Three years later …
IF THERE WAS one thing—above all things—about her marriage and John that Siena thought was most important to remember, it was that surprises were not welcomed. Especially if said surprise meant a huge change in their lives, or something that could cause a massive emotional upheaval.
For other people, a change could be a good thing. A little stress, and a bit nerve-wracking, sure. They would, however, roll with the punches and accept the change.
For John, though, a change that could and would impact his entire life often led him to overthinking, panicking, and more. It almost guaranteed a hypomanic episode would be on the horizon, and once that was controlled, a short bout of depression to battle.
Siena never blamed him for these things.
She never wished for anything different.
Oh, she loved John.
Every part of him was hers to love.
So as she sat on the edge of the tub in their master bathroom, and stared at the little strip of plastic in her hand … she couldn’t help but think of what this would mean, and what would come of it.
The pregnancy test flashed with the word pregnant.
Over and over.
It had been flashing that for thirty minutes now. Her heart was so full—happiness, trepidation, and joy. A love so fierce, she could hardly breathe. Already, she loved this baby. A child she didn’t know, and would not see or hold for months. A child whose gender was still unknown, and whose name was yet to be picked.
And yet …
God, she loved this baby.
Still, the hesitance she felt was also very real.
Long ago, she and John had decided that children would be a very carefully planned event for them. When both of them were ready, and when everything was handled, then they would move forward together on having children.
This had not been planned at all.
Certainly not carefully.
A bout of a terrible chest cold that left Siena with a nasty infection, and led into pneumonia that she couldn’t shake caused her to miss an appointment for her shot. She had been stuck in bed, and then in the hospital for two weeks when the pneumonia got really bad.
John had barely left her side, of course.
Once she was better, her doctor recommended she wait until her cycle started at least once—as she hadn’t had a period in years since starting the shot—before they started the birth control again. They had been advised to use condoms as a backup method.
Yeah, well …
Her cycle never started. She and John didn’t know what a fucking condom was considering they hadn’t used them since the start of their relationship years ago.
They both knew better.
She knew better.
This was bound to happen.
Siena had promptly vomited every bit of the eggs and bacon mess John had left for her in the oven before he left for his morning jog. She had been keeping a pregnancy test hidden in her purse … just in case.
A part of her already knew.
Siena tapped the test against her palm again.
Pregnant, it flashed.
She was still trying to figure out a way to tell John and not surprise him, so to speak. She knew it was going to be practically fucking impossible. There could be no cute reveal that she secretly recorded, and then posted for the world to see. There could be no baby shoes in a gift box for him to open and be surprised.
None of that could happen.
She had to take away that element of shock so that this did not feel as though something John was not ready for in the first place.
Easier said than done.
Children had been his one sore topic for years. Not because he didn’t want to be a father, but because she knew he worried that he was going to pass on the same genetics that had been given to him. Whatever it was in his DNA that left him with a disorder that clouded and colored his life, thoughts, and emotional processing a little bit differently than everyone else.
It didn’t matter.
Children had always been non-negotiable for her. And she knew without a doubt that John would be the best father.
There was nothing wrong with him. There had never been anything wrong with him. Just like their children—nothing would ever be wrong with them, either. Regardless, they would be perfectly them. Little babies made by people who loved each other, and would love them.
They would have kids.
It was simply when.
Siena figured that time was now.
• • •
“John?”
“Hmm?”
He leaned over the top of her, and kissed the top of her head. In the vanity, her smile grew the longer his kiss lingered against the top of her head.
John’s fingers tangled into the waves of her hair, and held firm. “Love you.”
Siena reached up and patted his cheek—three day scruff tickled her fingertips. “I love you.”
“What did you want, babe?”
“I was thinking …”
“Keep going.”
He straightened a bit, and she kept an eye on him in the vanity mirror. In sleep pants that hung low on his waist, and his chest bare, it was a little distracting.
Siena forced herself to pay attention to the topic at hand. “I was thinking about the bedroom across the hall.”
“The empty one.”
“We kept it empty for a reason.”
John’s fingertips drifted over her bare shoulder. “For the someday nursery, you said.”
“Yeah, for that.”
“What, did you want to turn it into a private office or something?”
She usually worked out of the house, and if she did work inside, she used his office. John never minded, or if he did, he never said anything about it.
“Or something,” she replied.
John met her gaze in the mirror, and amusement stared back. “Okay, what, then?”
“What do you think about pastel green?”
“For a color?”
“Like paint,” she said. “It’s neutral.”
“So is beige.”
“But beige doesn’t really fit for a nursery, John.”
Momentarily, she saw him stiffen. Just as quick, though, he relaxed.
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
“I would really like to start getting the nursery set up, John.”
“Would you?”
Siena shrugged, and all her worries drifted away the second John bent down to kiss the top of her head again.
“All right,” he murmured. “I think we can do that.”
“Because we’ll need one.”
John’s eyebrow arched a bit as he tipped his head up, and found her gaze in the mirror once more. “Will we?”
“What names do you like?”
His next swallow echoed.
The silence stretched on.
Siena waited John out.
“Luciano for a boy.”
“For your dad,” she said.
John nodded once. “And for my grandfather, yeah. Johnathan for a middle name.”
“What about for a girl?”
“I don’t know.”
Siena grinned. “You better figure it out, don’t you think? We’ll need to know.”
John sucked in a quiet breath, and his hands tightened on her shoulders. Not to a painful point, but a feeling that made her calm in an instant.
“That so?” he asked.
“I know this isn’t happening the way we talked about it, and—”
“Nothing is ever as I plan, Siena.”
“Are you happy?”
“And terrified,” he admitted. “But so happy.”
So happy.
That was all she needed to know. The rest, they could deal with. Just like everything else in their life.
They faced it together.
Head-on.
Unafraid.
Unashamed.
Unbroken.
• • •
Four months later …
“Your turn,” Siena whispered to John.
He laughed, but she heard the stress in the sound. He smiled for their gathered, waiting family, but she saw the tension in his shoulders.
The further along in her pregnancy she became, the more changes she saw in John. Never toward her, but just him in general. She recognized his lack of sleeping, and his up and down moods. She saw his methodical cleaning, planning, and organizing even when he tried to hide it.
She wished he wouldn’t hide it.
It was so much harder to settle him back when he hid it.
Leonard would be at their house when they got back—waiting for John, as the man always did. Twice a week, and sometimes more if John felt it was needed, his therapist came for an in-home session.
They never opened up discussion about John’s mental health to anyone who asked. They didn’t talk about his meds, his therapy, or anything.
Their choice.
John’s choice.
Leonard, however, would be there tonight because Siena had made a call and asked for him to come, not John. Sometimes, she needed to do that. Sometimes, she had to be the voice when John was not letting his come through loud enough.
John took the one cupcake Siena offered to him—the only one left. Everyone else around them already had one, and now they were just waiting on him, too.
“My turn,” John echoed.
Siena nodded, and smiled. “I love you, John.”
“I know you do.”
She always would.
“Everybody at the same time,” Siena said, directing her comment at the room, yet never looking away from John. “Okay?”
“You got it, babe.”
“Now.”
Everybody bit into their cupcake, and blue frosting colored up the middle of the sweet cake. John stared at the sweet in his hand for a long while, and Siena reached over to wipe a bit of blue frosting from his bottom lip while cheers lit up the room.
“It’s a boy!”
“A boy!”
John barely blinked as his father crossed the room to clap his son on the shoulders, and congratulate them. Jordyn followed behind Lucian, and did the same. Siena and John took a moment to take the congratulations, and the ones that followed from everyone else.
But soon, the room settled, their family faded as John looked at Siena, and it was just them once more. No one else.
He had wanted this gender reveal.
For his family.
To allow them in.
Sometimes, he still found it hard to let them in.
The pregnancy was one thing he continued to try to open up for them, but especially for his mother and father.
“Luciano, then,” John said.
Siena smile wider. “Luciano Johnathan Marcello. And he will be perfect, John.”
So perfect.
Just like his father.
• • •
Luciano Johnathan made his way into the world loudly. He made damn sure his mother felt every pain, and he didn’t let her rest in the labor for even a single second.
Siena didn’t mind.
Once that hazy-eyed, dark-haired baby that looked so much like his father was placed in her arms, the rest was forgotten. Nothing mattered but little Luciano.
And then his father got a hold of him, Luciano’s eyes opened wide and found John’s. Siena knew in that moment, she was probably never going to get him back.
Not entirely.
“Oh, my God,” John murmured. “Look at this boy, Siena.”
She had.
And in those few seconds, she memorized him.
“He looks just like you,” she said.
He chuckled. “And you.”
But not nearly as much as Luciano took after his father. Siena didn’t mind.
John’s finger traced the line of the baby’s nose. Soft, gentle, and sweet.
“Everybody’s waiting to meet you, Lucky,” John said.
Everybody could wait, too.
The baby blinked, and his tiny little fingers instinctively curled around his father’s thumb.
John smiled. “Yeah, I’m your daddy, bambino.”
At the same time he spoke to their son, he reached for her. His palm cupped her cheek, and his thumb stoked her skin.
Even while falling in love with his child, he never forgot about her.
He still loved her.
Their forever was now.
And it was beautiful.