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It was his turn to shrug. “Like you said, it’s your prerogative,” he said, giving her a quick kiss, before adding innocently, “Besides, why should I care if you’re aggravated with me? It’s not like you’re going to love me any less, right?”
His raised eyebrows and challenging expression as he strategically used her own words against her, backed Paige into a bit of a corner. Not wanting to admit defeat—because it was the fucking truth, honestly—she plucked the remote out of David’s hand and pressed ‘play’, then settled back against him as the funky, opening beats of “Woke Up This Morning”, the theme song from The Sopranos, filled the room.
First Epilogue
Six months later
“I did good, didn’t I?” Paige asked softly. She was physically exhausted, but there was a giant smile on her face.
“You did,” David agreed, smiling back. The experience of watching his son being born had been both mind-bending and mind-blowing. David was still sort of high on adrenaline as he walked around the small hospital room, holding his almost ten-pound baby boy. With a blue hat on his head and wrapped up in a matching blanket like a burrito, his little face turned David’s smile into a smirk.
“What are you smirking at?” Paige demanded.
“I was just thinking that he looks exactly like Jacob did when he was born. Which means … this little guy is probably going to look like me.”
Paige narrowed her eyes at David. She felt like she’d just delivered a Mack truck, and even though it had only taken two hours of active labor, it was still two hours of the worst pain she’d ever experienced in her life. “Take that back,” she demanded, not caring if she sounded like a petulant child. “I did not go through what I just went through, so you could have another clone. Ugh. You and your nuclear sperm.”
Right then, Valerie walked into the room with Jacob, who immediately asked, “What’s sperm?”
David gave Paige a look that said Thanks a hell of a lot. “We’ll talk about sperm later. Like in ten years,” he told Jacob.
“You’ll be talking about it before then,” Valerie said under her breath, as she and Jacob stopped by Paige’s bed to give her half-hugs and smacking kisses on her cheeks. “How are you doing?”
“I’m good. Tired, but good,” Paige replied.
“Is that the baby?” Jacob asked, pointing over to the tiny bundle in David’s arms.
Paige nodded. “Why don’t you go over and see him?”
With obvious excitement, he immediately dashed away, and with a soft laugh, Valerie followed him to where David was standing with the baby.
“Who wants to hold him first?” David asked.
“Me!” answered Jacob.
After getting Jacob situated in a chair, David gave instructions on how to hold the baby, before laying him in Jacob’s arms. David then took a couple of pictures and kneeled down next to the chair. “So, what do you think about your little brother?” he asked.
Looking down at the little face, Jacob seemed unsure of how to answer. “He’s all wrinkled,” he finally pointed out with childish bluntness.
“Most babies are when they’re first born,” David told him. “You were, too.”
Jacob carefully peeked under the little blue hat, causing the baby to twitch a little in response. “He hardly has any hair.”
“You didn’t have much, either.”
“You know who else didn’t have much?” Valerie asked. “Your dad.”
Jacob found that interesting for about two seconds. “Can we wake him up?”
“No, he needs his rest,” David said.
“Is he going to be asleep all the time?”
“Not all the time, but he will sleep a lot at first. He’ll also eat and cry. Oh, and poop, of course. He’ll do a lot of that—just like you did.”
Jacob made a face. “When can I play with him?”
“Not for a while, unfortunately. For now, all you really get to do is look at him.”
