Heather
“Maybe we should go on another walk,” I suggested, scrolling through page after page of Internet search results on how to induce labor.
Killian groaned. “My feet hurt.”
“Oh, your feet hurt?” I said, punching him on the shoulder. “Don’t talk to me about your feet hurting until your stomach has been replaced by a ginormous beach ball for nine months.”
“Okay,” he said, holding up a finger, one of his eyebrows raised. “Let’s not exaggerate. Your stomach has not been that big the entire time. You only got huge in the last twelve weeks.”
“Excuse me?”
He winced. “I didn’t mean huge. I just meant… larger than normal.”
“Yeah, that isn’t any better.” I laughed. “But seriously, when is he going to come out? He’s already a week overdue.”
“It’s good to be fashionably late. Now we know he is going to be really cool,” Killian said.
“I don’t care if he’s cool,” I said, rubbing my stomach. “I care that he gets out of me.”
“Let me see that list.” He grabbed my phone out of my hand and scrolled through the list, raising a finger and mumbling for each idea we’d tried. “Walking… spicy food… pineapple…”
Suddenly he stopped and handed the phone back to me.
“I believe there is one item on the list we have yet to try,” he said. “Number seven.”
“Sex? We should have sex to start labor? Isn’t sex what got me in this position in the first place?” I shook my head and locked the phone screen, setting it on the coffee table. “No way. There is no way I feel like having sex right now. I’m a planet, I’ve had heartburn for two weeks straight, and my lower back is killing me.”
He laughed. “Do you want the baby out of you or what?”
“Yes, obviously, but—”
He slid off the couch and got on his knees, positioning himself between my thighs. “Then who are we to argue with science?”
“Killian,” I said, my voice a warning. “I don’t—”
His finger was inside of me before I could finish speaking, and by that point, I couldn’t remember what I’d been saying. Being as massively pregnant as I was, dresses were all that fit anymore, so he had no trouble slipping my panties to the side and sliding one finger right in, and once I adjusted to that, adding a second and a third.
I slid to the edge of the couch, my legs spread wide, my head thrown back into the cushions, eyes closed. I hadn’t been in the mood for sex for weeks, and now I couldn’t imagine why. He slipped out of me, and placed his palms on the insides of both of my legs, pushing them even wider. He kissed up each of my thighs, alternating between licking and pecking the tender skin there.
Then his tongue swiped up my opening and flicked the bundle of nerves that sat just inside, and I moaned. The sound was involuntary, like I was a sock puppet and he was the puppet master. He sucked on it, and I ground my hips into his face, begging him for more. And he obliged.
His tongue probed in and out of me as his lips sucked me in, and I could feel my legs begin to quiver. Every muscle in my body was contracting and releasing to the rhythm of his penetration, and I felt like my body would shred apart in the best possible way. Then, while sucking and flicking my most sensitive spot, he suddenly reinserted all three of his fingers at once and began pumping away at me.
I writhed on the couch and wrapped my legs around his neck until the ball of tension in my abdomen could no longer be contained, and it burst. Chemicals flooded my body, making me limp and useless as wave after wave of pleasure rolled over me. I ran my fingers through Killian’s hair, and held his face to me as the last jolts of euphoria made me twitch and buck. Finally, I finished, and he resurfaced, his face red and blotchy, but a giant grin spread across it.
“Do you feel any different?” he asked.
I moaned. “Oh, yes. So much better.”
“Did your water break yet?” He glanced at the floor and the area around me on the couch, thinking it would always make a noticeable puddle the way it did in movies and television.
“Nope.” I shook my head. “Not yet.”
He stood up and reached for my hands. I placed my palms in his and let him pull me to my feet. “Then I suppose we’ll just have to keep trying,” he said.
He led me to the bedroom and positioned me at the end of our bed, my hands gripping the wooden frame. His hands started at my knees, grabbing the hem of my dress and slowly sliding it up my thighs. Then, in one swift move, my panties were around my ankles. I stepped out of them and used a toe to kick them into the corner.
Killian pushed the fabric of my dress further up my body and kissed along my spine, bending me forward as he did so. Then, with my head resting on the edge of the mattress, he pushed himself into me from behind. My legs were still trembling slightly from coming the first time, and as soon as he was inside of me, it picked back up again. I was glad I had the bed frame to hold on to.
He pushed in slowly and drew himself out even slower, making sure I felt every inch of him. Just as the movement became relaxing, a gentle ebb and flow, he pulled out and then slammed in all at once.
“Oh,” I cried out into the comforter, my hands clinging to the wooden frame for stability as he pounded into me. I felt as though I were shaking apart, but Killian was holding me together, his hands clawing at my hips and lower back.
I felt his hand slip around my waist and slide down the baby bump until he was rubbing me from the front and working me from the back. I buried my face in the comforter and screamed, my body clenching and unclenching around him. Simultaneously, he grunted and held his body against mine for an added second, with each thrust, until I could feel him jerk inside of me and then slowly slip out. Immediately, we both collapsed over the bed frame, our chests heaving.
“What about now?” he asked, a goofy smile on his face. “Feel any different?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe we should keep trying?” I asked, my eyes wide as I bit my lower lip.
Killian laughed. “Uhh… sure, but I may need a little time to recuperate from that one. It was kind of earth-shattering.”
Just as he spoke, I felt a popping sensation in my pelvis, and then warm water gushed down my leg and dripped onto the floor.
“There may not be time for that,” I said, standing up, my hand resting protectively on my stomach. “My water just broke.”
###
Killian
When the contractions were a consistent five minutes apart, I grabbed the car keys and the hospital bag by the front door. Even though we’d had it packed for weeks and had checked and double-checked the contents, I began to feel nervous.
“Am I forgetting anything?” I asked, shouting into the apartment so Heather could hear me.
She came waddling around the corner. “Just the pregnant lady,” she said.
A smile plastered across her face, she didn’t seem anxious at all.
“I assumed you’d be a wreck right now,” I admitted. “Are you sure you’re okay? Not having an internal meltdown you aren’t telling me about?”
She laughed. “I’d be having a meltdown if this baby wasn’t on the way. Now that he is almost here, I’m thrilled. I can’t wait to wear jeans without an elastic waistband.”
Then, suddenly, she grabbed her stomach with one hand and placed the other on my shoulder for support, bending forward at the waist. She groaned. I stood there, rubbing her shoulder while the contraction passed, feeling like the most useless person on the planet.
Finally, she took a few deep breaths and stood up, shaking her head from side to side.
“We should definitely get going.”
Driving to the hospital, I felt as though we had a giant neon sign hung above our car announcing that we were transporting a lady with a baby. People should have just known and moved out of our path.
“Get out of the way,” I shouted at the SUV in front of me, fists banging on the steering wheel. It was the fifth car I’d screamed at in as many blocks. “The light is green.”
“Killian?” Heather said, breathing through another contraction. “If you don’t stop yelling at other cars, I’m going to get out and walk.”
I started to laugh, but then I caught sight of her face—eyebrows raised, mouth in a tight, thin line—and knew she was serious. I buttoned my lips and drove the rest of the way in silence. Though I’d gone to the free birthing class at the hospital with her and had at least skimmed the Chapters she marked for me in her baby books, I assumed the labor process would be over pretty quickly. However, I lost all hopes of that after the twelfth hour at the hospital.
“When is this baby going to get here?” I groaned into my lukewarm mug of hospital cafeteria coffee.
Dad laughed and put a hand on my shoulder. “When it gets here,” he said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“But it’s the truth. I sat around the hospital for almost twenty hours the day you were born and sixteen for Niall. Babies come at their own speed.”
Mentioning Niall had become easier between us. Now that Caleb was dead and Niall’s son was on the way, all of the open wounds had been sealed shut, for the most part. All we were left with now were scars.
“What if I mess his kid up?” I asked, finally saying aloud what I’d been thinking for months. “We both know Niall would have been a much better dad than I will be. What if I screw his kid up?”
“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” Dad said. “I messed up with you and Niall too many times to count, and you both came out alright. Plus, Niall looked up to you his entire life. Remember when he only wanted to wear your clothes even though they were three sizes too big?”
I laughed. “Yeah, we had to roll up the hems of the jeans four times before he wasn’t tripping over them.”
“Well, you weren’t exactly the best role model in those days,” he continued, hands raised in apology when he saw the glare I leveled at him. “It’s the truth. But still, he came out fine. I never had a lick of trouble with him the way I did with you. Kids are their own people and, as much as we try, we can’t always get them to do what we want. So, I wouldn’t worry too much.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “At least, I think. That pep talk was also kind of insulting, so I’m not really sure how to respond.”
He slapped my shoulder and smiled, making me spill a splash of coffee on the white plastic table. “You know it’s all true though. You were wild and reckless. But luckily, you grew out of it. That Heather did a world of good for you.”
I took a drink, trying to hide the goofy grin I could feel growing across my face. Even after seven months, thinking about her still had the power to turn my insides to jello. “Yeah, she did.”
When I got back to the hospital room, Heather had her phone in her hand, her fingers typing furiously. She looked up as I came in.
“There you are,” she said, relief clear in her voice. “I was just about to message you. The nurse came in and said it is just about time to start pushing.”
Even though we’d been at the hospital for half the day, and I had an infant car seat strapped into the back seat of my car, I hadn’t actually come to grips with the idea that we’d be walking out of the hospital with an infant. We’d moved into a bigger apartment—deciding neither of us was quite ready to resume life on the compound anytime soon—and decorated the small office space to be a mini-nursery, just big enough for a crib, a rocking chair, and a changing table, but still, the reality hadn’t set in. Was I ready to help raise a kid?
In many ways, I still felt like a kid myself. Animal crackers were my favorite snack, and I always ate the heads first, claiming it was the merciful thing to do. Didn’t that kind of behavior disqualify me from raising a child? Wasn’t there a test somewhere I needed to take before they’d let me leave the building with an infant? I could feel my heart racing in my chest, my palms growing sweaty.
“Killian,” Heather said, beckoning me towards her. Even in a beige and brown polka dot hospital gown, under fluorescent lights, and after twelve hours of contractions and pain, she looked beautiful. Her flaming red hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup, so I could more clearly make out the freckles that splattered across her nose and cheeks.
I walked towards her and took her hand in mine, thinking she needed comfort. However, she pulled on my arm until my face was less than an inch from hers.
“Stop freaking out. You’re going to be great,” she said, then kissed me. Her lips were smooth and plump, sucking on my upper lip, and when her tongue pushed into my mouth, I literally felt my knees buckle. She pulled away, and I kept my eyes closed for an extra second, hoping she’d come back.
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog that had settled over my brain. “You sure know how to make a guy forget his worries,” I said, reaching out to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear. “But okay. I’m fine. This isn’t about me, anyway. I’m here to support you. Not the other way around.”
She laughed. “Good. Because now that you are calm, I feel like I can be honest. I’m freaking out.”
Heather had nothing to be nervous about. Within the hour, the beautiful baby boy we’d seen in ultrasounds and dreamt about for nine months had arrived. He was born with a full head of dark black hair, and Heather wanted to name him Niall.
If it could be possible, watching Heather be a mom made me love her more. Seeing the way she loved and cherished and cared for the little baby who, more and more every day, was looking like the spitting image of his father, made me feel so incredibly grateful for her. She still wasn’t talking to her own parent—though her father had sent a few letters of apology over the course of the last year—but that didn’t stop her from being an amazing one.
I knew I was beyond lucky to have found a woman who would not only love my nephew and me but would always treasure my brother as well. She let me talk about Niall often, wanting to learn more about him so she could tell her son about his father. All of those things made the decision to buy her an engagement ring the easiest decision I’d ever made.
###
Heather
Somehow, Niall was three months old. It didn’t seem possible that he’d only been in my life for twelve short weeks, as I could no longer picture my life without him, but there it was. And as much as I loved him and wanted to soak up every single precious moment, the small two-bedroom apartment was making me stir crazy.
“Go shopping or get a manicure or something else that women in movies like to do to unwind,” Killian said one morning as he bounced from foot to foot, Niall sleeping in his arms. “I have everything under control here, and you need a break.”
“I’m fine,” I said, though the more I thought about it, the more tempting the idea was. Even just leaving the apartment by myself, sitting in a coffee shop without a baby or any responsibility for an hour, sounded fun. “I can relax here at the house.”
“Liar.” Killian smiled, but then his face turned serious. “If you stay here you will definitely try to take over the moment you think I’m burping him too hard or his milk might be one degree too warm. You can’t relax if you think things aren’t going perfectly, and I’m not perfect. So, I demand you leave.”
“You demand it?” I asked, eyes wide. “I’m no longer welcome in my own home?”
“Precisely,” he said, stomping one of his feet for added emphasis and then wincing when Niall shifted in his arms, stirred from his sleep.
In the end, the opportunity to rejoin society and be a childless adult for an hour was too much of a temptation to pass up. I slipped out of the pajamas I’d been wearing for almost a week straight and into a pair of my maternity jeans—because my normal jeans still didn’t fit right yet—brushed my hair, and grabbed the first book I found on the shelf.
Then, I went to the coffee shop two blocks from our apartment. Admittedly, it wasn’t a huge first step towards cutting the emotional chord between Niall and myself, but it was as much of a step as I was willing to take. I wanted to be able to get back to the apartment in under five minutes in case anything went wrong.
I ordered a vanilla latte and only blushed a little bit when the high school aged barista wrote his number on the side of my cup. I wondered what he’d think if he knew I had a three-month-old child at home.
I sat at a table in the corner, pulled out my book, which turned out to be All Quiet on the Western Front—not my first choice, but definitely readable—and read. Surprisingly, I found myself engrossed in the book, and when I wasn’t engrossed in the book, I liked to watch people come into the shop and order coffee or scones.
Couples floated in holding hands, businessmen strolled in checking their wristwatches as they stood in line and, because I could recognize my own species, I saw more than a few women come in with bags under their eyes and spit up running down the back of their shirts.
However, despite the distractions, in some feat of mommy instinct, my body knew the moment I’d been away from the baby for an hour. I stopped reading in the middle of a sentence, checked the time on my phone, and immediately packed up and drove home.
When I made it home, I tried to unlock the door, but it wouldn’t open. I knocked on the door. “Killian, the bolt is locked,” I said through the wood.
I heard a rustling on the other side, but no response.
“Killian?” I hated how panicked I sounded. After Niall’s murder, being kidnapped by my family, and the shootout, my brain had begun to default to the worst possible conclusion anytime anything slightly unusual occurred.
So, while a normal person would stand on the other side of a bolted door and assume the person inside was simply busy and taking slightly longer than normal to unlock the door, I imagined Killian tied up in ropes on the floor and Niall kidnapped by a stranger.
I knocked again, harder this time, though I was trying to talk myself down off the ledge, convince myself everything was fine. The bolt slid over slowly, and then the door opened. It was Killian, but I almost didn’t recognize him.
He was wearing a suit. He hadn’t even worn a full suit to his brother’s funeral, but there he stood in front of me in a full suit, vest and everything. I looked him up and down several times, trying to make my brain make sense of the image.
“What are you wearing?”
He ignored me, pivoted like a waiter at a fancy restaurant, and thrust his elbow out for me to grab. “M’lady.”
“What is going on?” I asked.
He didn’t show any sign that he’d heard me but instead shook his elbow, insisting I take it. So, I did.
As soon as I looped my arm through his, he pushed the door open, and I got my first look at the entire apartment. Christmas lights hung from the ceiling and around the doorways, tea lights sat on every surface, and vases of white peonies filled every empty space.
Then, just as the reality of the moment began to settle in and I thought I’d cry, I spotted Niall sitting in his bouncy seat in the middle of the room wearing a tiny onesie that had a picture of a tux printed on the front of it. I lost it.
Ugly crying commenced, and Killian seemed alarmed at first, probably assuming I was in the middle of a mental breakdown when, in reality, I was so unbelievably happy. Not only because Killian hadn’t been tied up, and Niall hadn’t been kidnapped, but because I loved this man with all my heart, and I knew he was going to ask me to marry him.
“Do you like it?” Killian asked, his hand wrapped around my waist, holding me up while I sobbed into my hands.
I nodded, trying to catch my breath as sobs gathered in my chest. “I love it.”
He laughed. “Phew, good. For a second there I thought I may have gone overboard.”
I shook my head. “It’s perfect. Look at Niall.”
Focusing on his tiny T-shirt tux, his wavy black hair, and the lone dimple that popped up whenever he smiled, sent me into another fit of crying.
“I thought you’d like that,” Killian said. Then, he disentangled himself from me and moved to stand next to Niall. “I assume you have a pretty good guess as to what this is all about.”
I nodded, wiping furiously at my eyes so my tears wouldn’t cloud my view of what was sure to be one of the most romantic moments of my life.
“Then I’ll keep it short,” he said, lowering himself down onto one knee. “Heather Rourke, you are the greatest thing to ever happen to me. You challenge me to be a better man, but you still love me even when I fail. Your entrance into my life changed my projection. Before you, I was no one. I was no one, and I was headed nowhere fast. You gave me purpose. You gave me joy. And you gave me Niall.”
He paused to reach over and stroke Niall’s chubby cheek, making him giggle. “You both are my reason for living, and without you, I don’t have any idea who or what or where I would be. Please, do me the extraordinarily undeserved honor of being my wife, and living out the rest of our days together.”
I was nodding before he had even finished speaking, and as the last word came out of his mouth, a resounding, “yes,” tumbled out of mine.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said, repeating it over and over as I threw my arms around his neck.
“Oh, shit,” he said, pulling away from the hug.
“What?” I asked, looking around, trying to see if we’d knocked over a candle in all of the excitement.
“I forgot to pull out the ring. I left it in my pocket. You said yes to a guy without a ring.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t have said yes because of the ring.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a black box. When he popped it open, my mouth fell open.
“I did good, right?” he said, overly confident.
Normally I would have pretended not to like it as much as I did just to keep him from getting cocky, but with the huge, sparkly rock shining up at me, I couldn’t lie. “Yes. It is beautiful.”
A large rectangular diamond sat high in the center, surrounded on all sides by smaller diamonds, all of which was set into a band with tiny diamonds embedded all the way around the band. If I wanted, I could have hung it from the ceiling and used it as a disco ball. The ring was overwhelming and gorgeous, and I began to cry all over again.
“When did you do all of this?” I asked.
Killian smiled and bit his lower lip, and I could tell he was debating whether he should tell me the truth or not.
“Tell me,” I insisted.
He sighed. “Remember when we got in that big fight because you said I was spending too much time at the bar?”
I nodded, already wincing against what I was sure was about to be a huge wave of guilt.
“I wasn’t at the bar. I was driving all over town going to every jewelry store I could find looking for the perfect ring.”
I groaned. “I’m the worst.”
He laughed. “Well, to be fair, I could have made up a less seedy excuse. I could have said I was at the library or the gym.”
It was my turn to laugh. “I would have never believed that. I probably would have thought you were cheating on me.”
He pulled me in for a hug and kissed my forehead. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It was all worth it. It got us here.”
I pressed my cheek against his chest until I could hear his heart beating, my arm extended in front of me so I could admire the ring. “You’re right. No regrets.”