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“Oh, sheesh,” he apologized immediately and looked at the grout he’d just mixed. “I need to use this up, and then I’ll be…”
“Colton, let me help,” she offered, entering the bathroom. “Between the two of us, we can get this on the walls and grout it tomorrow. I still can’t believe how much you got done today.”
“I was hoping to finish today,” he said grimly, looking around. “I never expected to have to replace the sink and everything else.”
“I really like the idea of a tile backsplash – and it will make it easy to clean.”
“It’ll be slick,” he warned, waving her into the bathroom with him. “That’s why I went to get more river rock for the flooring. If we don’t have a massive shower pan, then it can make a mess with the water.”
“I like the little pebbles,” she volunteered. “They are just enough texture to keep you from slipping and not really ‘river rock’ but more like a river bed. Show me what to do.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he offered, feeling his back twinge. “If you can butter the tiles, I’ll place them, and it will go quickly.”
As they worked together, he realized just how nice it was to have her presence here. They were making their ‘nest’ together into something they loved, and it gave him a strange sense of contentment that he’d not experienced yet working on the other things around the house.
“How was Zane today?” he asked idly. “Was he mad he had to stay out of the bathroom?”
“He was fine,” she volunteered and then chuckled, making him look over as she handed him another twelve-inch tile. “The first time he went to go potty on the flowerbeds, a cricket jumped up, and he laughed so hard.”
“Poor cricket…”
“You have no idea,” she smiled, handing him another tile. “He chased the cricket down into the grass and would have dehydrated himself if he could have…”
“Boys are like that. I used to shove sticks in fire ant mounds.”
“Why?”
“Why do boys do anything?” he chuckled, reaching for another tile and placing it carefully with a spacer for the grout. “We simply do it because we can, and we want to see what happens next.”
“What does happen next?”
There was something in Eris’s voice that made him pause as he turned to look at her. She looked insecure and unsure, and he nodded. His girl needed to be comforted and she was talking to him, telling him.
“We keep going, always moving forward,” he said softly. “We finish the bathroom first. We choose to live each day to the fullest. We’ll laugh together, make babies together, and spend each moment knowing that my partner is beside me.”
“No regrets?” she whispered. “I mean, what if I got pregnant again quickly… like with Zane?”
“Then we’ll get to experience it all together,” he said softly. “I have no regrets, do you?”
“No,” she admitted, giving him a nervous smile. “I just wanted to make sure, you know?”
“You worry…”
“I do,” she confessed. “Things seem so perfect, and I keep waiting for…”
“Stop,” he interrupted tenderly, meeting her eyes. “Stop waiting for there to be a problem, and just let me love you, love our family. Zane is incredible, and I want to experience the entire thing with you this time. So, yeah - I want a baby. I want one with every fiber of my being, but if it doesn’t happen – then that’s okay, too.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive,” he promised, leaning forward to kiss her and feeling the stirrings of desire pool within him. He broke the kiss slightly and got goose bumps at the catch in her breath as she gazed at him. “Let’s finish the tiles and climb into bed.”
“That sounds so good.”
“I’m not sure how rambunctious I’m gonna be…”
“How about we just lie there, hold each other, and…”
“How about ‘no,’” he blurted out, chuckling. “My goodness, if I get a chance to make love to you – I am NOT passing it up. Uh, hello? My leg could fall off and I would still manage to make things work, okay?”
