Page 72 of Bae

The knocking continued, even as Romeo rustled around for something to put on and promised whoever was there an untimely demise.

“Took you long enough!” Braeden’s voice boomed into the room the second the door swung open.

I smiled into the pillow, imagining Romeo scowling.

“What the shit, man?” he grumped.

“Pancake Sunday,” he announced, ignoring Romeo’s combative tone. I heard the light sound of glass on glass and lifted my head to see him wheeling in a giant room service cart covered with white linen.

“It’s Monday,” Romeo growled.

Ivy, who was carrying Nova, stopped in front of him as she walked in. “I tried to tell him he was being a moron.”

Nova held out her arms for Romeo and leaned forward.

“Uncle Romeo is tired,” Ivy told her.

Romeo grunted and reached for the baby. “Never too tired for you, lady.” She settled in his arms with ease and gave him a short-on-teeth smile.

She looked pretty adorable this morning, with white and pink striped tights and a white onesie with the wordsMy Daddy Plays Footballin gold glitter. Around her head was a pink striped headband with a floppy bow on top. The strands of her dark hair stuck out around it like she’d been playing too hard already and hadn’t thought about her hair at all.

She got that from Braeden.

Or maybe me.

On her feet were a pair of gold-glitter tennis shoes. Seriously, baby-size shoes had to be one of the cutest things known to man. I had no idea where Ivy found half the stuff Nova wore, but I swear she could open her own boutique and be a highly sought-after business overnight.

As Braeden clattered around the room (and seriously, I mean clattered; oh my word, he was loud!) and Ivy told him to be quiet, I lay my head on the pillow and stared at Romeo and Nova. It was the first time in a long time seeing him with her in his arms only made me feel one type of way.

Want.

Lately, it had been want coupled with guilt, anxiety, sadness, and loss.

Don’t get me wrong. I still felt those things. I always would. Losing a child was something you lived with, not something you got over. But for the first time in a very long time, I allowed myself to solely want another child with my husband and not be overcome with everything else.

Hope swelled inside me. It was sort of like sunshine after a rainstorm that lasted for days.

A pair of sweatpants-clad legs stepped into my line of sight. I glanced up, past the T-shirt and crossed arms, to look into the face of my scowling big brother.

“I got a bone to pick with you, tutor girl.”

I raised an eyebrow, which made me wonder where my glasses were. “You just burst into my room at the crack of dawn, andyou’rethe one with the bone to pick?”

“It’s after nine,” he said, dry, and handed me my glasses, which were on the table beside him. He knew me too well.

“So you become an overnight sensation for brawling in the stands, and suddenly you’re too good for pancake Sunday?”

I shoved the glasses on my face, then pushed at the mass of hair threatening to attack my entire head. “It’s Monday,” I told him, even though Romeo already had. “You guys weren’t home for pancake Sunday yesterday.”

“Excuses,” B reprimanded.

“Wait,” I said, heaving up into a sitting position. “Did you say overnight sensation?”

“You’re trending on TweetDeck,” Ivy said from across the room. “And just about every other social media site.”

I groaned. “The clip of you in the stands yesterday has over a million hits on YouTube already.”

I fell over, letting my face bury into the pillow.

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