“I’ve got you,” I told him, my voice coming out steadier than I felt. “Just a few more steps.”
I got him through the front door and followed Jasper down the hallway to the infirmary, Sterling’s voice already coming from inside, issuing instructions in that quiet, calm tone that never varied no matter what was happening.
The tight corridor opened into a clean, well-lit room with an exam bed positioned under a window, supply shelves along one wall, the familiar smell of antiseptic and fresh linen settling around us.
Sterling was already there—I didn’t ask how, Sterling was always already there—and directed me to lay Jackson on the exam bed.
“Contraction timing?” he asked, already pulling on gloves.
“Less than two minutes,” I said, moving to the head of the bed and taking Jackson’s hand. I stayed out of Sterling’s way—this wasn’t my area of expertise. My job was to be exactly where I was standing, with Jackson’s hand in mine and my voice steady when he needed to hear it.
“Jesus,” Jasper said, coming in with an armful of towels. “You couldn’t have given us a heads-up before you went into full labor, Jax?”
“I gave you six months,” Jackson shot back, the words tight through another wave. “That wasn’t enough?”
Sterling’s hands were steady and unhurried as he worked, the same calm he’d brought to the two previous deliveries on this property, and I found myself anchoring to that steadiness.
Jackson wasn’t quiet through any of it—he was focused and furious, cursing in two languages, and at one point told me with complete conviction that he was going to rip my dick off and feed it to me.
I accepted this without argument. I’d been told worse by better people.
I held Jackson’s hand through the worst of the contractions and talked to him in low, steady Spanish—not instructions, not coaching, just my voice, present and close, a continuous low murmur that had no agenda except to be there.
Jackson’s grip on my hand was the most honest thing I’d ever felt, all his control stripped away, just a man holding on through what was happening to him.
The truck was still running outside. The gravel I’d spun through on the way here was probably scattered halfway across the property. The greenhouse door was probably still open, the morning air turning the carefully maintained humidity into something else entirely.
None of it mattered.
Jackson’s face was running with sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead, his free hand gripping the edge of the exam bed with a force that had to be leaving marks.
At some point Sterling said “almost there” and I looked at Jackson’s face—sweat-damp, exhausted, jaw set with absolute determination—and felt something crack open in my chest that I did not have a name for in any language.
The baby’s cry filled the infirmary—a sound so much bigger than the tiny body producing it that for a second I couldn’t place it. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, loud and insistent, a sound I’d heard a hundred times before but had never been meant for me.
I stood frozen, Jackson’s hand still gripping mine with a force that had to be leaving marks, as Sterling lifted the tiny, red-faced bundle.
“Healthy boy,” Sterling announced, voice steady as always. “Good lungs.”
I heard him from a great distance because my eyes were fixed on the small, furious, red-faced person Sterling was wrapping in a receiving blanket.
The baby—our baby—had one fist clenched at his chest, mouth working in small, indignant movements. His other arm flailed as Sterling wrapped him, tiny fingers splayed like he was trying to catch something just out of reach.
“Eight pounds,” Sterling said. “Good size.”
I realized my face was wet. I did not address this. There were more important things happening than the fact that I was standing in an infirmary crying while Sterling delivered my son—our son—into the world.
Sterling placed the baby in Jackson’s arms, and Jackson went still in a way I’d never seen him go still before—not the tactical stillness he used under pressure, but something else entirely, a man arriving somewhere he didn’t know he was going.
His face, which had been tight with pain and concentration a moment before, softened into an expression I’d never seen on it—unguarded and wondering and nothing like the flat, controlled face he showed the world.
“Jesus Christ,” Jackson said, his voice rough. “He’s real.”
I couldn’t answer. My throat had closed around whatever I might have said, leaving me standing there with my hand still in Jackson’s, watching him hold our son for the first time.
The baby’s eyes were squeezed shut, fists still working at his chest, his breathing coming in the quick, light pattern of a newborn. He was red-faced and furious, tiny feet kicking at the blanket wrapped around him, his mouth opening and closing in small, determined movements.
Jackson looked up at me—said nothing, didn’t need to—and shifted the baby slightly, an invitation.
