“Don’t teach her that shit,” Mills chides. “You’re gonna make us all gray-haired and on anxiety medication.”
Emmy scoffs. “Like you’re not above hair dye.”
“I dunno…I might rock the silver fox look.”
“Don’t teach my son to be a tool. Lemme see him.”
“Hold on.” There is some rustling on the phone and Emmy rises from the couch and walks over to me.
“Do you want to see how big they are?” Her voice is excited for the first time since I’ve been around her, and she holds out her phone for me to look. The excitement she’s wearing is one of many that broke me down and got me to fall in love with her.
I nod as she stands beside me. With my forearm wrapping around her waist, I pull her over to sandwich her between the counter and my body.
Standing over her short frame, I can see perfectly, and Mills catches me on the screen a moment later.
“Oh, hey man. Enjoying the heat?”
“No.” The screen pans over to Atlas who has a yellow headband on and a pink flower on the side.
“You look so pretty,” Emmy croons. “Mama will be home soon…I promise.”
“Here he is,” Mills says behind the call and then another identical baby shows up in a blue shirt, staring at us while sucking on those plastic things.
“Aw, my little man.” Emmy brings the phone to her face and kisses the screen. “Hey, baby.”
I feel a shift in Emmy’s body as if she’s just tampered down a sob or a shiver.
“They’re doing good, Lou Boo,” Mills professes and he must visibly recognize how much this is destroying her. That each day she’s away from her babies is pure torture for her. “Atlas is in love with me.”
Emmy chuckles, and that’s when I feel the break in her torso. The uneven intake and exhale of air. She’s barely holding on by a thread.
“If you cry, I’m teaching Alaric my cocky smirk.” Mills, for the loyal bastard that he is, tries to lighten the mood, and it must work because Emmy wipes away at her face.
“Teach him, and I’ll choke your ass out.”
“Hey, is that my girl?!” shouts a voice in the background and before Mills can even confirm or deny the fact, the phone is snatched and Marty’s face shows up. “Hey, Emmy Lou, how did it go?”
“Let’s just say Kai isn’t B723,” she comments. “Bishop had to go at half the bar.”
“A-fucking-again?” Kyson’s voice chimes in before his redheaded-ass appears. “Dude, you should’ve been a bouncer.”
“Not enough action,” I convey.
“How much of it did you break?” Marty asks off with a proud lift of his lips.
“A few chairs.”
Kyson rolls his eyes because he knows how much of that is bullshit. “My ass. Did you blow Em’s cover?”
“I did, but if I tell you why you all would’ve all done the same thing.” Both sets of eyes fall on my wife, and she leans back slightly into my chest.
“I was working on it,” she claims lightly.
“Dudes, this was a baby hanging out video,” Mills censures, getting a hold of the phone again and showing us himself and Atlas. “Hey, look who it is.” He wiggles his brows. “She loves me.”
“I’m here to teach Kyson how to change a shitty diaper,” Marty says behind him.
“We’ll keep those for Mills,” Kyson counters somewhere. “Since that’s all he’s full of.”
The guys chuckle and Mills shakes his head with a ghost of a smile playing off his mouth. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
She nods. “Sounds good, thank you.”
“Anything for you, Ems.” He winks and salutes with his two fingers over his forehead. “See ya later, Bish. Take care of our girl.”
Emmy hangs up and drops it on the counter, hanging her head into her chest.
I manually turn her around to face me, but I don’t find tears in her eyes. I see the same darkness in her that I saw earlier.
“Talk to me,” I hedge softly. “I know you miss them, but we’re almost done.”
“Are we?”
I lift her chin with the crook of my finger, hearing the defeat in her tone. “He’d be dead already if you didn’t want to do it yourself.” I bring my thumb up to brush her bottom lip. “But it’s not fully my fight, is it?”
She shakes her head and I slowly crack at the way she looks as if she wants to just disappear right now.
Being a brand new mother should never be like this. Killing her baby daddy shouldn’t be an option for her right now. But turning him into the cops won’t have the same effect when he’s still alive and always a threat in her mind. The possible fear of him getting out, the chances of an earlier parole, or sending someone else to hurt her. Emmy knows what her only option is to keep the twins safe.
“How did you find me?” she asks, changing the subject which is a common Emmy trick when she wants to pivot off a conversation.
My lips curl into an asshole-ish smile. “I found a few ways.” Emmy bristles but doesn’t push the subject. “Emmy.”
“Mhm?”
“I want you to marry me again.”
Emmy blinks at me then just blatantly stares. “Huh?”
“I want you—“ I press my body firmer into hers just to get closer and for her to feel how serious I am. “—to marry me again. The boys already know anyway.”
“They what?” Her eyes widen before her palms slam into my chest. “What did you do?”
I shrug. “You give me territorial issues.”
“This is my fault?” I perk a knowing brow and her face falls. “This is my fault.”
My wife couldn’t sound more overthrown by the situation if she tried. And my shitty ass can’t find it in me to feel sorry for it.
Leaning in, I lift Emmy and place her on the kitchen counter and she laces her fingers with mine, taking a strong interest in them.
“You should’ve always been here.”
I know.
I should be the father of those twins.
She should’ve never been stabbed.
There should
