Page 166 of As The Shifter World Turns

I crossed over and wrapped my arms around him, holding him tightly. “It’s going to be perfect no matter what. Do you know why?”

He shook his head against my chest, soaking in all the comfort I was offering him.

“Because there is no baby on this planet as loved as our little one and a room filled with love is always perfect.”

“We still need to take down the blinds.” He looked up at me. “Because safety. We can do those window clings or something else but not blinds.” At first I hadn’t understood why the baby needed additional window coverings as well as curtains but trusted my mate knew best.

“I can take those down today.” It had already been on my list, but I couldeasily move it up. They wouldn’t be an issue until our little one was both born and mobile, but I got it. Putting it off wasn’t ideal.

“And can you get paint chips? This is nice, but it’s wrong. I don’t know why but it’s wrong.”

The whole apartment had been newly painted before we moved in but my mate wasn't happy with the color in the baby’s room.

“Of course. I can do anything and everything you want doing. I just need you to tell me and not take it all on yourself. You’re growing a baby… let me grow the environment.” I kissed the top of his head.

“That sounded weird.” He wasn’t wrong. “You don’t grow an environment,” he chuckled.

“No, but you grow a baby so it was half making sense.”

“Okay.” He stepped out of my arms. “Let me show you what’s bugging me about the space.” It was a huge step, at least it felt like one. I typed them all into my phone to make sure I got everything right.

“Let’s get something to eat and then either I can go to the home store and get a bunch of samples and bring them back while you nap or we can go together.”

“Can we get egg rolls?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

We ended up at his favorite Chinese place and sure enough he had egg rolls, one after another. The server was highly amused and said that when they had their youngest, all they wanted was egg drop soup for months. I doubted that Ivor would be all about his egg roll cravings for very long. He tended to flit from one thing to another.

“Let’s get you home and nap?” He was yawning during the entire second half of lunch.

“But then I can’t pick anything out.” He buckled his seatbelt.

“I have our list on my phone and can take tons of pictures, and grab all the samples. And if you think I’ve missed something, we can go back together.”

“You would do that too and you wouldn’t be mad about it?”

“I’d do anything for you, Ivor. Anything. I love you, omega mine.”

“As I love you.”

I ended up not only coming home with paint chips, but also tiny samples of paint to slap on the wall as well as some wallpaper samples—because he wasn’t happy with the original one he’d chosen and had hung before we moved in—and pictures of more lighting fixtures than I even knew existed. I needed to check with Daire about the blinds, but I did find some shades with a fancy name that were approved for use in children’s bedrooms.

It took us hours to go through them all and it was fun. Never had I understood how people liked this kind of thing. It was work and I always thought plain white walls were fine. You could always throw a picture up on it to break the plainness up. But now that I was in the midst of it and it wasn’t for me, but for this amazing being that was coming into my life, I saw the thrill.

We were making a space for our wee one to call their own. And who knew… maybe when they turned three they would decide they hated the colors we chose and we’d have to do it all over again. But that would be okay. It meant that we gave them the wings to decide what they liked for themselves.

“You’re thinking hard.” Ivor settled his hand on my shoulder.

“Not hard as much as being filled with awe. This room isn’t for us, it’s for the being our love created and that’s a bit… just wow.”

“Wow indeed.”

Daire

When Nate told me that we should be on a break, I just accepted it. I mean what else could I do? His world couldn’t be just about me or us. And really, I’d been a flakey mess in the beginning, projecting my past mistakes onto him like a fool.

But now… now that we’d taken a step back, now I saw what I’d been doing and I wanted to fix it.

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