Page 62 of Coast

Epilogue

Flirt

Iwalked into the waitingroom on the delivery floor and looked around. My brothers were there with their women and kids. Ally sat between Crusher and Carly, her legs swinging back and forth as she shifted in the seat.

“How long do babies take?” Ally asked Carly, and I smiled.

“Well, some come quickly, and others take a while. It depends on how bad they want to come out and meet everyone,” Carly answered her.

“Well, if they don’t want to come out, why did they go in there first place, Dad?” Paxton looked up at Coast and asked from his seat between Coast and Tracker.

I sat down beside my brother. “That’s new,” I commented.

Coast and Mac had filled out adoption papers a month after they started fostering Tracker and Paxton. They didn’t tell the boys, though. My brother didn’t want to jinx it. He’d said that if they shared with the boys and then gotten denied, he feared it would set back the progress they had made with them. After the holidays, they’d gotten the call, and not only had they cleared, they had been given a date for the four of them to go before the judge to make it official.

Two weeks ago, we all sat in the courtroom as my brother and Mac had become Tracker and Paxton’s parents. The ICWA social worker from the res smiled and congratulated them. She’d been a big supporter of the adoption.

It hadn’t hurt that the boys had thrived living with Mac and Coast. Tracker’s grades in school were excellent and above average. And Paxton was doing just as well in first grade. It helped that he was at the elementary school where Ally went, and River taught.

“Yeah, it happened last week. No fanfare or anything. Saturday morning Paxton got up and came downstairs. Mac and I were in the kitchen and he looked at Mac and said,‘What’s for breakfast, Mommie?’She spilled her coffee all over the table and while she was wiping it up, trying to hold herself together, Tracker walked in and said,‘What did you spill, Mom.’That did it, brother. She handed me the rag and asked me to finish and told the boys she’d be right back. I got the cereal and milk out. Gave the boys each a bowl and spoon, then went to find her. She was in our bedroom crying her eyes out. By that evening, they were calling me dad, and I’m not ashamed to tell you it brought a lump to my throat. Best feeling, brother.”

“I’m happy for you and glad everything worked out.”

“Thanks. Can you believe Sami and Luna went into labor on the same day? This shit is crazy,” Coast said and shook his head.

“It is. Was Mac worried about Luna being early?” I asked. Ghost had lost his first wife and son in a car accident. He joined Black Hawk to work on healing from his loss. I knew my friend had to be worried.

“She told me on the way here that it isn’t uncommon for twins to come early. She stopped in before you got here and told us both Sami and Luna were doing good. She said the twins were okay, and she didn’t foresee an issue.”

“Damn, I’m glad.”

“Dad,” Paxton said, and Coast looked over at the boy.

“Yeah, Pax.”

“I asked you why do babies go there if they don’t want to come out?” Paxton asked again since Coast hadn’t answered the first time.

I chuckled. “Yeah, why do they do it, brother?”

Coast turned his head back to me and glared. “Seriously?”

“You aren’t going to be able to put it off much longer. Not with the way the women are dropping them,” I said and smiled.

Coast had told us at the shop one day that Paxton asked Mac how she gets the babies out of their mommies. She explained birth so a seven-year-old would understand, but when he followed up and asked how did they get there in the first place, she distracted him with cake and told Coast that was his job. It’d been weeks, and evidently, he still hadn’t sat Paxton down.

“I’ll get to it. Don’t worry about it,” Coast grumbled and turned back to Paxton.

“Mommies and daddies get together, and their love puts a baby in the mommy’s belly,” Ally piped in.

I knew then it was going to go bad. And no sooner than I thought it. It happened.

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