10 Years (Time for Love 5)

“Not now, Craig, tonight’s about Victoria,” she said.

I wanted to argue that it was never the right time for her to talk, but I knew she was correct. Tonight needed to be about Brock and Victoria’s baby, not about us, and not about what happened at the bar.

I gave her a quick nod, unable to trust myself to speak yet, as the knot pulled tighter and tighter.

We sat down and she took my hand, squeezing it tightly as if to reassure me that she was there … Then why did it suddenly feel like she wasn’t there at all?

Chapter Thirty-Four ~ Gwen

Present Day (20 years old)

What is wrong with me? I wondered as I sat quietly next to Craig, absorbing his confusion as if I were a sponge.

After talking with Gaby and finally saying out loud everything that I’d been through, I felt raw. Exposed. Like my insides, my heart, my feelings, were on display and everyone could see them. Could see what I’d been through. And would somehow look at me differently.

I wanted to talk to Craig. To explain everything that happened, and how it made me feel, then and now, but I was afraid. And that fear was making me mute.

I’d latched on to the fact that we were here for Brock and Victoria, and gave that to Craig as an excuse as to why we couldn’t discuss what happened at the bar, and after, right now. It was a flimsy excuse, just like the excuses I’d used every other time were. But I knew Craig wouldn’t call me on it. He was too good of a guy to push me into doing something that would make me uncomfortable or unhappy.

And I used that against him.

I was a bad person, taking advantage of Craig’s innate goodness in that way, but I couldn’t control myself. I felt safer that way.

Still, as we sat in the waiting room eagerly anticipating either Brock, or a doctor’s, arrival, I could feel the tension and hurt emanating off of him, and knew he was probably worried that I was shutting down again.

I guess in a way I was, but I’d committed to meeting with someone on Monday morning, and I fully planned on talking about everything with Craig afterword. No matter how scared I was that he’d look at me differently, or feared that he wouldn’t want to date me anymore, after I did, I owed it to him. Especially after everything I’d put him through over the years.

But until then, until I had a chance to lay it all out with a professional and get their opinion on me, and my issues, I was going to keep withholding what Craig wanted the most. The truth.

I just hoped he’d give me a couple more days.

“It’s a boy!” a tired, rumpled, deliriously happy Brock shouted from the doorway, causing a chorus of “Hooray!”, “Yay!”, “I knew you could do it!” to go around the room.

“Everybody’s healthy?” Brady asked as he rushed to his brother. I thought it was sweet how protective he always was. First of his brothers, then Victoria, and now his new nephew.

Brock’s eyes misted up as he pulled his brother in for a hug.

“Perfect. You would have been proud. Victoria was a beast in there,” Brock added, causing us all to laugh. “They’re going to wash him up and then you’ll be able to see him in that big glass window around the corner. Victoria just needs a few minutes to freshen up before she sees anyone.”

He started to barrel back out, but Brendan called after him.

“What’s his name, brother?”

Brock turned around and said with a grin, “Declan Antonio O’Malley,” then rushed out.

“That’s a kick-ass name,” Craig said from next to me.

I turned to him, my eyes brimming with tears and a big happy grin on my face, and leaned in to hug him to me.

“I love seeing Brock so happy, and can’t wait to see Victoria, but … do you want to go see the baby?” I asked, my voice a little muffled by his shirt.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Craig replied, pulling me up with him and leading me out to the big baby window.

“Shit, that’s big kid,” TJ said when he got to the window ahead of the rest of us.

“No doubt,” Brendan replied with a pleased grin.

When I got up I looked in the direction they were, and found O’Malley on one of the index cards in front of a bassinet.