Page 86 of Castaway Whirlwind
“First things first,” Violet says, already tapping away on her keyboard while Russell heads out the back. “Hospital, birth center, or home birth?”
I shake out one of the fuzzy blankets we keep folded on the couch and drape it over our laps, laying my head on Violet’s shoulder. “Are you planning my birth?”
“Of course. I already have Dr. Patel’s information on hand if you choose to have a hospital birth. She’s fantastic, and I’ve already checked that she takes your insurance.” When I nod, she checks off a box and moves on to the next line. “After this, we’ll start designing the nursery and planning the babyshower, though Russell and I got started on that weeks ago, so you’re playing catch-up.”
I laugh. “Like so many other things.”
“That’s the whirlwind for you,” Cora says, twisting her left hand side to side so that the diamonds on her wedding band, which is as flashy as her engagement ring, will catch the light.
* * *
I shuck my sweater off, fanning my face while Davis turns the heat up at his house since the rest of the baby shower guests are freezing with the freak cold front that just blew in two weeks into February, worried we may have a repeat of the freeze that left the State without power a few years back. I had read that pregnancy might make me run hot with the weight gain and fluctuating hormones, but halfway through my second trimester, it’s as if I’ve strapped a furnace to my already aching back.
And every bit of it is worth it, I silently whisper to the baby as I rub my hands over my belly that I rarely stop touching, as if making sure this—my life, my husband, my child—is still real and not a dream I’m going to wake from at any moment.
Russell grips his head with both hands from beside me on the couch, staring at our piles of presents that we just finished opening, missing quite a few items that apparently used to be staples when he was a first-time dad. “I swear to god, I don’t know how Paul survived,” he mutters for perhaps the fifteenth time in as many minutes. “Crib bumpers, bouncers, cereal in bottles, sleeping on his stomach…Can’t do any of that anymore. Everything’s changed.” He pulls at his hair. “Everything.”
Wyatt chuckles with amusement when Russell clutches his heart dramatically with horror in his eyes. “I have to call him and apologize for trying to kill him.” He jumps up and pulls his phone from his pocket, carefully picking his way around the gifts and kids playing on the carpet on his way down the hallway covered in massive framed photographs of Davis and Goldie’s family.
With her phone held to her ear, Goldie snaps her fingers several times at Russell from the kitchen before he gets too far away, and he veers toward her. I sit up straight at the concern etched in her drawn features when she tells Russell, “It’s Teagan. She’s ready.”
Teagan. Her friend from Las Vegas, where Goldie lived before hitchhiking to Texas. Though the rest of us haven’t met her, we’ve been waiting alongside Goldie for this day to come.
Russell’s earlier horrified expression is replaced with one of deadly serious determination when he takes Goldie’s phone after a rushed, whispered exchange. “You have a safe place to stay until we can get someone to you?” he asks Teagan.
I push up from the couch and set my half-eaten cake on the kitchen table.
“F—” he cuts off his curse word when I saddle up beside him, leaning in to hear the rest of their conversation. “Kids and ages?”
“I have three,” Teagan whispers low on the other end of the line. “They’re six, five, and two.”
“Let me check the schedule,” he says after she relays her address. He nods to Davis, who sets up his work laptop on the kitchen counter after typing in his passcode. A few clicks later to check where his long-haulers are currently located in proximity to Nevada, Russell’s shoulders relax marginallywith relief. “My brother is the closest and can be there in twelve hours, give or take. Can you hang on that long?”
“I’ll try,” she answers with a knife’s edge of hope in her voice.
As soon as the call ends, Russell taps Elliott’s contact on his phone while Goldie and Davis exchange a look, then hurry down the hallway to start clearing out their spare bedroom as planned should this day come.
When Elliott finally answers with a grunt, his diesel engine rumbling in the background, Russell says, “Change of plans, brother. I need a favor.”
Epilogue
Russell - 5 years later
I kiss my curly-haired cutie, Rae, on her forehead after setting aside her favorite picture book and rolling myself off her twin-sized bed we had to reinforce so it wouldn’t collapse beneath my weight. It’s as if the universe selectedcopyandpastewhen my daughter was designed, a miniature darlin’.A dream come true…even if she did run me ragged by not sleeping through the night consistently ‘til she was eighteen months old and turned my hair completely gray.
After pulling her green curtains closed to block out the sun while Rae takes her afternoon nap, I turn the volume up on her grizzly bear-shaped white noise machine and slip through the crack of her nursery door. I lock the baby gate behind me at the top of the stairs and freeze halfway down the steps when I spot Layla through the living room windows on our side driveway.
With my cock swelling in my jeans, I rush downstairs and across the room, stopping in the open doorway so I can look my fill of my wife before she realizes I’m here. Wearing her white cowboy boots and jean shorts that she can’t even attempt to zip up, Layla is topless, her large breasts resting on her roundedbaby bump while she rinses the suds from my new dually—one with a solid bench seat in front—with a garden hose.
As much as I loved having a full house, it’s times like these I’m more than glad Cora and Trace were finally able to move out two years ago once their house was built, giving us the privacy to do what we want, when we want, in as little clothing as we want.
Layla finally notices me when she moves on to the back of the truck. “Are you going to watch me clean, Daddy?”
“Sure am, darlin’.” I yank off my T-shirt and roll my zipper down, fisting my cock that lengthens in my hand until I’m fully hard. “You’re doing a great job,” I say, though I can’t drag my eyes away from her long enough to verify if I’m telling the truth.
She smiles, dropping her eyes to my hand. “Are you going to make yourself cum?”
“Oh, I’m going to do more than that.”
