Page 24 of Unexpected Delivery

“Of course.” I slide off the hospital bed, collect the gift I grabbed from the gift shop, place the box next to the baby, and pick her up.

Arbor smiles, rearranging her gown. “What’s this?”

I chuckle, bringing Gracie up to my shoulder to burp. We’re going to need to list that feeding on the chart, but I nod at the box. “Open it and find out. It’s not much, but I didn’t want to come back empty-handed.”

I had to sweet-talk the lady at the coffee stand into finding someone with a key. Then they could only accept cash, which is why I couldn’t get more. They also had no idea how to blow up the balloons, so I’m considering myself lucky I was able to get what I did.

Giving birth is a huge life event, and it’s fucking with my head to know she has no one outside of us to celebrate with.

I’m not an overly sentimental person, but it’s been bothering me since we got to the hospital and the chaos died down.

Arbor uses her hands flat on the mattress to push up enough that she’s sitting rather than lounging, and she pulls the top off the box.

It’s a onesie that says “I’m new here.” You fill in all the baby’s details with the marker included, then pop it into the picture frame next to the footprint and a picture. It has the ink for taking the footprint, and it’s pretty basic for costing almost a hundred dollars, but I fully understand the convenience markup.

“Hayes,” she whispers, flipping over the set and checking out the details on the back. “This is incredible. Thank you so much. I haven’t had a chance to get anything like this yet.”

“I’m glad you like it,” I say, studying her in return.

She’s fucking beautiful.

Gracie grunts and lets out a little burp.

I smile like a fool and put her down in the cart, keeping my hand on her tummy to give her little pats while she gets settled. “Now, did you want me to bring you your bags so you can grab what you want to change into?”

She puts the gift set back in the larger box it came in and offers a polite smile. “I can do it. You guys are probably itching to get home and go to sleep…”

That was a nice way to say she’s expecting us to abandon her. If she wants to get rid of us… Well, let’s just hope that’s not the case.

“We brought overnight bags. Hael even packed for Morris. It’s almost morning. I’m guessing you’ve been up for close to twenty-four hours, and you had an extremely taxing day.”

She tucks her hair behind her ear and shrugs. “I know. I just feel like you guys have lives of your own, and I need to let you get back to them.”

I’d say she’s more afraid of counting on someone, only to have them disappear. Or even worse, having us not be who she thinks we are. But that’s just a guess, and I don’t want to push too hard.

Omegas are skittish.

“If having all three of us here will be too much, we can take shifts.” I pull the baby beanie down on Gracie’s head and focus back on Arbor. “We’re in the middle of a snowstorm, and we haven’t slept either. It’ll be safer if we stick around, at least until we get a few hours of sleep.”

Her perfect, straight, white teeth dig into her lower lip as she nods. “Okay, then. Yeah, would you grab my bag for me?”

Hael has always been the twin that women flock to, even way back in high school, which was fine with me. Relationships were distractions I wanted nothing to do with while I was hyper-focused on my goals. Starting something, falling in love, and then leaving for basic training sounded like a nightmare I wanted no part of.

I dated a little over the years, but since getting back from my last stint overseas, I’ve been focused on running the gym. Now that I think about it, it’s been an embarrassing amount of time since I’ve been this close to a woman.

Clearly Arbor is healing.

I’m not a total fucking dick.

Who knows if she’s even emotionally ready for anything after the shitshow with her ex.

Logically, I understand this.

My dick does not. He’s not acting very gentlemanly, and it’s starting to piss me off. Glaring at my jeans, I swipe a hand over my bulge.

It’s her scent.

It’s everywhere.

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