Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

“My, you’re eager. Aren’t you going to ask my name first?” “Nah. Already know it.” With a perfect, wide grin, Emmett Brodie deposits his phone into my hand. It’s opened to the New Contact page, except the name field has already been filled out. Mrs. Brodie. For the first time in my life, my heartbeat trips.

Emmett wipes his amusement away with the pad of his thumb. “When can I take you on a date?” “My schedule’s full.” “Clear it.” “I don’t know if I’m interested.” “You are.” “Am I?”

“This is my favorite birthday ever,” he murmurs against my skin. “What? It’s your birthday?” “Mhmm. For another two minutes, at least. New Year’s baby, freshly twenty-seven. Feels a lot like the first day of my life, though.” “Happy birthday,” I breathe, heart pounding at the feel of him pressed against me, his fingers dancing down my hair. “What did you get?” His palm settles in the curve of my lower back, his whisper pressed to my ear. “You.”

“All the time. Wholeheartedly. Even Carter, and even when he’s driving you up the wall.” “The only place he ever drives me is up the wall.”

“Call it what you will, Emmett, but most people call handcuffing a woman to you and demanding she date you, and then that woman proceeding to actually fall in love with you, Stockholm Syndrome.” “You handcuffed me!” “Well, I had to assert my dominance.”

“I don’t want you to go away,” I admit, burying the fear in his neck when he loosens his grip on my wrists, letting me cling to him. “I like having you here, and I can’t fight off the girls when you’re somewhere else.” “Baby, you don’t need to fight off anyone.” “But I can. I can take them, all of them. At the same time. I’ll do it, I swear.” A quiet chuckle, and Emmett touches a kiss to my lips. “There is zero doubt in my mind.” “It feels like you’re calling me crazy.” “It feels like you’re calling me yours.” My eyes move between his before I finally admit, “I am.” “Then I’m yours, and you’re mine, and there’s nobody else, not one single person, who could change that.”

Emmett smiles. It’s broad and cheek-splitting, bright and sunny, full of wonder, appreciation, and something else … something that feels … warm. Safe. “I can’t believe I get to fuck you for the rest of our lives.” “Oh, here we go.” I roll my eyes, reaching for the skillet, because I need energy for this. “It’s been six days, Brodie.”

“Still here?” Emmett smiles, crouching in front of me. His fingers thread through my hair as he gathers it on top of my head, securing it in a knot before tipping my chin up, guiding my eyes to his. “Baby, where would I go? I am wherever you are, no matter what.” “In sickness and in health?” “Always.” I snort a laugh, letting my head roll back against the wall. “I don’t know if you’re joking when you say this stuff, or if you really believe⁠—” “I’m going to marry you, Cara. I see my future as clear as day.” “Yeah? What’s it look like?” Emmett cups my cheek, resting his forehead against mine. “It looks like you.”

“I’m not scared. I’d just rather throw myself off a cliff than inject a twenty-five-inch needle into my stomach.” “It’s, like, an inch.” “You would know, shrimp dick.” Laughter bubbles in my chest, and Cara’s shoulders sag before she wraps her arms around me.

Olivia clears her throat. “So, hey…” “Yeah, get outta here.” Emmett doesn’t take his eyes off me. “Thanks for being my wife’s surrogate husband.” He cocks his head. “And stepdad to our em-babies?”

“From what I gather, infertility is a lot like grief. Grieving what could’ve been every month. Grieving the future you’d planned. I don’t know infertility, Care, but I do know grief. And I can promise you, there is another side. There is a life to be built, a future that has the possibility to be just as beautiful as the one you’d hoped for. It doesn’t have to be the end. There is never an end where love exists.”

“You don’t normally forget.” I look up, finding Carter paused in the doorway, head down. “Forget what?” “How amazing you are. The rest of us do. We have our moments. A lot of them. And one thing that’s always constant in those moments? You, lifting us up. Reminding us who we are. Shouting it at us until we remember. Until we get back on our feet.

“Do you hear me, Cara? I was existing before you. But since you? Since you, I’ve been living.”

“Breathe, baby. Breathe with me. Because I can’t breathe without you.”

And then she says, “When I said I liked it rough, I was talking about sex, not life.”

But it’s when his voice breaks, his words a hoarse whisper as tears streams down his face, that everyone loses it. “Thank you for being my best friend, Jennie. I love you, and I’m so honored to walk you into this new chapter.”

I roll my eyes and say, “Good, because I might need your uterus.” I snicker, but Olivia doesn’t. Olivia sits there, holding my hand and my gaze, all the love in the world loaded in those warm eyes. “Oh, God, Liv. No! I was just … I was just joking!” “I would,” she tells me softly. “If you decide to go that route … I would.”

My eyes narrow. “Carter, I held both of them, at the same time, when they were a minute old and covered in slime.” “Okay, well, now they’re slime-free, so be sure to adjust for that.”

“I’m your Uncle Emmett. I love you so much already.” Carter smiles. “This is Brodie.” Emmett stills. He looks up at Carter, Olivia. Tears well in his eyes. “Brodie?” “Uh-huh. Named after someone special.” “Oh, fuck.” I flap at my eyes. “How dare you guys? How dare you? I am not emotionally stable enough for you to name a baby after Emmett.”

But then Carter says, “You already know her, buddy, but officially, we want you to meet your Auntie Cara. Auntie Cara, meet Hunter.”

“Hank is single-handedly fueling Carter’s chaos,” Lennon says as she snaps a picture of him holding up his Oreo packet. “He’s his hype man,” Rosie offers. “He’s enabling him,” Jennie corrects. “And one thing Carter does not need to be?” “Enabled.” Olivia points at Jennie. “You always have my back. I married the wrong Beckett sibling.”

Abel thinks for a moment, then nods. “Okay,” he murmurs as his eyes close again, as he snuggles beneath the blankets. Emmett twines his fingers through mine, and we tiptoe across the room. For the second time tonight, a little voice stops us in our tracks, right before we can close the door. “I wished for you. When I wished on the stars tonight, I wished for you. Good night, Mommy. Goodnight, Daddy. I love you.”

Lana makes a face as we settle back in our seats. “Don’t you guys ever have anything better to do than hugging?” “No!” Carter hollers back, folding his arms behind his head. “We just retired! Now we have even more time for hugging!”

Hunter flashes her a toothy smile, pulling in his dimples. “Yes, Mommy!” He turns that conniving grin back on my daughter. “Yeah, well, you better get used to me annoyin’ you. My daddy annoys my mommy every single day, and they’re married. You know what that means? It means I’m gonna marry you one day.” Lana rolls her eyes. “As if I would ever marry you.” She sticks her finger in her mouth and pretends to gag. “Vomitrocious.”