this girl…Natalie. She’s been in and out of the center for the last few months, showing up here and there, going to the free clinic to get her methadone and get tested because she’s been turning tricks for money. Then she just disappeared. Until five days ago.”
Killian’s rough palms gripped Jacob’s calves, squeezing reassuringly. “What happened five days ago?”
“She OD’d,” Jacob said, blinking back tears.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. She’s okay, sort of.” Jacob reached for his abandoned pants and fished the picture from his pocket. A three-year-old girl with huge brown eyes, long kinky curls, and beautiful warm umber skin stood in a sundress and white sandals. Beside her, Rebecca held a tiny newborn, still hooked up to several wires and machines in the neonatal intensive care unit. He held up the picture to Killian. “But they’re not.”
Killian took the picture and froze, his gaze fixed to the image. He swallowed audibly, and Jacob could see his hands trembling. “I know it’s not what we planned. Rebecca could still be our surrogate if you would rather, but look at them. Natalie abandoned them. Signed away her rights in the hospital and just walked away, leaving them both like they were trash. The little girl is Nova. But this one, she doesn’t even have a name yet. I know all the machines look scary, but she’s a fighter. They say she can go home probably next week after the drugs are out of her system. There’s no real way to know if she’s going to be one hundred percent, but I don’t care about that. They need a home. We have one. A nice one. Two homes even—”
“Jacob.”
The sound of his name stopped him cold. “Yeah?”
“We’ll do it. We’ll take them home. Whenever they’re ready. As long as we pass all the background checks and whatever else is needed.”
Jacob burst into tears. He didn’t mean for it to happen, but it just did. One minute, he was a nervous wreck, and the next, he was full-blown ugly crying.
Killian pulled him close, not even trying to stem the flow of tears. “What am I going to do with you, my soft-hearted boy?”
“You’re doing it,” Jacob said, voice muffled against the shirt Killian still wore. “I just know they’re ours. Don’t ask me how I know it because we see kids all the time, but I just took one look at her, at them, and I knew they were supposed to be ours, and I really hoped you saw it, too. And the baby—we need to find a name for her—she’s got the softest baby hands, Killian, and even though she’s going through hell, she still makes the cutest, sweetest cooing sounds when you hold her.” He paused to take a breath. “But I don't want you to do this if you don’t see it, if you don’t feel it. If you think I’m being crazy or you aren’t ready, then—”
“I do see it,” Killian said, once more stopping Jacob’s incessant stream of consciousness babbling. “I see it. They’re supposed to be ours. They’re perfect.”
Jacob sniffled, wiping his nose on Killian’s t-shirt, earning a look. “Can we go see them when we get home?”
“Of course.”
“Can we maybe go home a little early so we can see them sooner?” Jacob asked, giving Killian his biggest, widest doe eyes.
Killian snorted. “Yes, you little manipulator, but there better really be a french maid costume in your suitcase.”
Jacob threw his arms around his neck, sliding into his lap. “I cannot believe we’re going to be parents to two little girls.” When he realized what he said, he pulled back. “I didn’t mean that Chloe wasn’t—isn’t—I’m sorry.”
Killian frowned. “Why are you sorry? Chloe will always be my first baby. That doesn’t mean I won’t love these two as well. They’re not replacements. I know that. I know you know that. It’s okay.
We’re okay.”
They sat there on the kitchen floor, Jacob curled up in Killian’s lap, gazing at the picture of what he hoped was his future family. “When I woke up, half naked in your bed that morning, I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams that we’d have this life together,” Jacob said wistfully, not for the first time.
“Me either,” Killian said. “But drunk me and drunk you somehow recognized each other for what we are.”
“Soulmates?” Jacob said with a smile.
“Crazy,” Killian said around a laugh.
Jacob couldn’t help but laugh, too. They were crazy. Their life together was crazy and was about to get even more so. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. He wouldn’t trade one single minute.
