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“Well, you always planned to find another place at the end of your contract.”
He and I have talked about it—how we’ll find a place in town together, or Jay and the baby and I will move in to Grams’s house until we do.
“I know. It’s just that every project I finish is bittersweet now.” I sigh again—and the melancholy weighs down my words. “I love this place so much. Not just because I’ve put my heart and soul into decorating it, or how half the town has helped us finish it—it’s all the memories we’ve made here. It’s so much more than a house now . . . it’s our home. Yours and mine and Jason’s.”
Dean sweeps his fingers tenderly across my cheek.
“We’ll make more memories, Lainey—good ones, happy ones . . .” he wiggles his eyebrows “. . . dirty ones.”
That pulls a laugh out of me—and I press a kiss to the center of his palm. “I know. I just . . . I can’t imagine any other place feeling like home the way this one does.”
~ ~ ~
The next afternoon, Callie Daniels goes into labor, and by that night she and Garrett welcome their newest addition—a sweet baby girl they name Charlotte. A few days later, when they’re home from the hospital and settled, we stop by to visit. Little Will bouncily shows off his baby sister like she’s the best new toy he’s ever gotten, and he kisses her cheek whenever she’s in reach.
Dean told me when Will was first born, he was too nervous to hold someone so tiny—but this time around, he needs the practice. So Garrett talks him through the various holding techniques before passing Charlotte to his best friend.
“There’s the shoulder hold which allows for burping and ass-patting, you just have to be sure the baby can breathe and their head doesn’t flop around. The two-arm cradle is always a safe bet—just make sure to support the neck. Then there’s the one-handed hold, with the baby tucked against your side, her body along your forearm and her head in your hand.”
Dean smiles confidently, as Charlotte sleeps soundly in the one-handed hold. “It’s just like holding a football.”
Garrett nods. “Yep, exactly.”
~ ~ ~
I finish the last decorating project in the house—the den—the second week in April. Which turns out to be perfect timing, because that night I wake up with the urgent need to pee. I’m four days from my due date—this is not an unusual thing.
The house is dark and still and the clock on the night table says two in the morning. After I take care of business and wash my hands—a surging, building kind of pressure suddenly expands in my lower abdomen, making me hunch over and hold my stomach.
The pressure dissipates as quickly as it came . . . right after my water breaks all over the bathroom floor.
“Huh.” I look down at the wet floor, reaching for a towel. And then I look at my stomach. “Okay, kiddo. Message received.”
And I open the door.
“Dean!”
A few seconds later, he appears in the doorway, squinting in the bright light and yawning, his thick blond hair sticking up in several directions.
“What’s up?”
Then he spots the sopping wet towel between my feet and the water still on the bathroom floor.
“Holy shit. Is that because of this afternoon? Did we pop something loose in there?”
“No.” I rub my tightening belly. “My water broke. It’s time.”
And he’s suddenly wide-awake.
“It’s time . . . wow . . . okay . . . it’s time.” Dean grabs a dry towel and wipes up the rest of the floor. Then he guides me back to the bedroom, sits me down on the cushioned corner chair, and helps me change into a dry pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to wake up Jay. Then I’ll call Grams. Tell her we’re on the way over.”
Jason’s old enough to stay here alone—I know—but I’ll feel better knowing he’s with someone, instead of waking up by himself to a note that we’ve gone to the hospital to deliver his sibling.
And since I grew a whole new human in the last few months—that’s a call I get to make.
“Okay.”
Dean takes two steps toward his phone on the nightstand, but then he stops and turns back around. He leans over and presses his lips slowly and softly against mine.
And then the corner of his mouth hooks up into my favorite smile—warming me all over. “We’re going to have a baby today, Lainey.”
“Yeah, we really are.” I laugh. “Are you freaking out?”
He takes a second to think it over.
“Nope, I’m good. You?”
I search my feelings—there’s a thrum of excitement, a pinch of trepidation because labor doesn’t tickle . . . and an engulfing sense of centeredness, of being protected and cared for . . . and loved. Because Dean is with me, and he’s going to be with me every step of the way.
