“I love it. But,” I lean in for another kiss, “not as much as I love you.”
It’s entirely possible that we might have indulged in a round of car sex — or at least some heavy petting — if a rap on my window didn’t jolt us out of our reverie.
Heart pounding, I whirl around to see what the hell is going on — and promptly huff a relieved laugh.
Hattie waves at me through the window, Ben and his daughter Rory right behind her. “Keep it PG for the kid,” she yells, voice muted by the closed glass.
I roll my eyes as Oliver snorts. I fix him with a glare, and he shrugs. “We don’t want to offend the children, do we?”
“Fine,” I say, planting a last kiss on his cheek. “Let’s go meet a baby, future husband.”
“Future husband?” His chest puffs and I know he’s as filled with swirling emotion as I am at the fact that we’ve officially pledged the rest of our lives to one another. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too,” I murmur, moved by the sight of Oliver bending his head to kiss the back of my hand before we emerge from the car.
He grabs the gift, ever the gentleman, as I turn to my friend.
“You two are particularly lovey-dovey today,” Hattie comments as we follow her, Ben, and Rory toward the hospital entrance. “Things going well?”
Oliver claims my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Very well,” he says, winking at me.
Hattie doesn’t miss it. “I see what’s happening,” she says with narrowed eyes, waggling a finger at us in time with her eyebrows. “You’ve got secrets, and I shall discover them.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be kept in the loop. But first, baby time.” I nudge her shoulder with mine. “How are you doing with that?”
The humor fades from her voice, and my heart twists. Hattie hasn’t had an easy time lately — she found out a couple of months ago that she couldn’t have biological children of her own. Being around Amelia’s new baby could be difficult for her.
“I’m okay,” she says quietly so the others won’t overhear. I know that she doesn’t want to worry Rory. “But some days it’s harder than others.”
“That sounds challenging,” I reply.
Hattie shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. I just hope it doesn’t affect how I feel about Tatum and Amelia’s baby. I don’t want to be an asshole.”
“I think that’s a completely normal fear. And know this,” I add, linking my arm with hers. “If you do have complex feelings about their baby, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It only means you’ve got a wound that’s getting poked.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’d like to avoid the poking.”
“Maybe you will.” I bump shoulders with her again. “But you can’t avoid it, we’ll figure it out together. Okay?”
My friend nods, giving me a small smile. “Okay. Thanks, personal therapist who fixes all my problems and never charges me money.”
I grin. “We’re friends. That’s what I’m here for.”
Ben and Rory are the first ones to duck into the sanitized dim of the hospital. We follow them as they navigate the corridors, letting the signs guide us all to labor and delivery.
When we get there, we have to sign in, and the nurse at the desk buzzes Amelia and Tatum’s room to make sure they’re ready for guests. Once she’s got the affirmative from them, she leads us back.
As we file into the darkened room, I find my heart thudding with nerves. Will Amelia be different? What about our friendship from this point forward — will our foursome ever be the same?
And then I take in the scene before me and know that no, our four-woman friendship never will be the same.
It’ll be better. And different. And beautiful in ways both new and old.
The curtains are drawn and a single lamp illuminates the hospital room with a warm glow. Amelia rests in the bed, Tatum perched on its edge. He smooths her tousled hair with one hand while the other holds a plastic cup of apple juice with a straw poked through its lid, ready to pass it to her when she’s ready.
My friend looks tired — there are dark shadows beneath her eyes and her body sags into the bed like it takes actual effort to be conscious. But when her eyes meet Tatum’s, they are happy. Exhausted, but full of joy.
I squeeze Oliver’s hand more tightly. I recognize the way Tatum looks at the mother of his child. It’s with the same reverence and adoration that I see on Oliver’s face when I catch him watching me when I was unaware.
“Meet Samuel,” Amelia murmurs, her voice sounding even more wrung out than she looks.
“Samuel Archer,” Tatum adds in a proud but hushed tone, his eyes finding his son.
I follow his gaze. Kate is already there, perched on the couch by the window, Harry at her side. She smiles down at an impossibly tiny bundle in her arms, then up at us.
“He’s so precious,” she whispers, nodding for us all to come closer.
All of us newcomers do, quietly crowding around to meet this tiny human.
“Oh,” I say without meaning to when I see his pink, slumbering face. I’m immediately head over heels for this little boy, hours old.
“Meet your aunties,” Amelia says to her son from the bed. “They freaking rock.”
“We fucking rock,” Hattie corrects.
“Language,” I scold her, Rory giggling as she peeks over my shoulder.
“He can’t understand her,” Kate says, nodding at the baby.
“But Rory can,” Harry points out, elbowing his partner.
Kate winces. “Shit. Right.” Then she freezes, realizing what’s just come out of her mouth. “Uh, I mean shoot.”
Rory rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“I can attest to that,” Ben says, chagrin written on his face.
“Hey, if she didn’t hear it from you, she’d definitely hear it from me,” Hattie tells him, leaning into her man.
His arms circle her waist and he squeezes her. “True dat.”
Now it’s Rory’s turn to cringe. “Dad, you can’t say stuff like that. It’s so lame.”
Ben adopts a faux swagger that makes Hattie’s cheeks pink and her eyes glow with desire. “Hey, I’m a cool dad,” he informs his daughter.
She snorts. “In your dreams.”
He drops the act and shrugs. “In my dreams? I’ll take it. That’s better than nothing, right?”
Rory shakes her head and leans into Hattie, and suddenly I can see our whole future stretching out before us.
At first, it was just Amelia, Kate, Hattie, and myself. It was enough. It was wonderful.
But in our own ways, we’ve each grown and changed. And we’ve each found a person to do life with — the lovely parts, but also the hard parts.
And that’s wonderful too. In a new way, a different way — but in a good way nonetheless.
Baby Sam is going to grow up with a mom and dad who are deeply in love with each other, and that will enhance the natural love that they each bear for him.
He’ll get three honorary aunts who will spoil him and laugh with him, feed him too many sweets, and take him on adventures that would make his mother hyperventilate if she knew the details of them. He’ll get three honorary uncles to go with those aunts who will be there for the kind of guy talk he won’t want to have with his dad. Plus he’ll get an honorary cousin who will tease him and love him and help him to navigate the perils of adolescence. He’ll accept Rory’s advice before anyone else’s because she’ll have been there more recently than the rest of us.