Trembling With the Strings

As soon as we got home, I ran upstairs with Darius Jr. I sat down in the rocking chair that Darius had placed in the corner, and I slowly started rocking my baby to sleep. He mumbled some Gibberish, but I only smiled and kissed his little forehead. He giggled, looking up at my through tired blue eyes. Without noticing, I began singing Marcus’ lullaby to my son. Kai snuggled closer to me, yawning and finally closing his eyes.

There was a quiet knock on the open door, and I glanced over to see Darius biting his lip in the doorway. He watched me carefully as he hesitantly stepped into the room. My eyes followed him as he took step after step, until he was right beside me, gently running his hand over his son’s bald head.

“Marcy’s wrong,” he murmured quietly, glancing up at me. “I look at him, and the only person I can think about is you. He only has my eyes, baby. I know that you don’t think so, but he looks so much like you. He has your cute little nose, your slender face, and I just know he’ll have your dirty blond hair. I wish he had your emerald eyes, but then he wouldn’t look like me at all. And he has your beating heart, too.” He paused for a moment, letting out a shaky breath. “And I love him almost as much as I love you.”

My lower lip started quivering, and I turned my head to the side, so he couldn’t see me cry. Why did he do this? He had been trying to dump me only hours ago, but now he was being the guy I loved. What’s worse was I was starting to forgive him, and I just couldn’t do that.

“Baby, please don’t look away from me. I want to hold you when you cry,” he begged softly, carefully taking Kai from me and placing him in his crib. He kissed his son’s forehead before walking over to me, crouching down in front of me and grabbing my chin gently. “I still want to marry you, and I always have. Please, Gracie. I want to try this baby thing with you. I love you. Don’t you love me?”

I knew the answer to that. Of course I loved him, but what was I supposed to do? If I forgave him, he would think he could walk all over me, like he’d done when we first met. I could not go through with that again—I would not go through with that. I looked down at him.

“Yes.” My voice cracked. “I do. But I cannot just forgive you. You were about to dump me, Darius! How could you do that to me?”

“I told you! I want you to be happy, even if it means I have to be miserable!”

“Why don’t I believe that? Oh, yeah! You’re Darius. You wouldn’t just let me go if I wanted to!”

“Want to bet?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and standing up. “I’d do anything for you!”

“Would you call off the wedding?” I asked, smirking cruelly as his face twisted up in torment. He looked like he was going to cry.

“Is that what you want?” he asked, his voice suddenly so quiet. I immediately felt guilty. “If you don’t want to marry me, I won’t force you. I just want to be able to see my son? Can I see him? Maybe on the weekends. That’s enough. Just don’t take that from me.”

“Darius, please,” I begged, standing up and placing my hand on his cheek. “Stop it.”

“Stop what? You don’t want me to see him? Okay, that’s fine. I deserve it. Just let me have a picture or two. Please!”

“Dray!” I nearly screeched. My head was spinning. “I never said I want to call off the wedding. I don’t.”

“You don’t?” he asked. “Gracie, I’m really confused. Are you breaking up with me or what?”

“I could never love someone as much as I love you, but I still don’t understand why you were so ready to break up with me in the first place.”

“I want a straight answer. Please, before you give me a heart attack,” he begged, his eyes watching his feet.

“I’m not. Now answer me. I want to understand what I did to change you so much.”

“You’re not dumping me?” he asked for the tenth time. I shook my head, and I took in a sharp breath of air when his arms wrapped around me, nearly crushing my spine. “Gracie, baby, I love you. When can we get married? I don’t want to wait any longer. Let’s go elope right now. We’ll get on a plane heading for Vegas, and we’ll just go right now. Huh? That sound fun?”

“Darius!” I shoved him away, giving him a look. “I answered you, so you can answer me right now.”

“I already told you,” he murmured, suddenly calm and collected. “I thought you didn’t want me anymore. What was I supposed to think? Demetrius told me that you were talking to yourself, and you said that you had started to depend on me, but then I let you down. So I kind of thought I was making you miserable, and I didn’t want that. I want you to stay the woman I fell in love with, even if that means you can’t be mine.”

“But I want to be yours,” I mumbled, reaching out and grabbing his hands.

“And I want to be yours.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Forever.”

“That sounds nice…” I sighed. “But I think that’s going to be harder than it should be.”

“But it’s worth it, to me at least,” he murmured, pulling me softly into his arms and glancing over to the crib holding our sleeping child. “And raising a child was also going to be harder than it should be, but when I saw you holding him… I just couldn’t imagine taking that away from you. And then I got to hold him. My son, Gracie—he’s my son.”

I nodded. “That he is.” I couldn’t help but think about our baby girl that could have been.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” he told me, as if reading my thoughts. He probably had been. “I would love to have a baby girl, too, but this boy is going to be more than enough to keep us busy… Not to mention the three boys eavesdropping at the door with my sister.”

I smiled as Marty, Marcus, Johnny and Marcy came in, sulking. Marcy held a finger to her lips, grinning as she carefully stepped up to the crib. She cooed wordlessly at the baby before wrapping her arms around her brother.

“That is so cute!” she told him quietly, her grin only broadening. “You’ll be a great father, Dray. I know it. And Gracie is already such a great mom. Perfect, simply perfect!”

Marty wandered over to the crib, looking down at Kai. “He’s so small,” he told me, staring at the small child with childish innocence in his eyes. “Gracie, where do babies come from?”

Marcus and Johnny started laughing, but Marty looked entirely serious. I stuttered for words, but Darius grinned.

“Don’t you dare!” I hissed in his ear, not liking the mischievous look in his eyes. He smiled innocently at me.

“Well, remember when we were talking about marriage?” he asked him, walking over to him and crouching in front of him. Marty nodded. “Well, I just couldn’t keep it in my pants for that long.”

“Darius!” Marcy and I gaped in unison.

“Keep what in your pants?” my poor little brother asked, such confusion on his eyes.

“Darius!” I hissed, grabbing his ear and jerking him out of the nursery. “What were you thinking? He’s just a boy!”

He smiled. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.”

“I noticed! What on earth possessed you? My poor little Demetrius almost got the sex talk from you!”

“Do you want the sex talk from me?” He raised a quirky eyebrow.

“You are so ridiculous.” I smiled despite myself, grabbing his hand and kissing him softly.

“But you love me.”

“I do. Even though you’re such an idiot.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he mumbled, kissing me gently. “Baby, I’m going to be dead serious for a minute, okay?” I nodded, and he kissed me again. “Do we really have to wait for your seventeenth birthday? I want this so much, and I’m so afraid I’ll lose you. If I do something stupid between now and then, I risk losing you forever. Can’t we talk about moving the wedding up a little?”

“Dray…” I bit my lip. “The vampire thing still goes, doesn’t it?”

He nodded, kissing me yet again. “But then I won’t have to be so careful with you. And we’ll be a family. Don’t you want that?”

“But what about Marty?”

“You told me that you wanted to suffer alongside with him… And I promised him I’d change him.” He stared at me through blank eyes. “I promised, and I won’t lie to him.”