I smile a big, wide, genuine smile before replying seriously, “Among other things.”
“Would you just kiss me before you ruin this?”
“Oh, baby, with pleasure.”
Lynsey is all over me the minute we walk in the door of my house, our house. Her hands, her lips, her giggly laugh. God, I really have fallen completely in love with her noises. And her scent. I can’t believe how much I missed just the smell of her when she left.
Lynsey ungracefully yanks my shirt off over my head and scores her nails down my chest and abs. Fuck, I love it when she gets wild and uncontrolled like this. Pushy and demanding. I’d love nothing more than to drop to my knees and worship her body until the sun comes up. But I have to show her something first.
“Baby,” I say, grabbing her arms and holding her back, my chest heaving with need as I stare down at her. “I need to show you the nursery.”
Her pupils are dilated as she blinks her long lashes. “We can finish setting it up later,” she says, moving in to kiss me again and fucking hell I let her. I let her because she tastes so good and she feels so good and if I wasn’t such a moron I’d have married her already.
I pull my lips away and say, “It’s completely different now.”
She frowns up at me and finally lets me walk her down the hallway to the bedroom that used to be hers. I open the door and turn on the light to reveal the work me and three other grown-ass men have done in the past twenty-four hours. Well, plus my mother who was basically tripping over herself as she bought out an entire boutique baby store in less than two hours.
Since we still don’t know the gender of the baby, the room is an eclectic mix of colors. I told my mom that I didn’t want it to be gray or muted. I wanted the room to explode with color and be similar to the colorful top Lynsey wore the night we met. That top still hangs in my closet and will hopefully continue hanging there as we begin our life together.
Lynsey gasps as she walks in and looks at the white crib, changing table, and dresser that are covered with colorful accent fabrics. She touches one of her grandmother’s vintage armchairs that never made it into the house before and now rests as a perfect rocking chair for the baby. She marvels over the polka dot accent wall that Max did all by himself and she reaches up to flick the color mobile that my mother hand crocheted well into the night.
“I had a lot of help putting this together.”
“Where’s all of my stuff?”
I inhale deeply. “In our room.”
She lifts her brows. “You were that confident you were going to win me back?”
“I just wanted to show you what our life will look like here,” I state, stepping inside and standing on the black and white rug. “The office was too small for our baby and this room makes a lot more sense.”
She nods knowingly. “And what if I want more babies?”
My brows lift but the question doesn’t scare me. It excites the fuck out of me. “I’ll build you a bigger house.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Just like that?”
“Well, I figure once you get your own practice up and running, you might be the bread winner and you can build the house and I could be a stay at home dad.”
She smiles sweetly. “Is that what you want?”
“I just want you,” I state seriously and reach out to stroke her belly. “And this baby. I want to be a family.”
“Oh, Josh,” she says and then leans up and kisses me tenderly. “Make love to me.”
I lift her and carry her honeymoon-style into our bedroom. All of her clothes are packed neatly into my closet. Half the dresser is hers and her bathroom items are all organized neatly in the master bath by my mother.
I lay her down on the bed and proceed to worship her, head to toe, paying special attention to the bump that I shied away from for far too long. This baby is a miracle. This woman is a miracle. This moment and my life are all a miracle. And I intend to never take them for granted.
“This isn’t happening!” I scream from the back seat of my sister’s minivan as we barrel down the highway at a speed I don’t even want to know.
“Just breathe, baby, just breathe,” Josh says soothingly.
“Would you take off that fucking eyepatch when you say that shit to me?” I scream, wincing at the high octave my voice just reached.
Josh shakes his head and yanks off his eyepatch, hat, and wig like he just now remembered he was dressed like Captain Jack Sparrow. “Sorry.”
“God, why is this happening to me?” I groan loudly. “Kate…I’m fucking psychic.”
“You’re not fucking psychic!” Kate exclaims, turning to face me from the front seat. She’s dressed as Davy Jones with some ridiculous homemade tentacle beard that looks kind of like long, skinny penises hanging from her face.
I howl through an intense pain and stare at the ceiling of the van. “I’m fucking psychic, which means we’re not going to make it!”
“We’re going to make it!” Kate cries as she grabs Miles’s arm so hard, her knuckles turn white. “Drive faster Bootstrap Bill or her sister is never going to let her hear the end of it if she stains that back seat with childbirth.”
“What are you guys talking about with the psychic stuff?” Josh interjects, his face crazy with eyeliner smeared all over. I told him not to rub his eyes in that costume, but the moron has no clue how to wear makeup.
My mind flashes back to the past few hours, wondering if this entire scenario could have been prevented. I can’t believe I didn’t think about my dream when I decided it would be fun for us to dress up and surprise Lennon at her Pirates of the Caribbean-themed birthday party.
I mean, in all honestly, it was a great surprise.
Lennon cried!
Then I cried…because my water broke while we were singing, “Happy Birthday,” like a bunch of drunken, growly pirates.
Now I’m lying sideways in the back seat of my sister’s van because our cars were all blocked in, and I’m holding my legs together for fear of my fiancé being the one to deliver my baby.
Nightmare scenario.
God, I’m an idiot.
I guess those cramps which came in spurts weren’t just Braxton Hicks. They were contractions. And now they’re right on top of each other, turning my lower belly into a ball of pain and—
Holy shit, this isn’t how I wanted to have my baby.
“Josh, look at me,” I cry as another contraction hits me. “I had a dream that you delivered our baby in the back of a minivan dressed as a pirate, and so help me God, if you see a watermelon come out of my vagina and never want to have sex with me again, I will burn your house to the ground.” My voice morphs into a low-pitched satanic sound that might resemble religious tongues, but it suits the mood, so I let it ride.
Josh grabs Miles’s shoulder. “Drive faster.”
“I am driving faster,” Miles exclaims, his voice cracking at the end. “This is a lot of fucking pressure right now.”
“You should feel what this baby is doing to my vagina!” I scream and then begin to cry because, God, I want drugs.
The Boulder ER lights finally come into view, and then I’m lifted out of the back seat and onto a stretcher.