“You’re a doctor, Zach! You’ve had your hands on plenty of vaginas! It won’t fuckin’ matter to you that you touch mine!” I cried out. “Now, take this baby out of me!”
Zach looked green. “I haven’t had to deliver a baby in years. I didn’t even deliver my own kid! And Laric will fuckin’ kill me.”
I screamed and squatted down.
Zach came with me, and sure enough, he helped deliver the child.
That’s, of course, when Laric walked in.
Me in the squatting position. Zach in front of me with his hands between my legs.
I screamed again, and this time Zach cursed.
Why?
Because he’d seen Laric.
“I swear to God, man,” Zach pleaded. “It’s not how it looks.”
“It’s exactly how it looks,” Laric disagreed. “Is she okay?”
I gave one giant push and all of a sudden that burning pain was gone, leaving me with nothing but relief.
Zach held the baby up in front of me, and I started to cry.
“Need a blanket,” Zach muttered. “And a towel. It’ll be enough until the ambulance can get here.”
“I’m not going to the hospital,” I immediately decreed, my voice matter of fact. “I’ve already done all the hard part. What’s the damn point of going in now?” I paused. “Plus, you finally got around to getting me that truck instead of me using yours. I don’t want to get her dirty.”
What could the hospital do at this point but tell me I had a baby?
“The point is that you’ll have a doctor there that can watch over you.” Zach disagreed with me immediately.
“You’re a doctor,” I countered. “And you owe me. You were such an ass to me in the beginning. You still haven’t made up for it.”
Zach sighed. “Are you ever going to let me live that down?”
I blinked at him, feeling another cramp hit me just as Laric came back with a towel and a blanket.
Warm from the dryer at that.
I’d been doing laundry all day, trying to get the baby’s clothes washed, as well as our own, before I had to go to the hospital that evening to get induced.
Zach held the baby out to his father, and Laric’s face lit up like the Fourth of July the moment that his baby was put in his arms.
“It’s a boy,” Laric said, surprise evident in his voice.
I snorted. “We knew it was a boy.”
“We did,” Zach agreed. “You had that stupid gender reveal, remember?”
“I do,” Laric admitted as he took a seat on the floor beside me and started to clean the baby off with one side of the towel. “But I guess I was still holding out hope for a girl.”
We didn’t have a gender reveal. We had a rip-roaring biker party that just so happened to reveal the sex of our baby during the middle of it.
It hadn’t been planned, but it’d been perfect anyway.
“Gotta go get my bag.” He paused. “Don’t have another one while I’m away.”
I flipped him off as he ran from the small cabin that was now wayyy too small for our small family of three, but we didn’t have any immediate plans to move out of anytime soon.
“How the hell did this happen?” Laric asked, not once looking away from our screaming baby.
The door to the house opened, and I turned, expecting to see Zach, but instead saw Bruno.
He blinked at the carnage on the floor in the entrance way, glanced at my naked bottom half, and then immediately left just as quickly as he came.
“I think Bruno just saw my vagina,” I told Laric.
Laric looked up, then back down at his kid.
“Oh well.”
“You’re not mad?” I laughed.
The situation was a weird one, that was for sure.
“I’d be mad if he’d seen it when it was normal. It’s not normal right now. It’s like a nightmare. He won’t be wishing he’ll ever see it again. I’ve seen it normal. I know what it’s supposed to look like. So… no. Not mad.”
I would’ve punched him if he wasn’t holding our son.
“What are we going to name him?” I asked.
We’d totally fucked around and hadn’t even discussed names.
We’d start to, argue, and then just agree to discuss it later.
Now later had come, and we still didn’t’ have a name.
“I have an idea,” he whispered.
• • •
A knock at the door had Laric moving toward it and swinging it wide, revealing his father.
Laric’s mouth twitched as he took in Lynn’s narrowed eyes.
“Zach just told me…” He trailed off when our child started to scream his little heart out.
Lynn’s mouth dropped open, and he stared at the baby in my arms.
I smiled. “Would you like to hold your grandson?”
I’d never, not ever, seen Lynn look anything less than unflappable.
But right as I placed Jack Thurgood Windsor in his arms, I swear to God I thought he was going to cry.
“Does you using Windsor mean that you’re going to take my name?” Lynn asked, a hitch in his voice that I’d never heard before either.