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My eyes danced over the wordsYou’re having a ____.Right there, in Dr. Hokum’s efficient handwriting, the wordboyfinished the sentence Duke had scrawled on a piece of paper at the appointment.
Duke read the words upside down as I held the paper between us. A thousand-pound weight settled on my chest as I soaked in the words.
Our baby is a boy.
When I glanced up, Duke’s strong features were pinched in concentration as though he was also processing the reality of our situation. I took in his dark eyes, sharp features, strong nose, and sharp jawline.
“I hope he is just like you.”
Duke blinked and looked up at me. “No.” He swallowed hard as he looked over my features, swiping a rogue hair from my temple. “I hope he will be just likeyou. I pray he has your laugh, the kind that carries into the next room and radiates warmth. I hope he won’t lose hope for his dreams and he’ll let his imagination grow wild. I hope he is as strong as you and that hisemotions will run deep. I hope he is exactly like you and loving him will be the easiest thing I have ever done.”
Loving him will be the easiest thing I have ever done.
Tears welled in my eyes as I buried my face into Duke’s chest. The stress and worry that Duke might not be able to love the baby because it was half-King has gnawed at me for months. But here he was, laying it all on the table and promising me that our child would be loved—that he hoped the baby would be likeme.
Words eluded me, so I banded my arms around his strong neck and held on for my life.
Days later,I still caught myself smiling when I remembered Duke and I were having a baby boy. I’d already started a list in my phone of names that I liked, and as the list grew longer, I couldn’t help but wonder what I wanted to do about the baby’s last name.
Would he be a King or a Sullivan?
The original agreement between Duke and me had been that he would help me during the pregnancy and the first few months of the baby’s life, but we had yet to discuss what would happen beyond that. If I was really going through with moving to Savannah, a deeply maternal part of me wanted to make sure that my baby shared my last name. I also couldn’t even imagine the shitstorm waiting for me if my family found out I didn’t give him the King last name... but when I imagined the crushed look that would inevitably cross Duke’s face if I told him I didn’t plan to name the baby Sullivan, my breath caught. There was a painful pinch in my chest every time.
Standing in the doorway to the spare room, which would serve as the nursery, I sighed. According to the internet, Iwas nesting, because after my shift at the Sugar Bowl, I had the intense urge to wipe down all the walls of the nursery. That morphed into cleaning the baseboards and washing the windows. I should have felt tired, but I had an inexplicable burst of energy and satisfaction.
From behind me, the floor creaked, and Duke enveloped me in an embrace, burying his nose into my neck. “Smells good.”
I let the wet rag plop onto the floor as I held on to the thick forearm that banded around my midsection. I loved the way his hand splayed low across my pregnant belly. Even on days when I felt bloated and fat, Duke never failed to make me feel precious and beautiful.
I breathed in, soaking in the buzzy warmth of his embrace. “I got on a cleaning kick today.” I leaned back into him.
“I was talking about you.” He grumbled in my ear, and tingles raced from my scalp to my toes.
Those second-trimester hormones were no joke. I let my fingertip trace a vein in his forearm as my eyes wandered over the nursery room. It still needed furniture and a coat of paint, but I had been having fun dreaming of possibilities and pinning all kinds of bougie nursery images to a Pinterest board.
“I’d like to paint in here, but I don’t think that I am supposed to.”
Duke’s embrace tightened slightly as his body curled around mine. “Leave it to me. I can take care of everything.”
I angled my head to try to look back at him. “You’re not thinking, like, deer heads and plaid, are you?”
A deep hearty chuckle rumbled from Duke, vibrating my back and filling me with warmth. “What’s wrong with deer heads? They’re masculine. Cool.”
“Oh god, never mind. I’ll risk it with the fumes.”
I was rewarded with another laugh tumbling from Duke as he swayed me slightly. “I promise I will make this room perfect for you and little Coot.”
My face twisted. “Coot?”
I felt his shoulders shrug behind me. “Just trying out options. Grenade?”
“Hard pass.”
“What about Athol? It’s a strong Irish name.”
A giggle crashed out of me. “We are not naming the babyAthol. It sounds like a bully with a lisp. Are you even Irish?”
“Probably.” Duke laughed with another shrug. “Somewhere down the line.”
