Page 231 of Sebastian's Baby

I hold out on moving until the song has finished because I don’t want to ruin the recording. As soon as it’s over, I walk into the control room and straight to Lita. I pull her into my arms and hug her tightly to me.

“I love you so much, princess.”

“I love you too, Sebastian.”

I kiss her, and then I tell her, “I have to go back in for the harmonies. I take it that you like the song?”

I know that she does, but I’m still so relieved when Lita nods and wipes the tears from her eyes. “Yes. It’s amazing. What is it called?”

“The Gift.”

It’s what she is to me, and what she’s given me with Mirabella. The most beautiful precious gift in the world is this life that I have with her now—a life that I enjoy living, not merely a shallow existence where I’m rarely truly happy.

Lita starts to cry again, and she laughs through her tears as she says, “I don’t think that I can even blame hormones for this one. It’s just…the best song I’ve ever heard.”

I smile at her. “Me too.”

I kiss her again, then head back into the studio so that I can join the other guys to record the harmonies. Finally, the song is finished, and we all leave the studio to head into the control room. I take over from Heather at the control panel with a smile at her.

“What are you doing, Seb?” Ariana asks.

“I’m dropping in some other tracks,” I tell her. “I’ve made a couple of demos on my own to figure out exactly where to put them.”

I pull in the pre-cut and recorded tracks to put them into the places in the song where they need to be. Checking quickly through the headphones that they’re sitting in the right spots before I’m happy with how they fit in. I spin around on the chair to face the group.

“Okay, that’s all done; someone can hit play.” I walk over to where Lita is sitting on the sofa again. “Can I sit with you, princess?”

I want to hold her while she listens to her song for the first time.

“Sure,” she tells me, and I smile as I take a seat next to her.

I put my arm around her and pull her into me while Hayden starts the song. The beautiful thrumming sound of Mirabella’s heartbeat fills the room before the music starts, and Lita gasps.

“It’s the heartbeat recording,” she says softly.

I smile at her as the soft, lilting music plays throughout the room, with Mirabella’s heartbeat constantly thrumming as a background beat to the song. Then my voice begins to sing to her. The first verse is about when I first met and was attracted to Lita. When it finishes, the first sample from the day we recorded the heartbeat plays.

“I’m just going to have a listen and see that everything’s going okay in there.”

“Sure, Dr. Fox.”

It’s followed by the sound of our laughter, which fades off as the chorus starts. I watch Lita’s reaction when she hears her voice on a Cruise Control song, and her eyes go wide and her mouth drops open.

The chorus is about the gift she’s given me in this life together, with the harmonies from the guys interwoven with the melody, and I really like how it’s turned out. The second verse is about the love I have for Mirabella and the fear I felt when we found out about her medical issues. In the gap between the second verse and chorus, there is a second sample of us talking.

“I love our baby.”

“Me too, princess. I’ve never loved anything as much as I love our baby.”

After the second chorus, the bridge comes, with me singing about how I feel as though Mirabella is a miracle and that it’s an absolute miracle that I even met Lita at all. Then it goes back to the chorus twice more before the song trails off to just me strumming softly on the guitar, and our voices are sampled a final time.

“Posso baciarti?”

“Sì.”

Lita started crying from the moment Mirabella’s heartbeat started to play, and she didn’t stop at all during the song. I have her wrapped tightly in my arms, and I realize that I probably should’ve played this for her the first time without anyone else around. Even I feel a little vulnerable with my friends so openly watching her reaction to our love, so I can only imagine how she feels.

“I take it that you liked it, princess,” I ask quietly.

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