Chapter Fifteen: Madelyn
It’s not easy to take a leap in the cold, sober moments of looking at your bank balance the same way it is when you’re safe in strong arms, coming like you never have in your life, being told you’re beautiful and perfect.
I don’t take back anything I said, of course, but I’m not kissing Mercer passionately in front of Zack and telling him to move on in, either.
I wait for him to call me on it. Get mad or impatient. Make it clear that if I’m not all in, neither is he, or his promise to help.
Why am I like that?
Oh, you know. Life. Eli. Broken hearts and divorce court.
Mercer never calls me anything but his love, his mate, and always in low whispers or private, stolen seconds where Zack can’t hear it. And then?
He just keeps being the same guy he was.
Swim lessons in the morning. Dinner prep at night. Working his way through an ever-growing stack of recipes with Zack on his shoulders. Bedtime stories for Zack. Movie nights with us on the couch, wrapped in his tentacles, his heavy weight soothing Zack to sleep and making me feel safe—and a little needy.
On Thursday night, he’s helping me put Zack’s presents at the table after he’s asleep, and he places something at my seat, too. “What’s this?”
“I stopped by Little Dragons today and got enrollment forms for the fall. I put down the registration fee and the fees for the first month. Happy giving-birth day.” He smiles and pats thelarge package wrapped in sparkling silver paper into place at Zack’s seat.
I can’t speak. I can’t do anything but blink for a moment.
Mercer looks at me, and his smile fades. “Oh, if you’re not sure, they said we could get a refund until the last day of August. We can also roll it over for another month if we want to hold the spot, but then we’d have to pay an additional fee. They were going to send an email to you tomorrow morning with the schedule, the tuition rates, all of that.”
“You... You went to the preschool and registered him?”
“No, I paid the fees. I know you have to fill out the paperwork, and I’m sure it’s tedious. I could help, but I imagine they want things like his pediatrician’s contact info, his allergies, etc. Madelyn, did I cross a line? I thought... I honestly thought it was a nice gift to the woman I love, to thank her for giving birth to the son I love. I know he’s not mine, by blood, but I hope that doesn’t much matter. To him, or to you. It doesn’t matter at all to me.”
I burst into tears, and Mercer hastily yanks the envelope away. “I’ll go back! I’ll go right now,” he promises, backing away.
“No! No, no. First, you should know that... That I’m hormonal, and I’m in love, and this is the first and only time someone has ever given me a present like this. This is the first time someone other than my immediate family has made me feel so good about being a mother, has made me feel so loved.”
“Oh. Well, that’s going to be an everyday thing from now on,” Mercer promises, gently putting the envelope down. “The house is beautiful. You have a present, Zack has a heap of presents, and I’m speaking with an investment counselor on Monday. My mother’s money has just been sitting in my account for two decades, maturing, and it’s time it was put to better use.”
“Wait. Your mother’s money? I can’t spend that. You can’t spend that on me,” I say quickly.
“Yes, I can. I’m investing it—in stocks and high-yield CDs, I think, but then also in you. You’re my family now—and you haven’t met them yet, Madelyn, but you have more family than you know, waiting to love you. Janet, Calder, their boys... My goodness, Zack will be such a wonderful big cousin to them. He’s the most caring little boy. We’ll go meet them this summer, won’t we?”
I nod and sniff in. “I’m still a big sack of sore boobs and cramps, okay? But I’m sore, sniffly, crampy, and happy.”
Mercer stifles a giggle. “I don’t mean to laugh, my Madelyn, but you do sound like you’re harboring a cast of rejects from The Seven Dwarfs.”
I chuck a puff of dino-shaped confetti at him from its resting place on the table. “It’s a good thing you’re so lovable, Mercer.”
“Am I?” his voice slides into that low, sweet tone that sends tingles through me.
“You are. But you shouldn’t tonight. We shouldn’t. Everything is achy down there.”
“Would pleasuring not help that ache go away?” he asks, one eyebrow arched.
“Well, yeah, that’s what they say, but I never tried. Eli wanted nothing to do with PMS or ‘that time of the month.’”
“Doesn’t that mean you’re a healthy woman, in her sexual prime and capable of giving new life?”
“That’s exactly what it means.”
Mercer nods seriously, pauses, and then scoops me up. “Eli was an idiot. Remember that I don’t like hearing his name unless it’s to favorably compare my abilities to his?”
