Unlike Any Other (Unexpected #1) (19 page)

1990

“This one was a gymnast for twelve years,” Christian pointed at another profile. “She’s in grad school.”

Last Christmas my sister said four words,
In vitro and surrogate
as Christian and I stared at her children like puppies waiting for a treat. Claire, my niece, had us tied in knots wanting a little girl like her.

“She makes me want to have a little girl.” Chris believed Claire could do no wrong and was the smartest girl on the planet. “A boy too. Your nephews are amazing. I wish we could have children.”

After my sister’s suggestion, we started researching hospitals, egg banks… everything to make it possible. We had been in an official relationship for no longer than a year, but it felt as if we had been together for years. The next obvious step was family.

“Do we care about their height?” Christian continued his search.

“I don’t think it matters much,” I read donor number 14,274—dark-blonde hair, and blue eyes. Graduated from college. Then I pushed the profile I just read toward him. “This one could be it.”

“What if only one egg sticks?” Chris suddenly asked.

“We could do it again if you want, babe.” I kissed him lightly.

“Yes,” his brows knitted and his lips twisted. “I don’t want our child to grow up alone.”

“What if the four of them stick?” I asked.

We were searching for a donor willing to give four eggs to a same-sex couple. The doctors in Switzerland told us that after implanting the embryos, how many stuck would be a gamble. Sometimes out of all the embryos only one stuck and others, none. They’d inseminate two of the eggs with my sperm and the other two with Christian’s. We hoped that one or two would stick.

“That’ll be wicked,” Christian’s eyebrow arched as his eyes crinkled. “I’d have a band… four? That’s harder to hide, babe.”

Only a few knew about our relationship—our bodyguards, my family, and a few close friends of ours, including Tara. Not even my agent knew about Chris. Of course, he was happy to hook me up with any model for an event as I told him I didn’t want anything serious. I let the world believe that I fucked them and tossed them immediately.

Chris and I were bisexual but monogamous. We commented on beautiful women and handsome men but our exclusivity remained intact. Not once did I touch the women I went out with.

As planned, I moved in with him at his Seattle apartment, but now that we planned to have children, we had bought several acres of land in Washington State, close to the Oregon border. The construction company broke ground a month ago. We’d build our permanent home there. A house similar to the one in Santa Barbara with a manmade lake, two pools, a studio for Chris, and enough rooms so our family from Albany could visit.

“Together we can deal with anything, even four rowdy children.” I squeezed his hand. “No one will know about them. The hospital in Switzerland has no fucking idea who we are. Annie, our surrogate didn’t mind if she had one or four babies. Once we come back home, they’ll be in a compound surrounded by everything they need. Nothing will touch them. I swear.”

I read several times the profile of donor 11,834. Height 5’5” weight 136, brown hair, green eyes, registered nurse working through graduate school, bilingual. Irish descendant. Self-motivated, kind, honest.

“Your birth certificate says that your mother was Irish, right?” Chris gave me that slight shrug.

I pushed the paper toward him.

“I like her,” he kissed my lips. “That’s our babies’ mama?”

“Are you sure?”

I asked one more time. Once, he didn’t want a family—children. Now we were creating our own.

“Yes, I want to have your babies—our babies,” he placed a hand on top of my thigh and slid it toward my groin. “You really changed my fucking world, Gabe.”

He rubbed my cock.

“Now let’s go and pretend we are making babies.” Chris unbuckled my belt, and I pushed him gently away.

The sooner I sent in our request, the sooner we could start the process. It was going to take between six months to a year, even though we paid them extra to expedite our paperwork.

“Twenty-eight weeks is too soon,” Christian paced around the sterile waiting room. I remained close to the door where they had kicked us out earlier.

Annie, our surrogate mother, had gone into labor earlier. We were having breakfast, and she was telling us about the back pains she had during the night. Suddenly, out of the blue, she screamed that her water broke.

“They said triplets never go full term,” I reminded Chris. They had to be fine. “Annie was scheduled for a C-section in four weeks, babe.”

It went fast. As we arrived at the hospital, they wheeled her inside the operating room. They handed us scrubs to put on from head to toe and when we entered the room, they were already numbing her.

It didn’t take long for the doctor to get the first baby out, Ainsley our little girl. So small at two pounds and five ounces. Then Matthew James made his big entrance weighing three pounds and five ounces, and finally Jacob Christian at three pounds and nine ounces.

Ainsley was too tiny, they said she couldn’t breathe on her own and there was a possibility she wouldn’t survive. My heart shrunk, as I wanted that tiny baby who could barely fit into my hand to take my life in exchange for hers.

“She’ll be okay,” I reassured Christian, who stopped in front of me and hugged me tight.

“Of course she will, she’s a Decker.” He said as I rested my forehead on his and closed my eyes.

We didn’t know if she was mine or his, what mattered was that we wanted her to survive. She’d be Colhurst-Decker. The legal surname Chris and I adopted as we decided to take the step of creating a family.

The babies’ private room had been on standby since the babies finished their second trimester of gestation. The hospital made sure they equipped it with incubators, a bed for us, and every machine they needed. Also, we had hired a group of nurses who could care for them around the clock for when we got home.

We had plenty of time. Chris and I had planned to be away from America for an entire year. Our main priority was our babies.

Matthew James, Jacob Christian, and Ainsley Janine. Most of them family names. Ainsley was Christian’s middle name and Janine was my mother’s name. James my father’s name and my middle name. Matthew and Jacob were the two names we picked because we liked them.

“Soon we’ll head home, babe.” I rubbed his back. “And we’ll keep them safe forever. Nothing will touch them, I promise.”

“None of those books we read on parenting prepared us for this situation,” he explained. “How long until we can see them?”

“Soon,” I hoped.

We waited for another hour, and then the nurses took us back to their room. They had placed them inside the same incubator. All of them had plastic tubes taped on their tiny nostrils. They wore a small cap on their heads and diapers that reminded me of my niece’s doll clothing. The smallest one with the pink hat in the middle, flanked by her two brothers.

“The three of them are doing well,” Dr. Arner said as she scribbled in their charts. “We just need to keep them long enough for them to fully develop. Your baby girl might take longer, but the prognosis they gave you was wrong; she’ll survive and will keep up with those boys.”

“We made them,” Christian leaned on my side as we stared at them. My heart swelled at the sight of three amazing children with my partner.

“I love you, babe,” we said at the same time.

“Thank you, for these. Now I have a family, a trio of beautiful babies,” Chris grinned. “They’ll all learn to play the guitar, piano… Everything I know, they’ll be musical geniuses.”

“Our little trio.”

“I’ll be ‘El Padre’.” Chris bent closer to the incubator. “You three will call me Papi and believe I’m the cool one of your parents. I’ll protect you from the world, and also teach you how to love your messy Dad.” Chris lowered his voice. “He’s an amazing man, I promise; even when he doesn’t know how to speak Spanish.”

“May I remind you that you don’t speak Spanish either.” I hug his waist and kiss his shoulder. “Stop pretending.”

“I’ll go back to school and have a degree in Spanish.” He glared at me. “Then you won’t be able to stop me from speaking my favorite language.”

I laughed at him. It didn’t matter what they called us or what language we spoke. I had a family—the love of my life and three children who I loved so much, I’d give my life for them.

2015

Mason and I sit in the theater room while watching some action movie I’m ignoring, eating snacks—carrots and celery along with some frozen fruit. While Mase sits on the couch, I rest my head on one of the arm rests and prop my legs on top of his thighs. A habit we all acquired from Chris.

My beloved Papi, I wonder if he’ll come to visit Dad.

Like MJ, Chris isn’t a morning person—a father like son old cliché. I have to wait and call him after ten if I want him coherent. He hasn’t always been that way, it happened suddenly when we turned thirteen. Dad said that Chris retook a few of his old habits. Like waking up late and cussing. He restrained himself mostly when I was around—because I’m a lady.

“At what time are we having a real breakfast?” Mason asks, bored like me.

We came back from the beach and saw Nikki rummaging around the house. I wanted to avoid her and Porter. Now we’re stuck in the basement with rabbit food, as Mason called it.

“Later?” I shove a piece of fruit inside his mouth and go back to my original position.

This is boring. I’m missing Breezy, but I left her in my parents’ room, and going up there will imply facing the houseguests—Porter and Nikki.

“Hey, if I ask you to use those ninja skills for a mission,” Mason lifts both eyebrows and crosses his arms, “can you go and rescue Breezy from the tower? My hands need to play some music, please,” singing the last word.

“Why is he here?” Mason asks releasing his arms and scratching his ear.

I push myself up to a sitting position and stare at the green-grayish eyes behind those thick square glasses.

Clark Kent black glasses.

“I like that geek look. You cover that alter-ego personality to the T.” I lightly touch the frame.

Mase runs a hand through his thick dark hair as his gaze rests on me.

“Now, who are we talking about when you say ‘he’?” Yes, I’m playing dumb. So far, I have been able to avoid talking about the subject—Porter.

“Kendrick.” His gruff tone makes me narrow my eyes. “You know I can’t stand him. I had hoped by the time I arrived, he’d be gone.”

“Mase, believe me, I’m the first one who wants him voted out of the Colthurst home,” I scrunch my nose. “For that to happen though, I would have to give an entire explanation of why and what happened.”

He continues to stare at me.

“Let me repeat. I. Am. Not. There. I can’t go back there. I can’t be that depressed, pathetic woman.”

“You need to or you’ll never move on.”

His words are too objective for the subject.

Yes, closure, moving on, open my heart again. All that bunch of bologna is true. If I open up just a little—things, or better yet—people like Ryker wouldn’t happen to me.

I can now be known as ‘the other woman.’ I didn’t want someone to love, only to kiss and not tell, to have the benefits of a relationship without the hazard. The fact that I remained at arm’s length from Ryker made me oblivious to the signs that screamed he was otherwise preoccupied.

He mentioned his obnoxious roommate… the tight schedule when we could meet and where. I didn’t see the truth because I refused to comb through any facts. That is until I wanted some place to stay for Thanksgiving.

“Why don’t you have a permanent place?” Thinking about home and belonging, it occurs to me that Mason is a wander-luster.

“Questions again?” he replies. “Why should I?”

“Because it’s nice to have a place to call home,” I respond.

“You’re such a girl.” It feels as if he’s about to change the subject.

“Oh, no!” I cover my mouth with the tips of my fingers. “I’m a girl?”

I pull the neck of my shirt and eye my chest from left to right.

“Yep, definitely girl parts.”

His eyes narrow in contempt, unamused.

“Have you had a serious girl?” He doesn’t answer and remains stoic. “A girlfriend or something? You have a woman in every port. No, your alter-ego has a wife and a child.”

Mason releases the serious pose and laughs. I spin my legs around to rest my head on his thighs as I wait for him to give me some kind of silly story or try to avoid an explanation.

“There’s no other life.” He presses pause and his attention is all mine now. “In the name of full disclosure, because that’s how I want things to be between us. I had a girlfriend. Meghan. Fiancée.”

I can’t help but struggle to breathe, swallow saliva, and think at the same time. A fiancée is serious.

“We met during my junior year of college. She was cute and, well, I was a dork who liked the possibility of having a girlfriend. We dated for two years. After I had graduated, I traveled for another. We wrote emails to each other. When she finished college—a semester later—she began to pester me about the future, wedding, and children… the works. She had the names of our two children already picked out, and had moved us to Boston because she loved it there.”

He sighs running both hands through his hair, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. I wait patiently because this is important. It matters. He had plans, well, her. What if he had gone through with it? I doubt we’d be here sitting at my parent’s home avoiding Porter and my brothers, talking about us.

No. No us, AJ.

“My parents lasted less than a month married.” He begins to fidget with my curls, those crystal-clear gray eyes not giving me much on how he feels. However I’m happy he’s giving me a little more of him. “Mom never trusted Dad, he swears he was always faithful, but… they couldn’t make it work. Of course, by then my mom was pregnant.”

Yes, I knew the story. Joint custody meant going from one parent to another or to our house.

“As Meghan continued pestering, I kept working. I had a few contracts in the works,” Mase continues. “That meant traveling, splitting myself in half, and I wasn’t willing to repeat my parent’s mistakes. I asked her to wait until I established something concrete.”

“One weekend I visited her.” I pull up the sleeve of his t-shirt and find his other tattoo. An infinity symbol made with zeros, ones, threes, and nines. As I touch it, he shivers and grabs both of my hands. “Stop or there’s no more story.”

I clamp my lips shut and try to take my hands back but he doesn’t let me.

“We fought about everything that weekend: our relationship, our future, my lack of a real job. She wanted to move to the east coast and have the white picket fence with two children and all that shit. I was only twenty-two.”

Six years ago. I ponder why he didn’t tell me, but then again I was beginning my own tragedy.

“Dad asked me:
‘Does she make you happy?’
”

Mason releases my hands and pulls out his phone and shows me a picture.

‘Always do what makes you happy’ says a caption over a guy playing video games. I made it, I remember it.

“You had sent me that the day before.”

I smile at it because I’ve always harassed him about being an unemployed but happy geek.

“That made me happier than Meghan. A picture. You gave me the answer.”

I did?

“My life plans mattered and I had worked too hard to just let it go. I figured out that I was about to marry a woman who didn’t know me, one who wanted to change me and who I didn’t love.”

He takes his phone back.

“The official version is different. Meghan broke up with me because I’m a loser,” he grins and continues. “My only formal relationship.”

Mason grabs both my hands with only one, fetches a carrot and feeds it to me.

“After her?” I ask after I finished chewing.

“Nothing significant,” he responds, pressing play on the remote, subject forgotten.

“Do I have it right: because of your parents’ history, you don’t want a serious relationship?”

He offers me another bite of carrot and eats the rest, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Because of your parents, you do want a serious relationship,” his words come out harsher than I care, or I’m still sensitive about their split.

My back stiffens.

“No,” I puff out. “And yes. If you hear their story, how they went from being strangers, to friends, then best friends, and finally realizing they found that person they wanted to share their lives with, you’d want it too.”

“Shoot,” he says.

I repeat the highlights of what I know. There are things they keep to themselves. The fact that it took a long time for them to come together, to accept their feelings for one another. Dad-Gabe hasn’t finished the story, but it always ends with how they reunited after he begged Chris for days to accept each other.

“Your parents weren’t gay?”

I shake my head. “No, if you must label them, they are bisexual,” I explain. “They fell for what was inside of each other, not the exterior. My parents aren’t perfect, in fact, at the moment they aren’t together, but they have one thing not many do: love, the real kind. I have faith they’ll reconcile.”

Yesterday, as the EMT’s attended Dad, I called ‘El Padre,’ better known as Chris.

“My beautiful girl finally found her phone.” It took me some time to find my voice, the sobs predominating my conversation. “Ainse, I need you to take a deep breath and repeat what you said. I heard that your dad is in an ambulance?”

“Yes, Papi, I think he had a heart attack,” I sniffed.

“Motherfucker, he better not have died, damn it.” His wounded animal growl reminded me of a wolf on a night of the full moon howling for his mate. “He’ll be fine, we’ll hire the best cardiologist. We’re not losing him. Call me when you know more, please.”

“Maybe that kind of love is only for some,” Mason doesn’t bash their story, but he’s not convinced.

Great. Another non-believer.

Make him believe, Ainse.

No, Ainse, don’t. Stay where you are, he’s the smart one.

Stop believing, stay safe, remember?

“Ainsley Janine,” JC yells. He is looking for me. “Breakfast time. Come on, you escaped yesterday but not today. It’s our turn to cook.”

I flinch, that means heading upstairs.

“Come on, let’s go make breakfast?”

“You cook, Mase?”

“No, but I can cheer you on from the sidelines.” I roll my eyes and we both head to the kitchen.