Aced

I chose to step into this lifestyle because I love Colton, and yet now I’ve brought this baby into it. I know it’s too late but I don’t like it. Eddie waltzed into that room to make a point and to taint this perfect moment in our lives just like he did with the video.

“We’ll never get this back,” I whisper. Hands thump the rear window as Sammy turns into the traffic and away from the vultures looking for scraps.

“What do you mean?”

“This moment. Our time in the hospital where we get to bond before everyday life gets in the way. He took that from us. He took that feeling away. We’ll never get that back.”

“Yes, we will,” Colton answers immediately. He releases my hand and frames my face so I’m forced to look up and meet his gaze filled with so much concern and guilt over what happened. “Remember that empty picture frame? This was the first memory we put in there. No one will ever be able to take that away from us, baby. It’s just you, Ace, and me. Our first memory slid into that frame without us ever doing it. Eddie was there for a split second of time. I’m so sorry I fucked up and wasn’t there. But this—this moment, this memory, this life-changing event—overshadows it by miles.”

He runs his thumb over my bottom lip as if he’s trying to reinforce his words with his touch. And it does work. His whispered words and reassuring touch calms me so I’m able to shut out the external factors and focus on what matters most: us.

Solidifying this notion further, he presses a kiss to my nose and then to my lips before resting his forehead against mine. “Thank you for the greatest gift I’ve ever been given besides you. This memory doesn’t even need a frame though because the look on your face when you held Ace for the first time will forever be burned in my mind.”

His words anchor my tumultuous psyche and the foundation that’s been shifted beneath my feet. His touch reinforces our undeniable connection and irrevocable love. The baby sleeping peacefully in the carrier between us the greatest proof of that love.

“I don’t blame you. Never. I’m just . . . we just have more than us to worry about, and it scares me because I feel like we have no control over anything.”

“No one has control of life, Rylee. That’s the beauty and fear in living it. We take each day as it comes, try to maintain our little piece of it, and enjoy every goddamn moment we’re given.”

“I just want our little piece to have peace.”

The gates at home are just as crazy with paparazzi as the hospital. Probably even more so because they all knew where we’d be going when we left, and so we go through the routine again of thumping on the windows and shouting through the glass for us to give a statement.

Desperate to regain some kind of privacy and keep our son free from this absolute madness, I demand Sammy pull into the garage to let us out, which means he first has to move Sex out while I sit in the car so he can pull the Range Rover in.

I know I am being ridiculous and yet every part of my life and body has been exposed to the public beyond—my nonexistent privacy ever so easily invaded as shown by Eddie’s demonstration today—that I desperately need to keep Ace as ours before sharing him with the world.

Screw the offers to our publicist, Chase, from People Magazine and US and Star offering ridiculous amounts of money for the first pictures with Ace. This isn’t a matter of money to me, but rather the gaining back of some of our privacy. Our normalcy. Not feeling so goddamn exposed. The vulnerability that comes with living in a fishbowl surrounded by prying eyes.

I need our burst bubble back to whole again. Colton and I worked so hard to keep that bubble around us—cocoon our marriage and us in its early days. The one that told the press to back the hell off because no matter how hard they tried, we weren’t going to bend to their gossip or tricks.

And we haven’t.

Even with the release of the video, we didn’t. And yet I still feel like they stole something from us. The part of us that makes us feel like every other couple in America, trying to make their marriage work and live their day-to-day life. It’s not the anonymity so much but rather the constant state of being bared and vulnerable to the prying eyes and public scrutiny that caused me to lose my job, put Zander at risk, and took a special moment in our lives and turned it into Internet ecstasy.

It’s just too much. All at once. So much so I’m hoping Ace helps us find that peace again. The piece of peace I told Colton I need.

My nerves are frayed. My body beyond exhausted. My mind in a mental overload so much so that everything I try to focus on becomes harder to concentrate on instead of easier. It’s been such a long time since I’ve felt this way, Mrs. Always-in-Control. Yet right now I’m so drained I don’t have the strength to care.

We walk into the house and as tired as I am, I feel restless, antsy, wanting to close myself off in a room with my two men and let the world fall away. Instead, I pull Ace against my chest and pace, letting the unsettled feeling rule my movement.

“Ry, you need to sit down,” Colton says as he comes down the stairs from putting the bags and gifts away. All I can do is shake my head and try to figure out why I’m feeling so restless even in our own house. “You just had a baby. You promised me you’d take it easy until you heal more. This,” he says motioning to my pacing, “is not resting.”

“I know. I will,” I murmur softly, my mind distracted elsewhere and locked on an idea.

“What is it, Ry? I can see your mind working. What’s going on?”