Unable to wait even another second, Romero nudged her, and her eyes flew open. She looked completely alarmed then sat up. “It’s Christmas morning?” she asked, absolutely scandalized.
“Yeah,” he said, staring at her, his heart utterly shattered.
“Oh my God! Are the kids downstairs?”
“Yeah, they are.” He stared at her. “What were you dreaming of?”
“I don’t even know,” she said, scrambling out of bed. “What time is it? Did they get their Santa stuff?”
She looked as ready to cry as he felt. “No.” He gulped back the ache in his throat, still unable to believe what he’d heard. “But they’re about to. It’s why I came up to wake you.”
Standing up quickly, she looked down and saw she was still in last night’s clothes. Then her horrified eyes looked back at him. “Did we get everything done? Were all the gifts wrapped?”
“Yes.” He nodded robotically as she rushed around the room, looking for something. “Izzy,” he said, frozen in place, watching her, but she was so caught up frantically looking around for something. “Isabel!” Finally, that got her attention, and she peered at him, her brows furrowing in question. “What were you dreaming about?”
She thought about it for a moment then brought her hand to her mouth. In the next moment, she darted out of the room into the bathroom. He heard the water turn on and what sounded like her coughing.
Romero knocked on the door, not sure if he should be mad that she avoided his question or concerned. “Are you okay?” he asked.
What felt like the longest few minutes of his life dragged on, and the door finally opened. Her eyes were all red and puffy. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. She held up her finger but said nothing and walked over to the closet. She pulled out a suitcase and that nearly stopped his heart. “What are you doing?”
“It’s the surprise,” she said, sniffling as she unzipped the suitcase.
“Isabel, I really don’t care about the surprise right now. I asked you a question.”
“Stop calling me that,” she said as she opened the suitcase with gifts wrapped in it. “I don’t remember exactly what I was dreaming about, but I think it had to do with Thanksgiving.”
“And Elliot,” he said, the hurt and anger rising in him. “You called him baby.”
She looked up at him now. At first her brows pinched in anger; then it seemed to come to her and she smiled. “He was in my dream, but I wasn’t calling him baby.”
Romero’s jaw nearly dropped open. She’d just admitted she was dreaming of the asshole and she was smiling? Smiling! “You dream of him a lot, Isabel?”
“No,” she said firmly and yanked the gift bags out of the suitcase roughly. “And I told you to stop calling me that. I don’t care what I said in my dream. You should know by now you have nothing to be worried about.”
“Nothing to be worried about? What am I supposed to think?” She was looking around the room and found what apparently was more important than what he was saying: the only thing she’d taken off last night besides her shoes—her bra. So he raised his voice, feeling completely exasperated. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Yes, I am,” she said, slipping the bra on under her blouse like a ninja. He’d seen her do it that way so many times even in front of the kids. “But I’m not gonna argue with you because in a few minutes you’ll know why you have nothing to worry about and why I can finally tell you what’s been making me act so weird for weeks.”
She picked up the gift bags and held out her hand to him. Somehow he didn’t think anything in those bags could make him believe he had nothing to worry about. “We need to talk about this,” he said, standing in place.
In a minute, they’d be out of the bedroom and downstairs with his uncles. He still had no explanation about why his wife would be dreaming about the asshole who was obviously into her. She’d only confirmed she had been dreaming of him.
“We will,” she assured him. “But, please, for right now, let’s go downstairs. I can hardly wait for you to see this.”
Grudgingly, he took the few steps toward her and let her slip her hand in his. They walked downstairs, and even with the kids calling out to them to see everything they’d already opened from Manny and Max, Romero just wasn’t feeling it.
After wowing and gasping at some of the things the kids showed her, Isabel sat down on the floor and patted the spot next to her for Romero to take a seat. “Okay, everyone,” she said. “Let’s stop opening all those gifts so we can open the ones I got for you first.” The kids clapped their hands, staring at the bags in her hand. “First you, Amanda.” She handed Mandy the gift bag.
Even as his heart still pummeled, Romero watched his daughter dig in yanking all the tissue out. Amanda pulled out a San Diego Padres jersey, one of the expensive kinds that Izzy had always discouraged Romero from buying the kids because she said they were too expensive and they’d only grow out of them. She even had it personalized with the name Romero on the back and the number one. Romero could tell his daughter wasn’t all that excited about it, but she smiled anyway then dug in the bag again. She pulled a red T-shirt out this time that read “Big sister, Amanda.” with Christmas lights all around the lettering.
Again, Amanda didn’t look overly impressed, and Romero had to wonder what else was in the bag because Isabel was smiling a little too much for such seemingly simple gifts. To his surprise, there was nothing else in the bag. “Okay, your turn, Romeo,” she said, handing him his bag.
Romeo tore through the bag, pulling out his own matching Padres jersey. It was personalized just like Amanda’s, only his had the number two. He went to pull out the next gift, and Romero fully expected it to be a T-shirt just like Amanda’s. Instead, he pulled out some kind of plaque.
“Read it,” Isabel said with a big smile.
“I’ve . . . b-be-been . . . p-p-r-o . . . pro—”
“I’ll read it,” Amanda said, scooting over and taking a look.
“Thank you!” Manny said, loud and exasperated, and Isabel gave him a sharp look. His uncle pointed at the tree just as annoyed. “I’m just saying we still have all these other gifts to open. We’re gonna be here all day with this kid.”
“I’ve been promoted,” Amanda said then looked up at Izzy confused. “What does that mean?”
“You’ll see in a minute. But first, it’s Daddy’s turn.”
She handed Romero the bigger bag, and he took it, still not feeling the least bit jolly, but he’d go along with this for the sake of the kids, who were watching anxiously. No surprise he got a jersey too. His was also personalized with the number fifteen.
He was about to ask when she lifted an eyebrow and it hit him. Their wedding day. Normally that would’ve made him smirk. At that moment, all he could think of was the irony. Never in the entire time he’d been married to Izzy had he ever felt such uncertainty about things between them.
“Whose number is that?” Manny asked. “Gwynn?”
“Nah, Gwynn was eighteen,” Max said.
“It’s the day we got married,” Romero said, reaching into the bag but still looking up at his uncles when he pulled out the next item. “And Tony Gwynn’s number was nineteen. Get it right.”
Looking down at the next gift he’d pulled from the bag, he stopped, confused. At first, he thought maybe Isabel had mistakenly put Romeo’s Padres T-shirt in his bag, but it was too small even for him. It took a moment to register that it wasn’t even a T-shirt. It was a baby onesie.
“Turn it around,” Isabel said, her lip quivering.
When he did, he saw it was also personalized with their last name and it had a number three. He looked up at Izzy as her surprise sunk in. Her hands were at her mouth now, and her eyes completely welled. Then she looked down suddenly. “Oh, Romeo you have one more. Open it quickly.”
“Izzy—” Romero began to ask but was interrupted when Amanda read Romeo’s T-shirt out loud.
“I’ve been promoted to bi
g brother.”
Romero turned to see the T-shirt Amanda was holding up. Clearly, neither of his kids got it, but Romero did. He turned back to his wife, who tried to smile, but her quivering lips didn’t allow her to. “You pregnant, baby?” She nodded, and Romero wrapped his arms around her neck, still unable to believe it and feeling completely choked up himself. “Are you serious?”
“Yes!” She laughed, pulling away. “And it’s what I was dreaming about this morning. I don’t remember the dream exactly, but it was about Thanksgiving, the day I told Elliot I was having another baby and wouldn’t be coming back after Christmas break. I knew way back then I wouldn’t be going back.” She opened her eyes even wider. “It’s why I was sick at the mall and why I’ve been so moody and emotional. Brandon’s gift to Gina was sweet, but I never would’ve been that big of a mess because of it.”
Romero stared in her genuinely happy eyes then down at the onesie, feeling the floodgates of tension drain from his body all at once. He could admit now he’d still been feeling tension even after the night she explained about her day at the mall and had once again spiked hearing what she’d said in her sleep. It all made sense now.
“Yeeeeeehaw!!” he chanted loudly, startling them all, and then jumped to his feet. He helped Izzy up then hugged her, picking her up and spinning her around.
Max, Manny, and Aida were on their feet too, and they all hugged, jumping up and down like kids. Not surprisingly, Manny was already swatting tears away, even as he and Max hugged. Mandy and Romeo joined them, and Romero bent over to face Romeo.
“Do you get what’s happening, son?” His boy shook his head even as he continued to jump and laugh. Romero laughed. “You’re gonna be a big brother next year. Mom’s having a baby.”
Even as Romero said the words, he still couldn’t believe it. He was having another baby. What had started to feel like it might be the worst Christmas ever turned out to be the best.
Romeo stopped jumping abruptly and turned to Izzy. “You are?”
She nodded, smiling big. “What do you think?”
He thought about it for a moment then shrugged. Amanda was still jumping up and down. “I can’t wait!” she said. “I hope it’s a girl!”
“Maybe not being the youngest one will man this boy up yet,” Max said in a loud whisper.
Romero turned to him with a glare. “What?” Max said, looking surprised. “You heard that?”
“We all did,” Isabel said, looking equally as annoyed as Romero felt. She turned back to Romero. “Oh, but there was more in the bag.”
Immediately, Amanda ran to get the bag and brought it back to him. Romero stared at her as he reached in the bag. The Padres cufflinks she got him were bad ass, but they didn’t hold a candle to the excitement he felt from seeing the last thing in the bag: a piece of paper from her doctor, confirming her pregnancy and her estimated due date.
This was really happening.
What also came as a surprise was the fact that everyone but him, his uncles, and the kids knew about her pregnancy. Once again, he apologized to Gina when she and Brandon arrived. He felt like an even bigger idiot now, knowing what they’d been talking about at the beach the night he snapped and the instant conclusion he’d jumped to. By the time the day was over, Romero felt completely emotionally drained but in a good way. He’d been on cloud nine all day.
As they always did every year, Izzy and Romero saved one last gift to give each other in private once the kids were out.
They sat on the bed, each with a gift bag in front of them. Izzy went first continuing with her Padres’ theme. She got them matching T-shirts. Only instead of their last name across the top back, his read “Mine” with the arrow pointing to the right and hers read “His” with the arrow pointing to the left.
“This is fucking perfect.” He laughed, hugging her. “We should get this printed on all our shirts.”
“I figured you’d like that,” she said, squeezing him tightly. “But, uh yeah, that’s not happening.”
“I love it.” He kissed her then rubbed her belly the way he’d done all night. “All right,” he said, holding on to his bag. “I don’t want you to think I copied your brother-in-law, but when you told me how emotional his gift to Gina had made you, I had to call his ass and ask him what the hell he’d done this time.” Her eyes opened wide, making him even more nervous than when he decided to do this. “So I’m not that kind of guy—you know, all cheesy like Brandon.” He smirked. “But when he told me about the tickets, it reminded me of something. You know how I always throw stuff from my pants pockets in the top drawer of my nightstand?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “And it drives me nuts.”
“Well, I did that way back then too,” he explained, feeling like a sap already. “Only when I’d go to clean it out and see stuff like a ticket stub to a movie I took you to or something like that, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. By the time I moved in with you, I had an Izzy box. But I didn’t want you to think me a sap, so I took it to Manny and Max’s, and it stayed there all this time.” Her eyes went wide again, and they practically twinkled as she looked down at the bag. “I didn’t even remember about my Izzy box until Brandon explained his gift. I had no idea him saving those airline tickets all this time would be something you’d get so worked up about. So I went and searched for the box. Sure enough, Max and Manny hadn’t thrown it out all this time. It was still right there in my closet.”
Impossibly, her smile went even bigger, and she actually brought her hands to her mouth and seemed suddenly too excited to sit still. “Okay, okay, let me see!”
He handed the bag to her, and she dug in, just as eagerly as the kids had earlier. She pulled out the frame Romero had put together at the craft store Brandon told him about. Romero sat next to her, looking over the different things under the glass. In the middle was a photo of the two of them at the makeshift bar in Alex’s parents’ backyard the day of Angel’s wedding shower.
Her mouth dropped. “I’ve never even seen this photo,” she said, staring at it. “My God, I look all tense, and you’re smiling as big and smugly as I remember you doing that day.”
“Yeah, you were tense, but you were also adorable as shit,” he said, staring at it, remembering how much fun he had that day, making her blush. “I saw it a few weeks later at the restaurant in the back room on the desk with a bunch of other photos from the shower, and I snagged it.”
Around the photo under the glass, there was a beige frame with the other things he had saved: the ticket stubs to their first Padres game, the ones he pulled out at Friscos when he’d first asked her out; ticket stubs to a few of the very first movies they’d gone to the show to see; and the key to her apartment she had made for him when he first moved in with her.
“You kept that?” she asked, and just as she said she had gotten emotional about Brandon’s gift, her eyes were already full of tears.
“Yep.” He nodded. “I remember thinking at the time it was the best thing I’d ever been given by anyone. It meant I got to go to sleep and wake with you every single day from then on. Remember that?” He pointed at fortune he’d gotten one of the times he’d taken her to the Lucky Dragon. It wasn’t from their first date there, but it was the only one he’d ever felt compelled to save. Izzy read it out loud.
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to ride them.”
She turned to him, her quivering lips confirming it. She did remember.
“Of all the times we went there, it’s the only one I ever saved.”
He stared at it now, remembering why. It was weeks after the only break up they’d ever had, after she’d seen him at his worst and he’d really thought he’d lost her. “Do you know why I saved that?” he asked.
She nodded, touching his face. “Because you were still worried that I’d eventually break up with you because of your temper.”
He kissed her, nodding. “And you said this fortune was meant for me. That between the two of
us we’d learn to ride the waves.” He took a deep breath. “Baby, this morning you have no idea—”
Touching one finger to his lips, she smiled, a single tear streaming down her cheek. “You always say I have no idea, but I know you so well, my love. I’m sorry my surprise meant torturing you for a few weeks there, but you know how I was able to hold off telling you until today?” Romero stared at her for moment before shaking his head. “Because we learned to ride the waves.” She laughed softly. “Oh, there were moments when I thought about just telling you, but each time I was able to talk you down. A few years ago I probably wouldn’t have made it until Christmas morning had the circumstances been the same.”
He had to smirk now because he thought of this so many of the times he’d nearly blown his stack in the past few weeks. “A few years ago this guy would’ve ended up with a turkey leg up his ass way back on the night of Thanksgiving when he kept calling you ‘amazing.’”
Isabel laughed. “But he didn’t, and as surprised as I know everyone was that night that you kept your cool, I wasn’t.”
“We’ve come a long way, baby.” He smiled, touching her belly again.
“And we still have so much further to go,” She kissed him softly. “Merry Christmas, Romero. I’ll love you forever.”
He kissed her back, bringing her back gently against the pillows. “Merry Christmas, Izzy, and I don’t think I need to tell you how much I love you. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it for as long as I live. I’m nothing without you.”
Epilogue
I
sabel tiptoed into the play room. She had a feeling what she would find since it was too quiet, and sure enough she’d been right. Romero had fallen asleep with the baby on his chest on the sofa. Mandy had fallen asleep, sitting up at the end of the sofa, and Romeo had wedged himself between Romero’s body and the sofa.
They’d had a long weekend, and this was how their long weekends usually ended. Almanzo’s first birthday party had been over the top as expected. With Manny and Max asking to throw it, she had a feeling it would be. But how could she and Romero say no? They called it the day he was born.