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I start rubbing her back again, and she exhales, a sigh of relief falling from her lips. “Already feeling better,” she admits.
“I’m glad,” I say. “I was thinking about something while I was gone, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“Oh?” Eva asks, glancing at me.
“Yep. I was just thinking about what all of us have been through together and how there’s not really any better way to test the bonds in a relationship. We’ve weathered the storm, been through hell and back and survived. If we can get through this, we can get through anything. I think maybe that means we should get married.”
Eva’s eyes widen and she does a double-take. “Married?” she asks, a crack in her voice. “Are you… are you sure?”
“I am,” I tell her. “I’m serious. You’re everything the three of us want, and we’d be honored to have you as ours, forever.”
Eva starts to say something but then stops, a contraction hitting her, and she pants, trying to breathe through the pain. The monitor starts beeping loudly, and one of the nurses rushes in to check on her.
“Okay, you are fully dilated, Mama,” the nurse says, moving the bed up. “The doctor will be coming in to help you deliver. We need to get you ready.”
After that, everything happens so quickly that my proposal is all but forgotten in the moment. I rush out to tell Ryder what’s happening, and we call Theo, urging him to drop what he’s doing and get here quickly.
Still, even as I head back into the room to stay by Eva’s side as she prepares to bring our baby into the world, the question lingers in the back of my mind. Will she say yes?
48
EVANGELINE
With one final push, she’s here. Our baby girl has arrived. She’s got a healthy set of lungs, letting us all know how indignant she is at being taken from her nice, warm, cozy home and thrust into this world with little regard.
As they place her on my chest, everything seems to slow to a crawl, the world stopping on its axis for a brief moment as I drink in the sight of her. She’s got dark curls, and when she opens her eyes to stare at me, I see my own blue eyes reflected back.
“Look,” I say, my voice wobbling as I reach out to touch her, stroking a hand over her back. “She’s so tiny!”
Oliver chuckles, bending down to kiss me behind his hospital mask. I briefly wonder when he put that on and realize a lot must have happened while I was busy doing other things.
“She’s perfect,” he says, reaching out a finger. She stares at it with intense curiosity for a moment before grasping it in her tiny hand, and I feel the tears spill out.
“I’m going to love you so much,” I promise her. “You’ll be the safest, most protected little girl in the whole world.”
“I already love her,” Oliver says, turning his head to look at me. His eyes are visible behind the mask, and they’re shining as they gaze on me.
The nurses start getting us both cleaned up and do all the postnatal checks on the baby, taking her away briefly to put a tracking bracelet on her wrist that matches mine before returning her to me.
Ryder and Theo come in moments later, their gazes landing on our daughter immediately. Both of them approach her cautiously, as though they half expect her to start crying as soon as she sees them.
But when she doesn’t do much more than give them a squinty-eyed glare, Ryder reaches down and picks her up from my chest, holding her close to him. “Hi there, sweetheart. I’m your dad. Well, one of them,” he adds, glancing at his brothers. “All three of us are your daddies.”
As I watch them interact with her, a wistful pang settles inside me. I know that I’ve yet to give Oliver an answer to his question, but it’s still there in the back of my mind.
Theo takes his turn next, holding the baby like she’s the most precious thing in the world. She looks up at him and gives a sleepy yawn, and I think my hormones must be flooding me because I start crying at that.
“She loves you,” I say between sobs. “She loves her daddies.”
Eventually, once everyone has had a chance to coo over the baby and hold her, the nurses come back in and encourage the boys to leave to let me get some rest. Theo stays with me while Oliver leaves with Ryder to head home to take showers and naps. They’re going to rotate shifts staying with me.
I drift off, my mind replaying the conversation I had with Oliver before the birth. I know he said he loved me, but I can’t help but wonder if he only proposed because of the baby. It’s one thing to have a relationship. It’s an entirely different thing altogether to tie yourself to someone forever like that.
I want to be sure of things with them before I decide. There’s no reason to rush it, right? And I know that Oliver admitted his feelings, but does Ryder feel the same? Does Theo?
They’re brothers, but they’re three individual men too, with individual wants and needs, individual feelings. It wouldn’t be fair to say yes to Oliver without at least talking to them about this first.
Despite the worries plaguing my mind, I find myself falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. I’ve been going for days straight, unable to think or rest or eat or sleep properly because of all the stress and fear of everything going on.
