Shit. We could turn into complete and utter failures.

Worry clawing at me, I set the gift bag and flowers on the dresser and then kick off my shoes and tear off my sweatshirt and the T-shirt I’m wearing underneath it. Leaving on my sweats, I join Fable in bed, moving in behind her, slipping my arm around her waist and pulling her in even closer. She comes awake slowly, her body relaxing into mine, a soft little murmur of hello escaping from her, and I kiss the back of her fragrant neck, thankful to have her in my arms.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” I whisper.

“How long have you been here?”

“I just got home. I left early.” I’d been damned eager to get home and hardly slept last night, too excited to see my wife. To be home. I’m never home if I’m not with her. She is my home. “Have you been sleeping all morning?”

“I got up before Owen went to school and made sure he left okay. He’s been sleeping through his alarm lately and skipping class.” She sounds irritated and I can’t blame her. I think Owen’s been slipping up since he started college. So easy to do during freshman year. “I tried to stay up.” She turns in my arms, staring up at me as she reaches for me and winds her arms around my neck. “But I was so tired.”

“I think you might be too tired.” I drop a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“It’s normal. I went to the doctor Friday, remember? She said it’s expected. My body’s adjusting.”

Unable to help myself, I reach down and settle my hand over her very flat belly. “When are you going to start showing?”

“I bet you’d like that, huh? Your poor fat wife.” She laughs somewhat self-consciously. “I still have a few months before that happens.”

“Oh.” I’m sort of disappointed. I want proof that baby is growing inside of her. But I’m patient. It’ll happen. “Are you still tired?”

“Sort of.” She yawns, doesn’t even bother covering it up. “I tossed and turned a lot last night.”

“Why?”

“Too anxious for you to come home.” She offers me a shy smile, so unlike Fable I’m a little surprised. My girl rarely acts shy. She’s bold and determined and sometimes downright ferocious. No one crosses Fable. She’s f**king tough.

Right now, though? She looks ready to slip behind a giant wall so she can hide.

“Are you okay?” I ask because I’m concerned. She’s not acting like normal and yeah, maybe I can blame the hormones and the baby, but maybe not. I need to make sure she’s really okay.

“I’m good. I just …” Her voice drifts off and she leans into me, her face pressed against my neck. I can feel her breathe against my skin, her lips on me, damp and plush, and she kisses me there, soft and sweet. “I feel weird after everything that’s happened.”

“What do you mean?” I tug on the ends of her hair to force her to look at me.

She tilts her head back, her gaze meeting mine. “I feel like I deceived you somehow, and that was never my intention. I was scared and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to tell you that I was pregnant. I needed advice, so I went to Jen. And then it all backfired. The last thing I wanted was for you to find out you’re going to be a father from some dumb gossip site or TV show.”

“You were only trying to do what you thought was right by going to Jen,” I say softly, but she shakes her head.

“Yeah, and what I thought was doing the right thing turned out to be totally wrong. What if I do that more often than not? What if I do that sort of thing with our baby? Sometimes my judgment isn’t the best and I do dumb stuff. Maybe I can’t be trusted to be a parent. I might end up a shitty one, you know. My mom was awful. She’s still awful. And I have no idea who my dad is, so he doesn’t count. The example I had growing up was not so great,” Fable admits.

“I was just thinking the same thing.” When she looks up at me questioningly, I continue. “I had terrible examples, too, you know. My dad wasn’t around much and we won’t even mention A—”

Fable presses her fingers against my lips. “Don’t say her name,” she murmurs, her voice edged with steel.

I chuckle, and she drops her fingers from my mouth. “You know what I mean. Anyway, my parenting situation as a kid was pretty f**ked up, too, Fable.”

“So what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? I don’t know how to be a mother and you don’t know how to be a father.” She pauses as if she just realized something. “We’re going to be a total wreck as parents, aren’t we?”

“Hey.” I cup her cheeks with my hands, forcing her to stare into my eyes. She blinks up at me, looking lost and worried and in desperate need of reassurance. “Remember when we first got together? Remember how f**ked up that all was? We knew we didn’t make any sense but it happened anyway. We realized the only way we made sense was together.”

“Okay,” she whispers with a little nod. “But what does that have to do with our being parents?”

“We work as a couple. We’ll work as parents, Fable. I have faith in that and you should, too,” I say vehemently, sweeping my thumbs slowly over her cheeks, marveling at how soft her skin is. “We’re going to make great f**king parents, don’t you think?”

“Not if you use language like that around our child,” she sniffs, making me laugh. “I’m serious, Drew. Look at Owen. He never stops with the language. Ever. It’s awful.”

“Neither do you, baby,” I say just before I lean in to kiss her.

“Hey, I’ve really cleaned up my act,” she protests once I break the kiss. “I’ve been especially good these past few weeks. Do you know the baby can hear pretty much everything I say right now?”

“The baby doesn’t even have ears yet,” I remind her.

“Not true. She’s hearing everything. Trust me. So keep it clean.”

“Now the baby’s a she?” I like the idea of a blond little girl with flashing green eyes and a sassy attitude running around. I like that a lot.

“I go back and forth. One day it’s a boy, the next it’s a girl. We do want to find out what the baby’s sex is, right? I don’t think I can stand waiting until I deliver,” she admits.

“I definitely want to find out what we’re having. The idea of it being a surprise … I don’t like that.” I’ve never been a fan of surprises. They make me uneasy.

“That’s how they did it in the olden days,” she points out, oh so helpfully.

“This isn’t the olden days anymore, Fable. Let’s take advantage of modern technology.” I kiss her again because she’s so hard to resist. Just like that I’m swept up in the taste of her lips, the feel of her, the little sounds she makes.

Then I remember what I left on the dresser and I pull away from her with a quick “hold on.” I dash over to the dresser and grab the flowers, thrusting them toward her. She takes them from me, her expression one of shock.

“What are these for?”

“Um, a congratulations that you’re having my baby?” I snag up the gift bag and hand that over to her as well. “And a gift.”

“Drew, you didn’t have to do all this.” She says this but I can tell she likes it. Her cheeks are flushed and her mouth is curved in a pleased smile.

“Yeah, I did. The mother of my baby deserves all the gifts in the world,” I say.

Her cheeks redden even further and she reaches into the bag, pulling out the infant-sized gold-and-red 49er onesie that I picked up at one of the gift shops in the stadium. “Oh my God,” she breathes, her gaze fixed on the piece of baby’s clothing. “It’s so small. And so cute.”

“I knew the gift shop had some baby wear, so I went in there hoping to find something.”

“You bought it? You’re the quarterback—shouldn’t they just give you this stuff?” she asks, never tearing her gaze away from the onesie.

I climb into bed beside her again, propped on my elbow, watching her trace the stitching of the tiny piece of clothing with her index finger. She likes it, I can tell. “I didn’t have time for all that. I went into the gift shop, bought it real quick, and jammed. I don’t care if I have to pay for it or not.”

“I love it.” She meets my gaze, her smile small, the look in her eyes hopeful. “This makes it feel so much more concrete. Our baby’s first gift.”

“Is it?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, Jen knows, and Owen. Of course, now Colin knows. But I’ve received no gifts from anyone. I mean, who the heck do I know?”

“You have friends. The other players’ wives,” I point out, and she waves a hand.

“Meh, I’m happy you were the first one to give Junior a gift.” She smiles and kisses me, still clutching the onesie in her hand.

“Junior who? Junior me or Junior Fable?” I ask, amused at her flipping and flopping.

“I’m not sure yet,” she says. “All I know is I’m glad you’re here for me.”

Her words strike me dead center in the heart. “I’ll always be here for you. You’ll never have to worry about that,” I say sincerely.

“I know. I believe you. I have faith in you.” Her smile is tremulous and her eyes are filled with tears. “We’re going to make it, aren’t we, Drew? And we’re going to be the best parents ever.”

“You better f**king believe it,” I say right before I kiss her, earning a shocked laugh out of her for my words.

“We’re not allowed to say those words anymore. They might damage our child’s psyche,” she says primly, and I scoff.

I f**king scoff. I mean, really? “You gotta be kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding. We need to clean up our acts.”

“Are you going to be one of those moms?”

“What type of mom are you talking about?” she asks.

“The nerdy kind who are always good and doing the right thing, because if that’s the case, I can go ahead and kiss my sex life goodbye. You know, because we can’t have sex for fear of traumatizing the baby since he or she is inside of you at the moment,” I say.

“Oh my God, I never even thought of that,” she whispers, her eyes wide.

“Well, don’t, because later tonight, we’re going to have sex whether little Junior likes it or not and you’re going to love it, I can guarantee you that. So let’s take a nap. I’m exhausted,” I say as I pluck the flowers off the comforter and grab the onesie, getting out of bed to go set them back on the dresser.

“Shouldn’t you put the flowers in water?” she asks.

“I can rest them in the sink in the bathroom,” I suggest, knowing it’s a lame solution. And the easiest solution, since all I want to do is crawl back into bed and hold my wife.

“I don’t think so,” she says on a sigh, slowly shaking her head. She waves a hand. “Hurry up then and come back to bed, Drew.”

Finer words were never spoken.

Chapter Nine

Drew

My wife is due any day now and I’m …

Not with her.

I got a huge endorsement deal I flat-out couldn’t refuse and I’m in the middle of a giant warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, sweating my balls off as endless photos are taken of me wearing fall athletic gear. Considering it’s the middle of June and near record-breaking highs are predicted today, I’m fucked.

And grumpy.

Fable encouraged me to go because she’s good at that, the supportive wife thing. Plus, I think she wanted me out of the house for a day or two. If anyone’s grumpy, it’s Fable. Oh, and don’t forget moody. Her belly is swollen with child, her back aches, and she can barely move around, she waddles so bad. The baby shifted low, so low Fable appears she’s in danger of delivering at any minute, but the doctor checked her not even two days ago and said she’s not dilated yet.

So we wait. I grow impatient. I started reading that What to Expect When You’re Expecting book just to know what’s going on, and that was the final straw for my wife. She took the book straight out of my hands and told me to go mow the lawn or something, find a hobby.

Stop worrying about my pregnant wife.

When the call came for the deal with one of the leading shoe and athletic-wear brands in all the world, I leapt at it, then retreated when they said they wanted to see me as soon as possible. But Fable wouldn’t let me turn them down.

“What, you’ll be gone one day and then fly home that night. I won’t have the baby in that short amount of time.” She ran her hand over her huge belly as I sat there trying to come up with all sorts of arguments. I knew, though, that I wasn’t going to win. “I’m starting to think I’m never going to have this baby. She’s taken up residence in here forever.”

Sometimes I think she wishes that because the idea of childbirth scares the crap out of her. Other times, I know she’s ready to get this over with when she moans, “Get her out.”

I’m standing in front of a white backdrop, the camera flashing in my eyes again and again as the photographer snaps away, when one of the assistants runs up and whispers something in the photographer’s ear.

He pauses, standing straight. “Well, tell him, then.”

The assistant approaches me hesitantly, her demeanor shy and a little worried. “You had a call, Mr. Callahan, on your cell phone. I saw that it kept ringing with the same number and I finally answered it for you.”