The guys let me know Cynda told them that while they’re tending to my wounds back at the cabin. At first, they had suspected I skipped town, just like I’d been low-key trying to do for weeks.
Mitch and Nico had been distraught, but they had decided to respect my decision.
Only Jeb hadn’t believed I was really gone. On a hunch, he followed up on the only real lead he had on me.
Cynda. He found her. He claimed it wasn’t that hard. There weren’t many Cynda’s in the state of Missouri, and only one of them was black.
He called her, and as soon as he found out about Tommy, he connected to my other gift. The one he hadn’t gotten around to telling me about. There wasn’t only money in that diaper bag. There was also a phone—a phone they used to track me. And when my dot had shown up across the lake, they pieced together exactly what had happened.
After that, they found me, ended Tommy’s life, and called the fiancé of my other best friend, Billie. That was another huge twist in the story. Not only had both Cynda and Billie also gotten engaged during the pandemic, Billie’s fiancé was a Rustanov. And apparently, the Rustanovs were a Russian family about two steps away from mafia.
The kind of people who say, “No problem at all,” when you call them looking for help getting rid of a cop’s body.
“None of you want to believe me,” Nico crowed after all was said and buried. “But I really am the luckiest guy on Earth.”
With that problem solved, they take me to the Sweet Lake doctor a few days later. He lets me know that despite my fall, everything looks great, and he easily found a heartbeat.
I cry tears of joy. Not just because the baby’s okay, but also because this is the last time I’ll ever have to cover up Tommy’s abuse.
Maybe that makes me a bitch, just like Tommy said. But if so, I’m a happy bitch. And I’m glad he’s dead.
Mitch and Nico keep asking if I’m alright for weeks after. They don’t believe me when I tell them I’m totally at peace. But Jeb gets it. He says we’re a little too fucked up and suggests that we both start talking to a therapist over Telehealth. But he gets it.
Therapy helps. Jeb finds us a sex-positive therapist couple from California. They’re happy to see us individually or together when Jeb and I have trouble communicating because of the things we suffered in our pasts. The wife, who I see individually, doesn’t care that much about my three partners. She just wants to help me deal with my low self-esteem issues so that I can receive love. From them and from myself.
I can’t say that I stopped having dark moments as soon as I decided to accept the guys’ marriage proposal and took on a therapist. But it does feel like my relationships with Nico, Mitch, and Jeb now has a self-sabotage safety net now.
A few months before the baby was born, we all got married. Jeb and I went to the Sweet Lake courthouse and let the team’s publicity department send around a few announcements. And then we came home to the cabin and had our own private ceremony with Nico and Mitch.
Billie’s now husband has a hilarious habit of referring to us three beauty queens as fairytale princesses. He calls Billie krasotka, which means “Beauty” in Russian, and he refers to himself as her beast. Of course, he labeled Cynda, Cyndarella. And he’s the only one outside my husbands who refers to me as Goldie.
I know he’s teasing, but it really does feel like we’re living happily ever after.
Especially in the summer of 2021.
“Nico, I can carry the popcorn,” I insist when he tries to tug the bowl away.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his expression filled with gentle worry. Basically the opposite of the man that beat Tommy toothless before Jeb shot him straight in the face.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I answer with a laugh.
Then I have to have the same conversation with Mitch as I make my way out to the living room. Honestly, they’ve been the worst ever since I announced I was pregnant again just three months after delivering our first baby, who we named Saul after Coach Granger.
They don’t let me cook. They don’t let me clean. I barely get to breastfeed Saul before one of them comes along and swoops him out of my arms. It got even worse when Saul started occasionally using a bottle. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up to find out that Mitch or Nico have taken him to a job site.
Nico quit the team before the beginning of last season. And, even though there’s now a COVID vaccine, Mitch announced he wasn’t returning to the Wisconsin Bears this season.