“It’s an emotional moment,” she said slowly. “Lots of novelty, lots of romance…the heroic sort of romance. You might be seeing yourself as some kind of white knight leaping to my rescue, or a gallant hero sweeping in at the last second to save the little princess from loneliness.”
“Would that be a bad thing?”
“Novelty wears off,” she said in that same slow, even tone. “This is going to be work. Hard work.”
“I’ve never been afraid of hard work.”
She smiled slightly. My heart pounded almost painfully hard with hope.
“Please, Carmen. Let me show you all of the things that I’ve been dreaming about.”
A little spark of humor glittered in her eyes. “Did you dream of dirty diapers? Midnight feedings? Ridiculous arguments over nothing because you’re so damn tired you can’t even see straight?”
“Yes,” I said truthfully. “That, and a house, and a business good enough and big enough to support a family. Picking apart my parent’s relationship in my head to see what I’d do differently if I ever had a chance at it. Examining my friends’ lives to see what they’re doing. I took a page out of your book, Carmen. I’m tired of floating through life. I’m ready to analyze my place in it. I’ve made my own life plan, and it’s incomplete without you two.”
The steel around her eyes softened and melted away. Tears perched on her eyelashes, glittering like tiny jewels, but there was a smile around her lips.
“And mine was always incomplete without you,” she whispered. Her liquid gaze cut straight through my eyes down into my heart, and I moved close to her.
“Do you want to make a go of this?” I asked huskily.
“For real this time?” she asked.
“You couldn’t get any more real,” I promised.
“Then yes, Nick, yes of course!” She was laughing and crying all at once, reaching for me with her free hand.
Embracing her and the baby at once, I kissed Carmen’s forehead, then her cheek. My lips hovered for a breathless second over hers, but she was the one who made the move, kissing me with that fiery passion I had almost convinced myself that I had made up, imagined, idealized in my loneliness for her. But there it was, as hot and real as anything could be.
As we separated, I glanced down at our daughter. She was awake, watching us with avid interest. I scooped her up out of Carmen’s arms and cradled her close to my chest. Love tightened in a knot in my throat.
“I can’t believe I almost missed this,” I whispered. “I can’t believe I almost missed out on being your daddy. I’m here now, pumpkin. I’ll always be here.”
Chapter 19
Carmen
“I cannot wait to get out of here,” I laughed as I slipped into a pair of loose, comfortable pants. “Two weeks is a long time. I thought the cabin fever was going to kill me.”
“I tried to convince the nurses to let me bring a circus act in here to entertain you, but for some reason they refused to budge,” Nick said with a grin.
I laughed, and my amusement swelled up in my chest, evolving into something deeper and softer and warmer. These mood swings were going to kill me even if the cabin fever hadn’t, but I didn’t care. I was so utterly in love with him.
“It would have been unbearable without you here,” I told him. “Thank you so much for spending so much time being bored with me.”
“It wasn’t boring at all,” he said blithely. “I loved every second of it.”
“I’ll accept the latter half of that statement as truth,” I said with a grin, moving toward him to take his hands in mine.
He grinned for a brief second, but his eyes were burning intensely. I’d come to know that look well over the last couple of weeks; it was my second favorite expression in the whole world.
I tipped my chin up to meet his lips, which were already on their way down to mine. In that moment, nothing mattered. The hospital melted away around us, and we were floating on air.
The heat which had once overpowered me was touched with sweetness now. His lips were mango salsa and chili candy and molten marshmallows; his embrace was the substance, the full meal to heighten the enjoyment of dessert. I wanted him so badly. I could hardly wait for the next four weeks to pass, for my doctor to sign off on deeper, more intimate expressions of this overwhelming outpour of love I was feeling.
I sometimes worried that it was all hormonal. Some kind of instinctual bond to the father of my child which would not withstand the test of time, a primal protection of the family unit. These thoughts haunted me when I would watch him cuddle the baby, whispering her name to her over and over again. Mia, Mia, Mia…chanting it like a prayer of gratitude.
But then we would talk. Just talk, about nothing and everything. His family, his parents, his tours. Things he did overseas that he regretted, things he would do again in a heartbeat. We found common ground over and over again, and hormones couldn’t magic that level of compatibility into existence.
Still…compatibility wasn’t everything, and neither was this clawing, aching need for his touch. There was the practicality of living to consider, and I had literally no idea how this man lived outside of what I’d seen in my hospital room. Practicality wasn’t the most romantic notion in the world, but it was how I’d always operated; even more so now that I had another little life to consider.
A peppy blonde clerk bounced into the room and handed me a stack of papers. “Carmen? I have your discharge paperwork, and the nurses told me to tell you that they’re just about done with little Mia’s bath. I bet you and your husband are excited to be getting out of here.”
She moved close and pointed to the paper with a pen.
“Just sign here, and here and…here. Perfect. These are your copies to keep, and the nurses will go over this one with you as soon as they bring Mia to you. Enjoy your new family! And Dad, you be sure to keep your wife from going too nuts with work or anything. Congratulations!”
She blew out as quickly as she’d bounced in, leaving her heavy assumptions hanging in the air.
I swallowed, afraid to turn around and look at Nick; because the word “husband” slid down my consciousness as easily as butter on a warm biscuit, and if I didn’t see that reflected on his face it would completely ruin my whole day.
“Is that all of your stuff?” he asked after an eternal minute, breaking the awkward silence.
“I think so. Oh! My phone charger.”
I avoided eye contact for a few minutes, bustling around the room looking for anything else I might have forgotten, and he played along gallantly. Or maybe he hadn’t noticed? But if he hadn’t, did that mean that he was already thinking in those terms?
He saved me before I could drive myself all the way crazy. As I was tucking in the blanket on my bed, he came up behind me and wrapped his strong arms gently around my still-tender waist and kissed my cheek.
“You know they’re going to change that bed,” he pointed out.
“I know,” I said, flustered. “I just don’t feel right leaving it unmade.”
“You do hate to leave things unresolved,” Nick said softly. Layers of meaning hid in his words, and I spun in his arms to finally look at his face. Pure love shone from his eyes. It stole my breath away.
Time slowed down as I met his gaze, entranced. He pulled me close and I inhaled his scent; comfortable, calming, and enticing all at once. Need pulsed through every heartbeat. My thoughts desperately tried to put the brakes on, but it was too late. I was completely and utterly in love.
My trance was broken by the only thing that could cut through it at that moment; my daughter’s tiny cry. She was finally off of the oxygen and had been putting on weight like nobody’s business. She was starting to look like a fully developed newborn now, all shiny pudge and wide-open eyes, and skin softer than anything I’d ever touched in my whole life.
“There’s my baby girl,” I cooed to her as I took her from the nurse. Mia made a face, and I laughed.
“Ready to go,
girls?” Nick asked warmly.
“So ready,” I said adamantly.
Of course, they had to roll me out in a wheelchair, but I didn’t really mind. It meant I got to focus all of my attention on the bundle of love in my arms.
“You did get the car seat from my apartment, right?” I asked Nick.
“Picked up and installed,” he told me with a proud grin. “Followed the directions and everything. That seat isn’t going anywhere.”
“Thanks for doing that.”
“No need to thank me,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “We’re in this together, babe.”
Smiling up at him, I saw the absolute truth on his face. He really was in this all the way, one hundred percent.
It made me so happy that I wanted to cry, so I looked down into Mia’s face instead. It didn’t help much; she looked up at me and winked one of her little eyes, looking so much like Nick that it was ridiculous. He kissed me on the forehead and went to get the car, leaving me alone with Mia and a nurse.
“Your husband seems like a great guy,” she said almost wistfully.
“He would be,” I responded absently.
“What?”
I shook myself and smiled up at her. “Nothing. Nick is definitely a great guy.” And he would definitely make a good husband, I decided. Maybe someday. I wasn’t going to wish for too much, not right now; I’d already been given so much of what I wanted, and it was better than I could have imagined.
But I knew that the real test was starting now. When we were in the hospital, we had the support of the staff. We were isolated together, our own little island of love with no day-to-day stressors; no dishes to wash, no clocks to punch, just the three of us blissfully enjoying one another. Well, for the most part. He’d still had to work, but he’d spent most of the rest of his time with me. It had been so terribly easy, and now that was all going to change.
“There you go! You three have a lovely time, now.” The nurse smiled down at Mia and helped us get all of our things into the car. I wasn’t nearly as fragile as she tried to treat me, but I suppose she was far more used to women leaving the hospital a couple of days after giving birth rather than a couple of weeks. I was glad for the extra time, even if it had gotten monotonous.
“Oh, no,” I groaned as we pulled away from the hospital.
“What is it? Did you forget something? I’ll pull around.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I didn’t leave anything in the hospital. It’s what I forgot to do at home.” How had I not thought about this before? I could have asked Tyra to do it, or Staci, or even Valeria if she was in a generous mood. But I’d been so caught up with the baby that I hadn’t even thought about it.
“What did you forget to do?” he asked. There was a strange look in his eye, but I couldn’t identify what it could indicate.
“I didn’t set up the nursery,” I confessed. “I thought I would have more time, weeks and weeks. I didn’t even finish vacuuming! God, it’s going to be terrible in there, and boxes are everywhere, and…oh, but I guess you already saw when you got the car seat. I’m so embarrassed. I swear it doesn’t usually look like that.”
“I admit I’m disappointed in you,” Nick said, rolling his eyes. “I know at least zero women who would take the time to clean the house before the EMTs got there.”
I blushed, then laughed. “Fair enough. But seriously, I’m way cleaner than that, I swear.”
“Seriously, it looked clean to me. Full of boxes and stuff, sure, but it’s not like you left old pizza under the sofa cushions or something.”
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Nobody does that.”
“Oh boy, do I have stories for you,” he said emphatically. “I’ve met women who seem perfectly normal, clean and put together until I walked into their apartments—” He cut himself off and cringed. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t talk about that stuff.”
“I actually don’t mind,” I told him honestly, as surprised as he was by the confession. “I like hearing your stories. I enjoy seeing the world through your eyes, it’s…different.”
He smiled and relaxed. “I’m glad you feel that way,” he said. “Because I’ve got a million stories that I was resigned to keeping between myself and my therapist.”
“You have a therapist?”
“He calls himself a bartender.”
“That’s not the same thing.” I laughed.
“Bartender, therapist. Potato, tomato,” he said with a wink.
“I thought you preferred to stay on the other side of the bar?”
“Oh, I do. Doesn’t mean I won’t nurse a neat bourbon for an hour or three while I unload my innermost annoyances on the innocent bartender.”
“Innermost annoyances?”
“Well, sure. My innermost annoyances are for bartenders, and my deep dark words of wisdom are for waiters.” He grinned, and I rolled my eyes at him, amused and annoyed all at once.
“You’re playing like you don’t have secrets and feelings, but let me tell you sir, the cat is far and away out of the bag. Remember, you’ve been telling me your whole life’s story for two weeks now.”
“And you’ve taken it like a champion,” he said, sweeping my hand up and pressing my knuckles to his lips.
We were at the apartment then, unfortunately. I could have sat for hours with his lips on my hand, just existing beside him, but I knew there was work to be done. I was already planning out how I was going to manage to put everything together and get it set up while also tending to the baby, and was completely lost in thought as he unlocked my door with the key that I’d given him at the hospital.
“Smells like somebody’s cooking,” I commented, inhaling deeply. “Oh, it smells good too! Must be next door.”
Nick only grinned and swung the door open, switched the light on, and gestured broadly. “Welcome home, girls!”
The glorious scent of dinner blasted me in the face as I crossed the threshold, and I stared around in astonishment. The apartment was spotless.
“You cooked?”
“Sure did, darlin’.”
“Where’s all my baby stuff?” I asked, panicking. “Did somebody steal it?”
“Honey,” he said, his eyes shining and his mouth trying not to laugh. “I put it away. Come see.”
Feeling a little foolish but mostly excited, I followed Nick into the nursery.
I gasped in joy as soon as I caught a glimpse of the walls; the teddy-bear wallpaper was up, and it looked absolutely perfect. Inside, the room only got better. The crib was together, complete with sheets and mobile; the changing table was up, stocked, and immaculately organized; two things that I was panicking the most about.
“I figured we’d want to read to her,” Nick said almost bashfully, gesturing to the rocking chair in one corner, flanked on either side by cute little bookshelves filled with picture books. “And I know she’s not quite ready yet, but when she is…” He gestured to the opposite corner, where soft, bright toys were arranged on rounded plastic shelves. A low stool sat beside the play area. “In case one of us happens to have knees that happen to act up when it’s below freezing outside.”
“That’s rather specific,” I said, amused.
“Well, you know…” He shrugged it off and winked at me. “Also, come see.”
He took me around the house, pointing out little things here and there. “I tied up all the cables behind the computer and TV in plastic sleeves, and there are outlet covers on everything, and…oh, here, let me show you how to open those latches.”
“You baby-proofed the whole apartment!”
He paused. “Of course, I did. There’s a baby.”
I stared at him in astonishment for a minute. “You really are committed to this, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he said with a boyish grin. “Let’s see if Mia approves of her crib.”
Without waiting for a response, he gently took her from my arms and laid her down on her soft, cool sheet. Looking around wide-eyed, she kick
ed and wiggled like she was trying to fly out of it. Nick turned the switch on the mobile, and it started to spin, playing a gentle lullaby. Mia watched, fascinated; then, within moments, she was asleep.
“I think she likes it,” Nick whispered, beaming. “God, look at her.”
I did…but it was him I couldn’t keep my eyes off of. I tugged him out of her room, into the hallway where we could still see her, and gazed up into his face. He shone with joy, with love, with everything I’d ever wanted. He was even practical!
“Nick, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, baby, anything.”
“Would you like to live with us?”
His expression froze for a terrifying millisecond, then his eyes lit up as a slow smile spread across his face. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” I said, choking back a flood of happy tears.
“Of course I do!” He scooped me up in his arms, lifting me off the ground as easily as he had that day at the ballpark. He held me tight, burying his face in my hair. “Thank you,” he whispered huskily. “I never knew I could be so happy.”
“Neither did I,” I replied, cuddling him close. “You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“And you gave me everything I didn’t know I wanted.” He kissed my cheek. “I love you, Carmen.”
“And I love you.”
Epilogue
Six Months Later: Carmen
“You have the bottle? Where’s her teddy? Oh, she’s got it, okay. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Mind?” My mom shook her head at me, laughing. “Child, when was the last time you got out of the house?”
“Well, I mean, I worked yesterday—”
“From home?” She gave me a stern look over her glasses.
“Maybe.”
“You deserve a break, Carmen. Go on. Have some fun! A little fun never hurt anybody.” She winked at me, gave me a kiss, and shoved me toward the door.
“Bye-bye, Mia!” I called, waving at the baby who was very happily chewing on her grandpa’s phone. She looked up, grinned until her eyes nearly disappeared, and waved back at me. I didn’t want to leave her, but—
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