Tyler placed a call to Adam’s pediatrician, who agreed to see them immediately and was able to calm Nevvie’s worries. He examined Adam and smiled at Nevvie.
“He’ll be fine bottle-fed. It’s all right. My nurse will give you some information. He’ll be just fine.”
She sobbed, holding the baby in her lap. The doctor gave them a minute alone while Tyler tried to comfort her.
“Love, you’re perfectly normal.”
“No I’m not, Tyler! I can’t be married, I can’t be a good mom, I can’t do anything right.”
He knelt, his heart breaking for her. “Love, there is nothing wrong with you. You are a wonderful, beautiful mother. And you are our wonderful, beautiful wife.”
Nevvie was inconsolable. “Let’s face it. My birth parents didn’t want me. My adopted mother dumped me. The state won’t let me get married to both of you, and they’re denying my son legal recognition for one of his fathers.”
He let her cry for a few minutes. When she calmed down he kissed her hand. “Love, you are a fantastic mother.”
The doctor returned and kindly smiled. “The nurse will be here shortly. Trust me, your son will do just fine, and there’s nothing wrong with you.”
They stopped by the store on the way home. Nevvie waited in the car with the baby. Tyler, in typical fashion, apparently bought out half the formula in stock. He returned with a large cart full of baby supplies, the sight of which was enough to lift Nevvie’s funk a little.
She looked at him when he got behind the wheel, simply staring at him after he spent several minutes loading the full cart into the trunk.
He grinned. “Well, love, we don’t know what kind he’ll like, do we?”
Finally, a smile from her. He’d probably bought enough baby supplies to take care of a small Latin American country. Tyler was, if nothing else, thorough.
He was also sneaky. When they returned home, Tommy’s Ridgeline sat in the driveway.
“What is he doing home?” she asked as she knelt on the back seat to unfasten the baby. When Tom walked out the front door to join them she spotted the concerned look on his face and realized what happened.
“You called him,” she said to Tyler.
“Love, you acted rather upset.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
Tom leaned in the back door of Tyler’s Lexus. “Listen, baby girl. You need to get your head on straight. You’re a damn good mother. The only one who doesn’t think you’re a good mother is you. Are you going to listen to the majority who sees you the way you are, or are you going to give those other thoughts rent-free space in your head?”
She didn’t say anything, walked past him into the house without comment.
Tom helped Tyler unload the supplies and take them inside. Tyler immediately started washing bottles and nipples, read through the brochures from the doctor’s office and picked one of the formulas to start with.
When the baby was ready to eat a half-hour later, Nevvie sat on the sofa and tried to control her tears again.
Tommy brought the bottle in and settled on the couch next to her. “Let me have him, sugar,” he softly said.
She tearfully handed Adam over.
He looked at her, his brown eyes earnest. “Listen to me. You’re missing something important here.”
“What?” she asked. Tyler walked into the room and settled on Tom’s other side.
“If we’re bottle feeding, now we get to take care of him, too,” Tom patiently explained.
Tom held Adam and the baby immediately latched on to the bottle. He hesitated only a second at the new taste and sensation, then promptly proceeded to greedily drain the bottle
Nevvie watched the men, Tyler’s arm draped around Tom’s shoulder as he leaned in and stroked the baby’s cheek. Tom smiled at her. “Now we get to have some fun.”
Another wave of guilt swept through her. Not only was she a bad mother, she was selfish, too. Of course they should get to feed the baby. She’d tried using a breast pump early on but it hurt nearly as much as nursing, so the men weren’t able to bottle feed until now.
Jesus,
she felt like she was losing her mind. Usually she was a very level headed, rational person, her personality a good mix of Tyler’s passion and Tom’s steadiness. Now she felt like an alien in her own skin.
She retreated to their bedroom and curled up on the bed. Before Adam’s birth she’d felt worried, anxious, nervous. Then several weeks of bliss and now…
Back to craziness. Was this post-partum depression?
Nevvie awoke from her nap to find Tommy curled around her.
“You feeling better, baby girl?”
“No.” She tried to roll away from him. He wouldn’t let her go.
“Stop it. We’re going to talk about this. You’re not a horrible mother.” He took a deep breath. “Momma wants me to have you call her.”
“Why? Is she going to chew me out, too?”
He kissed her cheek. “She wants to talk to you. She loves you, and she’s as worried about you as we are.” Peggy Kinsey, a retired nurse, had been a wealth of information for Nevvie early on, between her medical and mothering skills.
Tom reached over, grabbed the phone and dialed his mom’s house in Savannah before Nevvie could object.
“Hi, Momma. She’s awake. Here she is.” He handed her the phone and at first Nevvie tried to resist, then she took the receiver with a sigh.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Nevvie, sugar, what’s wrong?”
“You mean with me or life in general?”
Peggy’s soft chuckle reminded Nevvie of Tommy. “Listen to me, the boys already called and told me what’s going on. I want you to know that with all six of my beasties, Tommy is the only one who got breastfed. And I only breastfed him for six weeks until I went back to work. Then he was bottle-fed. Back then, we just didn’t breastfeed very often. While Emily’s a bitch that had nothing to do with the fact that she was bottle-fed.”
Nevvie smiled, barely aware of Tom slipping out of bed and leaving her alone.
She spent over an hour on the phone with Peggy, laughing, crying, and finally feeling a little better. It amazed Nevvie early on that Peggy readily accepted her son’s choice first to bring Tyler home as his partner, then to add her to their family years later.
“Sugar, let the boys have their fun. You’re lucky enough to have not one, but two men who are practically tripping all over each other to take turns changing diapers and preparing bottles. A lot of women don’t even have one who does that. Seriously, I think you’re just going through the baby blues. If this keeps up, you need to talk to your doctor. It can make you feel crazy. I wanted to castrate Tom’s father after Karen was born, and I still had two more with him.”
Having her thoughts vocalized by Peggy helped more than anything. “I hate feeling like this.”
“I know you do. I can’t come this weekend, but do you want me to come down next week, spend a little time, give you a break?”
She didn’t really need the break, but she could use the company. Peggy was more of a mother to her than her own adopted mother had been. Maybe a weekend with her would help even out her emotions and get her back on track.
“I’d appreciate it if you could.”
When she finished talking to Peggy, Nevvie walked out to the kitchen. The boys leaned against the counter and watched her.
“Feeling better, love?” Tyler asked.
She reluctantly nodded. Both men walked to her, enveloping her in their arms. “We love you, Nevvie,” Thomas assured her. “You’re a great mom.
* * * *
The next Tuesday, Nevvie had another OB-Gyn appointment. Her decreasing pain had at least helped improve her mood. Seeing how the men enjoyed taking part in feeding Adam helped soothe her wounded psyche. However, Tyler’s blunt question to the doctor startled her.
“When can we resume sex?”
Shocked, Nevvie choked back her startled gasp.
The doctor shrugged. “As long as she’s comfortable, anytime she wishes. I would suggest using birth control. Might want to avoid oral contraceptives for a few months though.” They discussed options. When they left, Nevvie had a new vaginal ring she wasn’t entirely sure of. The doctor showed her how to use them, gave her enough samples for two months, and wrote a prescription for three more months.
Tyler had paid entirely too much attention to how they were inserted, Nevvie thought. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t complain. One or both men went with her to all her doctor appointments, knowing she hated them with a passion due to an incident years before she ever met them.
Tyler beamed. “You looked like you were going to crawl under the table,” he said with an evil grin.
“Yeah, well, you just wait until your next annual exam, buster,” she grumped. She realized they’d turned away from the house. “Where are we going?”
“To pay our sweet Thomas a visit.”
She looked at her watch. “He’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
“Let’s go show Adam off.”
She eyed Tyler, but settled back in her seat. He was up to something, she just didn’t know what yet. “All right, fine.”
When Thomas left that morning on the Harley, she felt a melancholy pang. Before she was pregnant they used to ride the bike to work during good weather, sometimes several times a week. It was their special thing to do together, just like she had ballroom dancing with Tyler. Something they shared and enjoyed.
Thomas was Aerosmith—Tyler was Air Supply. Her playful tough-guy biker and her sweet, gentle brain.
Tommy didn’t like to ride alone and rarely rode without her. Once she was pregnant, neither man would let her on the bike despite her protests and the doctor assuring the men it was safe in the early months.
The Harley sat in Tom’s covered parking spot. Tyler pulled in next to the bike, in Nevvie’s marked space. She had worked up until her last month, then focused more on helping Tyler. Before the baby her time had been nearly evenly split between the office with Tommy, and working at home with Tyler. Now she debated whether she wanted to return to work at all. The men assured her she could stay home if she wanted—they certainly could afford it—but she knew she’d miss her time spent with Tommy if she did that.
Not to mention she enjoyed working.
Maggie, their friend and Tom’s long-time assistant before Nevvie went to work for him, swooped when they walked in.
“Oooh! Let me see him. I haven’t seen him in a week! He’s so cute! Almost makes me want to have another.”
Tom heard the commotion and walked out to greet them. He kissed Nevvie and Tyler, then the baby. “Hey, what’s up?”
She hooked her thumb at Tyler. “He insisted on dropping by.” The mischievous gleam in Tyler’s eyes could only mean one thing, that he was planning something.
What exactly, Nevvie still didn’t know.
Tom’s instincts matched Nevvie’s. “What
are
you planning, sugar?” he asked Ty.
“Why do the two of you assume I’m planning something?”
Nevvie and Tom both replied, “Because you’ve got the look.”
Tyler laughed. “My, aren’t we the suspicious ones?”
Nevvie spent time visiting her friends and co-workers and showing off the baby. Maggie cornered her again to take her upstairs to meet a new employee while Tyler took Adam from her.
“I’ll go change him, love.”
When Nevvie returned to Tom’s office on the first floor twenty minutes later, Tyler was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s the evil genius?” Nevvie asked.
Tom looked up from his computer. “What? I thought he was with you. I was in Kenny’s office until about five minutes ago.”
Nevvie realized the diaper bag wasn’t on the large sofa where she’d left it. When she stuck her head out the back door, Tyler’s Lexus was gone.
She stalked back to Tom’s office and found her cell phone. Tyler answered immediately.
“Yes?”
“Did you forget someone?”
“Go look in the bathroom, love.”
Puzzled, she opened the door to Tom’s private bathroom. Her motorcycle helmet and jacket were laying on the counter.
Tommy’s eyebrow shot up questioningly when she stepped out carrying them. “So is that why you suggested Tommy take the bike this morning? Did you engineer something?”
“Well, it has been a while since you got to ride. I thought the two of you might enjoy a little alone time, as it were. Let me speak to our sweet boy, right?”
She handed her phone to Thomas, who leaned back in his chair. “What did you do, Ty?” He listened for a minute, then laughed and shook his head. “All right.” He looked at Nevvie. “Go lock my door, sugar.”
Her heart raced, but she did. One of the benefits of being married, so to speak, to the boss was the freedom to engage in extracurricular activities with him.
“Okay,” Tom said. “Hold on.” He fumbled her phone for a moment, then figured out the speakerphone setting and turned the volume down. “All right, Ty. What is it?”
“Can you hear me, loves?” Ty asked.
Thomas pulled Nevvie into his lap. “Loud and clear,” he said.
“Nevvie, love?”
“Yes, Ty?”
“Don’t you mean Master?”
She froze, erotic heat immediately washing through her. They hadn’t played this game in a while. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.
Tom’s sudden and hard erection poked her in the ass. “Goddamn,” he muttered, his arms encircling her waist. “That’s playing dirty, Ty,” he rumbled in a low voice.
Tyler chuckled. “My sweet little slave, I want you to spend a couple of hours servicing Master Thomas. Then he’ll bring you home and by that time I’m sure I’ll have more fun waiting for you.”
She gasped, her lower belly clenching in a pleasant way. “Yes, Master,” she said, finding her little slave girl voice that got both men instantly fuck ready.
Tom’s hands tightened on her. “Holy fuck, Ty. You could have given me a warning.”
“Ah, but it is so much better this way, is it not?”
Tom slid his hands between her legs. “I guess you’re right, it is.”
“And the two of you haven’t been able to ride together in a long time. In more ways than one.”
Nevvie leaned back against Tom’s firm chest and closed her eyes. No, she hadn’t been rode in what felt like forever, and after their hot shower a few weeks prior, she wanted it more than ever before.