Authors: Nicole Tetterton
Chapter Twenty-Three
Austin
I’m racing down the stairs
right after I get the call from Mar that they are admitting her and I am panicking, I feel like I am forgetting everything, but I know that I have most of everything in the car with me.
“Daddy, where are we going?” Yes, there is some time gap I know, but I will cover all of that shortly, right now I just don’t have the time.
“I told you we have to go get mom.” I tell beautiful Kaylee as I look into the rearview mirror at her in her ‘big girl seat’.
“Is she alright?”
She asks, concerned.
“Yes, baby, she is alright.” I say to her turning into the parking lot and unloading Kaylee out of the car and then she jumps down, “Don’t you dare start to run.” And she turns around and looks at me with those blue eyes and I feel like I finally know what it was like with every girl that I used to sleep with.
I hate thinking about how I used to be before Sophie, but it’s a part of who I am and I know that Sophie loves me, I know that she cares about me for all of me, not just who I am with her. Sure, we have had hard times, and we will probably always have them, but I know that I am not going anywhere anytime soon. Everyone who knew me in Miami laughs when they find out I have a little girl; they tell me that it’s karma coming back around for me, which makes me laugh because I swear if any boy touches my daughter before she’s fifty I will kill them, not kidding either.
We walk into the large sliding glass doors and I meet Mar on the fourth floor. I follow her back through the hallway until she opens the large door. Hospitals have always managed to freak me out, but this time I am elated. I see Sophie strapped up to the machines as I walk into the room and I hear the beeping coming from one of them; I’m not sure which one.
“Hey,” I tell her walking over and placing a kiss down on her forehead.
“Hey, of course the second I go off to go shopping with Mar.” and I can’t help but laugh.
“Shh,” I brush back the hair on her head while a contraction starts again. I hold her hand through it and by the time it’s over I have lost the feeling in my hand.
So where did we leave off? Oh, let me start off the morning after Kaylee’s first birthday.
I wake up when the door shuts to the room and I lay trying to collect my thought. The night before had been incredible and believe it or not; it had been the first time since I left Miami that I had slept with anyone. I hear Sophie’s voice come through the baby monitor and start talking to Kaylee. I always have adored the way that she spoke to her, as if she was a grown up. I hear her say that she loves me but that it isn’t smart to confuse Kaylee, and I have to agree myself that it isn’t what is best for everyone. That we were never simple; we have always been complicated. So, I hear her leave the room and walk out into the living area and I decide to get up to go and talk to her. I was taken aback when I see Mar sitting on the couch but I just try to avoid her. I say hello like any civilized person would, and she sends me a questioning glance, especially after I ask her where Soph is. I walk into the kitchen and she never even turns around to look at me; except to ask me if I want coffee. During the entire conversation I feel like something is wrong with her, like she didn’t truly mean anything that I overheard her saying to Kay. I try to tell myself that she actually means it, but I know that she didn’t I know that
she loves me, but I try and convince myself that we are both alright with us leaving things the way that they have been.
Anyways, so the next few, cold, weeks are something of a daily heartache. I watch her come and go. We don’t speak after that night. We don’t even really let ourselves get too close to ever have another slip up. Occasionally, we will catch ourselves, usually as I am grabbing Kay from her; look into one another’s eyes and I know that I will feel that speak and it’s almost like instantly the other realizes it and breaks away quickly. Needless to say that we didn’t trust ourselves
around one another, we tried our best not to be in the same room alone together.
I start to notice that daily Soph starts to look more and more exhausted and I silently wonder how long it will be before she will just crash and not get up for weeks. One morning as she is dropping off Kaylee I stop her as she begins to walk out of the door.
“Soph, are you alright?” It’s really the first sentence that I have said to her since that night.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” she spit
s out almost too quickly, and I tell how tired that she really is.
“You just look exhausted.”
“Yeah, it’s fine, she’s just been having nightmares so I haven’t been sleeping well.” She looks sad.
“Oh, well, why don’t you let her stay here a couple of times so that you can get caught up on your sleep and you know maybe go out and actually have
fun.” She stares to me almost not believing the words that I am saying.
“You would do that?” she seems stunned, and I am a little surprised that she hasn’t thought of it.
“Yeah, I mean, she is my daughter as well.”
“Alright,” she pauses, “I’ll bring her stuff over tonight when I get off of work.
If that’s alright?”
“That sounds great.” I smile to her.
“Thanks, Austin.” I love my days with Kaylee. We always find random things to do like go to the park and the zoo, sometimes the aquarium, we used to go and eat lunch with Soph sometimes, but that has been becoming less and less. It is really killing me how much distance that we have been lately. I am waiting for one of us to break down and admit what it is really doing on to the other.
That afternoon when Soph is dropping off the rest of Kaylee’s things the first thing that I notice is how she looks. I can’t get it out of my head. They way that jeans hug her legs all the way down to her high heels, which almost bring her up to eye level with me, the way that the jacket lets me notice the halter top underneath, the one that shows way too much cl
eavage, her straight blonde hair that hangs to the middle of her back. It is all too much for me and an hour after she leaves it is too much to bear. All I have been doing is sitting around thinking about guys hitting on her, and her possibly going home with one of them. After Kaylee finally falls asleep I reach for my phone, picking it up, and dialing.
“Hello,” I hear Sarah’s high pitched voice say.
“Hey, I have a favor to ask of you.”
I hate being the jealous ex but I can’t help myself… I am no longer thinking with the sane part of me, but with my heart, and only slightly with my dick.
“Come on, Sophie, breath,” I tell her letting her squeeze my hand as another contraction happens.
“Son of a bitch, I don’t remember it being this bad last time.” she yells and I press my lips into a tight line as I try not to laugh.
“Well, baby, that was four years ago.” I realize that I need to stop talking when she cuts her eyes at me.
Alright, so I walk into the bar looking around for her. I know that she will most likely be on the dance floor seeing as she hardly ever gets to go out anymore. I see Mar and Paige sitting at the table across from me and try to bolt out of the way before they can see me, knowing that they will seek out to her directly pointing me out and then this will all be ruined. I follow their gaze onto the dance floor and see Soph dancing with some guy. I watch his hand trail up her arm and I imagine myself breaking it off. Stop, Austin, get it together.
I make my way through the crowd as I see Mar and Paige spot me and they mouths drop open as I stop the dick from touching her again.
“What the fuck, dude?” he screams to me, trying to talk over the music, and I put my hand up to stop him.
“Austin,” I hear Soph say, “Where’s Kaylee?”
“Don’t worry, I called Sarah to come over and watch her.”
“Okay, well what are you doing here?”
“Wait.” I hear the guy at our side look at us like we’re crazy, “Who’s Kaylee?”
“My daughter,” Both Sophie and I say in unison and I can’t help but smile as the guy puts his hands up and walks away, understand that I am not backing down from this one.
“Austin is something wrong?” she pauses looking to me, “God, I thought I was keeping good track of my phone is case something happened.”
“No, no, Soph, everything’s fine.” I stop looking up to where Mar and Paige are sitting and meeting eye contact with them and the instant they realize that I know where they are sitting they look away as if they weren’t just watching us. “Can we talk outside?” I ask turning back to Soph.
“Okay?” she says it like a question. I grab her hand with mine and pull her outside onto the sidewalk.
“Soph,
Shh, baby, it’s alright.” I say to her as she begins to whimper in the pain of being in labor.
So we walk out onto the sidewalk and I stop far enough away from the bar. I can see that Mar and Paige have moved and is now sitting in front of the window looking out at us. This time when I catch their eyes they don’t look away.
“Austin, what are you doing here?” she asks me.
“I don’t know Soph, when you came and dropped off Kay’s things. Just seeing you like this and knowing where you were going too it just… fuck… it just tore me up and embedded itself in my fucking brain and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
“Okay, why?” maybe coming now wasn’t such a great idea.
“Because I don’t want anyone looking at you. I don’t want them to be able to touch you. If I could I would wrap you in my arms and never let you go, but only if you wanted me too because then otherwise it would be kidnapping.” She’s already slightly buzzed because she has not quite got that I was kidding about the last part, “Soph, I don’t want you to be with anyone else. Ever.”
“What are you trying to say, Austin?”
She questions me.
“That I fucking love you, Sophie. I always have l
oved you, from that night in that goddamn restaurant.”
“Then why tell me that we should confuse Kay?”
“Because I thought that’s what you wanted me to say.”
“Why-,” she trails and finally everything makes sense to her, “the baby monitor.” I nod my head. “I don’t know Austin, with everything that we have been though how do we just start to try and make it work this time. I don’t think that this can work right now. I don’t think that it’s smart. I think that we need to just think about Kaylee, and what you said was right. It will confuse her, and we don’t want that. This isn’t about us anymore. It’s about her.” I nod my head as I force my hands into my pockets and turn around to walk away. “I’m sorry Austin.” I hear come behind me, but I don’t say anything and I don’t turn around to look at her, because if I did either one of those she would see my cry.
The crying starts and I feel my heart beat ignite. We left Kaylee with Paige in the waiting room as Mar and I are in the delivery room with Sophie. I walk over to her as she looks up to me and smiles, and then the doctor’s brings over the baby, we knew that it was going to be a boy, but we had yet to settle on a name.
“Logan?” she asks me and I agree.
“It’s perfect.” I lean down and kiss her forehead, “You did amazing, baby.”
Where was I? Oh yes,
So, I walk home alone, back to my crummy Manhattan walkup and I lie down next to my beautiful little girl and stare at her. She looks so much like her mother, from her beautiful porcelain skin to her long silk blonde hair, and I cry. I think I end up getting three hours of sleep before Kaylee wakes up and is ready to play and do the things that we normally do on days that I have her. She stays at my house again the next night, well that is until she has a meltdown at about nine, right after I lay her down in bed. That is when I have to call Soph, who comes over right away, she is an amazing mother and every day she manages to surprise me.
When she w
alks into the room Kaylee gives in and runs up to her, hugging her. I wish that I could do that to her. It is strange all this time that I have been spending with her, she never once has had a meltdown for me, but tonight the one night that I prayed that she wouldn’t and she did. Once Sophie gets her to sleep she comes out into the living room where I sit with my guitar on my lap, playing along to some sad shit that I had heard on the radio some time ago.
“Austin,” she says and I look over to her, “I remember what happened last night. I just want to say that I’m-,” I put my hand up to stop her and then I turn to look at her.
“Don’t,” I take a deep breath, “Please don’t, I appreciate you coming over and getting her calmed down, but don’t, just go.” I feel bad for a moment for kicking her out but my heart can’t manage hearing her voice again. I just need to wallow in my own self-pity. After I hear the door shut I let myself cry to my guitar. I let my emotions down on paper and then let them explode.
I wake up the next morning still on the couch with the guitar laying at my side and Kaylee
yelling for me from the bedroom.
“Are you hungry?” I ask her, sitting up and she smiles and nods. This kid was going to be the death of
me; she was just so goddamn cute.