Page 41 of His Bittersweet Regret

“Yeah, and it’s MY body that will be on display.”

“It’s not like I’ve never seen your body before, Opal.”

“You haven’t,” I argued.

“We were together for seven years. I beg to differ.”

“My body looks nothing like it used to. I wish Ryker hadn’t told you about my appointment.”

“And what were you planning on doing when you went into labor? Were you just not going to tell me?”

“I would have told you after our son was born.”

“After? As in, you don’t want me in the delivery room?” His eyes widened, and the shock there over me not wanting him in the delivery room was priceless.

“Why would I want my ex-boyfriend, who hurt me beyond any way words could describe, in the room with me when I’m at my most vulnerable?”

“Opal!” My name on his lips felt more like a plea for mercy.

“You can come today, but don’t get your hopes up for anything else, Marsh. After the baby is here, we’ll work out something regarding visitation or whatever, but that’s it.”

“I would take it all back, if I could,” he whispered.

“That’s just it, Marsh. You can’t take it back. It can’t be undone.” I turned toward the entrance of the doctor’s office and made my way inside. It didn’t even occur to me that I should be worried about confronting Monica until I was through the door. Thankfully, she wasn’t there and check in was relatively painless. Too bad the wait wasn’t.

“Do I even get a say in his name?” Marsh asked as he sat down beside me. I honestly hadn’t even thought about that because as far as I was concerned, Marsh and I had already picked names years ago. I had planned to use one of them, despite how angry with him I was.

~*~

“How many kids do you want?”

“Right now?” I asked with a laugh, because teasing Marsh was one of my favorite things to do.

“Obviously not, though it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you happened to be pregnant now.”

“If we have a girl, I want to name her Katrina Nichole,” I told him.

“I like that. Wasn’t your little sister’s name going to be Nichole?”

“It was.” My parents had a later in life child when I was fourteen. She was born early, after a complicated and risky pregnancy, and she only lived two days. I wanted to honor her memory, but didn’t want to get lost in the sadness of missing all the times I should have had with her, so I quickly cleared the emotion from my throat and asked, “What about you?”

“If we have a boy, I want to name him Austin Jason Kennedy.”

“Jason, for your dad’s middle name?” I asked, to which he nodded.”

“My dad is the best man I know, but I figure Jimmy, being the oldest, might want to have first dibs at naming a kid after him, so…”

“That’s very considerate of you. I like the sound of it, so I guess we have a name for our first son and our first daughter.”

~*~

We ended up picking two more names for each gender, but Katrina Nichole and Austin Jason were the main ones we wanted to use. Marsh gently nudged my shoulder with his arm, bringing me back out of the memory.

“Where did you go just now?”

“I was remembering when our son got his name. You already picked it, Marsh.”

He sucked in a quick breath, obviously surprised by my admission. “You’re still going to use Austin Jason?”

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