Page 108 of Floored

Lia sobbed. "He has hair?"

I pressed my forehead to hers. "One more, my love. One more."

And with an effort that had me holding my breath, and Claire emitting an audible gasp when she looked down, Lia gave one more glorious push, and the room filled with the most incredible sound I'd ever heard in my life.

A baby crying.

"You did it," I told her, eyes and heart and soul overflowing. Lia sobbed openly, and I kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth.

"It's a boy," the nurse said with a wide grin. "Congratulations, Mom and Dad."

In the next moment, we were all crying because they laid him on Lia's chest as she wept.

With shaking hands, the nurse told me how to cut the umbilical cord.

Everything around me felt like it was moving slower somehow, like my heart now existed in these three separate segments. One behind my ribs, one in Lia, and one in this marvelous, wriggling, wailing thing that was lying in Lia's embrace with a shock of dark hair and button nose.

Claire took pictures as I curled my arm around Lia and kissed the top of his head.

"He's perfect," she said, tears coursing down her face.

"He is." I kissed her cheek. "And you were so bloody incredible, Lia."

The nurse smiled at us. "If you want to help me clean him up and weigh him, Dad, they'll handle Momma."

Lia looked up at me, her chin wobbling. "Take care of him, okay?"

Her thumb was on my face then, wiping away another tear.

"Always," I promised.

Lia

Twenty minutes later

"This is so weird," I whispered. My finger followed the line of his nose and the perfect bow of his lips.

"Right?" Paige asked. "Like they're all slimy and covered in this crazy shit from inside you, and boom, just like that, you'd just die for them."

I met her knowing eyes and grinned. "Basically."

Jude smiled at me from where he stood next to my brother.

"Ready to hold him, Logan?" Paige asked, rocking the baby gently. The little man was sound asleep because hey, it was quite the exhausting event to be born.

My brother nodded. "As long as Momma doesn't need him back."

I laid my head back on the pillow and smiled at him. "Go ahead."

My sisters all crowded in the room, snapping pictures over Paige's shoulder.

Isabel quietly wiped at a tear she didn't think we saw. Molly winked, then pointed at herself, “Favorite,” she mouthed.

But we all watched raptly as Logan first kissed Paige on the top of the head, then clenched his jaw as his wife stood and carefully transferred the baby into my brother's huge arms.

Basically, I was just going to cry my way through the entire day. No way around it. I sniffed loudly before I realized that every single other person in the room, save for Jude, was doing the same thing.

Logan stared down at my son and let out a shaky breath. When he looked up at me, his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "You did real good, kid."

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