Chapter 32

32

Ethan

Gage: Have you heard from her?

Me: She sent a text an hour ago when she arrived in London telling me she'd call today.

Me: Why are you awake? It's 4am. I thought you were doing better with your insomnia.

Gage: Not while Shayla's fucking with me.

Me: Sorry, man. Maybe it's time to take Blair's advice?

Gage: There would have to be no other option before I'd hire her.

Gage: What are you going to do?

Me: I'm about to board a plane.

Me: I've really fucked this up, Gage.

Gage: Yeah, you did, but it's not the end of the world. You'll get face-to-face with her and fix it.

Me: It fucking feels like I've ruined everything.

Gage: That's because you love her. Everything feels a million times worse when you love her.

I haven't told Gage that I'm in love with Maddie, but it doesn't surprise me that he's already figured it out.

Me: Sorry about the ice cream and late night with Luna. I had to bribe her with something.

Gage: Payback will be a bitch.

Thank fuck for my brother. Gage is the one who talked me off the ledge last night when I was losing my shit over becoming a father. He shared that he also had doubts before Luna was born, not confident that he'd make a good father. That stunned me because he's a great dad. We talked for a few hours and that conversation really helped put my mind at ease.

I imagine that Maddie thinks I don't want the baby. I certainly didn't say anything yesterday to indicate that's not the truth. If we'd had that conversation at any other time, away from distractions, it would have gone down very differently.

We would have talked the way we always do, openly sharing our fears and concerns, as well as our hopes. I would have been able to express where I was coming from, which was a valid place of doubt over my ability to be a good parent. And she would have been able to tell me why she was so anxious over telling me about the pregnancy.

But, we didn't have those opportunities and where we've ended is a murky pit of misunderstandings.

I've thought deeply about what Dad said to me last night about parenting and marriage. I think what he was essentially saying was that parenting is teamwork and a team can't show up and get the job done well if they aren't together.

I think communication, trust, and respect are some key qualities of a great team. And when it comes to being a great father, a husband needs to show up in his marriage first by taking into consideration his wife's needs, because if her needs aren't met, the communication, trust, and respect are out the window. And vice versa. The trickle-down effect to their children comes from that, which is exactly what happened in my family.

I did not show up well as Madeline's partner yesterday in the way she needed and that is what I need to do now.

My flight leaves just after 4 a.m. and I try to catch some sleep once we're in the air. I manage a couple of broken hours at the most. When I land in London, I check for a missed call or text from Maddie and find both, which helps settle my gut a little. At least she's not completely shutting me out.

Miller: I'm sorry I missed you. I won't get a chance to try again until tonight.

She has never not been able to find even just a few minutes for me in the midst of her busy work schedule. I think she's avoiding me and I need to know why because it's unusual for her to stop communicating with me.

I don't call her. I text Leigh.

Me: Hey, it's Ethan. How's Madeline? Is she doing okay?

She comes straight back to me.

Leigh: Holy fuck, Hottie, you have screwed up!

Me: Yeah, I know. What are the chances of getting a ticket or pass or whatever I need to get into the studio to see Maddie before the show is filmed this afternoon? I'm assuming you're already there.

Leigh: You're here? In London?

Me: Yeah.

Leigh. If my lifeblood wasn't draining from me, I would be way more enthusiastic right now, but that was a good decision.

Me: So, a pass?

Leigh: Leave it with me. I'll get you in.

Me: Thanks.

Leigh: And Hottie?

Me: Yeah?

Leigh: Don't fuck this up again.

Me: You didn't tell me how Madeline is.

Leigh: At the risk of breaking girl code rules, your girl is struggling big time. IDK what's going on in her head but she's refusing to take a pregnancy test. She keeps crying and then there's the occasional bout of screaming. Whatever you did to her, you did it well and good. And if you tell her I told you all this, I will deny it until the day I die. And I will make you hurt. But for the love of god, Ethan, FIX THIS.

I will forever regret the way I handled that conversation, but since I can't change it now, all I can do is fix my mistake.

After I leave the airport, I gather supplies and head to the TV studios where Madeline is recording an episode of a live talk show. I receive a text from the photography conference organizers on my way.

IPTC: Ethan, we received your email advising of your inability to attend the conference tomorrow. We're disappointed you can't make it but hope all is okay with you. It's quite unfortunate you had to withdraw. We know you would have received the kind of work opportunities from the conference that would be invaluable to your career. We will endeavor to send people your way where we can. Best, Janie.

She's right that I'll miss a lot of work opportunities after withdrawing, but I can't find it in me to care. Not when the only thing I care about is making sure Madeline is okay and then doing everything I can to convince her that I'm the man she wants to raise a child with.

After I read that text, I tap one out to Madeline.

Me: ILY, Miller. I'm on my way to you rn and we're going to talk this out. I think you're avoiding me because I didn't give you the support you needed. And that's okay. I'd probably do the same thing if I told a guy I was pregnant and the first thing he said was, "Fuck". That's a massive red flag. I'll save the rest of what I want to say to you for when I'm looking at you, but I have two urgent questions that I really hope you choose to send a reply to. 1. I know I hurt you and you aren't okay but are you feeling okay pregnancy-wise? and 2. Do you prefer lavender or chamomile?

I hit send and wait, hoping to fuck that she reads it and replies.

A reply comes through within three minutes.

Miller: You did not just tell me that you love me via text!

Fuck, I have never felt relief the way I feel it now. I feel winded.

Me: Shit. I thought that meant I like you.

Miller: Smart-ass.

Miller: And you're already in London?

Me: Yes. I won't ever wait to fix things between us.

Miller: How did you know where I was?

Me: There's this little thing called my girlfriend's calendar that's on my phone.

Miller: Your smart mouth is going to get you into trouble, Black.

Me: Are you going to answer my questions?

Miller: I don't feel sick or anything. But apparently, I'm a raging, hormonal, pregnant woman.

Me: That all seems pretty standard from what I've been reading.

Miller: You've been reading up on pregnancy?

Me: Yes. There's a fuckload to learn and only a very short window of time.

Miller: You are such a nerd.

Me: The other answer?

Miller: I can't decide. I love both.

Me: That's good enough for me.

Miller: This is a lot of texting for you.

Me: You're telling me I could have called?

She calls me and I fumble with my fucking phone in my haste to answer the call.

"I was thinking of baby names on the flight over," I say.

"Did you come up with any that you like?" she asks and I hate the tentativeness I can hear in her voice.

"I'm still thinking, but what I realized is that I don't know your middle name."

"It's Wren. That was my mother's middle name and her mother's too."

"So, our kid's middle name will be Wren."

"Well, I mean, if we have a girl."

"I just googled it. It's gender neutral, but regardless, there are no rules, Miller. We can give our kid whatever name we want."

"Okay, no," she says, quite bossy, and there's my girl. All that tentativeness has disappeared. "I know you're all fast and loose with your ‘no rules' thing, but there is no way I'm sending our child out into the world with a weird name. A friend of mine in school had a weird name and she was picked on all the time for it. We are not doing that to our child, Black."

Fuck, I love her.

"Two things. Firstly, thank you for telling Gage all your thoughts on the fact I don't have a password on my phone. He gave me a lecture about that last night, and at the time I didn't realize it came from you, but he used the term ‘fast and loose', which I thought was fucking odd for him, and now I see it was your term, which makes much more sense."

"You're very welcome," she says so sweetly it makes me grin. "But you didn't listen to him, did you?"

"Fuck no."

She sighs like she's highly frustrated with me and I decide that I want a lifetime of those sighs. "What's the other thing you wanted to tell me?"

"With this weird name shit, is there a list of weird names? Like, who makes that ruling?"

"I do love you, Ethan Black, but honestly, trust me, some names are weird and I will tell you if you choose one."

She just told me she loves me like it's old news to her. It's not old to me, though, and I'm taking a moment to sit with it, to enjoy how fucking good it feels to know that the woman I love feels the same way.

When I don't speak, she prods, "Ethan?"

"You just told me that you love me, Miller. I'm taking a moment here."

The line goes silent for a few moments before she says quietly, "It feels like we're doing everything the wrong way in this relationship."

"What's the right way?"

More silence for a beat. "Well, not meeting the love of your life in the middle of New York traffic while running away from your ex-fiancé for a start." She releases a breath. "And not making the man you love jump really fucking fast when he doesn't want to. And I really hate that we're having this conversation over the phone. It's not how things should be done."

"Baby, the way we should do things is however we decide. Would I prefer to be in the same room as you right now having this conversation? Fuck yes. But I'll take a phone call over no conversation at all. And let's address the jumping fast thing. That's not an issue for me and I regret making you think it was."

"You were pretty adamant about it when we talked about your tattoo."

"And then I got to know you, and honestly, Miller, it wouldn't have been jumping too fast for me if you'd moved into my condo rather than buying your own. I should have told you that at the time. I don't even want you to move into yours next week when it closes."

The silence is deafening after I say that.

"Maddie, talk to me. Tell me why you showed up with fear in your eyes yesterday when you came to tell me you were pregnant."

Her voice shakes like tears are close when she says, "I didn't think you would want the baby. I thought you would leave me."

"Have I done something or said something to make you think that?"

"I thought you would think it was too soon...but I also know that everything that happened with Tucker and my abortion played into my faulty thinking." Her voice wobbles again. "I'm sorry I ran away from this rather than talking to you."

"Well, you didn't technically run away. You had to leave for work."

"You're giving me an out, Ethan, that I don't deserve."

"Okay, here's what I think. I've told you before that I don't fuck about with fairness in relationships. I think that at different times in our lives, we'll need varying degrees of support, of love, of grace. We're gonna have misunderstandings and hard times. That's a given. What we don't know yet is who will need more grace in which difficulty, or who will need more support, or love. There are no rules about that shit as far as I'm concerned. We fly by the seat of our pants on all that. The only rule I will ever follow is to love you with everything inside of me, even in the middle of a misunderstanding. Even when you're frustrating the hell out of me. Even when you're picking a fight with me that doesn't need to be picked. Even when you're throwing so much fucking slang my way I can't follow a word of what you're saying. I will love you and adore you, and I will always fight for you. The rest will take care of itself if I follow that one rule."

Silence greets me again, but this time it's closely followed by crying. "I love you, Ethan Black," she gets out in between sobs. "And you went and learned about flags." More sobbing. "And you did all that texting for me even though you hate texting." The sobs increase as she splutters, "You found ILY." After that, it's a good thing I've arrived at the studio because she can't stop crying.

"Babe, where's Leigh?" I get out of the car and load my arms up with the things I bought her.

She answers my question but I can't make out a single word she says and I wonder if these tears are in response to what I said to her or from her hormones.

"Okay, I'm here," I say, "so I'm going to hang up and find my way inside."

"Okay."

I call Leigh and hear Madeline crying in the background while I find out where to go to be let in. Ten minutes later, I walk into Madeline's dressing room and every muscle in my body relaxes when I see her. How that can happen, I have no idea, but it always does when I'm with her.

She's sitting in the makeup chair while a woman paints her face. Her hair is hanging in loose waves over her shoulders. And she's wearing torn jeans with a white T-shirt. She's fucking beautiful and I need every other fucker in this room to get out.

I eye Leigh and while this chick is great at everything she does, she's exceptional at reading my mind when it comes to Madeline. She takes one look at me and is instantly rounding everyone up and herding them out of the room.

She's the last one to leave, and as she walks through the door, I say, "Thank you."

"You owe me, Hottie, and I will be collecting."

"Whatever you want, it's yours." My attention has already shifted to Madeline who has moved off her stool and is looking at me like I'm a fucking king. If I don't get to see another sunrise it won't matter because what she's giving me in this moment is the only thing a man needs to die happy.

My arms are around her before the door clicks closed and then I'm lifting a hand to slide into her hair so I can pull her mouth to mine. When she gives me what I want, I vow to myself to do whatever it takes to never lose this, to never lose her.

Her body sways into mine and she moans into our kiss, and fuck.

When we draw apart, I keep her close and study her face, taking in the puffiness around her eyes. Sweeping my thumb over her cheek lightly, I say, "I can't promise I won't ever make you cry again, but I'm gonna do my damnedest not to."

She grips my shirt tightly and breathes, "Stop talking right now, Black."

"That's gonna make having a conversation with you real hard."

"We don't have a lot of time to talk now. I only have fifteen minutes until I have to do this interview, which means we've got about five minutes before I have to finish doing hair and makeup."

"Your hair is perfect."

"Yes, to you, but not for TV."

I run my eyes down her body, stopping on the white T-shirt that says, "Girls Can Do Anything." "We're gonna need that shirt in every size."

She frowns. "Do you mean for when I put on weight while I'm pregnant?"

"No, I mean for our daughter."

"We might have a son."

"This time, yeah."

She blinks. Grips my shirt harder. "How many children do you want?"

"However many you wanna give me."

"Ethan." My name whispers out of her as her eyes shine and I think I've just failed at my pledge to not make her cry.

The door to the room opens and Judy strides in with an air of command. Meeting my gaze, she says, "Madeline needs to finish getting ready."

"No, we've still got stuff to discuss."

The way Judy gapes at me makes me think not many people say no to her. The next nine months are gonna be a rude wake-up call for her. "I don't think you understand, Ethan," she starts, but I cut her off.

"Yeah, I get it, but you're gonna have to give me about ten more minutes with her."

Madeline looks at her. "Give us a minute, Judy. I won't be long."

Judy looks anything but pleased. "Graham won't be happy if you hold his show up."

When Madeline simply nods to let her know she heard, Judy leaves, but not before throwing me a dirty look.

Maddie's expression is part chastising, part I-love-you-anyway. "Is this your new plan of attack with my team? You're gonna try bossing them around like you boss me?"

"There's not going to be any trying about it, Miller. It's my job to protect you and our child, and that's what I'm gonna do."

"I still haven't taken a test," she says softly.

"Do you want to do that now?" Leigh already told me this and I think there's something I'm missing here.

"Yes, but first, I want to tell you why I was hurt yesterday."

"I assumed it was because of my reaction and lack of support."

"That didn't help, but no, it was the fact you kept focusing on getting a test before we went any further." Her voice holds a deep ache that I hate having contributed to. "That was exactly what Tucker told me. It brought up a lot of feelings over my abortion and the way he treated me. I think it triggered my brain into making me believe that you would do the same thing. And while I kept trying to talk myself down from thinking that, because I know you would never do that, I just couldn't get past those irrational thoughts." She looks at me sadly. "I'm so sorry, Ethan. I hate that past stuff you had nothing to do with came between us."

"Well, I froze because of my past, so you're not alone. I'd just had a conversation with Dad and had a million thoughts running around my brain about being a father. When you told me I was going to be one, all I could think was that I wasn't fit to be a father, because what do I know about raising a child. My self-doubt shut me down."

"Was it a good conversation with your dad?"

"It was fucking unexpected. He gave me an insight into his parenting choices and he told me he was sorry for a lot of things. It'll take a bit to process."

She smiles. "I've liked watching you two growing closer."

"Yeah," I say gruffly because the conversation with Dad is still affecting me.

With one last smile, she eyes the massive shopping bag I brought in with me. "What's in the bag?"

I turn and reach for it. "I picked up a few things that I thought you might like." I start unpacking the bag. "I did some research on what kinds of things pregnant women could use for self-care. I don't know that you'll use all of it, but I grabbed what I thought seemed useful or that I thought you'd like."

Madeline watches as I fill a table with things like belly butter, a silk pillowcase, a pregnancy support pillow, a soft plush robe that I thought could be good for lounging around in at home, a foot massager, a heated eye mask, a lavender moisturizer and a chamomile one, and a pregnancy journal. "Oh my god, Ethan." She picks up the journal and flicks through it. "I love all of this."

I reach for her hand and pull her in close again. "I bought some pregnancy tests too. I thought we could do it together."

"As in you pee on a stick while I pee on another?" She manages to keep a straight face but there's a fun sparkle in her eyes.

"Yeah, baby, that's exactly what I was thinking."

Her grin is so fucking beautiful.

She grabs one of the tests and goes into the bathroom. I wait outside but she keeps the door open while she pees on the stick.

"You have to leave it under the stick for five seconds, Miller," I say as I lean against the doorjamb. "And keep the tip pointing down."

"You're so cute, knowing that. Did you do thorough research on every brand of test? You know, to make sure we got only the best."

I arch my brows at her smart-assery. "You know I fucking did."

She grins as she puts the lid back on the stick and lays it flat on the vanity. "For a fast-and-loose guy, you're so pedantic about some things."

"Are you gonna complain about that when it benefits you?" I set the timer on my phone.

"I'm not complaining, Black. Just making an observation."

I drag her in close to me, resting my hand on the curve of her ass. "You know, we never did finish ordering the songs on our playlist."

"Oh, I did."

"What? Without my input?"

"Well, I mean, you can rearrange them, but we're not changing the #1 song."

"That sounds like a rule I wouldn't care to follow."

She gives me a look. I imagine it's the same look she'll give our kids one day when she's making it clear she's to be obeyed. "You break that rule, there will be consequences."

"What's your #1 song?"

She glances down at my phone that's sitting next to the pregnancy test. "Take a look for yourself. And it's our #1 song."

The timer goes off on my phone as I open up our playlist and find the song she chose, smiling when I see her choice, fucking loving her choice. My attention is immediately shifted to the stick sitting on the vanity that will tell us if we really are going to be parents.

Maddie's hand finds mine while we both read the result.

Two lines.

Two lines that represent an entire life that will be lived because Madeline Miller let me join her on a recklessly, wild adventure and stole my heart without even trying.

She brings her beautiful blue eyes to mine. "It had to be that song."

I trace my gaze over every curve, every line, every inch of her face, wondering if our baby will have those same lines and curves or if they'll have mine. "Tell me your reason."

Her hand comes to my abs. I hope it always does. "There are so many reasons."

"You're gonna have to spell them out for me, Miller."

"I mean, firstly, it's a great song."

"Agreed."

She turns into me, presses her body to mine, keeping her hand right there on my abs. "Second, life really is a highway." She gives me her mouth. I will never have enough time with her mouth. "And you taught me that the bumps along the road make life interesting."

"They do." I only ever want to ride those bumps with her.

"And lastly." She grips my neck with her other hand and if I can't have an eternity of her claiming my neck, I don't want that eternity. "When we listened to that song, it was the first time you looked at me like I was everything you ever wanted to see."