by Aspen Grey
“There it is!” Wendell cried out, pointing to the monitor. “A heartbeat!”
“Oh, well, thank God it’s not dead,” I joked. Sasha slapped my hand and scolded me with his eyes.
“Jerk.”
“And….you have a boy!” Wendell continued, pointing lower. “See that right there? That is a penis.”
“Yay!” I cried out. “Two boys!”
“Just like you’d hoped for,” Arnold smiled, kissing both of us on our cheeks.
“Are you happy?” I asked him.
“Of course I am,” Arnold replied. “How could I not be? I have everything I ever wanted.”
“And photo number two…” Wendell muttered as he pressed a button on the machine. A printer clicked and whirred in the corner of the room and began spitting out a photo of Sasha’s baby. I already had mine.
“My very own squid picture!” he joked as Wendell handed him a paper towel to wipe his belly off while he put away the machine.
“Are you guys going next door now?” Wendell asked. His place was right next door to Jedrik’s furniture business and Sasha, who’d managed to fully reconcile things with his ex after everything that had happened, had recommended we have him make us a crib. Other alphas may have felt threatened by buying something from his mate’s ex-boyfriend, but not Arnold. Little things like that didn’t bother him. He was secure.
“Sure are,” he replied. “Hopefully he can make us something nice.”
“You kidding? Jedrik over there’s one of San Diego’s top custom furniture makers,” Wendell told us. “You’re like…upper class with one of his pieces in your house.”
“Well, I don’t care about being upper class,” Arnold replied. “As long as my family is happy and my boys have somewhere to sleep.”
“Priorities,” Wendell nodded in agreement. “Listen, give me a call when your waters break. You still want to do a home delivery?”
“Yes,” I said quickly.
“We do,” Sasha added.
“Well, I’m just a phone call away,” Wendell smiled.
Chapter Thirty-One
Arnold
Some alphas might feel strange going to meet their mate’s ex-boyfriend, but I’m not some alphas.
It didn’t bother me. In fact, I was happy that Sasha had managed to make up with Jedrik after everything they’d gone through. The wound between them, as a result of the things Sasha had done, was one I thought might never heal. We’d all gone through the storm and come out wet on the other side, but the sun was shining bright and warm now and we were all dry. Nothing lay in front of us but clear skies and a gorgeous future.
The door opened and I found myself staring at two children, a girl and a boy.
“Hello!” the girl said with a smile. She had a head of blonde curls that had been managed slightly with a set of double braids that ran down the back of her head. “How are you?”
“I’m good, little lady,” I said with a smile, turning to the boy. “And how are you?”
“Good!” he smiled. “I’m Rodrigo and this is Perla! Are you looking for my daddy?”
“I sure am,” I said.
“Who’s that?” Jedrik’s voice called from behind the children. “That Arnold and Sasha?”
“Sure is!” I called back.
“Come here, kids!” Jedrik called. His little ones both waved before scampering away. I heard one of their fathers, probably Perry, chuckle as he took them out of the shop and up to their apartment.
Jedrik appeared in the doorway, his shoulders covered in sawdust. He extended a hand, which I took and shook firmly. He had the calluses of a man who worked with his hands for a living.
“Arnold,” he smiled.
“Jedrik.”
“Hey, Jedrik,” Jace said.
Arnold shook both of my mates’ hands, giving Sasha an extra smile to let him know they were still cool.
“Come to talk about the crib?” he asked, opening the door wide and heading into the shop. We followed after him.
“What’d you have in mind?” I asked him, surveying all the various projects he’d started that sat at various stations across the spacious shop. I saw rockers for a rocking chair, a table top and legs that looked like it was close to being assembled, and something else that was either a piece to a bed or a boat—I couldn’t be sure which.
“Hey, you’re the woodworker,” Sasha replied.
“Not the only one here who’s good with wood though,” Jace joked, rousing a laugh from the group.
“Well, I was thinking something relatively traditional,” Arnold replied, reaching over to a workbench and lifting a cylindrical slat that lay beside several rectangular pieces of stock. “This is cherry. I love cherry. It’s a hardwood, which means it won’t dent easily, and when I finish it with shellac, it looks like this…”
He lifted a small piece of scrap that he’d applied a finish to and showed it to us. It shone bright amber, reflecting the light beautifully.
“That’s beautiful,” I replied. “Real classy.”
“Do we want classy for our babies, though?” Sasha asked. “I mean—why not a nice bright red painted crib? Something less sophisticated? We can have Jedrik do fancy beds for them when they’re older.”
“He’s got a point,” Jace chimed in. “A fancy crib like this feels like something you’d put the Queen of England in or something.”
“Yeah, the Prince of France or whatever,” Sasha added.
“The Prince of France?” I laughed.
“I dunno!” Sasha laughed.
“I get that,” Jedrik smiled. “A painted crib is less labor intensive and I could charge you less as well.”
We were already getting a great deal from Jedrik, but who didn’t mind saving a little more money?
“And I’ll decorate the rest of the room to match!” Sasha said, clapping his hands with excitement. Sasha had completely domesticated himself since becoming pregnant and deemed himself the interior designer/decorator of the house, agreeing to share cooking duties with Jace as I was a typical hopeless cop who’d lived on take-out for the majority of his life.
“That sounds perfect,” Jace replied. “What color? You want red?”
“Yes!” Sasha replied quickly. “Red or red and white. What do you think, Jedrik?”
“I think a nice fire engine red would be just perfect for your two little boys,” he smiled. “I’ve already got some legs milled out. I can have it ready for you in two to three days. Does that work?”
“That fast?” I asked skeptically. “You sure, Jedrik? I don’t want you putting aside any of your big commissions for us. The boys can sleep with us for a few days once they come.”
“Not a problem. I’ve got a break in my schedule soon anyways. Just delivered a massage wardrobe to a client in Carlsbad and I’m still going back and forth on design with a bed I’ve got to do, so this will be a great little project to get my mind off those things.”
“Hey, if it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me,” I said, shaking his hand. “We’ll be looking forward to it!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sasha
We spent the next few days doing what I guess is called “nesting.”
Jace and I were both ready to pop and our instincts to make the home into a den were overpowering. I couldn’t help but start rearranging all the furniture, moving things around and then moving them back, checking the Feng Shui and then moving everything around once more. I knew it was driving Arnold slightly nuts, but he never said anything. He just sipped his coffee and smiled. I think he actually enjoyed the chaos.
Meanwhile, Jace was stocking up on things he knew (or thought) we would need after the boys came.
Diapers, of course, all kinds of baby soaps he’d read about on the internet, swaddling blankets, ice packs for the daddies, a baby comb and brush set which I thought was funny, as babies came out with basically no hair at all, but then again we were shifters, and they might turn into little furballs in no time! I re
ally didn’t know.
Then, on top of that, was the food.
“I’m having cravings already,” he told me. “Are you?”
“I could kill for some buttered pecan ice cream,” I said. “I don’t even remember the last time I had it, but for some reason it seems like it would really hit the spot right now.”
“Okay, I’ll get some of that,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Oh, some dark chocolate,” I smiled. “And mac n cheese.”
“We’re eating healthy!” he laughed as he grabbed Arnold’s keys.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Arnold said, stepping in between Jace and the door. “Where do you think you’re going, big boy?”
“To the store.”
“No, you are not,” he laughed. “Not with that big ol’ bun in your oven. All I need is some maniac crashing into you and popping you like a balloon. I’ll go pick up all your healthy food. You two stay here and don’t strain yourselves.”
“We can’t let our alpha go grocery shopping for us,” Jace said. “You already provide for us.”
“And you’re going to provide me with two gorgeous sons,” he smiled. “And that’s all that matters now. So you two stay here and I will go stock up on everything you could ever want to eat. Okay?”
Jace looked back at me. I only shrugged and nodded. “He’s right, babe.”
“Okay,” Jace agreed. “You’re right. I’ll just…relax, I guess!”
He grinned, kissed Arnold on the chin and sat himself down on the couch beside me.
“Be right back, angels,” Arnold said before heading out the door.
I let out a sigh and leaned against Jace who threw his arm around me. I smelled his fresh cream scent that was always just as sweet as the day I’d first smelled it. In fact, since we’d allowed ourselves to love each other, his scent had become even more attractive.
“How about Max?” I said.
“Mmmm….” he pondered. “I dunno.”
“Tyson?”
“Sounds like a porn star,” he replied.
“Or a total badass.”
“If we have alphas, maybe.”
“Aiden?”
“Hell no!” he snarled.
“What, why?”
“You don’t remember?” he asked. I looked at him with dumb eyes. “Paiden Aiden? The goofball from Hillcrest that always tried stealing from the other boys?”
“Ohhhhhh!” I laughed, remembering that little tramp who’d disappeared from the scene a few months back. Rumor had it he’d moved to Florida or something. But Jace was right—he was a real cooze, always trying to scam somebody. “Yeah, never mind that. How about Oliver?”
“Oliver,” Jace mused. “Hmm, I like that. As long as people don’t call him Twist.”
“Okay, Oliver’s one,” I said happily. “Now we need one more.”
We both sat there pondering for a moment. There were tons of good names out there, and we’d both been on our phones scrolling through lists, trying to see if anything really spoke to us or had some hidden meaning that we wanted to give to our sons, but in the end all we wanted was something that sounded right.
And then, at that moment, for some reason a name came into my mind that I knew was perfect.
“Liam,” I said, turning to smile at Jace.
“Liam,” he repeated, pondering. “Yes, I like that.”
“I think it works for an alpha, beta or omega,” I told him. “Don’t you?”
“Yes,” he smiled, placing a hand on my knee. “Where’d you come up with that one?”
“I don’t know!”
“Liam Neeson?” he joked, holding up a finger gun and doing his best Taken impression. “I have a very particular set of skills, skills that make me a nightmare for someone like you!”
“Stop!” I laughed, swatting his hand away and collapsing onto his chest with my arms around him. “Liam and Oliver. Oliver and Liam.”
“Sounds like an old English coat maker,” Jace observed.
“Well, if Arnold gets laid off for police corruption and we need a bit of extra money, we can always open a tailor store!”
Jace and I both burst out laughing, and as we did, I felt my water break.
“Oh, shit!” I gasped, getting to my feet and racing to the bathroom.
“What is it?” he asked, but I heard his voice stop short and as I rushed into the shower and began stripping off my pants, I heard his footsteps right behind me.
“Make room for me!” he cried out.
“Bring my cell phone!” I shouted back. “It’s time to call Wendell!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jace
“Okay, Wendell is on his way,” I told Sasha as I dialed Arnold’s phone. “He said ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Good, good, good,” Sasha replied, holding a hand over his belly. We’d both felt our first contraction, and if Sasha was anything like me, he was freaking out with a mixture of elation and anxiety.
The babies are coming! It was the most important moment of our lives, but we were both nervous, which I hope was to be expected.
Sasha had already stripped bare and was sitting on the floor of Arnold’s shower, which thankfully was large enough to fit us both comfortably. I set the phone aside, within arm’s reach, stripped the rest of the way and stepped in to join him.
I turned on the water and sat down, letting its warmth spill down over our shoulders as we both entered our first labor together.
This is it, I thought.
“We’re going to be fathers, Sasha,” I told him. “Can you believe it?”
I looked over at my mate to see tears streaming down his eyes. They would have been lost in the rain of the shower if his eyes hadn’t been red. “Oh, baby, are you okay?”
“I’m more than okay,” Sasha said, his voice a laugh and a cry at the same time. “I just can’t believe it, Jace. Think about how far we’ve come!”
“It’s a miracle,” I agreed. “And all because Arnold found us.”
A second contraction hit me, twisting my stomach. It hurt, but not as bad as I’d been led to believe. Sasha groaned.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” he remarked. “It feels more like I’m one of those pastry cake decorator things that you have to squeeze the icing out of, you know?”
I burst out laughing. “No, I don’t know.”
“They’re like these paper plastic thingies,” he elaborated. “And you fill them with icing and then twist the tops and then squeeze them and it comes out the other end. You decorate c-cakes with them.”
“Well, I sure hope Liam and Oliver don’t come out like pastry icing!” I joked.
We sat there together for a few minutes until I heard the front door open.
“Wendell?” I shouted.
“Both of us!” Arnold replied as the two of them came stomping up the stairs. “Ran into him outside. He was pulling up at the same time as me.”
“Perfect,” Sasha replied as the two of them came into the bathroom. Arnold instantly stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the shower, taking a seat in front of us. Wendell opened a bag he’d brought and started organizing things.
Among them, I saw an IV bag with a couple of needles and tubes, latex gloves, two thermometers and some clothes and other things I didn’t recognize.
“How are you both feeling?” he asked. “Anything strange?”
He reached out and felt my pulse in my neck, nodded, then moved to Sasha and did the same thing.
“I feel surprisingly all right,” Sasha told him.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“That’s good,” Arnold said. He had a hand on each of our feet in a comforting way, his eyes intent, ready to do whatever was necessary if it was required. “It’s because all this is meant to happen, my angels. Everything’s going to be fine.”
It’s happening, I thought as I stared into Arnold’s strong blue eyes. My alpha. My beautiful protector. He’d given both Sasha and me so much, and now it was t
ime for us to give something to him.
Another contraction rippled through me. It was stronger than the previous ones, but the pain was still bearable. If anything, it was simply uncomfortable and it felt strange to have my body moving on its own in that way. Sasha groaned and squeezed my hand.
“Are you okay, babe?” I asked him. He nodded and grimaced.
“Tell me if you feel any strange pains,” Wendell told us.
“Strange pains?” I laughed. “We’ve never done this before—”
My voice cut off as another contraction seized my body, the strongest of them all. Arnold inched closer to us, bathing us in his scent. It was so comforting that I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which simply smelling him wouldn’t calm me down, and it was exactly what we needed.
“I—I think it’s coming now,” Sasha exclaimed.
“Me too!” I cried out as my stomach twisted again and my entire body flexed.
“Okay, you need to start pushing,” Wendell coached us. “Breathe in all the way, then out, then in again and when you breathe out, push. Got it?”
“Got it, coach,” I said sarcastically. But I did as he said. I closed my eyes as I inhaled, then opened them as I exhaled. I looked at Sasha, then back to Arnold as I took another deep breath and prepared myself to push.
“You’ve got this, my angels,” Arnold assured us. I knew he was right. There was simply one final step to take and our journey towards togetherness would be complete. I summoned up all my strength and pushed.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Arnold
I can’t believe it, I thought for the millionth time. I’m a father.
I was standing downstairs at the front door watching Wendell get his shoes on, but I wasn’t really watching. My mind was elsewhere—upstairs with my mates who were together in my bed, nursing our baby boys that had just been brought into the world.
