AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dad!” Vayda says, tugging on my sleeve. “Go on!”
I nod and follow the doctor without a word. This is all so surreal. The baby wasn’t due for at least another two weeks.
I step into the room, and my heart swells with love. Oakley is lying on the bed, her dark hair matted against her forehead from the exertion of giving birth. Her eyes soften when she sees me, and a slow smile spreads across her face. She glances down at the bundle in the baby blue blanket and sighs. "Luke, daddy's here to meet you."
I hear a squeal coming from the blanket and cautiously move toward it. Before I look at my son, I stroke Oakley’s hair. “Baby, are you alright? You scared me to death.”
"I'm fine." She smiles at me. "Actually I'm more than fine. Just look at him, Levi. He looks just like you."
I take the tiny bundle from her and look at my son. He reminds me of a baby photo my mother once showed me. It warms a man’s heart to know his son takes after him. “He’s perfect.” I feel a tear slide down my cheek and quickly brush it away.
“Hah! You lost the bet.” Oakley laughs and points a finger at me. “Remember, the first one to cry when he’s born gets diaper duty for the first week.”
I laugh and press a kiss to her head. Only Oakley would find a way to bring humor into such an emotional moment. “For what he just put you through, I’ll take diaper duty for the first month.”
“Brave man,” John says as they join us in the room.
Vayda and Sarah take turns holding baby Luke and fawning over Oakley. I meet John's eyes, and he walks toward me, nudging my shoulder. "You did good, Levi. I wanted to kill you there for a while, I won't deny that. But you did good."
I laugh and shake my head. John had been reserved toward me until the wedding three months ago. I knew he was taking my relationship with Oakley the hardest, but we finally made our peace at the wedding when he told me he could see I loved his daughter.
“So what is my grandson’s name?” Sarah asks as she inspects his tiny hands.
"Luke," Oakley and I answer together. Our eyes meet, and we share a smile at the name we picked.
"Well Luke, we're going to see you again tomorrow. It's your own fault we didn't bring you any gifts since you decided to come early," Sarah murmurs to the baby before she turns to Oakley and me. "I proud of you, both of you. I won't lie and say I wasn't hesitant about all of this at first, but I can see everything worked out just the way it should have."
Sarah’s words mean more to me than I can ever say. I walk to her and hug her tightly. “Okay, grandma.”
She swats me playfully and scowls at me.
I shrug and laugh at her. “You never said anything about calling you grandma.”
When I’m finally alone with Oakley again, no words are needed. I climb into the bed beside her and pull her into my arms, cradling our newborn son between us.
Epilogue
Oakley
“Luke left you a little present in his diaper,” Vayda says, coming through the kitchen door of my parents’ house with Luke giggling in her arms.
“No, ask Levi. I already had a present this morning,” I complain, teasing a laugh from my mother.
“Honey, children are the gift that never stops giving,” my mother jokes as she tosses a garden salad.
It's Luke's second birthday, and my parents insisted we have a barbeque at their house. For two people who hated the idea of Levi and me together, they've really turned around. Levi and my dad are back to being best friends. My mother loves being a grandmother. When I went back to college a year ago to finish my courses, she had insisted on taking care of Luke instead of hiring a babysitter.
Due to Luke spending so much time on their side of the fence my father had erected a jungle gym where my little boy could play to his heart's content. The ladder they had installed for Vayda and me as children had been taken down and instead, they put in a gate to ease movement between our yards. For a while there I thought nothing would ever be right in my world again but our family pulled together.
The little hesitation that was still present at Luke's birth had vanished the moment he gurgled at them for the first time. Vayda and I were best friends again the only difference was I didn't discuss my love life with her anymore.
My relationship with Levi has grown by leaps and bounds. I knew he was the man for me, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Vayda laughs, interrupting my thoughts and hands me Luke. “Dad’s busy grilling the hamburgers, so he’s all yours.”
I cringe at the thought of changing Luke’s diaper and decide it’s time I shared our news with our family. Levi asked me to hold off a little longer, but the nausea was preventing me from doing much of anything these days, never mind changing diapers.
At that moment Levi and my dad walk into the kitchen, talking a mile a minute about the grocery store burgers compared to the burgers they bought from the butcher.
