Indiscreet by Nicole French
Epilogue
Three years later
Will
“And the award for best original screenplay goes to…Will Baker for Wind in the Sails!”
The roar from the audience reaches the sky-high ceilings of the Dolby theater in Los Angeles. The people around us are smiling at me and clapping. A few different cameras have zoomed over the crowd and are pointed at me. But I can barely comprehend what’s happening.
“Will?”
I turn when Maggie places her small hand on my arm. Her touch is warm, even through my tuxedo jacket, and when she smiles, my heart practically thumps out of my chest.
She’s stunning. Robin, the stylist we usually work with for crap like this, really outdid herself tonight. Not with me—I look the same as ever. If you’ve worn one black tux, you’ve worn them all. Maggie cut my hair, like she usually does when she says I’m getting too Yeti-locks for her taste. Right below the ears seems to be her sweet spot, where she gets caught staring at me with her mouth open, just begging for me to slip my tongue in it. Or, you know, something else. Even better if I happen to take my shirt off. Do I do an extra set of sit-ups every day because of the way she looks at my abs? Maybe, maybe not. Okay, yeah. I definitely do. Because three years later, that expression still puts the dirtiest thoughts in my head. Really, you don’t want to know.
But somehow, I ended up with a woman who is game for just about anything, including getting busy in the limousine on the way here. She teases me about it, wondering how a guy with a social anxiety disorder gets off on sex in public places. I don’t have an answer for that. It’s just with her. It’s only ever been with her.
But seriously. You try riding next to this woman looking the way she does and keep your hands to yourself. Because when Maggie walked out of the bedroom in our suite, I almost fell over. With her curls piled high and a few soft tendrils loose around her neck, she looked like a Greek goddess, not the girlfriend of a lowly actor/screenwriter. Her light green dress or gown or whatever you want to call it makes her skin glow, is pulled over one shoulder, and flows down the rest of her body. A bunch of designers and jewelers clamored to dress her, and not just because she’s my girl. It’s her big night as much as mine. And classic Maggie, she couldn’t care less about Gucci or Chanel. She went with a local designer and turned down all jewelry except for the pair of diamond earrings and the matching pendant I bought her after she gave birth to our first child, Michaela…
* * *
I almost missed it.
I was in Tokyo when I got the call, literally about to get out of the car and walk the final red carpet for the Green Lantern press tour. It took me two full hours of meditation and yoga to get ready for that walk, part of the regimen that Dr. Blanchard, my therapist, and I worked out to mitigate anxiety during the campaign. Does it work as well as Valium? No. But it helps. Not as much as having Lil beside me, but it’s better than shoving a bunch of pills and drink down my throat to get through it.
Tokyo is the worst of all of them. The crowds are bigger, the craze of the city is contagious. By the end of the junket, I was ready to ask for a straitjacket myself. So when my cell phone rang, and Calliope’s frantic voice shouted over the screaming outside the limo, I was more than happy to tell the driver to go straight to the airport.
And I made it just in time. Nine hours to Seattle. Customs, and then another hour to Spokane. Forty-five minutes to the hospital, where I burst into the delivery room right when the doctor was telling Maggie she could push.
“Sir, you need to change—”
“Where is she?” It’s a stupid question. There is only one bed in the delivery room, and one person lying on it, her feet in stirrups with a doctor crouched in front of her.
“Just a few more contractions, Maggie, and then I think you can push. Stay with me now, sweetheart.”
“Will!” Maggie finds me, her brown eyes frantic, and in another second, I’m at her side, taking her hand and pressing her head into my chest.“You’re still in your suit,” she whispers, fingering my jacket.
I shuck it immediately, tossing the Armani to the floor, and grab a seat next to her. “Should I put on the Green Lantern costume?”
But the joke is lost as her face screws up in pain as another contraction sweeps through her. A sheen of sweat covers her body, and tiny hairs are plastered on her forehead. She’s never looked more beautiful.
“Your hand,” she breathes in a voice contorted in her effort. “Oh GODFUCKINGHELLTHATHURTSSS!”
I pivot to the doctor. “Is this normal?”
The doctor just gives me a cheery thumbs-up while she watches whatever is going on down there. “We’re almost ready,” she calls out.
I turn back to Maggie, whose eyes are now closed. “I’m here, Lil,” I say. “I have you.” I’d give her any limb she wants. Whatever she needs right now. I just don’t want her to make that sound again.
One eye opens, brown and deep. Even in her pain, full of love.
“I knew you’d be here,” she whispers. “Don’t let go.”
I smile. Her words call back to those moments when I’d say the same thing to her. About to do a step-and-repeat, or enter a room full of Hollywood jackals, when I felt the throes of a panic attack snapping at me like wolves. Don’t let go, I’d beg, though I was always more scared of losing her than of anything else.
And she never did.
And I never will.
“Okay, Maggie, it’s time,” the doctor says, popping her head up. “You ready to meet your daughter, guys?”
Maggie grips my hand so hard I swear she’s going to crush the bones. Her jaw sets, and she nods. “I’m ready.”
I can tell the moment it’s about to happen. Something happens to her belly—it moves, clenches with each contraction, but as Maggie starts to push, with grunts, howls, and a bunch of other noises I never knew my girl could even make start pouring out of her. Her face turns purple with the effort, and we’re both screaming and moaning together, again and again, until all at once, she deflates and a baby’s cry cuts through the thick hospital air.
“Oh God, oh God!” Maggie’s crying, over and over again, her eyes glazed and unfocused as she looks around. “Go, Will. Go get her.”
But I’m already up and moving to the end of the bed, where the nurses are cleaning our little girl and wrapping her in a loose cloth while the doctor finishes up with Maggie. When women tell you birth is a war zone, believe them. I will respect the hell out of my girl for this for as long as I live.
“Take off your shirt,” one of the nurses says, then starts when she actually gets a look at who I am.
“I’m sorry, what?” I’ve had a lot of inappropriate fans over the years, but this one takes the cake.
Behind me, Maggie laughs. She actually laughs, after all she’s been through, after being in labor for almost twenty-four hours, looks like she’s been through a major battle, and still hasn’t had a chance to see this person she’s been growing for the last nine months.
I turn around, hands on my hips. “Seriously, Lily pad?”
She winces a little, but doesn’t stop giggling. “No one in here cares about your abs, Baker.” She point at the baby. “It’s a bonding thing. You’re supposed to hold her skin to skin. So strip down and get our daughter so I can meet her, will you?”
My jaw drops, but she’s not joking. Vaguely, I remember something about skin on skin and bonding hormones our birth coach mentioned, and then it takes me exactly four seconds to rip off this stupid monkey suit and accept my daughter, who’s cooing like a dove, against my bare chest.
She’s warm. Tiny, not even as long as my forearm. She has a full head of thick, dark blond hair and skin like a sunset. She’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my sad, sorry life.
“Bring her to your wife,” says the nurse. “Let’s see if she’ll latch.”
“Oh, we’re not married,” Maggie says cheerily.
I dart a quick glance at her. “Not yet, anyway.”
This has been a point of contention between us for a while now. I asked her nearly every day for two months after we moved back to the lake, but every time, she muttered something about not wanting a shotgun wedding and changed the subject to decorating the baby’s bedroom or something equally banal. So I stopped, because you don’t want to piss off a pregnant lady. But doesn’t mean I ever planned to give up.
Maggie’s face reddens again, but I ignore it while I carry the baby to meet her mom. Maggie pulls her hospital gown open, baring her chest the same way I did. With tears flowing openly down her beautiful face, she accepts our daughter into her arms. The baby calms immediately, like she knows this is where she belongs. Where we all belong together.
“Now what?” I find the stool beside them, not sure what I should be doing here.
“Let’s see if we can help her latch,” says the nurse as she comes to the other side.
We listen only half-way as the nurse gives directions on how to guide the baby to Maggie’s breast, help her establish first contact, those first critical bonds. Maggie winces as the baby closes her mouth around her nipple, but after a few moments, it’s clear they have both found a rhythm. I just watch in awe. And I know in that moment that this is the best thing I have ever done in my life. This woman. This child. This family. This is all a man could ever need. It’s all I could ever want.
Maggie looks up at me, her eyes glossy with pride and joy. “Hey, Daddy,” she whispers.
I jerk. And before I realize it, tears are streaming down my cheeks.
“Shi—I mean, shoot,” I say, wiping them away.
“It’s okay,” Maggie says. “Come here.”
Keeping the baby in place with one hand, she weaves her other fingers into my hair, which has grown a few more inches in the last six months. I kiss her, feel her warmth, her sigh, her total surrender. That’s the thing about Maggie––when she gives of herself, she gives everything she has. I’ll never be worthy of it, but I’ll never stop trying.
“I love you,” I say, low enough that only she can hear me.
She smiles against my lips. “So much.”
I look down at our daughter, who’s just finished nursing and is drifting off to sleep.
“Michaela?” Maggie asks.
It’s a name we’ve been tossing around since we discovered the sex. The female version of my father’s name, Michael.
I nod. “Michaela Grace?”
Maggie’s eyes tear up again, and I know it’s because she’s thinking of her mother.
“Yeah,” she whispers. She strokes the tiny head that’s cuddled into her breast. “Michaela Grace. Welcome to the world.”
* * *
“Will.”Maggie’s voice, sweet and a little husky, pulls me back to the here and now. “Come on, Goldilocks,” she teases. “They’re waiting for you.”
Maggie flashes her bright, brilliant smile and puts her hand back on her belly. She’s not showing too much—not under the loose layers of fabric—but in another few weeks, she’ll pop out like a basketball, if this is anything like the last one. I smile down at the little man growing inside her. She’s five months along with our second, a boy. Not sure how we managed that, and neither are the doctors. After Mickey was born, Maggie went back on birth control as soon as was humanly possible. And, just like the last time, it failed. Looks like I’ve got some good swimmers down there. Maggie’s informed me during her third month of morning sickness that after the birth, she wouldn’t be having sex with me until I got snipped. But I don’t know, though. I’m sort of holding out for a third. Honestly, I’d keep her pregnant round the clock if I could. That’s how damn beautiful she looks.
“Go get your award so we can go back to the hotel, all right?” Her sly grin tells me her libido is calling.
I grin, and then laugh, a big belly laugh that I’ve only learned to do easily again in the last few years. It’s just one more reason to love my Lily pad knocked up—she can’t get enough of it. I lay a big kiss on this woman I’m so damn lucky to call my own. It’s the kind of kiss I’d never have dreamed of giving out in public before I met her. Then I stand up to collect my prize.
The crowd roars, and without Maggie beside me, it’s hard not to freeze up. Hard, but not impossible. I’m still an intensely private person, but things have gotten better with a hell of a lot of therapy and a bunch of coping mechanisms. Meditation. Yoga. Boxing. I do them all.
But the real breakthroughs happened when, after I finished filming the last of the Green Lantern and Maggie recorded “Cavern,” we moved back to Newman Lake to start our family. We settled in at the new house, into a community that turned out to be way more protective of Maggie—and then of me—than I predicted. Turns out photographers aren’t as likely to creep around when your sixty-five-year-old neighbor, Warren, a Vietnam war vet and occasional deer hunter, uses paparazzi for target practice. On top of that, I actually learned to get along with Lucas, since having the Forster family at our back basically meant the entire lake became our extended family. Mickey’s got more pretend aunties and uncles than she knows what to do with. Will I be taking the fence down anytime soon? Probably not. But could I? Maybe. And I never thought I’d experience that.
So the last few years gave Maggie and me a bit of peace. Peace to mourn our parents the right way. Peace to learn to be together for the long haul. It wasn’t easy—the press tour itself coincided with the last trimester of her pregnancy and had Max del Conte breathing down my neck the entire time, just waiting for a misstep so he could sue my ass for breach of contract. But in the end, he forgot about my role in his son’s death when it came out that Theo had sexually assaulted a whole slew of women at Beauregard and del Conte Entertainment. In the end, Max needed me a whole lot more than I ever needed him, to the point where he is still throwing money at me, trying to get me to come back for a sequel.
But it ain’t gonna happen. Shortly after the Green Lantern tour, I announced my retirement from acting. I always felt about acting the way Maggie does about singing live. It’s all right, and I’m good at it, but it’s never been what I really wanted to do, which was come home and be a father to my daughter and a husband to my…well, one day she’ll be my wife. My girls give me all the inspiration I could ever need, which is how I ended up writing the screenplay that won tonight’s award.
“Wow,” I say, speaking directly into the mic. “I mean…wow. Baby, do you see this?”
Lil just gleams from her seat, unconscious of the TV cameras hovering around her. She doesn’t react to them anymore the way I do—it’s like she only has eyes for me.
I push a hand through my hair, trying to recall the speech I scribbled on hotel stationery last night. Maggie insisted I needed to have something in case I ended up on this stage. I didn’t believe I would. No one gives Oscars to first-time screenwriters, especially not when they are washed-up child actors.
“There are about a million people to thank for this,” I say, trying and failing to mask the emotion swelling through me. “Um, to all the good people at Warner for buying the script and believing in the project, and especially Corbyn Creighton, Jeffrey Carol, Killian Everett, Sandra Meyers, and everyone else who worked tirelessly to bring this script to life in a way it really deserved––thank you. So much. To Benny Amaya, my brother from another mother, thank you for putting up with all of my B.S. over the years. Your patience is king. To my daughter, Mickey, I love you, bug, but if you’re up, tell Grandpa James you need to go back to sleep. But more than everyone else, I have to thank one person in particular. She’s the light of my life, the woman who literally brought me back from the dead, the inspiration for this entire story, and without her, I never would have had the guts to write this script, send it in, and get it made.”
I pause, finding her face again, feeling our mutual joy. My victories are hers, just like hers are mine. Just like, twenty minutes ago, when she won her own Oscar for best original score, I was on my feet, shouting for her louder than anyone else in the theater. Then I went full Hollywood and swept her up with a kiss that made her stumble on her way to the stage.
So, ignoring the producer, next to the camera man, who is frantically trying to wave me off stage, I grab the mic more purposefully. Because apparently I have a little more Hollywood in me. It’s now or never.
“See, we had a couple of bets tonight, you guys, since neither of us thought we’d ever win, but we were both equally sure of each other. If she lost, I said I’d do dishes for a month––and you all know how that ended up. Since my girl is your winner for best original score, she’ll be sudsing up for a while.”
There’s a smatter of laughter around the theater, and Maggie smiles shyly while she cradles her gold statue.
“My bet was a little different, though. I bet her that if I lost, she’d have to let me make an honest woman out of her. She agreed, thinking I was joking. Well, Lily pad, joke’s on you, baby. Because this was going to happen either way.”
A buzz ripples around the theater as I jog off the stage, and multiple cameras move with me as I return to where Maggie is sitting.
My girl. My woman. Light of my goddamn life. Every day I wake up asking myself how the fuck did I ever get so lucky?
I crouch beside her, and slowly, lower one knee to the floor as the auditorium collectively gasps. Lil can’t even speak—both of her hands are over her mouth as she watches with moons for eyes.
“This is for you,” I said, low enough that only she can hear me.
And then I pull out the box I’ve been carrying around in my pocket since Mickey was born, watching and waiting for the right time to ask, one last time, the most important question I was ever going to have. It was never a matter of if—just when.
“Lil,” I whisper, though by now, there’s a boom hanging directly above us so that my voice, no matter how low, is going to be broadcast across the entire room, the entire world. Two years ago, the idea might have sent me running, but right now, I want everyone to hear what I have to say.
“What—what are you doing?” Her voice shakes, but in a good way. In that way that tells me I could probably take her behind the curtains on the stage and have my way with her if I wanted. Her lower lip trembles—that full lower lip I love to suck on like a Jolly Rancher. Jesus Christ. She really has no clue.
Focus, Will. I can hear my dad thinking it in the back of his mind. Will, get your mind right. You got a question to ask, son.
I take a deep breath and hold her eyes with my own. And just for a second, we are the only two people in a room containing several thousand.
“Maggie. Lily pad. Love of my fucking life. You brought me back to life, and you do it every day. There is no one else I want with me on this crazy journey. All I want to do is watch you soar, baby, and fly alongside you. So please. I’m begging you. Will you marry me?” I ask softly.
The entire auditorium is dead silent. Up in the sound booth, the producer is probably going crazy, arguing with the network about whether to go to commercial.
Everyone waits.
And she says…nothing.
For a second, despite the last three years that have been the happiest of both our lives, despite the home we’ve made together that neither of us ever thought we could have, despite our sunshine-filled daughter and another one on the way—despite all of that, I’m still afraid she’ll finally see how unworthy I am of all of it. That she’s going to say no.
“Lil,” I whisper.
Her big eyes drag up from the ring. “Y-yeah?”
“Lil, you, um, you think you can give me an answer here?” I twist my mouth to the side, that crooked smile I reserve just for her. Her eyes drop—even now, I can tell she wants to kiss me.
“Answer you…” She drifts off, clearly lost in the moment. “Answer you…”
“Yeah. I meant, it’s not just me that wants to know what you’re thinking?” I tilt my head around the theater, trying to play this cool even though I’m about the explode from the tension. Jesus Christ, she’s killing me over here.
But I’d wait forever. I’d keep the world on pins and needles for hours to give her the space she needs.
If she’ll just say…
Maggie jerks, as if she’s just realized we have an audience. And not just the three thousand or so bodies packed into Dolby, but also the ten million watching us at home.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, her brown eyes suddenly wide as the sky. “Oh, Will…oh my God, of course. Yes! Yesyesyesyesyes, of course I’ll marry you!”
And that’s all it takes. The entire theater erupts into chaos as Maggie jumps out of her chair and into my arms. The force of her small body nearly knocks me off my feet, but I catch her, because that’s what I do. We catch each other, Lil and I, no matter what.
“Yeah?” I ask again and again as I slide the ring onto her finger. “Yeah?”
In answer, her lips find mine, and I’m not just a witness to her happiness—I’m fucking immersed in it. Because that’s always how it is with Lil. Just looking at her makes me forget where I am. When I taste her, I can’t even remember my own name. Will. Fitz. You could call me Donald fucking Duck—it wouldn’t matter. Because when she kisses me, I’m hers. And I don’t care who sees it.
Whoops and hollers fill the auditorium as everyone cheers for what’s probably going to drive gossip columns for the next two weeks. Once upon a time, I’d have closed up, snarled at the cameras. Well, I never would have done this to begin with, and if I had, I would have been torn up with the dread of what’s sure to follow—the cameras, a trail of paparazzi while we’re still in LA, and a few that might follow us back to the lake until Warren pulls out his gun again. The tabloids publishing way too many pictures of us and trying to find shots of Mickey, and eventually little no-name too.
But tonight, I couldn’t care less. For once, I want this news everywhere. I want everyone on the planet to know, see, feel taste one solitary fact: that Maggie Sharp belongs to me. But more importantly, I belong to her.
* * *
Dyingfor more Will and Maggie? Go here for another exclusive extended epilogue!
https://bookhip.com/NTRKJP
