Page 71 of How Good It Was (Excess All Areas 3)

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“I’m not going to be able to hide this for too much longer,” Willow said, rubbing her hand over the small bump as they sat in the car outside the private hospital she’d arranged to be seen at.

Luke slid his hand over hers, feeling the firmness of her stomach hidden beneath an oversize sweater. “So, we make an announcement when you’re ready. Cletus needs room to grow, not sure he likes being hidden away anyway.”

“Are you sure you want to know the gender? What if it’s a girl? You can’t keep calling her Cletus.”

Luke grinned. “The baby’s nickname will be Cletus forever.”

Thirty minutes later, with Willow on a hospital gurney, her stomach exposed, he wasn’t sure what he was feeling. Light-headedness. Nausea. Anticipation.

Willow gripped his hand tightly, and he flashed forward to her due date. A due date the band’s official tour had been arranged to allow for. The album would be out in July, the tour would start in September. UK first. Hopefully, Europe next year. When Willow and Cletus would already be back home. The thoughts of them joining him for a little while, Cletus in little ear defenders, were washed away by a vision of him placing their cases on a conveyor at the airport and kissing them both goodbye. Forever.

“Are you okay?” Willow whispered. “You’re squeezing my hand.”

He released his hold. “Sorry.”

“Let’s see what we have here,” the doctor said, applying some gel to her stomach. “A little over sixteen weeks. And recently had a burst ovarian cyst. Is that correct?”

Luke listened as Willow answered. A trickle of fear ran through him. What if something was wrong with Cletus? What if Cletus was missing a limb, or had a hole in their heart, or what if, fuck, he wasn’t breathing?

But then, he heard a whooshing sound. Fast and consistent, like a drum beat.

“What a strong heartbeat,” the doctor said.

Luke looked at Willow, who was watching the doctor nervously. “Can you see the gender of the baby?”

“I just need to get a better angle. Should be clear enough, by now. Any guesses before I show you?”

“I think it’s a girl,” Willow said.

“It’s a Cletus,” Luke said, brushing Willow’s hair from her cheek to behind her ear. He pressed a kiss to her temple, unsure why he’d felt the need to, beyond it feeling necessary, in that moment, to let her know that he was there with her.

She turned her head on the pillow. “That’s the last time you use that name.”

“Fine.” Shit, he’d agree with just about anything she said with the sound of his child’s heartbeat surrounding them.

His fucking kid.

He didn’t have the first clue why it was so suddenly apparent that it was his kid, with her. Only that it was as if a switch had been turned on inside him, and he suddenly felt like Liam Neeson in any film he’d ever been in where he needed to protect his family.

Family.

Now there was a word.

Fuck.

He needed air. To breathe. A pint. Although the surge of energy in his veins was headier than any line of coke or alcohol. Feeling rushed into his body, like pins and needles in his fingertips. The numbness he’d been feeling was suddenly gone.

“Here,” the doctor said, turning the screen. “Congratulations, it’s a boy.”

And there he was, wiggling around on the screen. A part of him in fuzzy black and white with a big fucking head and little feet and a hand in the air as if he was waving.

A part of him.

“Holy fuck, Will.” He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it softly. “We made that.” He couldn’t take his eyes off it as the doctor moved the probe-thing, changing the angle. “Doesn’t he get banged around in there?”

The thought of his baby, levitating in a water balloon, surrounded by hips and ribs. Like, if she banged into the kitchen counter, could she pop the damn thing?

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