"It's okay. It's just me," Sass said, moving into the kitchen with a knowing smile. "You okay there, Donovan?" she asked, patting his arm. "You looked scarred for life after seeing those pictures. I'm not gonna lie, I am too. I mean, what is with how when, the moment you get pregnant, everyone wants to share with you the worst and ugliest of what's to come? Oh!" she said, spotting Eddie who'd somehow found a broom, and was sweeping under the cabinets. "Eddie. It's good to see you," she said, giving him a warm smile. "Are you here to join the family finally?"
"Something like that," he agreed, nodding. "You look good, mama."
"I look like a float," she corrected. "Everything is swollen, and I'm always hot. Luckily, people call this constant gleam of sweat," she said, waving toward her face, "a glow now."
"Did you guys need something?" Huck asked. "Is it time to order food?" He left off again since they'd already ordered lunch. They were having the longest baby shower known to mankind, though, so it was nearing dinner time.
"We ordered already," Sass said, shooting him a smirk. "Harm said if we left it up to you, you'd make us eat salads and giant bowls of broccoli. So we went ahead and ordered Chinese instead. Don't worry. A little grease isn't going to kill her. I just wanted to come and check on Ax. Who... I don't see anywhere. Where is he?" she asked, eyes wide.
"Alaric has him out back," Huck explained.
To that, Sass's lips curved into a soft smile.
It hadn't escaped any of us how much the women enjoyed watching the rough and tumble group of bikers dote on the toddling little Ax.
I could read the thoughts as they crossed her face.
Our daughter is going to have the best uncles.
Yes, daughter.
Unlike Huck and Harm, we'd wanted to know so we could start picking out names. Which was one of the things neither of us could ever seem to agree on.
I liked traditional, more old-fashioned names.
She liked ones that had some sort of personal meaning.
"Can I steal you for a minute?" she asked, coming to grab my hand, pulling me along with her toward the dining room.
"Everything alright?"
"I got it."
"You got what?"
"The name," she declared, eyes bright.
I was skeptical. We'd both been here before. Sure we'd finally found the one that the other would fall in love with too, but ultimately disappointed.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Iris," she said, smiling.
"Iris?"
"You don't like it?"
"I do, actually. But I don't see why you do."
"Harmon was talking to some woman at the mother chapter named Rey about her garden. And she'd said the word Iris. Which got me thinking, so I went ahead and did a quick search online. She's a Greek goddess. Want to know one of her skills?"
"I sure do," I agreed, picking up on her enthusiasm, hopeful we'd finally found the one.
"She has super speed," Sass declared, smile beaming.
"Well then," I said, wrapping my arms around her back, pulling her close. "We finally have a name."
"It's so fitting. Any kid of ours is going to inherit that trait," she agreed, leaning up to press a kiss to my lips.
Saskia - 6 years
We'd somehow created a child who did everything at half-pace.
There was a birthday party for one of the club kids, and there were dozens of kids hanging around, running and squealing from the jump house to the water slide to the trampoline to the dozen or so other features that had been set up because the bikers, well, they never did anything by half. I swore they loved having the kids around just because they got to be big kids again. I'd once walked out in the yard to find two of the guys having a water gun fight with no kids anywhere to be found.
But while the other kids ran and squealed, little Iris walked around at a pace all her own, as she had always done. Iris had never been in a rush a day in her life.
She had taken her sweet time to learn to crawl, to walk, and we were kind of still waiting to see if the kid was capable of running since I wasn't sure we'd ever seen such a phenomenon.
The only thing she did with any kind of speed was dancing. She never missed a chance to be spun around with her father in the kitchen, squealing and beaming and singing some of the lyrics of her favorite songs in Spanish with him.
We'd bought her one of those battery cars for her fourth birthday.
She liked to wash it.
But, to this day, had yet to sit in or drive it.
That said, her younger sister, who we'd named Hestia to stick with naming our kids after Greek gods—for who knows what reason—got her name because we'd liked that she was known as a kind and compassionate and home-loving god.