“No, it’s cool, man. She slipped this into my pocket at the wedding,” Boone said and revealed a paper with the smiling face ofEddie Murphy. “Nova’s sending me signals I can’t ignore. Just wanted to let you know.”
Boone hurried away while Exile frowned at Clint as if he should have stopped his friend.
Elle instantly threw salt on Exile’s wound by insisting, “Nova would be lucky to get plowed by that wonderful man.”
We all looked at Nova, who stood in Pax’s yard with her girls and Vanessa. She wore a casual smile until she realized we were all watching her. I chuckled when she panicked and fled into the house.
“We’ve got new competition,” Elle told Ivy and Lula. “We’ll need to bring our A-game from now on.”
Despite the women’s amusement, Exile fumed over his sister having a suitor. He had always been such a weird baby when it came to Nova. Clint reassured Exile that Boone was a good guy. I reminded my VP how his sister had never been properly fucked.
As drama brewed at the party, Elle stopped poking at Exile and focused on me. Once Sutter knew the sloppy kissing was over, he walked outside and joined his mom. The boy rested his cheek on her belly and felt his brother move.
I wrapped an arm around Elle and caressed Sutter’s head. They smiled at me in unison. We’d gotten past the difficult part of living together.No one walked away. Nothing tore us apart.
For the first time in my life, I understood what a real family felt like, and I was willing to sacrifice everything to keep us together.
ELLE’S EPILOGUE
Baton Rouge found its way into my heart by offering Sutter more opportunities. We regularly visited the museum and university. One day, we sat in a lecture discussing wave-particle duality. Sutter started smiling ten minutes into the class, while I felt like the professor was speaking a different language.
As we headed home to meet Zodiac for lunch, I asked Sutter, “Did you understand that?”
“Not even a little bit,” he replied from the back seat.
“So why were you smiling?”
“I sometimes worry I’ll run out of things to learn,” Sutter explained while grinning to himself. “But I didn’t have any idea what he was saying today. I’m excited that there’s so much left to learn in the world.”
I had long worried Sutter would find himself intellectually stifled by living in Little Memphis. Once he outgrew our life, I’d lose my boy to the bigger world. In Baton Rouge, I hoped Sutter could flourish while remaining close to home.
By Thanksgiving, the main house at the “Mouth of Madness Compound” was finished enough to have my family down for dinner. I showed off my shiny engagement ring while feeding the Reed family in our massive dining room. The next day, Zodiac and I had a less formal dinner for the Black Rainbow members.
Christmas was spent in Little Memphis with the plan to remain in my hometown until my due date in the first week of January. For weeks, Zodiac kept his cool while living in my parents’ basement.
Two days before New Year’s Eve, my water broke as I shook my ass to “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” I wasn’t worried since my water broke with Sutter while gyrating to a Joan Jett song.
My labor started well with minimal pain. Four hours later at the hospital, I was in agony and nearly bit through the adult pacifier Zodiac had bought me for Christmas. At one point, I begged Zodiac to cut off his balls, so we’d never go through this again. Thirty minutes later, I was jonesing on my epidural.
“I’ll do it,” Zodiac said during a quiet period before the pushing phase. “I’m strong enough to be a badass without balls.”
“I think you actually keep your balls,” I explained. “The doctor just snips the little tubes that allow you to jizz babies into me.”
“Either way, I’ll do it,” he insisted, barely able to hide his horror at my earlier crying.
“I don’t want to be one of those people chasing a specific sex, you know? A girl would be nice, but I feel like Trent is it for me.”
“Then, I’ll snip my balls.”
“Or we could roll the dice with me taking a different birth control,” I offered, worried that Zodiac would feel neutered if he actually was, in fact, neutered.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Are you going to freak out again during delivery?”
“Absolutely. Pushing was hard with Sutter, and Trent is a bigger baby,” I said, and Zodiac exhaled like he was dying inside. “But it’s not a permanent pain. Think of it this way: imagine someone was messing with me. You’d want to kick his ass, right? And the guy might hurt you in the process. But in the end, the pain would be worth it. Well, that’s what pushing is like. It’ll be a struggle, but in the end, I get to hold our son.”
Zodiac gave me a little smirk. “I like how you dumbed that down for me.”
“I’m just repeating what my mom and dad told me when I was struggling during my first labor,” I murmured and smiled at Shay and Ford chilling in the room.
