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Slipping into bed, I flop onto a fluffy pillow. Reese comes around the other side, but he hesitates at the edge of the mattress.
“You want me to sleep with you?” he asks cautiously.
If it was yesterday, I’d have told him no. It would have been satisfying to make him wait a little longer.
Today is different.
“Yeah. I want you in here with me.”
A smile splits across his face. I don’t have to tell him twice. He gets in, scooting close to me. I nestle myself against his chest. His heartbeat is strong and fast beneath his skin.
“What do you think the baby is gonna be?” he asks suddenly.
I toy with his chest hair. “Mm, I dunno. Girls run in my family. All my mom’s siblings were girls. And then her mother’s siblings, too.” I peek up at him. “What do you want it to be?”
He shrugs. “I don’t care. As long as it’s healthy and happy, I’m happy.”
I smile. “Maybe it’ll be a boy. Give Violet a cute little brother to help protect.”
Reese snorts. “Isn’t it usually the other way around?”
“You’ve met your daughter. Do you think she’s really gonna be the type to sit back and let others do her fighting for her?”
Reese chuckles and passes a rough thumb across my cheek. When I don’t shy away, he presses his lips to mine.
I don’t fight it. I don’t even think to. The softness of him, the sureness with which he kisses me, is what I need. I sigh against him.
All too soon, though, he pulls away. He presses one more gentle kiss to the top of my head and then wraps around me, holding me tight.
“Go to sleep,” he murmurs softly in my ear.
He keeps me cradled to him all night long.
42
REESE
“Is it always fuckin’ cold in doctor’s offices?”
“Reese!”
“What?”
“You’re so loud. Chill.” Olivia looks up at me, a slight quirk to the corner of her mouth. “I told you to bring a jacket.”
“I know, I know.” In my defense, I hate doctors. It usually takes violent threats from the training staff before I let them drag me into any kind of medical facility, no matter how gruesome the injury may be.
But even if I didn’t hate every lab-coat-and-stethoscope-wearing bastard I’ve ever met, it would still feel weird to be sitting in this OBGYN office. I’m the only guy here, for starters. There are five other women seated around us in the waiting lobby, in different stages of pregnancy ranging from “are you sure there’s even a baby in there?” to “are you sure there aren’t at least four babies in there?”
I’m a piece of meat in shark-infested waters. The other women keep peeking in my direction when they think I’m not looking. I wonder if it’s because they’re all alone and I’m not.
Isn’t this just the way it’s supposed to be, though?
Shouldn’t I be here?
Shouldn’t their partners be here?
There’s an uncomfortable realization that, a year ago, this is where Holly would have been. A year ago, she’d have been one of these lone women with the shifty, uncomfortable eyes. Was a random dude in her waiting room wondering where her deadbeat baby daddy was?
