Chapter 23
Tessa
We end up in a baby boutique that’s all pastels. The entire store and most of the merchandise is baby blue, light pink, and mint green. I was hoping for something with a pop of color. Still, everything is adorable.
Jasper walks in behind me and immediately gets stared at by a woman holding a gigantic giraffe as we walk by a display. He carefully reaches out and over her shoulder to grab a huge teddy bear.
I remind him quietly, “That won’t fit on your bike.”
“Wanna bet,” he shoots back. The woman edges around us and makes her way to the register as we both watch from behind.
“People are weird,” I tell him nonchalantly, as I fluff the teddy’s ears.
“I already told you that women are scared of me.”
I gesture to his face, “It’s the weird smile you make when you’re trying to be nonthreatening. It’s kind of creepy, to be honest.”
“Wait. What?” He stammers indignantly. “I do not have a weird smile.”
I take the bear from him, deciding I like it, and walk away. “You show all your teeth. It makes you look more terrifying, not less,” I tell him over my shoulder.
He makes a disgruntled sound. As I’m shopping for boy clothes, I catch him practicing smiles in a mirror shaped like a large duck.
Jasper is wearing the same t-shirt and jeans he wore to the appointment, but now that the adrenaline’s worn off, he looks even more like what he is—a tall, broad, tattooed, and unapologetically rough biker.
The woman with the giraffe has to walk past us to leave the store, and you’d think she was taking her final walk down death row or something.
The table is stacked with tiny bodysuits and matching socks. One has little motorcycles printed across the front. Jasper lifts it with two fingers and holds it up between us.
He comes back to me, carrying it. I hold up a blue onesie with little ants embroidered all over it. “What do you think of this one?”
He gestures to it with one hand, “Too risky. What if our kid has ants crawling on him for real? We might just think it was the outfit, and he could get eaten alive.”
I roll my eyes, “And I was worried about me being an overprotective boy mom.”
Meanwhile, Jasper has started foraging again, creating a little outfit of his own. It’s a pair of tiny black jeans and a black T-shirt with a teddy bear on it. Only the teddy face is made of soft brown fur.
“I’m getting this one,” he announces.
“You’re not even going to look at the price?”
“Nope. It’s for a baby. Do you think they charge by the inch or somethin’?”
I grab the price tag, shocked at how expensive it is. “It’s sixty-eight dollars.”
I don’t stop him because it’s not my place to tell the man what to do with his own money.
He folds the little outfit over his forearm right along with the other tiny t-shirt he found.
He carries them like he’s been doing this for years and moves on to the next display.
I watch him pick through swaddles and onesies, his mouth pulled into a serious line.
“Do you even know what half of that stuff is for?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says confidently. “It’s baby stuff.”
“Well, Queenie and I have been shopping twice already. There isn’t much that we need that we don’t have.”
“We need the basket thingie for newborns.”
I squint, staring at him as my brain tries to understand what a thingie is. He swiftly jerks his chin to the far wall. I want to facepalm because he’s talking about a bassinet.
“Oh, we do need a bassinet, but it won’t fit on your bike.”
We continue moving through the store slowly.
I run my hands along soft knit blankets and little cloud-patterned hats.
Jasper picks up a pacifier clip shaped like a wrench and gives it a nod of approval.
We eventually make it to the far wall where the bassinets are all lined up.
One has a walnut frame and a mobile of felt stars spinning overhead.
“This one,” I say. “One day when we have your truck, we’ll come back.”
He doesn’t even ask whether or not I’m sure. Just waves over the cashier with the same authority he uses when sending prospects on a liquor run.
As she rings us up, Jasper pulls his wallet out and drops a credit card onto the counter. The woman behind the register gives him a hesitant smile.
“First baby?”
He nods once. “First son born into my club.”
She blinks, clearly not sure what that means. I don’t explain. I just stand beside him, close enough to feel included and watch. I like how matter of fact he is about the baby. His confidence is a real turn-on for me.
While she checks him out, he pulls out his cell phone and types out a quick message. When she hands him his credit card back, he takes it and the large bear. “I have a prospect coming to transport our baby supplies. I’m gonna scan the receipt and he’ll show it to prove he’s who he says he is.”
I smother back a smile at how he’s just moving through life, making up his own rules, and everyone just goes along with him. Like, I’m sure this store has a procedure for that.
We make it back to his bike and he pulls some straps out of his storage compartment and straps that bear down to his back bumper, right behind where I sit.
By the time he’s done with that and we’re heading out, we see one of the prospects come into the parking lot with a pickup truck.
Jasper jerks his chin at him as he passes.
When we get back to the clubhouse, I’m getting pretty tired. No one says a word as we walk through the front doors with that gigantic bear. A few glances get tossed our way, but no one comments. Jasper gives everyone a look that shuts down whatever joke someone might’ve been thinking of making.
It’s dinner time, so we eat and then head upstairs to find all the baby gear sitting outside the door to his suite.
Jasper unlocks the door and begins carrying our stuff into his suite. He starts unboxing while I fall down on the sofa exhausted. He’s got his sleeves pushed up and his jaw set. I recognize this look. It’s an ‘I’m doing an important job and am determined to do it right’ expression.
I lean back on my folded arm and watch the Jasper show. It’s getting to be one of my favorites.
He opens the instruction manual, flips through it once, then tosses it aside and gets to work with an Allen wrench. It doesn’t take long for him to put the bassinet together. He’s double-checking the stability and tinkering with the screws.
“This’ll be his first bed,” I say quietly. “The first place he lays his little head.”
Jasper doesn’t look up. “Then it better be solid.”
Once he’s certain the bassinet’s stable, Jasper steps back with a satisfied expression on his face. It’s sturdy with zero wobble and no missed bolts.
I start sorting through the bags while he folds the bassinet box flat and stacks it near the door.
The onesies get organized into neat little piles on the dresser.
Socks go into a shallow drawer he cleared out last week.
I run my fingers over the edge of the new changing pad, still in plastic, and imagine what it’ll be like to use it.
To see our son there, tiny, loud, and hopefully smiling up at us.
Jasper’s quiet as he works beside me, opening packages, stripping tags, tossing wrapping into a trash bag. There’s something focused in his movements, but it’s not annoyed. It’s the same energy he brings to fixing a bike.
I unfold a swaddle printed with tiny black and gray skulls. That was Jasper’s pick. I place the softer, pale ones I chose next to it. The contrast makes me smile.
“You’ve got a theme going here,” I point out playfully.
He shrugs. “Didn’t want him growing up thinkin’ he’s fragile.”
“He’s going to be a baby for a nice long while.”
“Doesn’t mean he can’t be tough,” Jasper shoots back.
I smile, glad to be getting to know him better, and fold another bodysuit. He stays quiet for a minute longer, then walks into the closet. I hear a drawer slide open, some shuffling, then the click of a box lid. When he steps back into the room, he’s holding something behind his back.
“What is that?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away. Just walks towards me, then pulls it out and lays it on the sofa between us.
It’s a baby-sized black t-shirt.
The words printed across the front are simple, bold, and badass, especially for a baby, ‘Badass Biker in Training’.
The cotton’s soft. It looks brand new, but the tag has yellowed slightly with time.
I look up at him. He’s not smiling, but there’s something in his eyes. Something quieter than usual.
“Onyx gave it to me a few years ago,” he says. “Said it was a joke. Back then, I didn’t know what the hell I’d do with it. Thought I’d toss it. Kept it anyway.”
I run my thumb over the lettering. “Is this what started you wanting a family of your own?” I ask.
He nods, his gaze fixed on the shirt.
“I didn’t know I wanted any of this,” he says.
“Not until that damn shirt showed up. And then I started thinking… maybe I did want more than club life. Maybe I wanted a kid who’d ride a tricycle down this hallway, who’d grow up to be the right kind of hard.
Wanted a reason to build something that’d last longer than me, a legacy. ”
The atmosphere feels more serious. I fold the shirt carefully and place it on top of the pile, front and center.
“You got your family now,” I say.
His hand finds the small of my back and he tugs me into a hug. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”
We finish the rest slowly, folding blankets, stacking diapers, rearranging things that don’t need rearranging. It’s not about how much we have. It’s about the act of placing them, choosing where they go, carving out a place in the world for someone who hasn’t taken his first breath yet.
After we’re finished, he asks, “Have you given any more thought about us?”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “I thought we were giving this a go.”
Just like he typically does, Jasper lays it all out on the line. “Yeah, we are giving it a go. But the thing is, I’m ready to start talkin’ about taking some steps towards commitment.”