When I get home, Cillian is already there. His car is in the driveway. Inside, all I can hear is the blender. River is making one of her disgusting juice smoothie things in the kitchen, so I motion for him to follow me downstairs. He jumps up from the couch and follows me.
“How did everything go?” I ask as soon as we are alone and the door is closed.
“Pretty good. I got what we needed. Kyle is getting married in three days.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Her name is Katya.”
“I didn’t even know he was dating anyone,” I say, surprised.
“He wasn’t. O’Brien boys don’t actually date. They meet their women, and they marry them before they realize they are too good for us.”
“I see… and you all do that.”
“Hell yeah. Why waste time on women that don’t matter.”
“That’s not very nice,” I say, trying not to smile.
“How could it not be?” he asks, shrugging.
“Perhaps you are right.”
“I know I am, baby. I know I am,” he says, coming closer to me. I can smell his cologne, and I get a little weak in the knees.
“Speaking of babies,” I say, trailing off.
“What about them?”
“We’re finally going to have one.” I look at him. He’s looking at me. His grin warms my heart.
“A baby?”
“Yep.”
It took a while, I was beginning to think that something was wrong, but I guess sometimes it just takes a while.
“This is amazing, Ocean. Amazing.” He gathers me up in his arms and kisses me. I often wonder how the hell I got so lucky.
Chapter Four
Cillian
I can’t sleep, though I am tired. I tried, but it didn’t work. Instead, I’m lying in bed next to my snoring wife, thinking. In my opinion, thinking so late at night is never a good thing. Stuck in my own head, I repeat the news Ocean gave me earlier to myself. Over and over, like a broken record. I’m going to be a father. While I am excited, I have to think that I don’t know how to be a good dad. My father died when I was eleven. Of course, I picked up a few things, but honestly, I wasn’t paying attention yet. I didn’t care about anything other than video games and sports. I hadn’t even moved into the rigorous training my uncles put through for my job. That didn’t happen until I was thirteen. My uncles tried to provide Everett and me with some stability, but it wasn’t the same, and we all knew it. Everyone had their own shit going on, and while we weren’t starved for attention or affection, we made sure not to encroach on the father-son time of our cousins. It wouldn’t have been fair.
I even knew becoming a father would happen eventually. I wanted it. I wasn’t stopping it, but now that’s it happening, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve really got this. So many logistical questions are keeping me awake. The main one is if we’ll still be able to live in this house with Everett and River. It’s only a matter of time before they start having kids too. We lived with Aunt Marla, Uncle Mack, Gavin, and Egan for a few years, but now that we are back in mom and dad’s place, I think it would be hard to leave. I’ve been watching Ocean sleep for the last thirty minutes or so, wondering what kind of changes will need to be made. Of course, I’ll do whatever she wants, but all I can do is hope that what she wants lines up with what I do.
“I can hear you thinking,” she mumbles sleepily, surprising me. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed that she stopped snoring.
“Can you?” I ask, chuckling. My fingers graze her hair, which is wild from sleep. The woman couldn’t lie still if you paid her too.
“Yeah. You woke me up.” Her adorable face scrunches up, but I can’t get over how lucky I am.
“Sorry, baby,” I say.
“What are you worrying about over there,” she says, turning to face me.
“Where we're going to live, you know, once the baby comes,” I say, going with that instead of freaking her the fuck out with my concerns about being a father. Now my thoughts shift to dying before my child has a chance to care about the things that I say, and going down that scary as fuck route won’t help anything. I’ll talk to Everett tomorrow and see if he has these kinds of fears too. Being in this life doesn’t typically leave room for happy endings, especially with families like the Popov’s waiting to take what we carved out.
“Right here. There are like six bedrooms down here. How many babies do you think are in here?” she asks, touching her belly.
“You don’t want to get our own place?” I ask, chuckling.