Holding his phone up to take a video, Elijah started to point out things. “Look at how cute her chin is, it’s just like yours, Sadie.”
Smiling at me, Pam nodded. “She’s got your chin.”
“And her heart-shaped face.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen again. Before had been amazing, but now? I felt like I was actually looking at her face-to-face.
“There’s a button nose, and over here, we’ve got her eyes.”
This time when we saw her hand, it was clenched into the tightest fist instead of sticking a finger up at us. And then she did the sweetest thing, and I wanted to burst into tears. She started moving her arm back and forth like she was waving at us.
“Oh, baby wants you to know she knows her mommy and daddy are looking at her.”
It was bullshit, well, it was probably bullshit, but Elijah and I looked at each other like she’d raised the Titanic. This was the second scan she’d done that in—she had to be a genius.
“Moving down, we’ve got those long legs I was talking about, and these adorable little piggy toes. Then if we move back up, uh, yup, we’ve got us a girl.”
This time when I looked at it, I didn’t need to squint or ask for an explanation for it. That was definitely the tiniest vagina in the history of vaginas.
“This video’s going to be great at her eighteenth birthday party,” Elijah chuckled. “And here’s your vagina in utero, kid.”
“I think you’ll have bigger problems, Mr. Townsend-Rossi. With her legs being as long as they are and her DNA coming from the two of you, you’re going to have boys knocking on your door from the second they can walk. By eighteen, you’ll probably need to hire security.”
Seeing the scowl on his face, I groaned. “Don’t say that. He’s got five brothers and a million other members of his family who’d step up for the job. The poor girl’s never going to get to date.”
Elijah’s head almost fell off his shoulders with the speed he turned to glare at me. “She’s not dating, period.”
Meeting the lady’s eyes, we both shook our heads, like we were bonding over what a twat he was. I’m fairly certain every father said that and that she’d heard it hundreds of times throughout her career, and how many of the girls never dated? Probably close to zero.
By the time we were finished, Elijah was oozing tension, so I took the DVD and paperwork from her and was the one to guide him through the doors this time. I had an appointment in two days for a checkup with the OB/GYN, so I didn’t have to hang around this afternoon to see him.
As we cleared the doors and walked to the truck, I glanced up and had to hold back the laughter that wanted to break out of me at his expression.
“Plenty of men have daughters,” I told him, trying to reassure him. “Look at my dad, he’s got two.”
“That doesn’t put my mind at ease after meeting your sister,” he muttered, unlocking the doors so we could get in.
Six days ago, Cynthia had arrived at Dad’s place with Wick, to stay until after Orson had been caught and arrested. We’d been allowed to FaceTime, where Elijah had finally met her and my nephew and had endured hours of taunting, and I mean hours.
Every time I’d tried to hang up, she’d come up with a new topic or question for me, no doubt seeing the look in Elijah’s eyes and knowing what it meant. Yup, even with us in Florida and her in Austin, she’d managed to cock block him like a champ.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he surprised me by taking a left instead of the right that we usually took to go home. Figuring he needed something from the store, I opened up the envelope with the baby's photos inside it and stared at them.
“I think she’s got your nose, you know. And your forehead.”
Pulling into the parking lot in front of a row of shops, he cut the engine and looked at the photo in my hand. “All I see is you in her. When we have boys, I’ll make sure they take after me.”
And with that bomb, he got out of the truck and left me staring at him open-mouthed as he walked around to open my door.
“When we have boys?” I stuttered as he helped me out.
Taking my elbow to help me up the step onto the pavement, he guided me toward a glass door. “Yeah. If you look at the number of males in my family, it’s inevitable. Mom and Dad tried for years to have a daughter, but they kept get males. Uncle Jack and Uncle Jerome were lucky because they had Layla and Ariana on the last try, but the law of averages dictates we’ve got boys coming next.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me as he opened the door and gently moved me into the store.