Chapter 35 #2
“Oh,” I breathe, the word barely forming. “Hi, baby.”
She’s red and squashed and smeared with something that probably shouldn’t be beautiful, but it is. Her lips wobble. Her nose wrinkles. One eye flutters half open and then closes again, and my heart tears itself clean in half.
Reid doesn’t say anything; he’s shattered and still silently crying, a hand trembling as he brushes a single fingertip along her cheek.
“Holy shit, she’s cute,” he breathes through a broken voice.
I hum, feeling the warmth of her sink into me.
“And she’s got your mouth,” he whispers hoarsely. “But those fists? Definitely mine.”
I laugh, broken and breathless. “God help us both.”
He leans down and presses a kiss to her tiny forehead, then another to mine. His voice is low and shaking when he speaks again.
“You did it, Havoc.” He holds his lips to my head, breathing me in. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
I nod, tears slipping freely now, soaking down my neck as I watch my daughter. “And we’re so proud of you, too, baby.”
She shifts slightly, pressing her face to the curve of my chest, her tiny body tucked so tightly against mine it feels like we’ve always been like this. Like she’s always belonged right here.
“Do you want to hold her?” I ask, glancing up at Reid.
He doesn’t answer right away because he’s still staring—completely undone—like he’s afraid he’ll wake up if he moves.
I lift her gently toward him.
Reid sits on the edge of the bed next to me, arms out. And when I place her in them, the way his hands shake, the way he stares down like he’s never seen anything more fragile or more important, it nearly breaks me.
“She’s so small,” he murmurs, voice catching. “I thought I was ready, but—fuck—look at her.”
He sits beside me, cradling her close in the crook of his forearm, and reaches out to wrap his other arm around me.
“My girls.”
The world stays quiet, and the chaos fades. The fear recedes. All that’s left is the three of us, held together by sweat and tears and something I understand clearer than any other day in my whole entire life.
Love.
Moments pass. I don’t even know how long. But he’s still staring at her when he places her back in my arms and leans forward, brushing a finger along her impossibly soft peach fuzz head.
“She needs a name, Havoc. Before I lose my damn mind and start calling her Brick.”
I blink. “Brick?”
“You know. Strong and solid. Slightly terrifying in the wrong hands.”
“She’s not a construction material, Reid.”
“Fine.” He nods sagely. “Meatball.”
“Oh my god.”
He shrugs. “She’s round. She’s dramatic. She makes strange noises. Seems fitting.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Could go with Puck,” he offers. “A little hockey tribute.”
“Hard pass.”
“Gollum?”
“Stop.”
“Beelzebaby.”
I choke on a laugh, trying not to jostle the tiny human currently asleep on my chest. “Okay, no more night-shift nickname roulette. You’re done.”
“Spoilsport.”
He grins, lazy and smitten, then quiets again, watching us.
And I feel it—that shift again. That weight in my chest rising to my throat, full of something sacred and breaking and huge.
I smooth a hand over the silky head of our daughter, and my voice wobbles when I speak.
“I was thinking…” I pause, my throat tightening. “Ivy.”
Reid blinks, startled.
“For the garden,” I murmur. “Adele’s favorite.”
His breath catches.
“And Harriet,” I whisper, a tear rolling down my cheek.
His mouth opens. Closes. Emotion surges up too fast for words, because he knows exactly who that one is for.
“And Hope,” I whisper. “For my dad, and second chances, and… for us.”
Reid doesn’t say anything because he can’t. His face crumples, and he folds in half like someone cut the strings.
Ivy stays sleeping on my chest as he turns away, shoulders shaking, a hand pressed over his eyes.
“Reid,” I say gently.
He doesn’t move, so I shift, careful not to jostle her, and tug him in. He comes without resistance, curling around both of us, pressing his face to the crook of my neck. I stroke his hair with one hand and cradle our daughter with the other.
“Ivy Harriet Hope,” he chokes out. “You gave her a name that means everything. You gave her everything.”
“We did.”
He exhales a shudder, and his hand finds Ivy’s again, pinky brushing her palm. And when her fingers curl around it, he looks at me with something fierce and awed in his eyes.
“I am going to be insufferable,” he whispers. “She’s got me completely. I’m gonna be that dad.”
I snort and glance at him. He’s dead serious. “You already are that dad.”
“She’s going to be so loved,” he says, voice thick.
“Fiercely, unconditionally, irrationally loved. No one is going to get near her without going through me first. Or Jake. Or Logan. Or Chase or Eli. Especially Heidi and Zoe. Hell, even Viktor. She’s got an entire NHL team of uncles, and so many badass aunts, and not one of them is emotionally stable. ”
I snort. “So we’re raising her in a bunker?”
“Obviously.”
“She’s not an ornament, Reid.”
“She’s worse—she’s mine.”
I roll my eyes, but God, I love him. Fiercely. Just like he’ll love her.
“One day, you’re going to have to accept that she’s a person with agency. Who might want to date someone, or get married.”
“She can date when she’s seventy.”
“She’s going to grow up with Meadow, you know that, right? Statistically, she’s going to end up forced into a backyard wedding ceremony with Theo, officiated by his sister in a tutu.”
“I swear to God, if Meadow tries to marry her off to Theo in the backyard, I’m calling a lawyer.”
I laugh, quiet and full. “It’d be adorable, but fine, I’ll let you handle their prenup when Ivy pretends to marry your best friend’s son.”
He stares at me, horrified.
I grin, then lean in and kiss the corner of his mouth. “You’re gonna protect the hell out of her, aren’t you?”
“With my life.”
“Good. Just also let her climb trees and break hearts and do dangerous, beautiful things. She’s allowed to live, caveman.”
His eyes close and his breathing evens. And with our daughter asleep between us, we finally fall still.