I laughed. “What?”
“We’re not in a familiar place. What if–” he gestured vaguely.
“What if we get lost and it scares the baby?” I ask.
He glared. “This is serious, Darcy.” He put his hands on my stomach carefully, kneeling to look. “Our little person is in there. I won’t be able to handle it if anything happens to them. That’s our fucking person, Darcy.”
I was melting inside, but I still had to give him a hard time. “Then maybe you should watch your language in front of them.”
“Do you think it’s a girl?” He asked.
“We can find out in two weeks if you want to.”
He paced again. It was adorable seeing him like this. Dominic was always so in control. But I’d caught him completely off guard. His life had changed in a split second and he was still reeling–trying to regain control all at once and flailing around wildly instead from one topic to the next. “Do you think we should? Fuck. I don’t even know whether I want it to be a boy or a girl. What do you want?”
“A healthy baby,” I said. It was easier for me to be calm. I’d done all my freaking out in private when I first realized it might be happening. The truth was I also wanted a girl. I thought Dominic would be an amazing dad either way, but picturing him with a little girl just felt right.
He raked a hand through his hair. “Should we take classes? Parenting classes or pregnancy classes? That’s a thing, right? Not just something they do in TV shows for a joke?”
“It’s a thing. And we can take them if you want.”
“Yeah. I’ll call around and find out where we can get the best ones.”
“Dom,” I said as calmly as I could. “This is what we wanted. It’s going to be amazing, andyou’regoing to be amazing. I love you so much.”
My words seemed to finally sink in for him and break his little panic streak. He cupped my head and kissed me on top of my hair, breathing in slowly as he rested his chin there. “Yeah,” he said, sounding more like his normal self. “We’re going to be fine. Have you told anyone else yet?”
“No. You’re the first.”
“Good. When do you want to share the news?”
“After our vacation. I want to enjoy the rest of this week. Just us. Just our little family.”
“That works for me.”
“By the way,” I said, feeling brave. “Did you ever get that email I sent you? The one where I kinda said ‘up yours’ at the end?”
“Sincerely, up yours?” He surprised me by grinning. “I think it was one of the moments I knew I was doomed. That I was really falling for you and there was nothing I could do.”
“What?” I laughed. “I kept waiting for you to unleash some kind of counter-attack after that. The waiting was worse than anything you could’ve done to pay me back.”
“Good. That was the genius of my plan. And now I can gloat that you are sincerely mine.”
“Cheesy, but true.”
“You bet that tight ass it is,” he reached behind and gave a hard squeeze.
He pulled back to meet my eyes, smiling in a way that made me really feel like everything would be alright–everything would be perfect. It was impossible to look into that face and think anything else was true. “I’m never going to let anything bad happen to either of you. I fucking swear it.”
I smiled. “I know you won’t.”
I put my arms around him and thought I might just stay right there in the kitchen for the rest of the night in his arms. I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.
-THE END
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