Stealing the Show (PolyAm Fam #3)

Chapter 23

twenty-three

raine

I was arguing with the nurse at the desk about it not being visiting hours until eight o’clock when Aris saved me. Because the nurse apparently needed to save face, she snapped at us, “Only two at a time.” Bonnie volunteered to wait her turn.

Aris guided me down the hall, which was so quiet, I could hear the whooshes and beeps of machines in patient rooms. He gently pushed open a wide door, and I got my first glimpse of my beautiful friend, her usually gold skin looking sallow against the bright white sheets. A gown covered her baby bump, but there were wires extending from it to monitors nearby.

“You came!” she cheered. “What’s wrong with you? You look like hell.”

“Um, thanks, so do you,” I fired back as I approached her bed. She reached out for a hug as I sat on the edge, careful not to disturb any of the tubes or wires she was hooked to.

“What the fuck happened?” I started. “You were fine when I saw you yesterday morning.” Ironically, the same could be said for me, but I didn’t want to burden her with my drama when she had much more pressing bad shit going down.

“I don’t even know! We were just eating dinner, and I started to feel weird. My stomach felt like it was clenching like a fist. Well, not my stomach…my…you know.” She pointed to her medium-sized bump. “And then my back started to hurt, and when I went to the bathroom there was a tiny bit of blood.”

“Oh my god, Dani! Well, I know it wasn’t Cynda’s cooking. It wasn’t Aris or Noah being a little too aggressive, if you get my drift?”

She smacked me on the arm. “No! We didn’t even have sex today!” She said it like it was an anomaly. “And I’m sure it had nothing to do with Cynda’s chicken marsala, which was absolutely chef’s kiss.” She made the gesture with her fingers.

“So, you came here, and they checked you out, and now what?” I cut to the chase.

Aris stepped over, slipping on his professional nurse demeanor like a mask. “She was having contractions but wasn’t in labor yet, thankfully. It’s much, much too early for this little one to come, so they stopped the contractions, and now she’s gotta be extra careful for the next few months till he or she is big enough to have a fighting chance.”

“Bed rest,” Dani huffed, clearly not thrilled with the idea.

She reached out and grabbed my hand. “I was so fucking scared, Raine. I thought for sure I was gonna lose the baby. I don’t know what I would have done without Aris and Noah. Thank god they were both there. It took both of them to calm me down and get me here.”

“So, they’re keeping you for a while?” I gestured at the monitor, which seemed to be measuring a couple of different things, but I had no clue what exactly.

“One is measuring her contractions, and the other, the baby’s heartbeat. Both are looking much, much better than when she arrived,” Aris explained. “They’re going to keep an eye on things for at least twenty-four hours, then they’ll probably send her home with restrictions. It’s going to suck, but better safe than sorry, right, love?”

Danielle sighed and blew a kiss to her gorgeous Greek man-bunned lover. Then she turned back to me. “It’s so weird. When I first found out I was pregnant, I was shocked. Having a baby wasn’t on my radar at all—it was something I considered so far out of reach, I hadn’t even thought about it in years. I was scared and even a little hesitant to go through with it. But now that I’ve felt this little guy—or gal—kick and seen them moving around on the ultrasound, I’ve fallen in love. I’d do anything for them, and I’ve never even met them yet.”

Her words floated around my ears as I struggled to absorb them. I could be pregnant right now , my brain finally woke up and screamed in my general direction.

“How did your babymaking fest go?” Danielle asked as though she could read my mind.

“Oh, that…well…” I didn’t want to share any of the drama, remember?

“Did you guys fuck lots?” Her eyes widened, sparkling for the first time since I entered the room. Aris, who was busy reading her chart on the computer, snickered.

“Well, yeah, a few times,” I admitted.

“Don’t be bashful, geez!” She smacked my arm. “So when will you know?”

“I guess I can test in like ten days. But?—”

“But what?” Her eyebrows arched.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” I squeezed her hand. “I’m so glad you and the baby are going to be okay.”

“Well, hopefully we will be.” She sighed, and then a slight smile curled her lips. “The doctor said if I’m a good girl and don’t do too much, everything should be absolutely perfect from here on out.”

My eyes narrowed in disbelief. “He said that? If you’re a good girl?”

“Actually, it was a beautiful woman doctor.” Aris walked back over to us.

“Huh, think she’ll be around to check on you soon?” I waggled my brows at them both, and they laughed.

I was glad I could provide some levity to this serious situation. And I was glad I was able to keep my mouth buttoned about the shitty message I got from my mom.

By some act of a higher power, Danielle didn’t ask if she messaged me back, even though she sent the message. Thinking about it again was making tears sting in the corners of my eyes.

“What’s wrong, girly?” Danielle reached up to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Did something happen between you, Leo and Maggie?”

I shrugged and bit my lip, willing the tears to stand down. I was doing so good, and now I was about to be a blubbering idiot again.

Aris came over and put his arm around me. “Poly relationships can be tough. You know, if you need someone to talk to…Cynda might as well be a certified polyam therapist. She’s been practicing ENM in one form or another for a long time.”

I swallowed down the tears and nodded. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. I just gotta work out some stuff for myself.”

“Talking through it really helps,” Danielle said. “I can’t tell you what a godsend Cynda was to me when I was laid up at her house after my injury. Fuck, it’s so weird to think, if you hadn’t hit me with your bike, we probably wouldn’t be here right now.” She gazed up at Aris with adoring eyes.

She really was lovesick. For one thing, she just romanticized him hitting her with a bike. And for another, “here right now” was in the hospital. I restrained myself from rolling my eyes, but the sentiment was there when I said, “Well, we’re not really in a poly relationship so…”

“You’re not?” Danielle’s eyes quirked.

“I mean, not officially. Not that anyone’s ever said.”

“So just the surrogate thing then?” Aris asked. I guess he knew all about it too. That was one drawback of a polycule—it was hard to keep secrets when all they pushed was communication, communication, communication.

If I talked to Cynda, I was absolutely certain that would be her advice.

I just need to communicate my needs. My boundaries. My desires.

“That’s cool,” Aris said. “Talking about it would still help though.”

“He’s right,” Danielle ganged up on me. “Cynda is the best. And surrogacy has its own challenges. There are a lot of feelings coming from every direction. It’s gotta be hard to navigate all that plus the hormones and all the sex dredging up emotions too. It’s like a minefield, really.”

One I was a victim of, apparently.

“Well, I need to get going. Bonnie is here too, and they would only let one of us back to see you.” I squeezed her hand. “I’ve gotta do some work on my thesis today—after a nap—but I’ll come back and check on you, whether you’re here or back at Cynda and Jason’s.”

“Sounds good, sweetie.” She squeezed my hand. “Thanks again for stopping by.”

I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Then I gave Aris a hug before walking down the sterile hallway, wondering if they had any open beds in the psych unit.

maggie

I awoke to my husband hovering over me. “I’m sorry about what I said last night, about being a stud service to try to get you a baby.”

I sighed, looking up into his deep brown eyes. “I know you were just tired and concerned about Raine. I know you want a baby as badly as I do.”

“Can I hold you?” His voice cracked with emotion, delivering a punch to my gut. This man—he may have looked like a brute on the outside, but he was soft and tender on the inside. I always worried his job would make him jaded and gristled, but it hadn’t happened…at least not yet.

In lieu of answering him, I turned onto my side and allowed him to snake his arm under me. In a heartbeat, I was snuggled up to him, my head resting in that spot where we fit together like puzzle pieces.

“What happened after I left?”

The question hung in the air while I soaked in his warmth and thought about what to say.

“I asked her to tell me what had upset her so much.” I ran my fingers through his thick mat of chest hair. I always found it so soothing. “It was bad, Leo…” I exhaled sharply before admitting, “She reached out to her birth mother—for us. To find out medical history stuff.”

“Oh.” Leo’s muscles tensed as he processed my statement. “Yeah, she said she was going to try to find out some stuff for us.”

“Right. I remember her saying she found her half-brother through some DNA test, so first she asked him about the medical history stuff. I think he gave her their mom’s phone number.” I recalled having a conversation with her about it a few weeks ago.

“So I guess her mom finally responded, and it wasn’t what Raine wanted to hear?” Leo guessed.

“Worse. It was just a horrible message.” I spared him the details. “Very upsetting.”

He closed his eyes, and I could feel his heartache for her in his heavy sigh. “Upsetting enough for her to back out of our contract?”

I pulled back a little so I could clearly see his face. “You and I both know that contract didn’t mean shit. It was easily broken by either party. There’s no legal teeth to this kind of thing.” I sighed. “I wanted to try, though, make it look official. At least the financial part of it.”

“We’ve already paid her like five thousand bucks,” Leo said. “Guess we’re not getting that back.”

“No…of course not. But she could be pregnant.” I didn’t know whether to hope she was or not since things were so strained.

“That might make things even more complicated,” Leo spoke the words that were tumbling around in my mind.

“That’s true. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” That didn’t seem to matter as much as her, though. “She’s hurting. That’s the worst part of this. I wish…I wish if her birth mother didn’t want contact with her, she would have just blocked her number and moved on with her life without messaging her back. It was just so unnecessarily cruel…”

“I can’t imagine. I hate that Raine is dealing with this.” He stroked a finger down my arm. “Do you think she would even tell us?” his words were laced with fear. “If she was pregnant?”

“To be honest? I don’t know. We sort of jumped into this and…” My heart felt so heavy, like I’d wrapped it in iron chains. “I feel like we took advantage of her. She probably feels that way too.”

“At the time, it seemed like such a win-win for everyone. She needed the money, and we needed someone to carry our baby. We all got along, and the attraction was clearly there, so why not?”

“We jumped in too fast…” I agreed.

“Gotta strike while the iron is hot,” he played devil’s advocate.

“So now what?” My voice was nothing more than a whisper when I thought about losing Raine. And it wasn’t about the baby. I wanted her. It was hard to imagine not having her in our lives.

“I don’t know.” He was quiet for a moment, running his finger down my chest and over my breast to the soft rolls of my stomach.

“Maybe she’ll come back to us?” I let a tiny glimmer of hope shine through.

“I miss her already.”

“Me too…”

leo

Today was the last day I’d scheduled off for babymaking, and the potential baby mama was MIA. My phone was silently mocking me, no notifications waiting when I went to do my morning doom scrolling. After our chat about Raine, Maggie disappeared into the kitchen, and the aroma of coffee wafted back to the bathroom, where I was taking care of business.

I stumbled upon an article in the online version of the local paper, my eyes bugging out as I read it. I finished up and rushed out to the kitchen so I could show Maggie what I’d just learned.

I handed my wife the phone. “Here, check this out.”

“IU Theater Professor Arrested for Jewelry Theft,” she read aloud. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“That was the jewelry Raine was supposed to pay for!” I clued her in.

“Oh!” She read the article, her eyes growing wider. “So, it was an inside job. Her accuser knew all along she didn’t do it. She was framed!”

I was in shock. “Yeah, Raine said this person in charge of the costume department hated her, and she is on her thesis committee.”

“Well, not anymore,” my wife pointed out. “It said the university has released a statement saying that she no longer works at the university.”

“Wow. I’m so glad I had Beau look into it. That jewelry shouldn’t have been checked out with the costume anyway. From what I understand, it was an antique and a one-of-a-kind set. Even if the university paid the owner the twelve grand, it’s not like he can replace it.”

“But what did the costume lady do with it?” She glanced back down at the article.

“Good question. She might have sold it on the black market or something. Who knows? But she really thought she’d saddle Raine with the bill, huh? She would have gotten away with it, too, if I hadn’t intervened.”

“You’re feeling pretty puffed up about that, aren’t you?” Maggie chuckled, patting me on the shoulder before taking another sip of her coffee.

“I assume Raine knows what happened. I thought maybe her meeting with the theater department went badly, and that was why she was so upset last night. But I guess it was the mom thing.”

“I’m going to try to text her.” Maggie pulled her own phone out of her robe pocket. “Maybe she’ll have lunch with me so we can sort this out. I don’t have to go into the office today since I was supposed to still be in Denver till tonight.”

“I hope she’ll talk to you.” I took a sip of my coffee. “I know she’s upset about what her mother said, but she has to know it doesn’t reflect on her as a person. She grew up in a family that wanted her. She had a good childhood, right?”

“She hasn’t told me much about when she was growing up, just that her parents divorced and she stayed with her mom. Her dad was in the military, so they moved around a lot.” Maggie sighed, and I knew she was hurting for our girl as much as I was.

“I hope she’ll be okay… I will give her a few days to cool down before I contact her,” I decided.

Maybe we could salvage our relationship, even if surrogacy was off the table.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to lose her as a friend, as a partner. I had grown to care about her…deeply. The surrogacy thing would have been amazing but…maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I still wanted her in my life regardless.

Then her soft voice urging me to make love to her filled my mind. She said those words. And I believed I’d done just that. I’d made love to her. And I wanted to…again and again.