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Five months later
When the entire Wilder family showed up for any single event, it was nothing short of a fucking circus. The first preseason game for the Portland Voyagers wasn’t normally something we’d get a luxury box for, but given that Parker was desperately trying to pull his head out of his ass, there was no option but for theentirefamily to show up.
Although I’d been friends with him since high school, and Cameron had two brothers and now two brothers-in-law who played professional football, I’d never been to a game before.
It was loud. And there were people.
Normally, that was enough to deter me, but the woman standing at my side—wearing a blue Wilder jersey stretched across her very large belly—would get anything she wanted, if it was up to me.
So we were at the game. When she was forty-one weeks pregnant.
“I can’t believe she got you to cave,” Cameron said, eyeing his sister. She waddled more than she walked lately, and we’d had three rounds of false labor over the same number of weeks. We’d tried spicy food and long walks, more shower sex than I thought I’d ever have in a two week period, and we stillcouldn’t trigger the real thing. Despite the fact that she was ready to rip the baby out herself if it meant not being pregnant anymore, she did not want to miss this game.
“Do you know how hard it is to say no to her when she really wants something?” I asked, leaning closer so Poppy didn’t hear me. “I had to smuggle her OB in to the section right below us just in case she goes into labor.”
“You didn’t.”
Jerking my chin up, I pointed at a seat two rows in front of our box. “The lady in the blue hat and white shirt.”
“No shit,” Cameron breathed. “I had no idea you were so paranoid.”
“I’m not paranoid, asshole. I just don’t want to have to deliver our baby in a car because we’re stuck in fucking traffic trying to leave this stadium. Do you think I’d do well in that situation?”
“No,” he said gravely. “I don’t.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I sighed. “Glad we agree on that.”
I’d been a ball of fucking nerves for weeks leading up to Poppy’s due date. The house was ready. Beyond ready. Nesting, or whatever the hell she called it, had started about a month ago.
The nursery was painted a beautiful, calm green. On the far wall, Greer had painted a beautiful mural of a meadow, with tall grasses and leaves and an aspen tree.
There was a shelf full of books and little wooden toys that Ian made, and a closet full of impossibly tiny clothes. Under the changing table were bins full of diapers, and even though Poppy teased me, I practiced on one of Olive’s dolls until I felt like I could manage it.
I’d all but moved in with her about a month after we started dating, because I decided it was really stupid to sleep in a bed without her when I had the other option in front of me. For the time being, we decided to keep my place, because withthe amount of land I had, we could build something bigger if we decided Henry’s house wasn’t where we wanted to stay long term.
For now, though, it was home. And God, it was a good one.
Every morning, I got to wake up with her in my arms. Every day, I got to take care of her—lately, it was helping her put on her shoes and painting her toenails, which I was slowly improving at after slathering hot pink nail polish all over her toes.
Who created those tiny-ass little brushes was beyond me. They sure weren’t meant for big, clumsy hands like mine.
And in those mornings and days and nights, we found a seamless rhythm that made it seem like we’d been doing that forever. That I’d been loving her forever.
Probably because it felt like I had.
She was so fucking smart. And insightful. A better listener than anyone I’d ever met. And the fact that our kid would have her as a mom was more than I could handle.
And she was also really, really loud when she was at her brother’s games.
Parker got flagged for offensive pass interference, and Poppy cupped her hands around her mouth and booed. “Get your eyes checked, ref,” she yelled. “He hardly touched him.”
I settled my hand on her back as she rubbed a hand over her stomach and winced.
“Maybe the screaming isn’t helping,” I told her, dropping a kiss to her temple.
Poppy didn’t answer, though, stilling immediately and staring down at the ground.
“What is it?” I asked, concern making my chest tight.
