People who were parents before the advent of the internet had been elevated to godlike status in my book, and I made sure that my assistant sent both my mom and Sophia’s flowers every week. They both protested that it wasn’t necessary, but it was. Mom finally moved into that house I’d bought for her when Sophia moved in with me.
Mark and Soph’s dad John were also rock stars with little Harper. I made sure to treat them with tickets to Wrigley Field often. Of course, nowadays, if I joined them, it was with a kangaroo carrier strapped to my chest.
Much to my surprise, I fucking loved it. If babies were little pinks lumps, Harper was the most beautiful little pink lump that I ever could’ve imagined. I was crazy about her. Absolutely mad. She had me firmly wrapped around her fourteen-week-old pinkie.
When I found out we were having a girl, that I was about to become the father of a daughter, I freaked the hell out.
At least I’d been a boy once, so I kind of knew what to expect. Kind of. But a girl? A girl who would eventually grow into a woman and start dating one of the little pricks out there? A mini meltdown was probably more accurate of a description of what I’d had at the time.
Because even though most of the boys she’d end up dating probably weren’t born yet, I just knew that they were all going to be pricks. Or assholes.
Mark backed me up. He knew it, too. It had taken him some time to fully accept our relationship, but when he came on board, he came with everything that he had and with absolutely no reservations. He organized a Man shower for me, which had actually rivaled some of the wilder bachelor parties I’d been to, and he helped me move Sophia into my place a month before the baby was born.
So when we found out it was a girl, he bought us both toy guns and solemnly swore to be there on the day that the first prick arrived to pick her up.
Sophia, on the other hand, loudly proclaimed that we both had issues and laughed so hard that I legit thought that she was going to laugh herself into labor. Apparently, that wasn’t a thing. The pregnancy hormones making her super horny, though? That was a thing. A thing that I loved so much that I was already looking forward to getting Sophia pregnant again.
She wasn’t on board with that idea, though. Not yet anyway.
If I was being realistic, she was probably right about it being too soon. I wanted just a little more time to dote on the girls who were already in my life.
And there were a few other things that I wanted to get done first. The most important of which was burning a hole in my damn pocket.
Sophia was standing by her dressing table, in the middle of a sea of playmats and toys, staring intently at the screen of the baby monitor. Harper had gone down ten minutes ago, and while there was a second crib for her set up in our room, we really tried to have her sleep in her own nursery.
My Soph was tired but serene. I thought that she looked more beautiful by the day, but she didn’t agree. Even wearing cotton pajamas with her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and slightly dark smudges under her eyes, she was the most gorgeous woman on the planet as far as I was concerned.
I still got hard whenever I thought about being inside her, which was still all the time, and I was hopeful about my prospects for later. But there was something else in my pants that I needed to give her first. I smirked a little at my corny, internal joke, and Sophia’s lips kicked up into a smile when she caught me in the middle of it.
“What’s going on in that dirty mind of yours now?”
“It’s not filth all the time anymore, I’ll have you know,” I joked, walking across the room to wrap my arms around her.
“Maybe, but I know that look, and whatever it was this time, it was dirty or borderline dirty at the very least.”
She knew me well, but she was the love of life, so I was okay with having lost the mystery. Most of it, anyway. I could still surprise, and I was pretty sure that I was about to.
“Fine, you want to know what I was thinking?”
Sophia nodded. “Pray tell, oh filthy one.”
“I was thinking that there’s something in my pants that I’m desperate to give you.”
Sophia smacked my chest, laughed, and rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, you’re an animal. How many hours has it even been?”
I raised an eyebrow, grinning to flash my dimples, because I knew she loved them. “What do you think I’m talking about?”
She cupped my cock, and it reacted to her attention. Then she dropped her hand and gave me pointed look. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“It wasn’t that, actually. But you know that’s yours whenever you want it.” I reached into my pocket casually, trying to keep calm, even though my heart was pounding harder than Sophia had squeezed my hand just before Harper made her appearance in the world. “I was talking about this.”
I pulled the ring I’d picked up from the jewelers earlier out of my pocket and sank to my knee. Sophia stopped laughing immediately and stared down at me, blue eyes wider than golf balls.
“Sophia Love, you have given me everything that I never knew I wanted out of life. Everything that I was too afraid to ask for or dream about. You asked me a question once that changed my life for the better and forever. I’m really fucking hoping that you’re going to give me the same answer that I gave you. Will you marry me?”
“Why me?”
My heart wasn’t going to handle much more of this. “What?”