shit,” Logan says as he runs his fingers through his hair. He drops down in front of her. “Are you serious?”
She smirks at him. “Either that or I just peed all over Paul’s shoes. And I kind of think I’d never be able to live down the latter, so I’m hoping it’s the former.”
Reagan jingles her keys at them and says, “Take my car.” Logan pulls his keys from his pocket. “Ours is at our apartment. Go get it if you need it.” Reagan takes them, but I know she won’t use them. She’s going to be just like the rest of us who will be sucking up space in the hospital waiting room.
“We’ll meet you there,” Paul says, but Logan is focused solely on Emily. He doesn’t even see Paul’s comment.
Emily waddles to the car with Logan holding her elbow.
I grab Paul’s arm. “You don’t think she overdid it today, do you?” I ask.
He leans down and kisses the bridge of my nose. “I think it’s just time for the newest Reed to make an appearance.”
“Is her mom still here?” I ask. I look around, but she must have left after she made the big donation that made all the boys strip.
“She’s gone. Logan will text her.”
“Should I call her?” I ask.
He smiles and lifts the brim of my baseball cap. “I think this is Logan’s show. We should let him ask us for help when he needs it. He will. Eventually. When he can think again.”
Paul’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out and smiles when he reads the text. “He wants one of us to go to their apartment and get Emily’s bag with her clothes and stuff in it.”
He was right. He knows them so well.
Reagan holds up the keys Logan already gave her. “We’ll go.”
Paul nods. “We’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Sky drops down in in a chair. “Oh f*ck,” Matt says, squatting down beside her. “Not you, too,” he says.
It’s too early for Sky. Way too early. “No,” she says. “I’m just tired.”
Matt looks up at Paul like he’s waiting for assurance. “This is a first baby,” Paul says. “It could be awhile. You should go home and sleep for a couple of hours. Take a nap. I’ll call if things go faster than that.”
Sky shrugs. “We need to go check on the girls and Seth anyway.”
Matt nods. “Call us if anything goes wrong. Or faster. Or just goes.”
Paul takes my hand and pulls me toward the exit. The volunteers have agreed to dismantle our tables and hold on to our tips from the day. I already counted it twice, and we made just over eleven thousand dollars with tips and a few very generous donations. It was a good day.
“You should be very proud of yourself,” Paul says as we go down the stairs to the subway. “You made a lot of money for the charity.”
He squeezes my hands, so I squeeze his back. “We made a lot of money. Not me,” I correct. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”
“That’s what family is for,” he says. He watches my face closely as we get on the subway. There are no seats, so he stands up, grabs one of the handles, and wraps his free arm around my waist. He pulls me against him, and I am so close that I can feel the beat of his heart against my chest. “Where’s your family?” he asks me quietly.
“Right here,” I say. I look up at him, and his blue eyes are clear and bright. And curious. But not in an intrusive kind of way. In an intimate kind of way.
“I like that answer,” he says, and a chuckle moves through him and into me. “But before us, who did you have before?”
“No one,” I say. I look everywhere but at his face. I lay my head against his shoulder so I don’t have to look into his eyes. Because he might find the truth in them, and that’s the last thing I want Paul to know. He cherishes his family, and if he found out that mine gave me away, and then that I did the same thing, he might hate me. I really don’t want him or his brothers to hate me.
“One day, do you think you could tell me?” he asks. He turns me in his arms and leans down by my ear.
I don’t want to answer him, so I step onto my tiptoes and press my lips against his instead. He freezes, and I immediately think that I have made a huge mistake. But then a growl vibrates against my lips, and he kisses me back. He licks across the seam of my lips, and feeling like I have never been kissed before today, I tentative reach out my tongue to touch his. His hands bracket my face, and he makes little noises as he kisses me. I can feel him all the way to my toes. I grab his T-shirt in my fists and lift myself up higher, pressing against him as I try to crawl inside his heart.
A loud cough jerks us apart. I startle, and he looks into my face. His eyes search mine, and I’m worried that he’ll find my fears there, all my anxiety about my past, and then I worry even more that he’ll find my feelings for him shining back at him. Then he’ll know too much. And he could use it against me. I don’t ever want him to be able to go that deep.
“Damn,” he grunts.
A grin tugs at the corners of my lips. “Something wrong?” I ask.
“I like it when you kiss me, but I don’t like it when you use your kisses to evade my questions,” he says quietly. He squeezes me in a gentle hug.
“I wasn’t evading,” I choke out. But I swallow hard trying to get past the lump in my throat.
“Yes, you were. And I don’t hate it.” He chuckles softly. “I might even understand it, if you’d let me in. But don’t use my feelings for you as a smoke screen for what’s really going on between us, okay?” He squeezes me again.
“What’s going on between us?” I ask, my voice cracking only slightly.
“I’m getting to know you,” he says, very matter-of-factly. He tips my face up with the gentlest of touches. “I want to know you,” he says directly. “Everything.”
I shake my head. “You wouldn’t like what you find out.” He would hate me. Family is everything to him and I gave mine away.
“Try me,” he says.
I hold on to his waist—he still has his arm around me—as the subway comes to a stop. He looks down at me for a second too long, long enough for me to see his brow furrow and the little vee form between his eyebrows.
“What are you hiding?” he asks.
“Everything,” I whisper. But I say it more to remind myself than to tell him anything he doesn’t know. I’m hiding everything.
I pull him out the door and into the station, and we race to the top of the steps. “Friday,” he calls when I’m a few steps in front of him. “You have to at least give me a chance.”
I pretend like his voice gets caught on the wind, but it doesn’t. It sinks deep inside my heart, and hope blooms. Hope blooms in a place where no light has lived in a really long time.
I thought it was difficult being on the subway and having Paul ask me so many questions, but that was nothing compared to the memories that swamp me when walk into the maternity ward.