Chapter 25 #2
“Ah!” Brooklyn screams. “It hurts. Fuck!” But she’s pushing like a champ, and when the contraction subsides, I tell her to rest. We do this three more times.
Each time the baby is progressing nicely, and then on the sixth go, I manage to get my hands on his head, helping to position him as he moves and then his shoulders.
“Stop pushing,” I command. “Max, I need the towel. Bring me the towel.” Max rushes over with a pile of clean towels, and I pull the baby out and immediately cradle him with one. A wet, high-pitched wail hits the air and talk about a sound that never gets old.
I’m all breathless smiles as I place the baby on Brooklynn’s chest so she can hold him against her and keep him warm.
“Congrats, Mom and Dad. He looks great.”
Max is up by Brooklynn’s head, holding her, speaking to her as they both stare in wonder at their newborn son with his dark eyes and dark hair that so closely match his mother’s.
“Thank you,” Brooklynn cries. “Oh God, Georgia. Thank you so much.”
I suck in a shaky breath, overwhelmed. I don’t usually cry during deliveries, though the magic of bringing new life into this world is never lost me, but tonight I’m crying. I’m crying hard because everything turned out okay. Against all odds, we brought this baby into the world, and he’s perfect.
I deliver her placenta, putting it into a trash bag, and clamp off the umbilical cord, and when I hand Max the scissors, he passes them to Lenox. “You do it.”
And I start crying all over again as Lenox, always reluctant to take center stage, cuts the cord. I go and wash up in the bathroom, taking a breath and laughing incredulously at my reflection. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. I just did that. I just fucking did that.
There’s a tap on the door, and I call out, “Come in.”
Lenox opens the door and enters, standing behind me and staring at my reflection in the mirror, his blue eyes bright. His arms swing around me, and he pulls me back into his chest, kissing my temple. “Fucking amazing.”
“That’s how this feels.”
“That’s what you are,” he murmurs against me. “I’m so proud of you. That was…”
“Yeah.” I’m grinning like a mad woman, high in a way I’ve never been before. “It was.”
We leave the bathroom and find Max, Brooklynn, and the baby curled up on the sofa, all snuggled in together.
“He’s perfect,” I tell them. “You did such an incredible job, Mom. What’s his name?”
She peers up at Max and then back at me. “George isn’t my favorite name for a guy.”
I bark out a laugh. “Not unless he’s an English king.”
“How about Gabriel, using the G for Georgia, and we’ll call him Gabe?”
I wipe at my face, getting choked up all over again. “I think that’s beautiful. I’m honored. Truly.”
“We could never repay this,” she continues, glancing down at her son and then back up at me.
“You just did,” I tell her. “But how about you pierce my nipples when I’m ready and we’ll call it even. ”
Everyone breaks out into much-needed laughter just as there’s a knock on the door. The ambulance has finally arrived.
After the ambulance comes and takes Brooklynn, baby Gabriel, and Max off to the hospital, Lenox and I drive home in near silence.
It’s still snowing. A no-joke snow at that.
The sort of snow that makes visibility nearly impossible and your headlights only flash against the white flakes that fall directly in front of them.
Lenox goes slow, both of us hungry and tired and frankly in need of a shower. I sag back against the seat, my body flayed and my mind exhausted.
“Do you know what you did tonight?”
“Hmmm?” I question, unable to lift my head to glance in his direction as he plows us home.
“You delivered a baby.”
I grin. “I did. My three hundredth and thirty-second. Including graduate school and assists as an OB nurse while I was in grad school.”
“Brooklynn has been working for me for four years. She doesn’t press. She doesn’t push. She runs my business as if it were hers while always protecting me and my need for privacy.”
I twist my head on the seat and take in his profile, unsure what to say to that.
“It’s rare,” he continues, “to meet people in this world who have your back and unconditionally support you without it benefiting them.”
“I got the biggest earful on Monday about how you’re the saint of Lavender Lake.
The Bruce Wayne of the town. You don’t see it, but you’re amazing, Lenox.
You are. Whatever your reasons for all that you’ve done, you’ve done a lot of people so much good.
But Brooklynn knows you without knowing everything and respects you for who you are without question. That’s why she’s so amazing.”
He reaches over and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together. “ It’s taken me a long time to feel worthy of anything, but with you, I feel more than worthy, I finally feel deserving.”
My heart flutters like a drunk butterfly in my chest, and I squeeze his hand, getting choked up again. “You need to stop with this. All night you’ve been making my ovaries explode, and me subsequently want to jump you.”
He chuckles, but I’m straight-up not kidding.
“Lenox Moore, you are more than deserving. You are everything. You made me fall in love with you again, and you continue to do so over and over.”
He gives me a soft smile that almost seems impossible coming from such a serious, broody man.
He brings our joined hands up to his lips and kisses my knuckles before releasing me so he can steer with two hands.
“Seeing them tonight, watching them do that… I kept thinking that I wanted that to be us someday. I want to see you pregnant with our children because you’ll be so fucking stunning like that, and I want to be there, helping to coach you through as you bring them into the world.
” He pauses and takes a breath. “I never… I never imagined I ever would. Children are… fantastical and emotionally needy and I’d…
I’d never want to fuck them up. I’d want to be perfect for them. ”
Oh, Lenox. “I want to make babies with you too,” I tell him. “I might want a lot of them. I don’t know yet. But I already know, after watching you tonight and knowing you as I do, that you will be perfect for them.”
“I’m not sure I’d teach them to hack.”
“Then don’t.”
“I’d want to name one of them after Suzie.”
My heart clenches, and I rise over the console so I can kiss his cheek. “Then we will.”
“I fucking love that it’s you. No one else could ever get me like this.”
I drop my head on his shoulder for a minute.
“I feel the same way about you.” Because he does get me.
Even when I’m rambling nonsense, panicking over something, or simply wanting to listen to Christmas music in November while baking sugar cookies in the middle of a blizzard, he sees me, understands me, and loves me regardless. No matter what.
This… this feeling… this man… I’m married to Lenox, and it’s no longer fake. It’s everything real it’s supposed to be. I don’t know how we got here from where we started, but none of that matters anymore. The past is no longer important. All that matters is our future and where we go from here.
“Good.”
I grin. “Good.” Settling back in my seat, I smear a lather of vanilla ChapStick on my lips and comb my fingers through my hair. “Tonight was a fantastic night, but I need food and a hot shower.” We pull into the barn side of the garage, and Lenox shuts off the engine.
“Same,” he says as the garage door slowly closes, and we climb down from the truck. My bones are weary, and my muscles ache. “Go start the shower, and I’ll fix something for us.”
I don’t argue it, and frankly, he could roast me a squirrel from outside, and right now I wouldn’t complain.
Much. Thankfully, he pulls some hamburger—not squirrel—meat out of the fridge along with some pasta and gets going on a very quick meat sauce.
I drag myself upstairs, stripping as I go until I reach the top step, and then I am suddenly swooped off my feet.
Lenox carries me into the bathroom, setting me down on the large tub and starting the shower for both of us.
“I’ll make the meat sauce when we go back down,” he tells me. “I have twelve minutes before the water starts to boil.”
“That’s barely enough time for you to fuck me.”
He grins. “I bet I can make you come twice in that time.”
“Impossible.”
“Not if I’m trying to knock you up.”
My hands meet my hips. “I have an IUD, and I didn’t say I wanted to have babies now .”
“Practice, Georgie. We need a lot of practice before we’re ready to start trying for the main event.”