“Shhh, shhhh, shhh.” I press my lips to her temple. “Big breath. Big breath.”
She nods and wraps her arms around me, breathing with me. Big breath in. Big breath out.
Once she’s finally collected herself a little bit, she picks up her phone. She’s been crying so fucking hard that her stupid FaceID won’t work, and now she punches in her passcode in angry single finger pokes.
And that’s when I see it.
Photos. Headlines. Tweets. And at the center of it:
Me. And Isabel. And Flint.
Those motherfucking shitass paparazzi.
“Those sons of bitches,” I growl. I grab her phone from her hand and scroll through the articles. This is why we came here to Puerto Rico. We wanted things to start off on the right foot so we could come up with our plan moving forward of how to approach this unconventional life. I feel the fucking red haze start to consume me.
“If these fucking pieces of shit think that they understand this, that they have the right to…”
Just then I hear the thump-thump of Flint’s heavy footfalls on the stairs. “Where’d you two…” he trails off, and looks from me to Isabel and back again.
I watch his face and the split-second explosion of anger.
He locks in on me. “If she’s fucking crying because of you, Dad, I swear to God, I’m gonna….” He tightens his right hand into a fist and pops it into his left palm.
“Calm the fuck down, you animal. It’s not me. It’s this.”
I lob him her phone and he catches it. As soon as he sees the photos and articles, I know he’s got the red haze, too. And for one instant, I’m feeling pretty fucking happy that we’re out at sea on this boat. Because so help us god, if we could actually get our hands on the assholes that published this shit, Isabel would be visiting us in federal lock up for twenty to life.
Flint makes his way over to us, kneeling in front of Isabel. The situation on her phone is a clusterfuck of the first order, true enough. But our job, now and always, is to protect her. From this and from everything. This is just one more step in the journey.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay,” Flint offers, his voice calm and reassuring on the surface, but I know the horror show that’s brewing below. “We will make it okay.”
“But how?” she sobs out, all messy and snotty and sweet. “Flint. Look at this.” She taps through the article and flashes a headline at him. LIONS QB IN SICK MENAGE!
“Judgmental assholes,” he growls, shaking his head.
Isabel wipes her nose on her bare arm as I use the pad of my thumb to gather up another falling tear on her pink cheek. I glance at Flint and he glances at me, and even in the midst of all this anger, we both smile a little. Because she’s our creamy center. She’s the sex kitten and sweet baby girl we’ve been craving forever. But she’s just so fucking cute, besides.
“What if…” Isabel says, “What if you get kicked off the team, Flint? What if you lose your company, Hale? Then what? Then where will we be? What if…” she stammers. “What if I’m pregnant, which I very well may be, and we don’t know whose baby it is? Can you imagine that? Can you imagine us in People magazine? They’ll have a field day with us! Me…” Now the sobs start again. “…with a baby bump…and a question mark…over my belly!”
She finally puckers up her pretty little lips before dissolving into another ugly cry.
But hang on.
Hang on.
Never-fucking-mind People magazine. What if she’s right? What if she’s fucking pregnant? Christ almighty, I’ve never wanted anything more.
But for now, I make myself do what I do so fucking well and focus. Because babies can wait. Right now, it’s all about my baby girl seeing that this is all going to be alright.
Her phone vibrates to life in Flint’s hand, and he shows her the screen. The name Elana over a photo of an exotic-looking brunette blowing a huge bubblegum bubble flashes back at us. Isabel wipes her tear-dampened hand on her thigh and reaches out for it. As soon as she hits the answer button, the cabin is full of the sound of wind rushing through car windows, and a worried but sharp voice comes through the speaker.
“Tell me. Get me up to speed.”
Somehow, it reminds me of some CIA official calling the president during a crisis. And I know I like her already.
Isabel’s sobs and sputters begin again, most of them totally unintelligible to me, but somehow Elana gets the gist. She says all the right words at all the right times, and only asks for a few clarifications when the sobs make Isabel too hard to understand.
“I know, buttercup. I do, but it’s okay. It really is.”