Chapter Seventeen
Ragnar
Aspen was on paternity leave, but he sucked at it, sneaking around catching up on emails or meeting with people about projects they were covering for him pretty much every day.
I hadn’t expected that from him. He was really good about getting his work done in less time than needed and shutting down for the day. But, for whatever reason, he just couldn’t let go and be on leave.
And that’s why we were in my truck now, driving to the next county for a special event.
Lately, it hadn’t been easy to get him to leave the house—not because he wanted to stay at the lodge particularly but because he’d outgrown all of his paternity clothes.
He felt awkward walking around in the super-sized flannel that I’d found for him in the back corner of the general store, and in the sweats that had to be rolled up because, in order to get them big enough for his waist, they went all the way down to the basement.
He refused to cut them, though, saying that the next person who used them might need the length when he donated them. I didn’t argue with him because if keeping them rolled up made him happy, that worked for me.
As embarrassed as he was about his clothes…which he shouldn’t be because he looked so good all the time, nothing was keeping him away from the annual ice cream festival.
Usually, it happened earlier in August, but this year, they were having it late because of some road construction they didn’t want getting in the way.
We pulled into the field-turned-parking-lot.
“You weren’t kidding. This is packed.” He looked out at the mass number of cars.
“It’s the best festival of the year.” And there were a lot of festivals locally, especially considering how rural it was.
I’d picked up our tickets online, and we scanned them at the entrance for our bracelets and walked around the festival.
They had homemade ice cream and varieties from small-batch places near and far. Pretty much if it didn’t come from a national grocery-store brand, the ice-cream maker was here. The bracelets got us samples from each and every one.
“How do we do this? Should we start at the far end and work back?” I asked.
No matter which way we went, we were going to hit crowds. My omega was intent on the map. “I want to start at booth seventeen.”
“Okay…curious. Why seventeen?”
“I saw them on the Food Channel, and they have broccoli ice cream.” Aspen rolled the map.
“And you want broccoli ice cream?”
“Not as much as I want to say I tried broccoli ice cream.” He grabbed my hand and took me in the direction of booth seventeen.
Remarkably, it wasn’t awful. I was glad to consume only a sample size, but I’d had worse. My mate disagreed. He liked it, asking for a second cup. Generally, the rule was one per flavor, but you could try them all.
I think they took pity on his very pregnant state, or maybe they were just excited somebody didn’t call it disgusting because quite a few commented that they were just being silly.
It wasn’t bad, just not at all good. In any case, he received his second helping, and they went so far as to offer him a third.
We wandered through the booths, sampled maple ice cream, tried crème br?lée, cannoli, and even crab—surprisingly delicious—and more versions of chocolate than I knew existed.
I didn’t even make it a quarter of the way through. Even just the samples were too much for me. My mate? He conquered them all.
“I did it!” He tossed his last spoon in the trash and put his hands on his belly. “They should have a ribbon for that.”
They didn’t have a ribbon, but what they did have was a special photo op and a certificate. We stood in line to get it. The line was remarkably small compared to the rest of the booths, probably because most people were like me and called uncle partway through.
He held his side. “Probably should have stopped the ice cream sooner.”
“Let’s get you home, then maybe you can sleep it off.”
He was back to the sleepiness of pregnancy.
It wasn’t as bad as the first trimester, but since he was only a couple of weeks away from his due date, it was probably for the best that he was getting rest. The midwife said our baby was probably going to be at least nine pounds, and pushing out a nine-pound baby was going to require some major energy.
Aspen fell asleep on the way home, and I hated waking him up, but it was far too hot to leave him in the car even for a few minutes.
I opened the door, reached over to unbuckle him, and whispered in his ear that it was time to get up. I didn’t want to be too loud and have him jump. Last time I did that, I didn’t hear the end of it for a week—which was fair because he did bang his knee after I startled him awake.
“Let’s go in.”
“I’m sore all over,” he grumbled.
I helped him out. When we got inside, Frosty didn’t jump on either of us. Instead, he quietly followed as I helped my mate into bed and watched until he fell asleep. Frosty slept on the floor next to Aspen’s side.
I went to check emails and messages. We were planning a soft launch around Christmastime, and I’d put out some feelers to see if we could maybe get an influencer to stay with us.
I still wasn’t sold on that idea because first weeks could mean things went wrong, and did we really want someone projecting that to the world? In any case, it was worth checking out.
A couple of hours later, Aspen still hadn’t woken, and I went to the bed to check on him. He was rolling around in his sleep, his brow sweaty. Not good.
“Hey, sweetie, you okay?”
I shook him lightly.
“Yeah, I had a weird dream is all. Do you remember that movie where the alien, like, climbs out of another human being…like sheds their skin, and suddenly they’re like, this lizard person?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded because I could picture it.
“I feel like that…like my skin’s gonna pop off.”
“Let me call the midwife.”
“I’m not in labor.”
I wasn’t so sure.
“We’ll just check in.” Thankfully, he was close by.
Nick, the midwife, actually lived a couple counties over but was in town to grab some things from the diner. He hadn’t said as much, but we had the impression he was either dating or wooing the cook. They’d make a cute couple, either way.
Nick came in less than a half hour later, and my mate was pacing.
“He says he’s not in labor,” I told Nick, “but he also feels like he’s going to come out of his skin. Literally, like an alien.”
“So he’s in labor.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Aspen finally came to terms with that being what was happening when Nick told him straight out it was labor and denial didn’t make it less so.
It was good that he did because it meant he finally put his birth plan into place.
It included a huge exercise ball, multiple showers for the hot water to run on his back, and a whole lot of pacing.
Labor was nothing like what I expected it to be—until suddenly he was calling out in pain and hunching over and blaming me for all that was wrong in this world.
I liked it better when it was pacing and showers, because now—now, I felt helpless. I didn’t care that he told me it was all my fault. It kinda was. But seeing him in such pain…it sucked.
Nick assured us both things were going beautifully.
About an hour into this, Aspen told us it was burning.
“That means it’s showtime.” Nick clapped his hands.
He had me help Aspen climb onto the bed, and then with Nick guiding him and me giving him a hand to hold, he pushed. He pushed and pushed and pushed, stopping when Nick said to and beginning again when directed.
I hated seeing my mate like this. I hated it so much. I would’ve taken his place in a heartbeat.
“You’ve got this, mate.” I kissed his forehead. “You’ve got this.”
“One final push!” Nick shouted.
Aspen groaned, clutching my hand, Nick praising him repeatedly. And then…the sound of our son crying for the first time filled the air, and a joy I didn’t know existed washed over me, tears flowing down my cheeks.
“You have a son.”
I climbed in next to my mate. “We have a son.”
A few minutes later, the midwife laid our baby on Aspen’s chest, showing him how to help the baby latch for the first time, and then he went about doing whatever he was doing. He called it “cleaning up,” but I didn’t ask what that meant. It was his way of giving us privacy.
“We have a son. What should we call him?” Aspen’s eyes never left our son’s sweet face.
“Something Christmassy, I think.” That was when we met and this was Santa’s Lodge. How could we name him anything else.
“Noel.”
“Yeah, Noel works.” I kissed my mate’s cheek.
We’d said we’d know what our child’s name was when we saw him, and at the time, I assumed we were kicking the can down the field a little bit. But now that we looked at his sweet face, it made sense. He was Noel.
“Welcome to the world, Noel. We’re so happy you’re here. So, so happy.”