72. Kate
Chapter Seventy-Two
Kate
The room was quiet with the sounds of new life. Nurses speaking in hushed tones. Beeping monitors. The vibration in the air of machines doing their job.
My body still felt like it was reverberating from the effort, like every muscle had been wrung out and left trembling.
My heart was still hammering, but my limbs were like lead, my skin finally cooling under thin hospital sheets.
Somewhere beneath all that, the ache in my belly pulsed in time with the faint sting of stitches.
They’d taken him from me quickly as he was so early. But apparently, Jordan Taylor’s genetics didn’t get the memo.
At almost a month early, he still weighed six and a half pounds. He was perfectly healthy. The nurse joked that he just wanted to see his dad win for himself.
All I could think was thank fuck I didn’t carry Jordan Taylor’s massive baby to full term.
And now…he was here. On my chest. Breathing.
Warm and beautiful in a way that was almost too much for my mind to keep up with.
I couldn’t stop breathing him in, that milky-sweet, new-skin scent that felt like it had always belonged to me.
His little hands were impossibly warm and soft, gripping my finger like he was afraid I’d let go.
The weight of him was the only thing anchoring me back to Earth.
I don’t remember what I said when he was born. If I said anything at all. I think I just cried.
It didn’t feel real. It was the most surreal moment of my life. Like I’d slipped into a dream and hadn’t quite landed back on Earth yet. But when they placed him on my chest, the rush of love hit like nothing I’d ever felt before. I lost my breath completely.
I’d never forget the look on Jordan’s face. Like someone had handed him his heart in the shape of a baby. He was tiny. Wrinkled. Still sticky with the rawness of arrival. But his lungs worked. His skin was pink.
And his cry, God, his cry was strong.
The nurse checked him soon after, her voice seeping through the beeps and the blur of contractions still echoing through me. Through the haze, I caught pieces of her reassurance.
“Good weight…breathing beautifully…a little early, but very strong…”
And God, he looked like his dad. That mouth. That mop of dark hair. That furrow in his brow when he cried. He was unmistakably Jordan’s.
After they finished checking him over, they wrapped him up tight and handed him to Jordan. I turned my head, and my heart didn’t just swell—it shattered open. Jordan looked down at this impossibly small human with wide, stunned eyes, holding him like he was made of glass.
And in that moment, I saw a new version of him. Not just the man I fell in love with. Not just the man I’d followed around the world. I saw our baby’s dad. I couldn’t stop the new swell of tears.
Jordan glanced at me, his eyes glassy. “He’s so small,” he whispered, in awe. “Look at him, Kate.”
I couldn’t stop crying now. I nodded and reached up to touch his cheek, grazing the stubble on his jaw.
“I can’t believe he’s ours,” I whispered.
We sat like that for a while, just the three of us, floating somewhere outside of existence. Eventually, a nurse returned and asked if we’d chosen a name.
Jordan looked at me first. Always me.
And I nodded. Through the tears, and the exhaustion, and the joy too big for my chest, I whispered, “Noah Henry Taylor.” The name we’d both picked out the night we were sprawled on the floor, surrounded by boxes in our new home.
Jordan looked down at our son again. “Hello, Noah,” he said quietly. “I’m your dad.”
Then he looked back at me.
“We did it,” he whispered.
I reached for his hand and held on like I’d never let go.