October 28th, 2016
While Levi finished building the second crib, I sat in the cozy, cushioned cream rocking chair with my feet—more like swollen sausages—resting on the matching ottoman.
He’d been hard at work all day, and all I could do was sit back and watch.
I hated it.
“This would be a lot easier if I could actually help get the nursery ready.”
Levi glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “Bed rest, baby. Doctor’s orders.”
“God.” I sighed, a deep cavernous breath out of my lungs. “I’m so fucking tired of being on bed rest.”
“It’s not too much longer,” he said, and I wanted to smack him.
It was irrational, sure. But I was a hormonal as hell woman who was eight months pregnant with twins. Surely, that gave me grounds to be insane and unreasonable sometimes.
Unfortunately, he was on the opposite end of the room, and per doctor’s orders, I was supposed to keep my ass seated and my feet up.
Not too much longer? Per Dr. Morrow, if I was a good patient and kept myself on bed rest and the babies continued to grow and develop like they should, I might be able to reach the thirty-eight-week mark before I delivered.
That was nearly a month away.
You’d think bed rest would be this glorious thing where you just got to sit around and be lazy and let everyone else wait on you hand and foot, but the glitz and glam of the slothful situation lost its shine about seven days in.
It was at that point that I quickly realized I had been served a house-arrest—wait, no a bed-arrest sentence.
A girl could only watch so many episodes of The Office, play so many games of Words with Friends, and surf the internet for so many hours in the day. Day after fucking day.
I was bored.
And slowly developing a chronic condition of cabin fever.
I wanted to go for a walk on the beach.
I wanted to go shopping for baby clothes.
I wanted to nest and help get the nursery ready.
I wanted to do every-fucking-thing but sit on my ever-growing ass and watch the world move around me.
Levi put the last screw into the crib and slid it over beside the other one.
All white wood and smooth edges, together, they looked amazing.
“What do you think?” he asked, and I smiled like a mother who couldn’t wait to meet her babies.
“Perfect.”
“And what about the armoire?” he questioned and nodded toward the wall by the door.
“Also perfect.”
His smile was so full of pride it nearly made my heart burst.
God, this man, he was my rock.
While I’d been on bed rest and completely unable to help with anything, he’d been working his ass off to get our house, especially the nursery, together before the babies were born.
I’d tried to hire people, but Levi had outright refused. “This is my house, dammit,” he’d said. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay some assholes to come in here and do work I’m more than capable of doing.”
Obviously, I hadn’t planned on hiring assholes, just, you know, regular guys, but it didn’t matter.
Levi was a determined, stubborn, persistent, prideful kind of man, and when he set his mind to something, that was pretty much the end of it.
Over the past few weeks, I’d watched him paint nearly every room in our house. Refinish the hardwood floors in the living room. And build and assemble every piece of furniture in this room.
And that was just the shit I could remember off the top of my head.
“You did good, baby,” I said and smiled at him from my lazy spot on the rocking chair.
“I did, didn’t I?” he questioned and shot a cocky wink in my direction.
I just laughed, and he proceeded to move on to the next task, hanging the paintings I’d had Mariah purchase from a little boutique baby shop in LA. The instant I’d spotted these adorable little framed paintings of baby animals while browsing through Petit Tresor’s online inventory, I had to have them.
Bunnies and lambs and fawns, they were so sweet and so freaking perfect for the soft, cream tones I’d picked out.
“You want all of these paintings on this wall?” Levi asked and I nodded.
The instant he hung up the first one, a picture of two baby bunnies with their noses pressed together, I squealed from the cuteness.
“Oh my God, they are so perfect I might cry!”
Before I could stop myself, tears ran down my cheeks in a rush of happy, hormonal, pregnant as fuck emotions.
Good Lord, I can literally cry at anything these days.
“You okay over there?” he asked once his blue gaze met mine.
“Yeah…I’m just…so happy…” I sniffed and swiped at my tears.
He set down his hammer and nails and walked over to me with a soft smile etched across his full lips. Kneeling down beside me, Levi reached up and brushed a few rogue tears away from my cheeks. “You’re so beautiful, Ivy.”
A raspy laugh jumped straight out of my lungs. “I’m a mess,” I said through the thick emotion sitting inside my throat. “I cry at everything. Even baby bunny pictures. It’s pathetic.”
He grinned. “You’re pregnant. Beautiful as fuck and pregnant.”
“More like pregnant as fuck.”
“That too.”
“It’s all your fault,” I said, and he raised his brow.
“All my fault?”
“Yep,” I said and patted the top of my rounded belly with both hands. “You are the one who knocked me up.”
He reached up and placed his hand over both of mine. “I’m so fucking glad I did.”
I snorted and playfully shoved at his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who has to grow two humans inside of you.”
Levi smirked and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “You’re doing such a good job, baby,” he whispered against my lips. “I know it’s hard. I know you’re tired and frustrated and ready to not be on bed rest anymore, but just know, these babies are so lucky. They literally have the best mom in the entire world.”
“You really think that?”
“I know that.”
“Are you scared?” I asked. “Like, are you getting nervous about anything?”
He shook his head. “I’m not scared, just worried,” he said and kissed the top of my nose. “I just want everything to go okay. I want you to be okay. I want the babies to be okay. I guess, if I’m scared about anything, it’s the delivery.”
“I’m a little scared too,” I whispered. “About the delivery. About being a good mom. About having two newborns at the same time.”
“You’re the strongest woman I know with the biggest fucking heart. You’ve got this, Ivy,” he said. “That, I’m certain of.”
He rubbed his hand across my belly, and then leaned down to place his ear against the rounded edge of my stomach. His eyes stared up at me and shone with so much adoration it urged that familiar thickness into my throat.
“How are our babies today?” he asked and I shrugged.
“Just doing their normal hiccup song and jumping on my bladder dance.”
“So, good?”
I nodded. “Definitely good.”
“We need to name them,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“But it’s pretty hard to name them when you refuse to let us find out what we’re having.”
“Oh God, not this again.” I sighed and laughed and shoved at his shoulder. He lifted his head off my belly and just smirked down at me, before hopping to his feet and going back to the other side of the room to finish hanging the paintings.
“Well, you know I’m not wrong here,” he said over his shoulder. “It’d be easier to figure out names if we knew what we’re having.”
“We just need to have some boys’ and girls’ names ready. And then, once they’re born, I think we’ll instantly know what to name them.”
We’d been discussing baby names over the past few months.
It was a constant back-and-forth.
I’d love a name, but Levi hated it.
He’d think he’d found the perfect name, and I’d shoot him down because it was the same name of someone I knew—and didn’t like—in high school or an ex-boyfriend or some other random reason that generally made him want to pull his hair out.
“Wyatt and Jack?”
“Nope.”
“Hannah and Annie?”
Camilla had picked out the names of her kids when she was six years old, but they’d always been under lock and key like a state secret. Every time I tried to think of a name, I got a little sad I’d never managed to weasel the secret out of her.
But I guess that had been the whole point. She hadn’t wanted me stealing them anyway.
“No.”
“Ben and James?”
“It makes me think of Ben and Jerry.”
“The ice cream?”
“Yep. And now, after you finish up in here, we need to go get some ice cream.”
“You mean, I need to go get some ice cream.”
“I’d go with you, baby, but doctor’s orders, remember?” I teased him. “Plus, I’m not the one who brought up ice cream. You did.”
“Pretty sure I never once said ice cream.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
He laughed. “So, since you’re already thinking about ice cream, I guess this means we’re at a standstill with baby names?”
I shrugged. “It’s all your fault, buddy.”
Levi shook his head and held a nail to the wall. “Woman, I swear to God, you might be the death of me before this pregnancy is done.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” I disagreed on a giggle. “You love me.”
“That’s true.”
“And you want to get me ice cream.”
Levi laughed. “Can you at least let me finish hanging these?”
“Uh-huh.”
He smirked at me over his shoulder. “So kind of you.”
That was me, the kindest woman in the whole wide world.
Well, maybe not. But Levi Fox made one thing clear—even with all the tragedy we’d faced, I was still one of the luckiest.