Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
Laird needed to call his folks.
He and Devon had agreed to tell family first. Then, when Devon was a bit farther along, they would tell their friends in Secret Springs.
God, he was going to be a dad. And, while he hadn’t broached the subject of moving in with Devon yet, he was going to. Because he’d been thinking in that direction before the pregnancy test.
“Hey.” His partner, Nick, poked his arm. They were cleaning the bus post shift, and he guess he’d gotten lost in thought and stopped moving.
“What?”
“You’ve been distracted for days. What’s up with you?”
“I’ll only tell you if you keep it to yourself.” Nick was basically family, right? Seriously, he spent more time with Nick than anybody, including his baby daddy.
“I’m totally telling the whole world. Everyone.” Nick was a massive man who filled up the bus with his shoulders and had a great big deep gravelly voice, who was as gentle as a kitten and just sort of glared at him. “Spill.”
“Devon is pregnant.” Laird met Nick’s curious gaze.
Those brown eyes widened. “What? Damn, man. He knows where babies come from.”
“So do I. We were using birth control.”
“Wow.” Nick blinked at him. “What are you going to do? I mean, I know you’re into him, but are you that into him? A baby is a big commitment.”
“I’m that into him. I really want him, like the whole package. I want the dad package.” He wanted midnight feedings, and the first everything—
The first smile.
The first word.
The first step.
All of it.
“Dude, we don’t really live the dad lifestyle, and he’s a midwife. He works like a million hours a day. How are y’all gonna do that?” Nick was asking the questions that he really didn’t want to have to answer, but he had to because everybody was going to ask them.
“We’ll figure it out.” He had some ideas. If he didn’t have to pay rent, he could go down to part-time, pull shifts a couple of days a week. He’d go to school. If he worked at it really hard, he could be graduated in two years.
Three, depending on how it worked out with the baby.
Then he could go to work at the hospital, at the med center. Hell, he could have his own physical therapy practice.
“All right, well, congratulations, dude. Happy baby.” Nick clapped him on the back. “Do I get to be the godfather? Because, you know, I’d be great at that job.”
Laird detected no lies. “Yeah, I mean, I do have to introduce you to my partner. As in actually introduce you.”
“Cool, supper at my place the day after tomorrow? I make an empowering cheesecake.”
He could see that. Nick spent a lot of time looking up recipes while he was waiting to go out on a call.
“I think that’s a fantastic idea, man. Just don’t make anything with red sauce. He’s having a little trouble with acid-y tummy.”
“Well that sucks, but I can absolutely do that. I’ll come up with something…pot pie? What do you think about pot pie?” Nick looked so excited, and Laird felt a little bit guilty for not introducing him to Devon before.
This was the weirdest dating/courtship thing he’d ever encountered because he and Devon were so cautious and circling around each other. And he was done with all that now. He was going to show Devon that he was all in.
“I think Devon would love it. Let me check with him. I’ll text him, and then I’ll tell you.”
Hey babe?
Yeah?
My partner Nick would like to know if we could come to supper day after tomorrow.
Let me see.
There was a pause, then three dots. And then,
Yes, that should be fine. Raven has coverage all this week.
Cool, want me to pick up anything before I go home?
Did you just want to meet at the truck stop? I want a milkshake.
Works for me.
He loved going out with Devon. The more people that saw him with Devon, the more cred he had in the universe here.
Does 6 work for you?
Closer to 630, but yes, I’ll meet you there. See you in a bit.
“Devon’s in, so it looks like you have company day after tomorrow.”
Nick grinned at him. “All right, gonna meet the man, make pot pie, and cheesecake.”
“You’re going to make that Basque cheesecake, right?”
Yep, it was all going to be great, or at least that was the hope. He really wanted them to like each other. He couldn’t see why Devon wouldn’t like Nick, and vice versa, but he knew things happened sometimes and things could go wrong.
But nothing was going to go wrong because he and Devon were meant to be together. While it had been slow taking off these days, he felt like they were cooking with gas. After all, they’d had heat sex right?
“I am. I will burn the heck out of the top of it for you.” Nick nudged him with an elbow. “Can’t believe you got somebody pregnant.”
“I really can’t either, but I should have…well you know I don’t kiss and tell, but we had some pretty intense heat sex and I think that things just spiraled from there.” He chuckled. “But all of a sudden it feels like I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“I’m glad for you, man. Am I the first person you told?”
“Yeah, I was going to call my folks tonight.”
“Woohoo! I get to be first at something. Come on, let’s get this bus cleaned out tonight so you can go home.”
“Yeah that sounds perfect.” Although honestly he was just going to go to the truck stop and wait for Devon, because that was where he really wanted to be.
Devon had no idea how to tell anybody about the baby.
Laird had told his work partner Nick, and they’d had a wonderful dinner together. Nick really knew how to bake. He’d made a pot pie and a cheesecake, and that had been several weeks ago now. And he still hadn’t told Raven or his parents or anyone else.
Laird had told his parents, and Devon was terribly guilty that he hadn’t said a word to anyone because he wasn’t hiding Laird and he wasn’t ashamed of him or the baby. He just didn’t know what to do exactly.
So he knitted.
He made a little sweater in a lovely light green sock yarn. Started socks—little baby socks, toddler socks. It was amazing how fast socks went when they were teeny tiny.
Raven and Naomi came in on a Friday morning, carrying a bag of doughnuts and bagels from Alicia’s, and chattering about their schedule for the day. He’d just been sitting in the quiet of the office, knitting, so he tried to stuff his project in a bag, but Naomi caught him before he could.
“Aw, who are the socks for? I didn’t think you had anyone that close to popping right now, D.”
He glanced up at them both, and suddenly he just couldn’t lie.
Not to them.
They were his family.
“They’re for me to keep.”
Raven’s eyebrows flew up, and Naomi hooted like a big owl.
“No way!” She came to hug him tight. “Congratulations!”
His cheeks were on fire, but he couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m due in May.”
Raven sat down with a thump, blinking at him. “I need to schedule you an appointment, don’t I?”
“Like I’d let anyone else do it. Yes.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know what to say. I felt uncomfortable, and—”
“Is Laird not going to…” Naomi waved her hand. “You know…”
“No. I mean yes, he says he’s in all the way; he wants to move in and everything. Like he wants to be a family.” And that was wonderful and scary all at the same time.
“Is that what you want?” Raven asked, his tone super-gentle. He knew Raven had struggled with some of this with Ben.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I don’t want to want it, but I do, so bad, which makes me sound crazy, doesn’t it? But I do hope he’s permanent. So he can be part of the baby’s life.”
“Hey, if it’s early days to know how you feel, so be it. I like the man, though, if that helps.” Raven’s smile made tears sting his eyes.
“I like him a lot too. I met his best friend, Nick, again. He’s another EMT.”
“Oh, so, that’s his partner?”
He nodded to Naomi. “Yeah, he’s a really good guy. He cooked dinner, it was nice. We played a round of cards. It was very normal.”
It was funny because it seemed very normal for him and Laird. They didn’t tend toward nine-to-five types of lives.
“That’s too cool.” Naomi beamed at him. “I like that you’re meeting friends and family and stuff.”
“Yeah. I guess it’s time, huh?” He patted his belly. It was still perfectly flat, but he’d found a heartbeat. It was real.
They were having a baby. They were pregnant.
He might just throw up.
Raven gave him a knowing look. “Naomi, can you set up room two?”
“Sure, and I’ll put breakfast in the breakroom.” She winked broadly and left them.
“Are you okay? For real?”
“I don’t know. I—I’m terrified. I want to be okay. I want to be excited and easy in my skin…” But he wasn’t.
“Do the cats like Laird?” The question came out of left field.
“What?”
“The three muskakitties? Do they like him?”
He grinned at Raven, and he had to nod. “They adore him. It’s unnatural.”
“I bet. I mean, those three.”
“Yeah, he’s always bringing them little treats and toys and…” Devon took a deep breath. “Oh, you are evil, making me think logically.”
“I learned avoiding hormonal thinking from the best.” Raven winked at him. “Seriously, honey. I think it’s amazing that he’s stepping up—for you and for the little one.”
“Yeah. I’m about eighty percent sure I heard a heartbeat.”
“Eighty percent, huh? Impressive.” Raven winked at him. “Lord have mercy, sweetheart. Please don’t try to do this all alone. We’re your team.”
He burst into tears at Raven’s sweet words, and his best friend grabbed him and held on, letting him cry through his storm.
Raven just patted his back and murmured things, and he was so grateful for his best friend at that moment, so happy to let go of the panic and worry and inertia.
Raven didn’t fuss and worry. He held on and let Devon empty himself.
It was amazing to be quiet inside for a second.
He sniffled finally, patting Raven’s back. “Thank you. Seriously. I was feeling like a panicky idiot.”
“It happens to the best of us, seriously. Hormones are a bitch, and I have to tell you that I felt so much empathy for our clients. You can learn some of the things firsthand that everyone’s feeling.”
He was fairly sure that he could have gone without learning firsthand what everyone was feeling. But then again, he assumed that by the end of this whole project he would be happy.
“It’s all right to be scared too. It’s a weird situation—your body’s creating a new human being, and all of a sudden you feel vulnerable and—” Raven shrugged.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see. I’m sure everything’s going to work out. Right now it just feels huge.”
“It’ll feel okay, and then it’ll feel huge again, and then it’ll feel okay, and then it’ll feel huge again, because, you know, it is huge.” Raven waggled his eyebrows, and Devon cracked up.
“I guess it is. Even if you’re one of us, right?”
“Especially if you’re one of us.”
Right.
Raven was just back from maternity leave, leaving his new baby with his family for hours on end, and yeah… He needed to remember this and give his partner more grace.
They could really let Naomi shine. And Sparrow was really helpful; Raven’s sister could pick up some admin slack as well as do more exams and attend more births, darn it. “I love you,” he told Raven. “Thank you.”
“I love you too, you crazy pregnant man.” Raven chuckled for him. “Now, we need to get you on some prenatals, and I want to schedule an appointment. So we can actually, one hundred percent hear these heartbeats that you insist are there.”
He pursed his lips at Raven. “Well, the pregnancy test was absolutely definite.”
Raven started laughing hard, the sound filling his office. “You’d think, given that we know what causes babies, we wouldn’t be the ones with surprise pregnancies.”
“You’d think so, but we’re both so exhausted all the time from delivering babies that we tend to do stupid things like not plan our children.”
That had them both cackling.
Devon finally winked after the laughter died down. “I think it’s the alphas who come to Secret Springs, too. They’re so amazing that we forget ourselves and do dumb stuff.”
“Oh, I like that.” Raven waved a hand in the air. “Absolutely, we’ll blame it on them.”
“Okay, we have a plan.” He just had to get his shit together and figure out what the rest of the plan was. He had a feeling it was going to involve a lot of dealing with Laird and his family and doing alpha-omega-baby planning things. That too, but more like baby planning things.
To be perfectly honest, now that he’d told Raven and Naomi, and no doubt they would tell Sparrow, he felt much better about all that. It would be good to have people at his back that he knew he could trust while he and Laird figured out this whole situation.