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16
Two years later...
Our engagement had been longerthan I had wanted, but I had been more than willing to wait as long as it took for the pleasure of calling Juliet my wife.
We had finally tied the knot exactly one year after our first date. The ceremony was the complete opposite of my first wedding. A small gathering with only our closest friends and family present. The intimate wedding I always wanted.
Juliet had signed up for a two-year culinary program shortly after resigning from Edelman’s, and with my support, she doubled up on her class load in order to finish six months early.
Which—according to her—had been the greatest decision she ever made.
Not even a month after our wedding, I had come home from work one day to find Juliet sitting on the floor of our bathroom in the dark. Her back had been ramrod straight and her eyes were terrified.
In my haste to find out what was wrong, I hadn’t even noticed the barrage of positive pregnancy tests scattered around her until I knelt by her side.
The fear in her eyes hadn’t been from the pregnancy itself but of my reaction. We had talked about kids numerous times and we mutually agreed to wait until after she finished college. With only five more months of schooling to go, we technically stuck with the plan.
The truth was—plan or not—I was ecstatic. So ecstatic that I mounted her right there on the bathroom floor, swallowing her moans in a seemingly endless kiss while we made love.
Everything was perfect. The wedding, the pregnancy, my life, her. All perfect.
And I was so fucking terrified of losing it all that I couldn’t stop pacing back and forth while I waited for her to deliver our baby.
What if something went wrong? Even with modern medicine, there was always a chance that… No. I had to stop thinking about all the possibilities of what could happen and focus on what was actually happening.
Mason tried to console me when Juliet’s cry of pain echoed through the private maternity suite. I had only stepped out of the room for some air at her insistence. She’d been in labor for nearing fourteen hours and still hadn’t dilated enough for the birth. The combination of a lack of sleep and her pained cries and tears had long since started making me batshit insane.
A man my size freaking the fuck out tended to make nurses nervous. Hence her pushing me out of the room to calm myself down.
“She’ll be fine,” Mason stressed as he patted my shoulder. “A long labor is totally normal. Especially for the first baby.”
“How the fuck would you know?” I growled as I ran my hands into my hair and resisted the urge to pull. “None of us have any idea what she’s going through right now.”
Right now, all of us consisted of myself, Mason, Layla, and Jamie. Juliet’s family was on their way from Colorado and it thankfully looked like they’d be landing in time for the birth. If it ever fucking happened.
“She’s fine,” Jamie said with a dramatic eye roll. “Seriously. If she wasn’t fine—she wouldn’t be worried about you scaring nurses. She’d be digging her nails into your arm and cursing the day you were born.”
Mason chuckled. “And even if something did go wrong, you made damn sure that she has the best possible medical care.”
There was a nugget of truth in that, but I still snapped. I gripped his shirt and yelled, “Are you trying to jinx it?!”
Layla swatted my hands away from her husband’s shirt before connecting her palm hard with my cheek. My mouth fell open as I stared at her in shock.
“You slapped me.”
“Get a fucking grip, Ethan. You’re totally losing it.”
Jamie scoffed. “He lost it long before today. I’m just saying.”
Layla pointed her thumb his direction. “He’s probably right, but this is even worse than usual. You need to calm the fuck down.”
“And take a shower,” Jamie muttered.
Layla’s nose scrunched up. “You do smell a little ripe. And your clothes are just... fucked. You should—”
“Just... stop,” I begged, covering my mouth with my hand and counting to five slowly in my head before dragging it away. “You two... you two make me fucking crazy.”
Mason chimed in, “But you gotta admit—you seem a lot calmer now.”
