“What’s her name?” Grady asks, staring down at his newborn sister in my arms.
“We haven’t named her yet,” I tell him, kissing the side of his head, trying like hell not to cry. “We wanted you guys to help us. What should we name her?”
Aly’s crying. She hasn’t stopped for the last nine months. Believe me. She cried the day she found out she was pregnant, the day we told the boys, the day I asked her to marry me, and the day we exchanged vows, forever. Oh, and she cried the day we moved in to my house and rented hers out because well, she’s Aly and she cries.
I’ll tell you what though, I will never go back on the promises I’ve made her. And now, the day she brings our little girl into the world, she cries again.
I nudge Cash, who’s on the other side of me, looking at his sister. “You happy, dude?”
He smiles and nods. “Can we name her Judith?”
Ah, yes, the kid in The Walking Dead. I want to laugh, but the glare Aly gives me shuts me up. “Maybe something a little more modern?” I suggest, winking at my wife.
Cash frowns, and then Grady knocks me in the head in his rush to stand up. “What about Renly?”
Cash perks up. “Yeah, Renly!”
Can you tell what show we moved onto? Game of Thrones. But Renly isn’t bad. I raise an eyebrow and look at Aly. She winks. Her approval. “Renly it is.”
As I rock our baby girl, I stare down at her. Her tiny features remind me of Aly, but I can see myself in there as well. She’s the perfect mix of the two of us blended together.
She has my black hair and dark eyes, but Aly’s chin and cheeks.
I have a daughter. Crazy thought, huh? I’m a dad. Not only am I going to have to get a gun, but I know she changes everything.
It feels almost anomalous to think I gave life to another human being. I kind of fell into the lifestyle of being a dad to Cash and Grady, and though I never looked back and have loved being around them from day one, I always knew they weren’t mine. Someone else will always be their father. It certainly doesn’t stop the love I have for them in any way.
But this little girl, she’s a part of me. I could never let another man raise her, but I can also understand Mike’s decision to raise me, even though I wasn’t technically his son. How can you walk away from something so innocent and precious?
Renly looks up at me and I know, just like her mother, I can never deny her anything. Gently rocking her, I hum softly and think to myself she probably has no idea what she’s looking at. Either that or she’s thinking, I chose this dude as my dad?
The thought makes me chuckle.
There’s a shift next to me, and I notice both boys have gotten into bed with Aly, snuggling against her. Her cheeks are flushed from the exertion she put forth today. She’s still fucking beautiful, and she had just given me the best gift anyone could have possibly given me.
She made me a dad.
A tiny hand frees from the blanket, and Renly’s delicate fingers curl around my pinky. I smile down at her, so pure and innocent.
My daughter.
For months, I prepared myself for the idea of having a daughter, and my gut instinct told me Aly was carrying a girl even though the ultrasounds revealed nothing. I had no idea how to act around a girl. With Cash and Grady, it’s easy. I relate to them. With Renly, will I know what to do? And what happens when she gets older? And dating?
Fuck, talk about fears. I hope she never meets a delinquent like I was growing up. If so, I’m moving the entire family away from him.
I place a soft kiss on her forehead, rocking her gently when Glen comes in with Helena to meet their granddaughter. “Hey,” he says softly, peering down at her. “She’s beautiful.”
“She is.” I glance up at him. “Wanna hold her?”
He smiles, and nods and I hand her over to her grandpa. “She looks like you, trouble.”
I laugh as Helena rests her head on Glen’s shoulder, tears streaming down her cheeks as she examines Renly, touching her tiny hands and face. “She’s so precious,” Helena gushes, wiping her tears away.
I make my way over to Aly and kiss her forehead. She reaches up touches my cheek. “I love you,” I whisper.
She cries harder, unable to say anything. Every story has an ending, but in life, every story is a new beginning. She’s our new beginning.
IT’S ABOUT AN hour after Aly gives birth to Renly that I take the boys to the gift shop, so she can get some rest.
“Who are you buying the flower for?” Grady asks Cash when he places a rose on the counter at the gift shop. “Is it for Arrow?”
“No!” Cash shouts, our endless teasing about the girl he “doesn’t like” getting the better of him.
I have to physically separate them at the counter from knocking over the rack of cards next to them. “Pull yourselves together,” I tell them, grabbing them by the backs of their shirts, laughing. It’s not like they’re being bad, their just boys.
We pay for our gifts and are heading toward the elevators when Cash looks up at me. “How’d you put the baby in my mom?”
Shit. You know, I knew this was coming eventually. They’d kind of danced around the subject of how babies were made lately, but they hadn’t come out and asked yet. I guess seeing their baby sister made it real and their curiosity got the better of them.
“I think you’re too young to know that.”
Cash never falls for that line. Ever. “I think I need to know.”
He’s not going to give up, so I ask, “How do you think she got in there?”
“You rub your penis on the girl and then she pees on a stick, and she’s pregnant,” he tells me and the older gentleman in the elevator with us.
The man looks at me, then Cash, and back to me. Aly’s going to kill me. “You’re not completely wrong.” I hit the button for the maternity floor. “But there’s more to it than that.”
“If water hits my penis in the shower it tickles,” Grady announces, conversationally to the entire elevator. There are now three other people on it with us and I’m pretty sure I might go to hell for what I say next, but when have you ever known me to not be brutally honest with kids?
“Wait until you’re a teenager. Showers are a lot more fun.”
“Why?” Cash asks, smelling the rose in his hands that’s not for Arrow.
“They just are.” I lean my head back against the elevator door, feeling the burn of judgmental eyes scowling at me. “What do you want me to do, lie to them?” I ask, waiting for someone to tell me how to parent boys.
Nobody says a goddamn thing.
Back in the room, everything is back to normal. The boys give their gifts to their mom and then leave to have dinner with Henry and Tori. That’s when I’m in the bed with Aly, who’s feeding Renly.
Wrapping my arm around her, I pull her close. The moment’s intimate and precious, watching her give nourishment to our daughter.
It’s then, while she’s talking about wanting to take her home now and I’m trying to convince her maybe staying the night is better, that a nurse walks in. She does her thing, checking Aly’s vitals and then baby.
And then she starts to tell a story of a man in the elevator giving his sons a lesson in baby making. Sound familiar?
Uh-huh.
Aly’s face grows more and more entertained with each word the nurse that needs to keep her fucking mouth shut says. I’m glaring. Aly’s laughing, and by the time the nurse is finished, she finally realizes it’s me.
“Oh, uh. . . you’re that dad. . . .”
What an idiot.
Aly smiles at me when the nurse leaves. “Are you going to set them straight when they’re older?”
I shrug and take Renly from her. “You have to admit, Cash was kinda right.”
She laughs, resting her head against my shoulder. “You’re the best dad.” Her lips press to my shoulder, blinking slowly. “I can’t believe we have a daughter now.”
I let out a shaky breath, but laugh and press my lips to her temple. “She’s beautiful. Thank you.”
“Are you scared?”
“Me? Fuck, yeah, I’m scared. I’m scared of a lot of things.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“Penis fish.”
“Ridge. . . .”
“Okay, sorry. I had to say it.” When has she ever known me to be serious at first? Truth is, I’m terrified. So I tell her. “I’m scared. I’m scared of not being enough for you.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because after what you’ve been through, you’re strong and independent. You don’t need a man in your life to be okay. That makes me have to be so much more to keep you.” The corners of my mouth twitch into a half smile. “That scares me.”
“You’re enough. You want to know why?”
“A dad isn’t defined as a man who makes the child. He’s the man who raises and loves the child with all his heart, even when it’s hard. Blood doesn’t always make a man a dad.” Like how she says that line clearer than any other? Me too. But she continues with, “Being a dad comes from being present and giving your heart.”
I gave my heart. I gave it all to her, the boys, and now Renly. “I think I fell in love with you, again.”
I once said I had regrets. No, actually, I said I they were mistakes, didn’t I?
The thing I realized is that for things to go right, sometimes they have to go wrong before you understand the difference. I know the difference.