Sweet Little Thing: A Novella (Sweet Thing) (10 page)

“What’s wrong?” She was squinting at me and repeating the question. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Will?”

Her voice became frantic, but I was unable to find my own. She pushed me back against the seat and leaned over me, searching my eyes. She put her hand to my cheek.

I braced her hips with my hands and looked down at her belly. Finally my voice cracked and I said, “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.” She took a deep breath. “What just happened to you?”

“How can that not have hurt the baby?”

She stared into my eyes for several moments. Her demeanor changed. I could see anger boiling behind her big hazel eyes. “Jesus, Will, your neurosis is getting really out of control. It’s going to start affecting your health; you have to calm down. You need to get your anxiety in check. Whatever you need to do to stop this constant catastrophizing, you should do it.”

“Thanks, wife,” I said sarcastically.

“I’m sorry. I just thought you were having a heart attack. I mean, you turned gray on me. I thought I had killed you with sex.”

“Now who’s catastrophizing?”

“I don’t want to fight on our wedding day.” She pressed a button, lowering the privacy screen, and then asked the driver to head to our loft.

I spoke to her in a low, defeated voice. “It just seems weird that it wouldn’t hurt the baby.”

She took my hand and finally her expression turned sympathetic. “The baby is tucked away in there and very safe. Your dick, although very big, honey, is nowhere close to reaching the baby.” She was protecting my ego. “This is natural. You asked me to be open and honest with you, so I will. I thought once I became pregnant that the idea of sex would sound revolting, but it’s actually the opposite. I’m super horny.” She whispered the last part.

“Oh yeah?” My voice got high.

“Yes, and you shouldn’t worry. Back in the day, people didn’t even know they were pregnant at this stage. I love your concern, I do.” She kissed my nose. “But you’re going to kill yourself worrying like that.”

“Okay,” I mumbled just as the limo stopped in front of our building.

We pulled our ravaged selves together and headed into the studio. I walked behind Mia into the control room. The most gratifying feeling in the world was watching Mia’s reaction when she looked through the glass and saw the Steinway.

“Holy shit,” she mumbled. “You bought the Steinway.” It wasn’t a question.

I stood behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist.

She immediately turned and looked up at me with the most serious look on her face. “You are so getting a blow job tonight.”

This horny pregnancy thing is not so bad.

I nodded. “I’m okay with that.”

“Wait a minute,” she said excitedly, “You’re gonna die when you see what I got you.”

“I hope not.”

She punched me in the arm and then grabbed my hand and pulled me along. Walking behind her, I noticed that her hair was a total mess in the back from our little limo escapade. She had taken it out of the bun and crazy pieces were going everywhere. I laughed as she led me into the sound room.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your hair looks a bit…well, it looks a little…” I tried to pat the back down, but there was so much hairspray coating each strand that it wouldn’t budge.

“Through good and bad, honey, remember?” she said with a coy smirk. “Anyway, you’ll forget all about my hair when you see this…”

She moved away from one of the guitar stands, revealing an Ebony Les Paul. Upon further inspection, I noticed there was a signature. My eyes watered; I shook my head in disbelief. It was an electric guitar signed by Jimmy Page. I picked it up and it was like I was holding the holy mother-fuckin’ grail. In twelve seconds flat, I discovered the meaning of life while holding that guitar. I turned to thank Mia and found her donning a shiny gold halo and angel wings.

“I knew it. This is heaven, right?” I said to her.

She laughed. Okay, she didn’t really have wings and a halo, but she was as angelic as I had ever seen her, with her tousled hair, pink lips and white dress. It also didn’t hurt that she had just bought me my eternal wet dream.

“Not that this day could get any better, but what would it take to get your glorious little ass over to that drum kit?”

Mia rarely played the drums. She didn’t play them very well either, but I needed a drummer and she was the only one around. She kicked off her heels and skipped over to the stool as I plugged in my new precious baby.

“Which song?” she asked. There were plenty of good reasons why Mia didn’t normally play drums. For starters, she held the sticks awkwardly. Actually, I’m being generous when I say awkwardly. She held them like they were goddamn horse reins. She sat there in her pretty dress with her legs spread, one foot on the bass drum pedal and the other one on the high hat, the picture of a complete rock star if only it didn’t like look she was about to play the xylophone.

“You are so cute, baby.” I grinned and she smiled and bounced on the stool giddily. “‘When the Levee Breaks.’”

I watched as she searched her mind for the beat and then away she went, pounding like John fuckin’ Bonham. I didn’t adjust the strap, so the guitar was resting lower on my body than usual. I pushed my right leg out to play as best I could. Mia didn’t let up, so neither did I. Her hair was in her face and she was sweaty, and she only looked up at me at the bridge, and then I saw some sort of disbelief in her eyes. That’s what happens when you pay attention to your surroundings while you play the drums. You realize that not everyone is living in a loop. She messed up a few times and then closed her eyes and found the beat again.

I could mess up a thousand times and no one would notice, but mess up on drums and you screw everyone. Good thing it was just Mia and me that night…playing a Jimmy Page guitar, playing a Led Zeppelin song, and Jesus Christ, if that wasn’t a wedding present to remember. Imagine it’s thirty years from now and you’re thinking back to the day you married your wife. Was she pregnant with your child, playing “When the Levee Breaks” on the drums, in a wedding dress with no underwear on because you fucked her silly in the back of a limo? Yeah, be jealous.

I
t took a lot of convincing for me to finally agree to leave the studio after our wedding ceremony. Mia didn’t want the guests waiting too long at the restaurant for us. I chased her up the stairs to the loft and into our bedroom. I helped unzip her, and then I watched her change into a casual white dress. She topped it off with a black leather jacket. That’s when I revealed the T-shirt I’d been hiding underneath my dress shirt.

“You are not wearing that to our wedding dinner,” she said with her hand on her hip.

“Tyler said you’d kick me in the balls when you saw it.”

“If you don’t take that off, I will.”

My T-shirt said “Buy Me a Beer, The End is Near” and then underneath the writing there was a picture of a ball and chain.

“It’s a joke. This couldn’t be further from how I feel.”

She scrunched up her nose and gave me the pouty face.

I moved toward her, pushed her hair behind her ears, and tilted her head up to look at me. “I honestly feel like this is the beginning of my life, Mia.”

“Me too,” she said. “I’ve just been really sensitive about stuff lately.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, sometimes I think it was the way you reacted when I told you I was pregnant. It made me think we were rushing into all this.”

I held her face in my hands and glanced past her into the hallway where June was pooping on the hardwood floor. I didn’t say anything; I focused my eyes back on Mia. “Listen to me. That kind of news is eye-opening for all men. Yes, I wondered how we would make it work and what it would mean for me to be a father, but then I remembered what Martha said to us in the café. She said we had everything we needed between us, and I think she’s right.”

I bent and kissed her slowly and for a long time. When I opened my eyes, hers were still closed and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. I wiped them away with my thumbs. “Baby, don’t cry. It’s our wedding day. We had awesome sex, we have two new, kickass instruments that are a hundred percent tax deductible, and we have a sweet little baby on the way.”

She looked up finally and smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mia Ryan. Doesn’t that have a nice ring?”

“Yes, it does. I guess we should get to the restaurant.” She pushed me away, looked down at my T-shirt, and pointed toward the closet. “Go change or my mom will disown you and probably kick you in the balls herself.”

“Fine.” I shuffled over to the closet and changed into a plain black T-shirt and black jeans. Mia liked it when I wore black. She would get this giddy look on her face and her cheeks would turn pink. “How’s this?”

“Perfect.” She giggled.

“Oh, hold on one sec. Come here, baby.” I grabbed her by the shoulders and moved her to the bed to sit, facing away from the door. “Stay here, don’t move.”

I cleaned up June’s poop in thirty seconds flat and then returned to Mia.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Nothing. Let’s hit it, pretty lady.”

We got to Rosetta’s, a small American bistro in Brooklyn that we’d rented out for the evening. When we arrived, everyone had taken good advantage of the open bar and appetizer rounds. Tyler was already slurring and Jenny looked pissed. We greeted the guests and mingled with everyone until dinner was served. Mia stood up and addressed the crowd, something extremely out of character for her. I thought for sure she expected me to make the announcement. She took my hand in hers before she started her speech.

“Thank you, everyone, for being here. Will and I feel extremely grateful for having family and friends to share this day with.” She picked up her glass, raised it, and very quickly said, “I’m drinking apple cider because I’m pregnant! So cheers to family and making it bigger!”

“Cheers!” I said with the crowd and clanked my glass with Mia’s.

“How was that?” she said.

“Great, honey.” It may very well have been the worst wedding speech ever.

Two people immediately rushed our table—Mia’s mom and Tyler. Tyler arrived first, but Liz, who only came up to Tyler’s waist, stomped on his foot and then cut in front of him. She glared at us from the other side of the table.

“Mom, I was going to tell you.”

Liz didn’t speak; she just glared at Mia before turning to me. “You better take good care of them.”

I stood up and walked around the table to hug Liz. She started to cry but tried desperately to contain it. I brought her into my chest. “I love Mia and that baby more than anything. I feel like they’re a part of me. It’s the boundless, from the depth of our souls kind of love, can’t you see that?”

She sniffled. “The two of you remind me of her father and me when we were just starting out.”

“You’ve got that wrong, Liz.” I knew she was paranoid Mia would be like her and quickly grow tired of the musician way of life. “The reason you’ve got that wrong is because you assume Mia is like you.” Liz was one of the most pragmatic people I knew. She was a lawyer and she handled everything in life the way she handled her cases, and although Mia had a trait like that, Mia was much more spontaneous and artistic and adventurous than Liz. Plus Mia was a musician herself. “She’s like her dad too.”

She stared blankly at me for several moments until I finally saw the sparkle in her eye. It was a realization. She cupped my face and nodded. “You might be right, Will. I just want her to be happy.”

“We jammed for thirty minutes in the studio before we came here and it was the happiest I’ve ever seen her.”

“Okay, I’ll have to trust you.”

“Trust her too. Trust her judgment. She put me through a year of torturous hell, and she trampled on my heart at least fourteen times just to make sure we were right for each other.”

She laughed and I smiled—I knew that got to her. She was proud of her little girl for doing her homework. When I turned back to look at Mia, she was hugging Tyler. I had taken care of the angry mother of the bride and she was taking care of the piss-drunk and peeved best man. What a team. Mia’s mom kissed both of us and tried not to cry while Mia’s step-dad patted me a little too hard on the back, saying “Congratulations!” over and over again.