The Langfield Brothers: Box Set

4. Gavin

FOUR

GAVIN

Beckett: Gav, you’re the last one left. You know what they say…

Aiden: Last one in is a rotten egg!

Brooks: LOL. How the hell did you keep that duck related?

Aiden: Dad jokes are my specialty.

Beckett: You trying to tell us something?

I groan, please don’t let him be trying to tell us something.

Me: I’m not moving onto freaking Wisteria Lane with all you gossips. As it is, I can’t get a moment’s peace because of these ducking text messages.

Aiden: Our street is wonderful. Goose approves. And no, Beckett, no news on my end. Happy dog dad here.

Me: And a hockey player. A very busy, very dedicated hockey player. Go for a run or something.

Beckett: How did you think Sienna was yesterday? She didn’t say a word to me.

I sigh. Unlike my older brother, Sienna does talk to me. Not that she’ll do it in public. Sienna is tough as nails and would never willingly show emotion, but since she was my only key to Millie when we were separated years ago, and the only one who knew our secrets, we’ve grown closer.

Brooks: She made plans with Sara to go shopping this week. I think the girls even asked her to join Sunday brunch. She’s settling in. She’ll be fine.

What Beckett wants us to say is that he did the right thing. That Sienna needs to get over it. And I do think he did the right thing; it just went epically wrong. And Sienna knows that. She knows that Beckett never intended things to work out this way. That’s actually why he did what he did. But that’s a story for another day. And not my story to tell.

I close out my phone, knowing the text messaging will just continue. Beckett is obsessed with this podcast issue, and I’m sure that’s the next topic he’ll switch to. You’d think he has enough people to talk to running Langfield Corp since he took over as CEO last year when our father finally retired.

He doesn’t get to travel nearly as much now to the baseball games but instead oversees everything, meaning he now technically oversees me too. Answering to Beckett Langfield, the boss , is very different from talking back to Beckett Langfield, my brother. He’s a pompous know-it-all, and it irritates me to hell when he’s right.

Especially when it comes to my own family.

Because he’s not wrong. I saw Millie’s face last night when Brooks told us he was moving next door to Aiden. That Sara was pregnant and they were so excited to raise their baby next to their cousins.

Vivi should be there. If all her cousins are there…

But it would be too hard, I think. Seeing all the kids, watching Sara’s belly slowly grow—a real life image of what Millie doesn’t have.

“Hey Daddy.” The sound of Millie’s voice stops my movements in the hallway.

“Hi, baby girl. How are you doing?” Ford’s warm voice fills our living room.

“I’m fine,” she says in that tone that indicates she knows why he’s calling. “How’s Nash?”

“Your little brother is fine. Lake got him a ukulele so now he just walks around the house strumming it and scream-singing words.”

Millie giggles. “You need to get a video of that for me! Maybe Vivi and I can come down to visit next weekend. I think Gavin has a kid he’s going to check out in Vegas, and I have no interest in going to Vegas in the summer.”

“We’d love that. Just let me know for sure and we’ll make some reservations and make sure the pool house has extra ice pops and drinks.”

“Great, thanks.”

“So,” my best friend pauses, “do you want to talk about it?”

My wife huffs. “I’m fine, Daddy.”

“ Mills. ”

“Okay, I’m not exactly fine, but I will be. I wish you weren’t best friends with my husband. I don’t like him going to my father about stuff like this.”

I chuckle. She’s such a brat sometimes.

“Well, Mills, that’s what happens when you marry my best friend. And to be fair, I think he’s just worried and?—”

“Maybe we should be worried about him,” she says sharply. “I’m the one who can’t give him what he needs.”

Fuck. I thought we’d been over this last night, but I’m beginning to wonder if there is anything I can say that will make it clear that our life is everything I want. I don’t need another child. Don’t need anything but a happy wife and a happy daughter.

Would I love to have a child with Millie? Of course. But that’s the whole point. It’s with Millie . It’s not about another child. It’s not about my legacy. My brothers have that covered. Beckett alone will give us almost a team of Langfields.

It’s about this life I have with the woman of my dreams. A life we both fought through hell to have. If there’s ten kids or one, our family will be perfect because Millie is my wife. She’s not broken. She’s mine.

“I think you misunderstand what Gavin needs if you think you’re not it,” Ford says. “Listen, we both know I wasn’t the biggest fan of you marrying Gavin.”

I lean my head back against the wall and sigh. That’s for fucking sure.

“Yeah, I got that,” Millie says softly.

“You know what made me come around?”

“Seeing your only daughter in a coma?”

Ford curses. “No. But that was one of the worst nights of my life. It was the way Gavin watched you. The way he loved you through his actions. There’s not a thing that he could have said to convince me he was right for you. Not a word he could utter. But Mills, watching him love you, knowing that he would move heaven and earth and switch spots with you if he could, just like I would have, made it abundantly clear that you were the most important person in the world to him. And if I can’t be there for every moment protecting you, I’m damn glad that Gavin is. And I’ve seen that for the last three years countless times. That man loves you and wants only you. So don’t you think for even a moment that you’re not what he needs.”

My chest is tight and my heart pounds at my best friend’s words. Not because I’m moved by what he said, although, of course I am; it’s always good to know that my wife’s father approves of our relationship, but with or without his blessing, Millie will always be mine. No, it’s because he’s right. Words may not be my specialty, but action is. I’m a doer. No matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes, I will show my wife that she’s enough. Every day of our lives.

“Where are we going?” Millie asks for the thirteenth time since we got in the car. The season starts next week, so this weekend is truly the last one we’ll have without anything else to do. Fitz is running practices for me, and I know my team is in good hands with him, which means for the next forty-eight hours, my only job is keeping smiles on both of my girls' faces.

“Yeah, Daddy, where we going?” Vivi chimes in from the backseat.

I meet her gaze in the rearview mirror. “It’s a surprise, Vivi girl. Who wants to play a game while we drive?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so pretty,” Millie murmurs as we come upon the falls. It’s a little early for the fall foliage in Vermont, but we got lucky, and the leaves have already started turning. The yellows and oranges and deep reds of the trees only highlight how beautiful the rushing water is as it comes over the mountain, crashing into the small pond below.

“I swim.” Vivi tugs on my hand even as I pull her back.

“Sorry Vivi, no bathing suits.”

Our girl stomps her foot and pouts, and unfortunately, it makes both Millie and I laugh, which is not what she was going for. We’ve spent the last few weeks doing all sorts of things as a family of three. Whether it was spending weekends in Bristol at Ford’s house with Vivi’s cousins, or a quick trip to the Keys to hang with Beckett and his crew, I’ve been trying to show Millie that whether we have more kids or not, Vivi will be surrounded by family. And when we return to our hotel rooms or suite in her father’s house, she seems to really enjoy the quiet. Something I know we wouldn’t have with more children.

I think my wife is finally starting to come around to the idea that it’s us that makes the future special, not how many children we have.

“Why don’t we set up a picnic, bestie. I brought your favorite.”

Vivi’s face lights up. “Nutella?”

Millie laughs. “Just like your Auntie Lex and Uncle Aiden. Yup.”

I shake my head. Just what our daughter needs: chocolate and sugar.

“Where’d you hear about this place?” Millie asks as she lays out a blanket right beside the pond. The sound of the falls crashing against the water and the birds chirping above us is melodic. “The Berkshires live up here,” I say, mentioning a family even more famous and influential than Lennox Kennedy’s. Especially when it comes to Vermont. They made their billions from the maple trees that surround us.

“Oh,” Millie hums. “They’re the family with all the girls with boys names, right?”

I chuckle. “Only their nicknames. Henry, Joey, and Teddy.”

Millie beams and points at me. “Yes! That’s it! I think Joey is the one who is always in the magazines right?”

I nod. “She does like attention,” I say of the heiress. She’s the youngest of the three girls, but within the family there’s also a hockey player I’ve been keeping an eye on who’s still too young for me to do anything about, and a baseball player who’s just been drafted, along with a few younger kids.

“Some would say that was me in my family,” Millie says.

I grab my wife’s hand and pull her close to my chest. “And they’d be right. You were always a bit of a brat who needed attention.”

She smirks. “Only yours, Hockey Daddy.”

I groan. “I’m going to kill Lennox for that nickname.”

She pinches my side. “You love it.”

I chuckle, press a kiss to my wife’s lips, and then return my focus to Vivi who is doing spins on the grass. “You know it. What do you say we open a bottle of prosecco and I’ll get out the charcuterie too?”

“Sounds perfect.”

While my head is bent into the cooler, searching for everything we need, I hear the first scream. “Vivi no!”

And then, as my head whips in their direction, I watch in slow motion as my wife trips over a rock and pushes Vivi back away from the water, and then when Millie falls backward, I watch in horror as her head bounces violently against the ground.

“Can we get a doctor in here?” I push back the curtain and look around the small hospital waiting room, wondering what the hell is taking so long.

“I’m fine, Gavin.”

The scowl doesn’t leave my face even as I turn back to check on my wife. She’s sitting in a hospital bed, and Vivi is curled up next to her, entertained by some YouTube video where little girls play Barbies. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, and if not for the fact that I can’t focus on parenting right now, I’d have found something better for her to watch.

“You’re not fine. You hit your head, and this Podunk hospital isn’t taking it seriously.”

I run my hand through my hair, irritated that I can’t quite calm down like my wife so obviously needs me too.

“They checked me for a concussion, and they ran blood work. What else do you want them to do? I feel fine. Just a slight headache.”

I hate hospitals. Have ever since I rushed into one to find my wife unconscious after her car accident. Millie didn’t lose consciousness today, but she did hit her head hard enough that I refused to allow us to just go home and rest. I’m not taking any chances that she has a brain bleed or a concussion. I told them I want them to run every test on her until they can assure me she’s in perfect health. The nurse looked at me like I was nuts, but when the doctor heard my last name, he ordered all the tests. If only they would move a hell of a lot quicker.

Pacing back toward Millie, I try to get a handle on my frustration. When I reach her side, I examine her as if I can see the internal injuries that the doctors assure me don’t exist. “Are you sure you feel alright? If you start to get dizzy?—”

“Gav, I heard everything the doctor said. I will tell you if anything changes. Why don’t you just sit down for a second or maybe go to the cafeteria and get Vivi a snack?”

“Oh, me want cookies,” Vivi chimes in, though she doesn’t even look up from the phone.

I chuckle as I run my hand through Millie’s hair. “Fine. But text me if you feel any different.” I lean in to press a kiss to her lips when I hear the curtain sliding open.

“Millie Langfield?”

“That’s me,” my wife answers as we both turn and look at the unfamiliar woman.

“Dr. Banner assigned me to be your personal nurse for the night.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Millie starts.

I give her a warning glance. “We appreciate it. Can you find out what’s taking the lab so long?”

As I ask the question, the doctor from earlier appears, waving a piece of paper. “I’ve got the results right here.”

Millie sighs. “Oh, thank goodness. Now you can tell my husband that I’m fine, and we can go back to our Airbnb.”

I place my hand on hers. “Let the doctor speak, Peaches.”

“She’s right. You are fine, Millie. Though we did find out that it’s more than just you we needed to check on when we ran your blood,” the doctor says.

“Huh?” Millie glances at me.

“Your blood results revealed that you’re pregnant. We’d like to do an ultrasound to check on the baby and find out how far along you are, if that’s okay?”

“That’s not possible,” Millie says slowly. She glances at me, her golden eyes glossy, already filled with emotion. “We’ve been told it’s impossible.” It’s almost a whisper spoken to just me. My heart beats rapidly as every option filters through my mind. Getting her hopes up. Getting mine up. It all being untrue…but what if…

The doctor frowns. “Why don’t we do the ultrasound then. Just to make sure?”

I squeeze my wife’s hand. “No matter what happens, I’m right here.”

Millie nods and tries to clear her throat. “Vivi, can you go sit with Daddy so the doctor can look at my belly?”

Vivi’s still enthralled with the phone, so I reach for her and pull her to my chest, but my other hand goes right back to Millie’s. I made a promise that I’m not going anywhere, and it’s one I intend to keep.

“We’re going to try an abdominal ultrasound, but if it’s too early we’ll have to switch.”

“Okay,” Millie mumbles. She keeps glancing from me to the doctor like she can’t believe what he’s saying.

I try to project calmness, but I’m right there with her. The last round of IVF was three months ago. She got her period after.

“When was your last period?” I ask her.

Milie shrugs. “I stopped tracking. When we decided to stop trying I just…” She sighs. “I stopped tracking.”

The doctor smiles at her as he pulls out the wand. “We hear that often. When you take the stress out of it—” He motions to the object in his hand. “This is going to be a little cold.” Then he presses it to her stomach, and the room goes silent, making the Barbie talking video Vivi is watching far more obnoxious.

Somehow, I don’t care because as the doctor presses down on my wife’s belly, an image appears, and my heart fucking stops.

“See right there,” he points at the spot I can’t take my eyes off. “There’s your baby.”

Millie grips my hand tighter. “Is the baby okay? Did I hurt it in my fall?”

The doctor continues to move the wand over her belly, but doesn’t reply right away.

“Doc?” I say urgently, trying to get a handle on what he’s worried about.

“Oh yes, right there. Okay, yes, your babies are just fine.”

“Babies?” I croak.

The doctor points to the screen. “Yes, right there is one, and you see that right there is another.” He presses another button, and then the sound of Vivi’s video is drowned out by the rapid beat of two little hearts. Our children’s heartbeats.

“Twins?” Millie asks, her voice almost a whisper. I finally look away from the screen and look into the beautiful brown eyes of my wife. Her cheeks are coated in tears, and she’s never been more beautiful. “We’re having twins?”

I adjust Vivi and lean down so I can press my palm to my wife’s cheek. “You did good, Peaches. You did real good.”

“We’re going to be parents again.” Her voice is filled with wonder. Her eyes twinkling now.

A tremendous sense of pride and an overwhelming need to provide for my family fuels me. I kiss my wife and promise myself that I’ll keep that twinkle in her eye no matter what it takes.

Me: So about that brownstone…

Beckett: As I was saying, I saved the best for last.