Chapter 58
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Noah
“What about this one?” Tori asks, holding up another pink baby onesie that looks exactly the same as the previous four she showed me.
“Sure, toss it in the cart,” I say and she does.
She gives me a deadpan look. “Are you really getting the hat?” She’s referring to the baseball hat that has ‘in my girl dad era’ written on the front.
I nod, giving her the same expression back. “Yes, I’m getting the hat.”
She rolls her eyes playfully and continues down the aisle of baby clothes. We have come baby shopping to get everything we need just in case I don’t make it back in time.
Or back at all.
I shake my head, willing those thoughts away.
I don’t like to think like that, but it’s the first time I have really thought about not making it back, and it terrifies me.
It’s a fear that has been hanging silently between us the past few weeks, and now we are just days away from me deploying.
Tori’s belly is growing rapidly, and it’s all starting to feel very real that when I see her next, we will be close to having a baby, or maybe we will have our baby already.
These could be the final days of just us, and I am determined to make the most of them.
I follow Tori round the corner, and we come to an area of baby furniture.
While I’m away, she will be staying with Ali and Harry in New York.
She tried to fight me on it, but I would feel a hell of a lot better if I knew she was with them.
When I’m back, we’ll decide where we stay, but for now, we are making a baby registry, and everything will be shipped to New York closer to Tori’s due date.
“How many bassinettes and cribs are there?” Tori asks, mouth agape, looking around at the various styles of cribs.
I’ve always wanted to be a dad. I just never thought it would be on the cards for me.
I envisioned building my baby’s crib—it felt like the dad thing to do—and sadness grips me at the thought of not being here.
Tori is drawn to a beautiful wooden sleigh-style crib, stroking her fingers over the bars, she smiles at the teddy bears and blankets inside it.
I come up behind her, placing my hands on her belly, hoping I get to feel my daughter kick before I leave next week. According to the pregnancy books, we should start to feel them any day now.
“Which one do you like?” Tori asks, leaning back against my chest.
I anxiously chew on my bottom lip, not wanting to bring the reality of our situation into our day, but I need to say it.
“I don’t mind which crib, darlin’, I just want to be the one who gets to build it.” She cranes her neck to face me. Pain flickers through her big blue eyes and I hate that I’ve made her sad, but she nods with a melancholy smile.
“No one will touch her crib until you come back home to us.”