Good Girl Gone Badd Read online

  We made it to the truck, and I helped her up into the passenger seat. She dug the keys out of her purse and tossed them to me before I closed the door.

  "Drive," she barked. "Hospital. I have to--I have to get to the hospital."

  "Hell, no," I snapped back. "I'm still drunk. I'm not drunk-driving my brother's pregnant wife fucking anywhere."

  "Then get ready to help me deliver your nephew."

  "It's a boy?"

  "That's what they're telling me. Zane wanted it to be a surprise, though, so don't mention it." She eyed me. "You really can't drive right now?"

  "Mara, this is me doing you a favor. I could probably make it safely, but I ain't taking that chance. If it was my life I was gambling with, maybe. This is you, and that baby you're baking." I shook my head and shrugged. "So, no, babe. I can't drive. Sorry."

  She exhaled shakily. "Shit." She dialed Zane and held the phone to her ear for a minute, and then ended the call, cursing when he didn't pick up. "Must be driving." She twisted sideways and started sliding out of the truck. "Help me into the back seat. I need to lay down."

  I helped her out and then into the back seat, laying her down across it. Her hands were on her belly, her head resting on her purse. "Think about holding that sucker in, Mara. No baby time until Zane gets here."

  "Don't call my baby a fucker, you fucker!" she shrieked, as another contraction hit her, faster than the last one.

  This shit was happening fucking fast.

  "Sucker! I said SUCKER, with an S. Jesus. Chill."

  She lifted up on her elbows to glare at me. "Do NOT tell a woman in fucking labor to fucking chill, Baxter Badd."

  "Sorry, sorry. This is just really intense, you know?"

  Mara screamed incoherently in blind rage. "It's intense for you? I'm the one in labor!" She screamed again, in pain this time. "GODDAMMIT ZANE! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?"

  A motorcycle appeared at that moment down the street, approaching at a recklessly fast pace, squealing to a dramatic, skidding stop beside the truck. Zane hopped off, no helmet and windblown, panic on his features.

  "Mara?" he called out, not even seeing either of us, as we were on the other side of the truck and he was jogging toward the front door.

  "Over here, dipshit," I shouted. "In the truck."

  He pivoted and ran for the open door of the truck, reaching for Mara. "Baby! You okay?"

  'NO! I'm not fucking okay!" Mara screamed. "I'm about to have this baby right now, and your stupid brother is too drunk to drive me to the hospital and you weren't here!"

  "I'm here now," he crooned, his voice calm. "I'm here now. Let's go, okay? I'll get you there." He shot a look at me. "Get in, Bax."

  "Why me?" I asked, my drunk mouth running away from my brain or better sense.

  "Because you're about to be an uncle and you should be there, fucker." He hopped into the driver's seat, twisted the ignition, and backed out the second the rest of the doors were closed. "And also because I'm about to be a daddy, and I'm scared out of my fucking mind, and I fucking need you, okay?"

  I stared at him as he drove, both hands on the wheel, maneuvering aggressively toward the hospital. "You're scared? Haven't you, like, been in a billion firefights?"

  "Yep, and that shit is nothing compared to this, Bax." He twisted the wheel in his fists. "Thanks for being there to help her."

  "I didn't do much," I argued. "Just helped her move around."

  "Well, still, good thing you stumbled your stupid drunk ass to my house, or she'd have been alone."

  I grunted and waved a hand in dismissal. "She's family, bro."

  We made it to the hospital in record time, got Mara checked into the labor and delivery ward and attended to by a physician--who determined that she'd have the baby relatively soon, but didn't elaborate on what that meant--and then Zane had me call Bast and the others, to spread the word about the impending arrival of the first Baby Badd.

  Which, Jesus, that was weird to think about: a baby. In a matter of something like hours, there would be a brand-new human being that hadn't existed before. Like, how did that make any damn sense? How could two people fucking create a new person? I got a little dizzy thinking about it, and turned to Zane as we sat in the room with Mara, who was connected to a shitload of wires and monitors, chomping on ice chips and glaring at everything that moved.

  "Yo, Zane," I said, and he glanced at me with a grunt. "I been thinkin', and I think I sort of understand how you're scared about this."

  He quirked an eyebrow at me. "How do you figure?"

  I tipped my head to one side. "Well, I mean, until now it's been sort of a mental thing, Mara being pregnant. I mean, we all saw the ultrasound pictures and shit, and her belly has been getting bigger, but now that she's in labor, it's like...there's about to be a totally new fuckin' person in the world"--I gestured to him and then at Mara--"who you two created. Which is just...it makes me dizzy just thinkin' about it."

  Zane clapped me on the shoulder. "Exactly. Now multiply that by a million, and add in the reality that you are personally responsible for that brand-new person. Like, it's your responsibility to not only make sure the little person doesn't like die or whatever, but also grows up to become a halfway decent person." He let out a rough sigh. "Makes me wish Mom and Dad were around still, so I could let them know how much more I appreciate them."

  I nodded. "Yeah, man. I hear that." I blinked hard against the weird bucket of emotions I was suddenly feeling. "Funny thing is, it's getting harder every year to even remember Mom."

  "I know what you mean. I have a handful of memories, but even those are a little fuzzy, these days," Zane said.

  "JESUS FUCK!" Mara howled. "You two have to pick fucking now to get all maudlin on me?"

  I eyed her warily. "Wow. You're really in quite a mood, Mara."

  Her eyes widened to unsafe dimensions, and she began physically trying to clamber out of the bed to get at me, screaming in what seemed to be equal parts demented, hormonal rage and vicious agony, requiring Zane to rush to her side and gentle her back to the bed.

  "Bax," he said, glancing at me, "I think you best get a handle on that runaway mouth of yours, bub, or Mara might just actually murder you."

  Mara hurled an ice chip at me, and it hit me on the forehead with such force I actually recoiled in surprise. "You're a fucking asshole, Baxter Badd! I fucking HATE YOU!" And then, confusingly, she immediately calmed, stuffed an ice chip into her mouth, and pointed at me with an index finger. "The heartbreak story. Spill. Now."

  I thunked my head against the wall behind me, groaning. "Dude. It's nothing."

  "Dude, humor the pregnant lady," Mara said. "I'm between contractions and I need a distraction."

  Zane shifted his chair so he could hold Mara's hand and look at me at the same time.

  I tipped back in the chair so I was balanced on the rear legs, my feet propped on the foot of Mara's hospital bed. "Fine. But this shit stays between us. I got a rep to uphold."

  "That's why I'm so interested," Mara said. "Everything I've heard and seen about you says you are now and always have been a Hook-up Harry. I didn't think you'd ever had a real relationship."

  "I'm your own fuckin' brother," Zane added, "and I've always been under the same impression. What heartbreak are we talking about here?"

  I let out a breath, and spent a moment organizing my thoughts, which was a difficult process now that I was sobering up and entering the wicked headache stage of going directly from wasted into hangover, without the intervening sleep.

  "It's not that complicated, or some big secret," I said. "Like you said, I've always been more into one-night stands and the occasional repeat hookup if the chick was bangin' enough and the sex was good enough. But once they got clingy or started wanting to, like, discuss feelings and what we are and shit, bam, that was it. I was always honest about that from the get-go, too. I was focused on my career, and had no interest in or time for bullshit like relationships, and I always, always made it clear fro
m the start that it was gonna be no-strings sex. Which worked pretty damn well all through college and the first year I was in Calgary playing for the Stampeders.

  "Then, during the off-season after that first year, I met this chick. A reporter, actually. Some minor local paper wanted to do a feature on me, since I'd made some pretty high-profile plays that season, and I was a new face in the town. Not a big deal, just a couple paragraphs about me and some photos on the front page of a Calgary paper. But the girl who did the interview was fuckin'...she was hot, man. Really cool, really chill, classy, easy to talk to. The interview should have been like twenty or thirty minutes, but we ended up having a two-hour lunch, just talking. She knew football, and there was something cool and hot about talking stats and plays and shit with a chick. She was the one who called me a week after the feature aired, actually, asking if I wanted to get lunch again, but on a personal level, not for an interview. Like, a real date, she said. I was interested, since we'd hit it off without fucking first, which was weird, so I said yes."

  Zane snorted. "You make it sound like talking to a woman outside the pursuit of sex is this weird, unheard of thing."

  I laughed. "It kind of is, for me. Women were never much more than a distraction for me, you know? Like, I fuck because I'm a guy and I like to fuck, and women are fantastic and I love them, because tits and ass, and that's about it. And yeah, I know, that's macho, asshole, chauvinistic bullshit. But I do actually know women are more than just sex receptacles, okay? I do, I swear."

  "Sure you do," Mara said, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

  And then her hands tightened on Zane as another contraction hit her, and she grunted through it, and the grunt devolved into a forward-leaning, teeth-gritting scream, and Zane held her hand through it, murmuring something in a soothing voice, which I couldn't make out. After a few seconds, the contraction passed, and she flopped back against the pillows, sweating.

  "I'm seriously...fucking pissed...my water broke...before I could get...a fucking...epidural," she said, between gasps for breath. "Keep talking, Bax."

  "Okay, so. We go to lunch, and it's cool, like the first time. We spend an hour and a half talking over coffee and croissants, and I'm super into the chick, and she seems to be super into me. Cool, right? Well, we do lunch a few more times over the next few weeks--and for the record, she's the only person I've ever actually truly dated, especially before we had sex. I've gone on a few single dates, and I take girls out if we're hooking up on a regular basis. Like, in college I had a roster of girls I was hooking up with, always no-strings, no commitments, no questions, and every once in a while we'd have dinner or see a flick together just for a change of pace from the fucking."

  Zane chuckled. "What a gentleman."

  I shrugged. "Eh, I've never claimed to be a gentleman." I felt uncomfortable and squirmy relating this story, especially as I got into the real meat of it. "So this girl, Lauren, was every bit as wicked awesome in bed as she was out of it. We had a seriously great time. I never had the talk with her about it being no-strings and we also never defined what it was, but we went out regularly and I just, without even thinking about it, kept sex confined to her. A week, two weeks, then suddenly it was three months and I'd kept it strict, only fucking her, and I only went out with her, and we were seeing each other a couple times a week, and I started to realize I was for real into her. Like with emotions and shit. We still hadn't talked about it, but it was pretty obvious this thing was...a thing."

  Another contraction hit, and I paused as Mara growled through it, crushing Zane's hand and the bed railing. The physician came in at that moment, and I had to leave so he could check her. I'd only been in the waiting room a few minutes when Zane popped his head in.

  "It's happening soon, bro." He scrubbed his hands over his head, his eyes wide. "Where's everyone else?"

  All the brothers, Dru, and Claire all filed in right then.

  "What's the word, Big Poppa?" This was Corin. "You got a baby yet or what?"

  Zane was as close to a nervous breakdown as I'd ever seen him, pacing crazily, hands running obsessively through his hair. "She's about to have the baby, like any time now. He said she's fully dilated and almost fully effaced, so she should be ready to push any minute."

  Claire headed for the door. "I need to see her."

  Zane nodded. "Yeah, she's asking for you." He glanced at Dru. "You too. She wants you both there with her."

  Dru just blinked. "She...she wants me? While she's having the baby?"

  Zane pushed past Claire, leading the way to the room, addressing Dru over his shoulder. "Of course she does, dumbass. You're part of the family." He paused, popping back in to sweep his manic gaze across the rest of us. "Next time you see me, boys, I'm gonna be a daddy. So, like, say some prayers or whatever."

  And so we waited, the seven of us taking up most of the waiting room, none of us really talking.

  A hand shook me, waking me from a doze I hadn't realized I'd fallen into. "Wha--? Whassat?"

  Zane was standing over me. And, for the first time since Mom's death, a Badd male had tears in his eyes. Even when Dad had died, none of us had openly cried, at least not around each other. I know I'd shed a couple tears in private, after a few bottles of Jack, but that had been literally alone in a dark closet at four in the morning in my Calgary apartment.

  He wasn't bawling, but he had tear tracks on his cheeks, and more tears glinting in the corners of his eyes. "Bax, brother." He collapsed into the chair beside me. "I'm a father."

  The others, all of whom had dozed off in the couple of hours we'd been waiting, all sat up.

  "She had the baby?" Xavier lurched out of his seat. "Can we see him?"

  Zane nodded. "Yeah. There's a lot of us, so the doctor said it would be best to do the visits in batches." He pointed as he named us, "Bast, Brock, Bax, you guys first. It's easiest to just go in order of age."

  Xavier slumped back into the chair. "Being the youngest fucking sucks."

  Zane jogged across the room and scooped Xavier into a playful headlock. "Xavier, buddy, you'll get a turn," he said, "I promise."

  Xavier wriggled out of the hold with unexpected ease. "I know, I know. But we always do this shit in order from oldest to youngest, which means whatever it is, I'm always last."

  Bast spoke up. "You go first, Xavier. I'll wait."

  None of the others argued, so Brock, Xavier, and I followed Zane, who led us to the delivery room. Mara was in a chair, sniffling and crying what I assumed were happy tears, and Claire was on her feet, her arms curled around a blanket-swaddled bundle, bouncing her arms gently and rocking side to side. She glanced up as we entered, and she was crying too, which was almost as weird as Zane crying, because Claire was, in some ways, the toughest chick I knew.

  Like a bunch of idiot kids, Brock and Xavier and I all crowded around Claire, jostling to get a look at our new nephew. Brock and I glanced at each other, an unspoken conversation passing between us, and we backed up a little to give Xavier space to be the first to hold him.

  Claire, with the softest expression I'd ever seen on her face, smiled at Xavier. "Wanna hold him?" she glanced at Mara. "That okay?"

  Mara was a goddamn disaster: her hair was a wild, greasy, sweaty mess, the makeup she'd put on the day before was smeared and running, and tears were dried on her face, but she'd never looked so...beautifully happy. I mean, you always hear about a new mother "glowing" which had always sounded stupid to me, but as I glanced at Mara, I finally understood it. She really was just...glowing. Not an actual literal glow, since she wasn't, like, radioactive, thank god, but just...glowing from the inside out. There really wasn't a better term for it, either. Just glowing.

  "Of course," Mara said, sounding utterly exhausted but happy.

  It was kind of weird to see her belly flat again, after so many months of watching it steadily grow.

  Claire gingerly handed the bundle of baby over, and Xavier gathered him into his arms with an ease I would never have expect
ed.

  "You've held a baby before," Mara noted.

  Xavier was bouncing much like Claire had been, and nodded, glancing up at Mara with a brilliant grin on his face. "Yeah. My buddy Hajj's daughter had a baby last year. Hajj doesn't have a driver's license, so I drove him to the hospital, and I got to hold his granddaughter." He cooed wordlessly at the baby, smiling goofily, making weird noises. "What's his name?"

  Mara smiled. "Jackson. We've been calling him Jax."

  "You're a couple hours old and you've already got a nickname, kid," Xavier said. "I've never had a nickname, since it's kind of hard to abbreviate or foreshorten a name like Xavier."

  He looked up at Mara and then Zane.

  "Hey, it looks like he's got Mom's eyes!" he exclaimed. "Another Badd with green eyes!"

  "They could change over the next few months," Mara explained, "but they do look green to me too." She smiled. "Of course, it wouldn't be that weird for him to have green eyes, since I have them and you guys have green eyes as a recessive gene from your mom."

  "That's true. But still, it's cool to see green eyes on another Badd." Xavier leaned close and did something adorable and obnoxious with his nose to the baby, an Eskimo kiss or whatever it is you call it when you brush noses with someone. "Hey there, Jax. Welcome to life."

  Xavier stared at Jackson Badd for a few more moments, just blinking and smiling and bouncing, and then he spoke again, but in the tone of voice of someone reciting poetry:

  * * *

  "When you were born, beloved, was your soul

  New made by God to match your body's flower,

  And were they both at one same precious hour

  Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?

  Or had your soul since dim creation burned,

  A star in some still region of the sky,

  That leaping earthward, left its place on high

  And to your little new-born body yearned?

  No words can tell in what celestial hour

  God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,

  Nor in the disarray of all the stars

  Is any place so sweet that such a flower

  Might linger there until thro heaven's bars,

  It heard God's voice that bade it down to earth."