Dean (Face-Off 6)

Standing at Kat’s side, I hold her hand as the technician shows us the baby on the monitor. Until the first time I saw our child, none of this seemed real. But seeing our baby on the screen, moving his or her little feet, tugs at my chest, making me heart feel like it could explode. The last time the technician attempted to determine the sex of the baby, she couldn’t get a clear view.

She tilts her head to the side, rolling the wand over Kat’s stomach, and I follow her line of sight.

I point at the monitor. “Is that a penis?”

With zero expression on her face, she turns to Kat, who’s on the table between us. “Do you want to know the sex of the baby?”

Kat nods.

The technician smiles. “Congratulations, you’re having a boy.”

Kat squeezes my hand tighter, her grin reaching up to her blue irises that are sparkling in this light. She’s five months pregnant now, her stomach growing more each day.

“We’re having a boy, Dean.”

I bend down to kiss her on the lips and brush my thumb along her cheek. “Thank you for this, Kitten. Because of you, I’m getting the family I had always wanted.

“Noah,” she whispers, running her hand over her stomach. “Eww,” she growls, forgetting about the slimy ointment the technician rubbed on her belly.

After the technician cleans up Kat’s stomach, I help her up from the table. She grips my shoulder to steady herself, a bright smile stretching across her lips.

“We only have a few more months,” Kat says. “I’m so scared.”

“I got you.” I brush her hair off her forehead, and she smiles. “You can do this. I know you’re freaked out about the delivery and all of the horror stories you read online and in books. But it’s going to be okay. You’re not the first person to have a child. Your experience won’t be the same as anyone else’s, so don’t compare yourself. For all you know, you could have Noah right away.”

She chuckles. “Not likely. Those special unicorns are rare.”

I shrug. “I read that some women go into labor and deliver almost immediately.”

“I won’t be that woman,” she spits back. “I don’t have that kind of luck. Watch, with my luck, I’ll be in labor for twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t focus on the negative. Just worry about what we’re going to do when Noah comes. Okay?”

Her lips twitch. “You’re like Austin. You always know the right thing to say. How do you do that?”

“I don’t know.” I roll my shoulders. “I just do.”

Kat slides her hands up my chest, tugging at my shirt. She presses her lips to mine, and the quick kiss before the technician pop

s her head into the room makes my head spin. I doubt I’ll ever lose this feeling when it comes to her. From the moment I met her, I knew she was the one. She was special. And now, she’s mine.

When I wake up, Kat’s side of the mattress is cold. Panicked, I roll out of bed and rush into the living room. The apartment is silent, the flat screen turned off. Where the hell did she go? She never wanders off without telling me.

I head back down the hall, toward our bedroom, when I spot her blonde head in Noah’s room. She’s sitting in the wooden rocking chair by the window. The sun streams in through the curtains, making her skin look like it’s glowing. Letting out a sigh of relief, I clutch the doorframe and watch her. She’s so beautiful, her pale skin free of makeup, her blonde hair so long now it covers her large breasts. Every part of her is growing along with my son.

Kat’s head is down, her hand on her stomach as she whispers to Noah under her breath. If she knows I’m here, she doesn’t let on. She continues to stroke her stomach, her soft voice the only sound in the apartment. After a while, she starts to sing a song I recognize. It’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the song from The Wizard of Oz. Kat said her mom would sing it to her when she was a kid. They watched the movie together a lot, and even more so after her mother became bedridden.

After she finishes singing, she looks up at me. “Noah likes when I sing to him.”

I step into the room, closing the distance between us, and drop to my knees in front of her. She makes room for me between her thighs, and I lean forward to push her shirt up to kiss her belly. Kat coos when I kiss her soft skin.

“Hey, little man,” I whisper against her stomach. “You ready to come out?”

Kat laughs. “Not yet. But I can tell he’s going to be aggressive like his daddy.”

I peek up at her and smile. “He’ll make a good hockey player.”

“How could he not be? Hockey is in his DNA.”