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“Is he here?” I asked, sitting up quickly.
“Not yet,” she said quietly, “Her mom and sister are with her. The doctor said she’ll start pushing soon.” Her voice sounded different, almost reverent. I reached my hands out to circle her wrists.
“You okay, sis?”
“Yeah, just tired. I can’t even imagine how she feels.”
“Christian keeping it together?”
She huffed a laugh. “He’s been amazing. He’s going to be such a great dad.”
Shifting my legs, I pulled her down into the seat next to mine. I slipped my arm around the back of her chair, and her head relaxed against my shoulder. I felt it then, that slow sweep of contentment in my limbs and up the back of my neck. It felt so good to hold her like this. It felt good to hold her hand in the parking lot. To feel her fingers on my face in the car. She just felt fucking good.
“You were great with her, Louisa.”
“I was, wasn’t I?” she whispered sleepily, “I would have been a good sister.”
I closed my eyes, and I stroked her hair until she fell asleep against me.
It couldn’t have been more than an hour when a gentle kick to my foot woke me. My brain scrambled to establish where I was and who was curled up on my lap. Louisa. I looked up into Hasan’s face, his finger over his lips telling me to be quiet.
He held up one finger and whispered, “Thanks for calling me, you twat.” Then he held up a second and pointed it down. Louisa’s head and shoulders were heavy in my lap, and one of her hands was resting palm up on my dick. Hasan had filled it with shaving cream.
“I got it from the vending machine,” he whispered, gleeful.
Oh god, I knew exactly what he was up to, and as much as I wanted to sit here with her in my lap for the rest of my life, I wanted to watch this play out even more.
Has pulled a long piece of paper towel out of his jacket pocket. He’d twisted it into a wand of sorts and was using it to tickle Louisa’s nose lightly. She scrunched it a few times like a bunny—fucking adorable—and I had the perfect view when she suddenly smacked herself in the face with the shaving cream.
A strangled laugh burbled up in my throat, and Has was cackling on the ground before Louisa even woke up all the way.
Her brow furrowed, and I watched it click in real time.
She cracked one eye open, then the other, blinking hard like she wasn’t sure where she was. Her fingers flexed again, and this time she pulled her hand back, staring at the thick shaving cream still clinging to her fingers.
There was a long, silent beat where she just processed it. Mouth slightly open. Breathing shallow. Still half asleep.
Then she sniffed.
Her nose wrinkled. Her lips twisted.
“What the fuck” she muttered, voice thick with sleep. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from losing it, but the way it stuck like snow on her pretty eyelashes sent me over the edge.
She looked at me then, head bouncing in my lap as I shook with laughter. Eyes narrowing and accusatory even as she wiped at her face. She only managed to spread it into her hair.
“You,” she said, like it was a conclusion she’d reached through careful logic.
I shrugged. I’d been holding my hands out like I was totally innocent.
She stared at me for a second longer, then rubbed her shaving cream hand all over my face.
I was holding both of her wrists over her head in one hand and wiping my face off on her sweatshirt while she struggled when Mr. Delgado shoved through the doors, absolutely beaming.
“He is almost here,” he said excitedly. “I am to wait out here.”
He didn’t say anything about the mess, just sat down right next to me—so close I had to pull Louisa’s hands back onto my lap. I eyed the long wall of chairs in the waiting room pointedly and looked at Has, who was stifling a laugh.
If ye only listen to one thing I ever told ye, let it be this, son: Ye never take’ the urinal closest to another man when there’s a wide open field… It’s just not done.
