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“Fuck yes,” he growled, thrusting up into me from below. He pinned me against his body as his cock pulsed and jerked inside me, filling me full of his come. And just as he’d promised, he didn’t let me go. We stayed there like that, kissing and touching until he was hard inside me again. And then we made love until the sun came up the next day.
“SHE’S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I’ve ever seen,” Gypsy gushed over my daughter as she rocked her in her arms. “Other than my baby, of course. I mean they are both equally beautiful. God, I’m not even making sense right now.”
“And you didn’t just go through thirty hours of labor,” Birdie murmured sleepily from her hospital bed.
I sat at her bedside, watching my wife as she slipped in and out of sleep. Thirty hours of labor was an understatement. It was more like thirty hours of straight hell. I still hadn’t recovered and still couldn’t relax. I didn’t even want to blink, for fear of missing a heartbeat or a stuttered breath.
“Huck.” Birdie wiggled her hand from my grip and shook it out. “You’re squeezing the life out of me.”
“Sorry,” I grunted. The tension in my body only escalated at the loss of our connection, and it must have been evident.
“What’s going on with you?” she asked.
I didn’t want to tell her that my fears had wrapped their sticky hands around my heart again. It was a lot to take in, and I was supposed to be the solid, steady hand for Birdie. But I was failing miserably.
“You promised no more secrets between us,” she reminded me.
“I know.” I hung my head. “I just didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Are you kidding me?” She laughed. “I’m already freaked out, Huck. We’re parents now. Do you even realize how terrifying that is for me?”
“Really?” I released a breath.
“Yes.” She nodded. “We could totally fuck this up.”
“I know,” I grunted. “I feel like we’re bound to fuck this up.”
“You aren’t going to fuck this up,” Gypsy butted in. “It’s totally normal to feel that way.”
“She’s right.” Birdie glanced over at Ariane. “We aren’t our parents. So we already have that going for us. I think you’re going to be an amazing father, Huck.”
“I can’t do this without you,” I told her.
“You don’t have to.” She looked at me in question. “I’m right here. I’ll be right here for the whole wild ride.”
I nodded, but it didn’t calm the raging tide of emotions in my chest. “I thought I was going to lose you,” I admitted.
Birdie’s eyes softened, and she reached over and took my hand. “What happened with your mom isn’t your fault. We made it through the labor. And we’ll make it through the rest, one minute at a time.”
I leaned over and kissed her just because I could. Every once in a while, pieces of our past would weave their way into the present, trying to ruin what we had. If either of us ever forgot what we were fighting for, the other was quick to remind.
There were no more secrets between us. No more lies. No more bullshit. When we said our vows, we became a family. Neither of us really knew what the hell we were doing, but we figured it out together. Always. And I knew then that Birdie was right. We would figure this out too.
While Gypsy was busy fussing over Ariane, I stole the opportunity to whisper in my wife’s ear the words I never said to anyone else. The same words I told her with unwavering certainty every single day.
“I love you.”
She nuzzled into my neck, dragging her fingers up to stroke my hair. “I love you too, Huck. Always.”
Gypsy offloaded Ariane into Lucian’s arms and looked at her sister with a misty-eyed expression. “I almost forgot, I brought you something, B.”
“What is it?” Birdie eyed the journal Gypsy pulled from her purse.
“It took me a while to look through it,” Gypsy said cautiously. “But when we were in California, I found this at the old house. It was still in our hiding place beneath the porch. Can you believe that?”
The color drained from Birdie’s face as she studied the journal, and I wasn’t quite sure what Gypsy was doing. I was tempted to take it away, but then Birdie smoothed her fingers over the worn leather, shaking her head in disbelief.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s our secret messages.” Birdie laughed. “I can’t believe this thing survived all these years.”
“We used to write to each other in code,” Gypsy explained. “Cutting out pages from magazines and newspaper clippings. We’d find words and use a corresponding number to write notes to each other.”
“I can only imagine what must be in here.” Birdie swallowed.
“Open it,” Gypsy encouraged, her eyes sparkling with something I couldn’t quite identify. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
