“What?” I asked.
“How do you feel about Rose for a girl’s name?” Brett asked.
I giggled and shook my head as my nose nuzzled against his.
“Depends. How do you feel about Aiden for a boy’s name?” I asked.
“I’m more partial to Alexander, but Aiden’s nice.”
“Aiden Alexander?”
“Rose Caylen?” he asked.
“What about Rosa Caylen?”
“I like that.”
“Me, too,” I said, smiling.
“Do you think you’ll continue to work after you’ve had the baby?”
“Maybe. If I need to get away from you,” I said jokingly.
“Well, I bring that up because I want you know I support you in whatever decision you make. If you want to work through your pregnancy and after it, I’m fine with it. We can hire a nanny or build a nursery in your office. Whatever you want to do, I’ll find a way to make it work.”
I cupped his cheek as my eyes filled with tears of happiness.
“Damn hormones,” I said breathlessly.
“I think they’re beautiful,” he said.
He kissed my tears away as they trickled down my cheeks.
“I think we should start by making that initial doctor’s appointment,” I said.
His lips found their way to mine, and he kissed me again, sending me on a spiraling descent into a happiness I didn’t understand to exist since college.
“Anything you want, my sweet treat,” he said.
Epilogue: Brett
Seven Months Later
As I sat there in the car, I thought back on everything that had transpired over the past seven months. I peeked back in my rearview mirror and saw my child lying back there, snoozing like the beautiful thing he was. Aiden Alexander Greyson. The light of my life.
We were taking him on his very first car ride.
“Okay. You ready to go?” Olivia asked.
I looked over and watched her ease herself into the car. The woman was a tank, up and walking around forty-eight hours after labor like it was nothing. She had insisted Aiden have my last name. She wanted our son to have the name of his father. It brought me a kind of pride I couldn’t explain. Olivia looked over at me with her bright eyes and her plump lips. She was already beginning to lose the bloat she had in her face. I reached over and puckered my lips, capturing hers as I felt that box pressing against my thigh.
I really hoped I was doing the right thing.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“Because I love you. And you’re incredible. That’s why,” I said.
“I’m fine. I’m right here, Brett.”
“I know. But it was touch and go there for a while. Just let me revel in the fact that you’re still here with me.”
Her labor hadn’t been the easiest. She’d woken up three nights ago with an accelerated heart rate and had seemingly bloated overnight. Her face had swollen up so much it almost closed her eyes, and it became hard for her to breathe. Her labor had been difficult, her heart rate dropping and Aiden’s skyrocketing. They’d almost had to intervene with an emergency C-section.
Luckily, they were able to get Aiden out quickly. The placenta had been detaching from the wall of Olivia’s uterus, and it had presented us with complications we didn’t know she was experiencing.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I whispered.
“I promise I am,” she said as she cupped my cheek.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I—”
She pressed her lips against mine again, silencing the thought.
“Why don’t we focus on taking Aiden for his first car ride, hmm? Just be careful. I’ve got his head supported back there, but I’m not sure how sturdy it is,” Olivia said.
I gave her one last kiss, and then the two of us eased away from the hospital entrance. I kept my eyes on our snoozing son, ready to take him to meet his family. And on the drive back to my house, my mind began to wander again.
I remembered the first time I saw her, at that Halloween party, with her clumsy nature and her outfit that was at least a size too small and the way it squeezed all those curves I had freed with my hands later that night. I remembered our first date, the coffee shop we went to and how my feet wouldn’t stop tangling up with hers underneath the booth we sat at. I remembered our fight that night. The night that ended us. How angry we had been and how many nasty, disgusting things we had yelled at each other.
I thought about how we found one another again. How she’d stumbled aimlessly into my company and had been hired for a position that put her in direct contact with me.
Sometimes, fate had a funny way of intervening like that.
I peeked back at our sleeping son as I pulled into the driveway of our home. I had finally convinced Olivia to move in with me after she’d moved into her third trimester—and after things had finally came to light with her father. Apparently, the reason why he was staying in a hotel was because he had gotten evicted from his home. The gas stations he’d claimed to run were going bankrupt because he couldn’t keep up with the rising demand for other services outside of gas and cheap food. All of the commercialized gas stations with the bright colors and the restaurants attached to them had taken him out of business, and he was trying to reach out to family that he thought could help him.