Chapter Thirty-Seven

~James~

Nicole having long since fallen asleep, I held my child with a reverence that I had never felt before. She was so perfect, in every way, shape and form that was possible.

I mean, logically I knew that she was a preemie so she was on the smaller side, but that didn’t seem to matter to the rest of my mind. I only saw her soulful almond eyes, and her tiny crop of wispy hair on top of her rounded little head. I saw her impossibly small hands and her little chubby feet and my heart about melted into mush.

I knew without a doubt that my entire world was different now. All the things I loved before, the partying, the jet-setting lifestyle, none of them were important anymore. The only thing that mattered was little Kireina and Nicole.

I looked over to the amazing woman who was passed out in her hospital bed. It had been awful to watch her push herself to the absolute edge to bring our daughter into the world, but I knew that it would be worth it.

And I was right.

I knew it from the moment that the nurse pulled that precious baby from Nicole and rushed it over to one of the small tables at the edge of the room. Even before I heard the slap of her behind and her first cry in the world. And although it was probably shrill to some, to me it was the sweetest sound that I had ever heard.

Now she was here in my arms, and I finally understood, down to the core of my being, why Nicole had done what she had done. If there was ever the most remote chance that anyone could steal this beautiful, perfect baby away from me, I would run as far away from them as physically possible.

“Hey there, Kireina. I’m your Daddy. Did you know that? Did you hear me when I was outside of your mama? I was only there a little bit, but I certainly did like talking to her.”

The baby didn’t look at me, but the nurse had warned me that they didn’t make eye contact for quite a while and that I shouldn’t take it personally. But I didn’t mind. It just gave me one more thing to look forward to.

And there was so much to look forward to. While I had been holding my daughter, I also had been doing even more reading online. I learned about the baby first lifting their head, first attaching to the breast, her first crawl, her first potty training, etc…etc… there was just so much that I knew I couldn’t miss it.

But what did that mean for my business? I couldn’t have the whole office move; the costs would be ridiculous, and we just didn’t have the proper contacts or resources. But maybe I could open another branch? I’d been waiting to expand for a while and if there was ever a reason to, it was the amazing child in my arms.

I would have to look into it later, for now, all of my attention was going to be on taking care of Nicole and Kireina when we went home.

Oh geez, I was already thinking of that tiny apartment as home. For all of my lecturing about remaining unattached and objective, I realized that I was absolutely smitten with the girl in my arms, and that I definitely wanted to support her mother for years to come.

“Hey there,”

I heard Nicole’s voice, low and raspy from all the straining it had gone through earlier and looked over to the bed. She was staring at me with a gentle smile, her muscled arms reaching out for both me and the baby.

I didn’t blame her. I wanted to hold the magical girl in my arms as much as possible, and I wasn’t even the one who had grown her inside of me for six and a half months. So, I got up carefully, and went over to the bed, sitting down on the edge so she could reach up and stroke our child’s little beanied head.

“She’s even better than I thought,” Nicole whispered, looking to our daughter with so much love that I knew she was undoubtedly in good hands. But even with that knowledge, I couldn’t justify in my mind leaving our little girl. I had certainly put myself into a bit of a pickle, hadn’t I?

“It doesn’t seem possible, does it? And yet here she is.”

“Here she is,” Nicole repeated. Once more she was looking up at me with that wide eyed, hopeful expression again. “Thank you, for being here.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“That means a lot to me, it really does.” Suddenly her eyelids whipped back, and she sat bolt upright.

“Whoa, hey there, what’s wrong?”

She looked to me with an utterly horrified expression. “I forgot to call my mom.”

“Oh… oh no.”

She collapsed back to the bed and her expression was just so damn funny that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to cover my mouth with my free hand and failing terribly. “It’s not funny. It’s not.”

“Yeah, sure it isn’t,” she scoffed. “If you just wanna grab my cellphone out of my clothes folded in the corner, I’m ready to deal with the disappointed mom voice.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “You literally just gave birth.”

“Yeah and couldn’t imagine a more perfect time to learn the technique that I hopefully won’t have to use much in my life.”

I smirked at that. I could just imagine Nicole standing in the doorway, giving our daughter a disappointed look as she tried to sneak in past curfew. Of course, in my imagination, she was in a large, sprawling house that she most likely would not have been able to afford her on her own. Was my subconscious trying to hint at something? Because now was not the time.

“Here, you hold our girl,” I said, getting up to find her phone. “Just don’t blame me when she hits you with a really good one liner.”

“Don’t worry,” Nicole said with a sigh. “I’m prepared.”

But she couldn’t remain negative for long with our bundle of joy in her arms, and soon she was cooing at her little baby. I took out her phone from the pocket of her jeans but paused before handing it to her. Instead, I opened the camera and snapped a few pictures. These moments were precious, and it would be a shame to lose them forever.

When I was satisfied with the amount of digital memories I had collected, I handed her the phone like she had asked, doing a trade off for Kireina. I only half listened as Nicole tried to explain to her mother why she hadn’t called and how everything had happened so fast, but my attention was on our little star once again.

No matter how upset Nicole’s mother was, no matter what hurdles lay in wait for us, I knew there was untold happiness to be had around every corner.

We had our whole futures lining up ahead of us, and I couldn’t wait to get started.