CHAPTER 64
Olivia
ONE MONTH LATER
T he steady rocking of the new, very comfortable chair Asher bought for the living room, along with the ice hitting the window and the little grunting sounds Calli makes as she suckles her breakfast from my breast are the sweetest melody.
Duke is snoozing where he always does, right at my feet, and Dick is nuzzled under the crook of his paw.
I lean over to give them both a little pat with my free hand.
I may not get much sleep right now, but I am the most fulfilled and in love I’ve ever been.
“Here you go, mama.” Asher pokes his head from around the corner, wearing his navy uniform pants and standard LCFD T-shirt, ready to head to the firehall. He’s freshly showered and his damp black hair is pushed back off his face, still wet and slightly disheveled.
I’m not the only one currently getting no sleep. There isn’t a moment Calli wakes that he isn’t awake with me, keeping me company while I feed her. He’ll change her or sometimes just stare at her as he rocks her back to sleep, and I swear this child sleeps more on his chest than anywhere else.
Watching Asher become a dad has been the most tender and beautiful thing I’ve ever had the privilege to witness.
But the best part of all was that he confessed to me the morning after Calli was born that he was going to start talking to someone about his past, to sort through all that hurt and to become the best man he can for me and Calli.
After only three sessions with a therapist Cassie recommended, he already seems lighter.
Asher sets a steaming cup of coffee down beside me now, knowing while I’m feeding her is the perfect time to drink it so she doesn’t get any caffeine from me at her next feeding in a couple of hours.
And God help me, without my beloved cup of coffee I wouldn’t survive the day.
It’s a far cry from the two or three cups I drank before I was pregnant, but it’s just enough to make me feel human.
“Thank you,” I whisper as he bends down to kiss me, and I breathe in his delicious pine and mint scent.
After a month I’m completely healed and I’m feeling almost desperate for him, though we still have to wait another few weeks until we can be together again.
A few weeks I’m convinced will be torture because there is nothing sexier than the man you love stepping into his role as a dad.
Calli falls off my breast—she smells so sweet and her fluff of red hair is soft and fine—as I run the pads of my fingers over her head while she dreams. She’s totally milk drunk, and a trickle of it runs down her chin.
I swipe it off and she sucks in her sleep.
My little bear. There’s nothing in this world that could’ve prepared me for the love I felt the second she was placed into my arms.
“She done?” Asher asks, sitting across from me. I nod, knowing exactly what he wants.
He stands, looking like an eager puppy, and it never fails to make me smile as he bends down, his two large inked hands almost swallowing her whole as he scoops Calli up into his arms.
“How’s my little bear today?” he asks a sleeping Calli as he nestles her in the crook of his arm against his strong, solid chest. “You get a good breakfast? Is your belly all full? Lots of fuel for that smile to charm the world?” She only started smiling a week or so ago, and almost all of them are for him.
“You have a full day today. Nana’s coming over and you have to get at least two poops in …
” He prattles on to her as I watch them, and my God it’s a beautiful sight.
It’s not the patience he has to hold her for hours on end, patting her little bum as he rocks her to sleep, or the sweet way he whispers to her, most of the time things I can’t hear, though I don’t need to.
It’s not the sheer beauty of this big, rugged man reduced to a puddle before me for his daughter the moment she looks at him or smiles at him.
It’s the beauty of watching a man who never had this with his own father, who never knew love in any way, experience it all so easily with his own child and me. It’s witnessing him break the cycle, just like he said he would.