I was stunned as she started to sing, feeling like I was rooted in place. She’d gifted me with a few beautiful lines when I took her to the theater, and since then I’d heard her singing softly around the apartment, but she put her all into this performance and it showed.
Her voice swelled around me, moved into me until I thought I might shed a tear. The emotion was overwhelming, swelling up inside of me, my chest tight.
“You’re so, so talented,” I told her, pulling her into my arms. “You need to let me arrange some studio time. The world deserves to hear your voice.”
She didn’t say yes right away. My woman, despite her growing confidence and sassiness, still has some nerves clinging to her. But she couldn’t stop herself from singing the song around the house, until one day our eyes met and her lips twitched up in the most adorable way.
She nodded, and she didn’t even have to say anything.
Just that nod, and I knew.
The same way I knew I loved her the moment I saw her watching me from backstage, even if it took me some time to tell her.
When I get home, I do a quick workout and then take a shower.
My woman is waiting for me when I emerge from the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands on her knees. She’s wearing tight-fitting black pants, the sort that drives me feral but that's not saying much because she will never not turn me into an animal.
She glances at me, her eyes bright, her lips pouting in that enthralling way of hers.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, walking over to her and pulling her into a hug. “Did something happen at the studio?”
She clings onto my bare chest tightly. The towel drops and, if it wasn’t for the urgency with which she’s digging her fingernails in, I’d fall upon her right now. I’d maul her, pounding her sweet pussy until she moaned and creamed for me.
“Not wrong,” she murmurs. “And no, nothing happened. It went well, I think. But this is big, as in… super big.”
I take her by the shoulders, looking at her. “Tell me.”
“I’m pregnant.”
My mouth falls open. My heartbeat quickens, pounding relentlessly, as my whole world, our whole world begins to take shape.
“Are you sure?” I whisper, hardly daring to hope life can be this perfect, hardly daring to hope things can keep getting better and better.
But they have. They are.
“Yes. I did a couple of tests, just to be sure. We’re going to have a baby.”
I sweep her into my arms, crushing my lips against hers. I feel her passion igniting in the way her muffled moan hitches, in the pressure of her fingers against my side.
“I love you so much,” I tell her. “And I love our baby. And I love our life. And I love – I love everything about us, Billie.”
“I love you too,” she says softly. “I can’t wait to watch you become a father.”
“I can’t wait to watch you become a mother. I know you’re going to be incredible like you always are.”
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
Billie
I cradle Angela in my arms, softly rocking her from side to side as my husband walks into the living room with a laptop in his hand. I swallow when I see the USB stick in his other hand, nerves trying to rise up and ruin the moment.
It’s an early cut of my studio album, the one that started with the song I recorded the day I discovered I was pregnant.
This past year has been the best of my life, no contest.
I often have to remind myself this is real, it’s truly happening. I’m married to the man of my dreams, to my lifelong crush, and each day we look at each other with more love, with more lust, with more everything.
My body glows when I think about my dad walking me down the aisle, tears in his eyes as he handed me to Aaron. Any awkwardness between them has faded away, and they often meet for jam sessions now, dad dusting off his guitar skills and reclaiming his old passion.
Even after dad’s hip surgery – which Aaron kindly paid for – when he found it difficult to move, he still sat up in bed, staring lovingly down at his acoustic guitar as he strummed a few notes.
“What are you thinking about, beautiful?” Aaron asks as he sits gently down next to me.
Or as gentle as a man of his massive size can.
“I was thinking of our wedding,” I tell him, resting my head on his shoulder. “When dad walked me down the aisle. And the way you looked at me, Aaron… I was five months pregnant. I didn’t think I was pretty. But when you looked at me, I felt it. I felt beautiful. I felt seen. I felt loved.”