Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36
B eatrix
Four Months Later
It’s the middle of the night, and one of Ren’s practice tees hangs down past my knees. It’s stretched tight over my belly but baggy everywhere else. I haven’t slept for hours because of the contractions, but they’re pretty far apart. My doctor told me I don’t need to come to the hospital until they get closer together, but…
“I think my water just broke,” I whisper to Ren, waking him from a deep sleep.
I’m expecting panic, both because I’m waking him abruptly and because it’s two weeks before my due date. Instead, he rolls over and takes my hand. “There’s a bag in the closet.”
At first, I think he’s in the middle of a dream. “Ren, I’m in labor,” I say more urgently. He needs to wake up.
He sits up, still no panic in his face or his voice. “I know. This is it. Are you ready?”
“Are you ready? We need to go to the hospital. We need a change of clothes and stuff for the baby to go home in. And we didn’t install the car seat.”
If he’s not going to panic properly, I’ll feed him the necessary lines.
“I practiced installing it a week ago. I can do it in under a minute. I’ll get the bag. You… Is that what you want to wear?”
He’s out of bed and pulling a shirt over his head. His gorgeous abs disappear, and I’m momentarily distracted by the fact that he’s still naked from the waist down until he snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Earth to baby mama.”
Walking over to the closet while calmly pulling on boxer briefs and sweatpants, he guides me to his dresser. “Pick out some sweats. The shirt’s fine.”
Numbly, I fumble through the drawers and take out another shirt. Ren shakes his head and opens a different drawer, where he finds a pair of gray sweats for me. By the time I pull them on, Ren has taken a large duffel from the closet and extends his hand toward me.
“What’s that?”
“Clothes for us, baby stuff, snacks, crosswords. We’re set for the hospital, and I just called an Uber. You ready?”
I stare at him, dumbfounded, as my heartbeat ratchets upward. This is really happening—we’re going to be parents. But for the moment, I’m more interested in when Ren became a multitasker. “You called an Uber and found my clothes and produced a bag from nowhere…”
“Trix,” he says, pulling me close and calming me with a deep, thorough kiss. “I promised you, remember? For as long as I live, I’ll never break another promise to you. Never.”
I nod, the last piece of doubt falling away. Until this moment, I didn’t realize I was still holding on to it, but there it was, lurking in the recesses of my brain, worried about the future because I couldn’t get over the past. But now it’s time. “I know.”
“I’ve got you,” Ren says, draping one arm over my shoulder and slinging the duffel over his other arm. “And we’ve got this.”