Of course, I know what a check swing is. But using it here … the man is smart. Leave it to a baseball metaphor to cool my jets.
“I hate that you did that.” My voice is filled with unshed tears.
We’re standing in my small living room, feet apart, but I can feel the ice chipping away from my heart where I froze it this morning.
“I can’t promise to be smart all the time. Hell, I’m a stupid ass most of the time. But I’m trying, I’m trying so hard for you. I can promise I’ll try until there is nothing else left to try. I love you, Francesca. I love you so much it overwhelms me. I am so in love with you that it scares me, but I’m choosing to push past the fear.”
Slowly, step by step, he closes the distance between us.
“Don’t leave me again,” I whisper. “I won’t be able to take it. This, us, our son … I need us together.”
Because I love him so much, it scares me.
“No more balking. If I do, you can take a bat to my nuts.” He cracks a grin as he reaches for me.
I snort as he pulls me in, burying my face in the musky, masculine scent of his neck. “You may regret that you said that.”
“Probably.” He strokes a hand down my back. “Now, get dressed. I’m taking you to an adoption dinner, and there is no way you’re saying no.”
37
Sinclair
The doorbell rouses me from sleep, my brain protesting with every sound.
I was asleep, Frankie in my arms, my hands resting on her belly. I drifted off with my son kicking at my palms, and it was perfect.
Who the fuck is ringing my doorbell at …
I roll over, grabbing my phone and squinting as the light assaults my eyes. One in the morning.
What the fuck is going on?
The doorbell chimes again, and now Frankie is stirring next to me. I press a kiss to her temple and rush out of bed, nearly killing myself in the dark as I pull on sweatpants and a T-shirt that had been discarded on my dresser.
It’s warm in the house, but it’s still winter, and I shiver as I hurry to the front door. I need to make this stop before they wake my girl up. She has enough trouble sleeping now that she’s so super pregnant, and she deserves a good night’s rest. I’ll murder whoever is about to wake her up.
When I wrench open the door, what I’m met with makes my stomach drop.
“Yo, Sinny!” Vaughn, one of my old drinking buddies, stands at my door holding up a bottle of gin.
“Sin!” Two girls cry out behind him, and it’s been so long that I don’t even remember their names.
I see another straggler, some dude who only came to my house once or twice for a party, walking up my driveway with them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snarl.
I haven’t seen these people in two years. They’re my past, apparently showing up at one in the morning.
“We were fucking bored, and stoned, and we were reminiscing. We all agree that the fucking best parties we’ve ever been to have been at your place, and wouldn’t it be epic to just like, throw one right now. So we came over. Let’s fucking party, man.”
I look at Vaughn like I equal parts want to throttle him, but also can’t understand what the hell he’s talking about. Is this the kind of shit I used to get up to when I was drunk? Jesus Christ, these people are insane.
“Get the hell off my property.” I don’t care how rude I’m being. These strangers showed up to my house in the middle of the night.
“Dude, chill.” One of the girls giggles, and I feel my blood boil.
They start to move toward me, and I’m blindsided.
“No, you can’t—”
But my voice has no weight to them because they push past me, Vaughn rather forcefully, and just enter my house.
Would it be a crime if I got the baseball bat in my den and beat them with it? Technically, they’re trespassing.
“You can’t be here. I didn’t invite you, and I don’t do this shit anymore.”
“He needs a drink! Get him a drink.” The other female laughs, walking through my house like it’s her own.
Fuck. What did I used to do that would give people the idea I was okay with this? Clearly, they’re high as kites and maybe on something else. I have to call the cops. But first, I have to get them out. My heart lurches at the thought that Frankie isn’t safe with them here.
“Get the hell out of my house!” I yell, but they all just laugh.
“Sin? What’s going on?”
Frankie has made her way into the kitchen; the noise must have woken her. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of my boxers, her belly swelling the waistband.
“It’s nothing, baby, why don’t you go back upstairs?” I try to keep my voice calm.
She’s rubbing the sleep from those violet eyes when they land on the four bottles of liquor my unexpected guests plopped on the kitchen island. Behind me, one of the girls has gone to the stereo system, pairing her phone via Bluetooth and blaring the new Drake song through the house.
“You … did you invite guests over? Are you … drinking?”
I hate that I hear accusations in her voice, that she can’t just trust that none of this is by my doing. I hate it so much that I don’t just dispel it right away because my annoyance gets the better of me.
“You really think I’d be partying right now?” My tone is beyond pissed off.
She double takes, as if to say are you really taking that tone with me? “I don’t know, Sinclair, are you? It looks to me like your buddies know their way around pretty well. And I see they have some expensive taste, which I know you do, too.”
She motions to the Casamigos and Grey Goose on the counter.
“My pregnant girlfriend is upstairs, warm and snug in my bed, and you really think I’d be down here getting wasted with people I barely keep in touch with?”
“I don’t know, it seems awfully fun down here.”
The pregnancy has to have warped her brain along with her hormones, that’s the only reasonable explanation. The Frankie I know is rational, but while she’s been growing our child, she has reacted so strangely to certain situations.
“I’m trying to kick them out and come back up to bed with you, crazy. I would never risk my sobriety, and not just because you or our son are in my life now. That shit is too important to me. Don’t come down here and accuse me of shit you weren’t even around to see in the first place.”
I shouldn’t argue with her, first rule of being a good baby daddy is just agreeing with everything the woman says. I know that. But I can’t help myself. Maybe because it’s one o’clock in the morning.
“You’re right, I wasn’t around to see it, but I’ve heard. Believe me, I have ideas of how bad it can get. Seth was absolutely right about you!”
I’m about to fire back, this argument getting blown so far out of proportion that I don’t even know where it started, when I see it.
“Frankie …”
My voice trails off, because I see it as it happens.
A whoosh of water, rushing down her legs, soaking the boxers she’s wearing, and puddling on the floor.