“I was at work,” he answered coldly, staring me down with his icy blue eyes.
“I’ve been calling you all fucking day! They released us this morning, Lance. Is it too much to ask for my fiancé, the father of my children, to show the hell up when he’s supposed to? You haven’t even been here!”
“Well, I’m here now,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “So let’s fucking go. I need to get back to the office after I drop you off.”
“Are you kidding me?!” I shouted, startling a cry from Cameron. I hadn’t meant to yell like that, but I was just so damn furious. “You’ve been working the entire time we’ve been here! Can’t you take a goddamned day off? I could really use your help!”
“Let’s. Go.” That was all he had to say.
A nurse arrived with a wheelchair to help me down to the car. I kept both babies perched in my lap the whole way down since their own father couldn’t be bothered to carry either of them. Once we had them properly buckled up, I slowly climbed into the passenger’s seat, still unable to move comfortably due to the C-section. Lance walked around the front and climbed into the driver side as I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, exhaustion tugging at me incessantly.
“Mackenzie,” Lance said, drawing my attention to him.
The vicious slap he landed across my cheek the moment I turned my attention to him startled a pained yelp from me as tears instantly welled up in my eyes. He grabbed hold of my chin and jerked my face back toward his.
“If you ever talk to me like that again, I’ll make you fucking pay. You understand me?”
All I could do was nod as my stinging tears broke free, running down my already swelling cheek.
We drove from the hospital to the house in utter silence. Once there, he helped me get the twins and all their stuff from the car. As I expected, he couldn’t be bothered to make sure we were settled before he was out the door again.
As I spent the rest of the night trying my best to take care of two children all on my own just days after their birth, I kept asking myself how it was possible that I’d allowed my life to become so horrible.
Present
“Beauty,” Brett said in a rush the second I answered the phone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just got the call; Emmy’s in labor. I’m on my way to the house to pick you up.”
I looked from the stove where I had dinner cooking over to where the kids sat, watching Tangled.
“We can’t take the twins to the hospital, Brett. Odds are it’s going to take a while. They’ll get antsy. Why don’t you just head straight to the hospital and I’ll try and find a sitter. Hopefully, I can meet you there in a few hours.”
“Already got it covered, baby. Jeremy’s mom is on her way over there now. She offered to watch the twins for us.”
There was that melty feeling again.
“Honey, you didn’t have to do that.”
He chuckled through the phone line. “You’re my family, babe. A man takes care of his family. That’s our job.”
“Emmy and Luke are your family too, you need to be there for them.”
“And I will be, just as soon as I get my kids squared away and my woman in my jeep.”
Every time… every single time the man opened his mouth, he turned me into a puddle of goo. “Good Lord, I love you.”
“Right back atch’. Now get your sexy ass moving. We got a baby to meet.”
I was at the stove, trying to finish dinner when the doorbell rang.
“Hey, there sweetie,” Jeremy’s mother, Kathy, greeted with a beaming smile as soon as I opened the door.
“Thank you so much for watching the twins. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“No problem,” she offered with a wave of her hand as she made her way into the living room where Callie and Cam sat, still transfixed on the TV. “I’ve got a whole mess load of grandbabies. These two will be a cakewalk. Believe me.”
Just then, Brett came rushing through the door like his ass was on fire. “We ready to roll?”
“Yep, just a second.” I turned back to Kathy and the kids. “Dinner’s in the oven. It just needs a few more minutes to cook.” Leaning down, I planted a kiss on the twins’ heads. “Be good for Ms. Kathy. We’ll be back soon, okay?”
“Okay,” they answered as Brett stepped up to give them each a kiss as well.
“Love you, Mommy,” Callie said, followed closely by, “Love you, Daddy,” from Cam.
Kathy and I both pulled in a gasp as we turned our wide eyes to Brett. My son had just called him Daddy.