“Please,” I weep. “Please. Please. Please.”
I don’t know who I’m praying to, but I sob and plead as the pressure builds to push.
“Marcus!” I scream as the weight anchors at my pelvis. “Veyn!”
My knees widen on the ruined sheets and I bear down. I have no idea if I’m doing it right, but my body wants it out. Wants to heave, and I listen. Bloody heat gushes down my thighs to soak the fabric bunched beneath my trembling knees. Waves of hot and cold rush up and over with the urge to throw up. But all I can do is grip the post and do my best to bring this baby into the world on my own.
“Linny.”
My head jerks up and I nearly faint with relief when Veyn steps out of the glass with Marcus tossed over his shoulder. My euphoria at seeing them is short lived by the sight of all the blood smeared across Veyn’s chest and drenching Marcus’s top.
“Oh my God,” I gasp, wishing I could run to them, but unable to move.
“He’s fine,” Veyn says quickly, dumping Marcus down on his feet before reaching for me. “Lie back, little one. Let me look.”
I shake my head, crying from relief and pain. “I can’t. It hurts. This is easier.”
He doesn’t press.
Without a word, he and Marcus coordinate without saying a word. Veyn drops to his knees before me. Marcus slides up behind me and gingerly pulls me back to rest against his chest. His hands twist around the hem of my T-shirt, and the fabric is lifted up and over my head, giving the kneeling demon a clear view of the mess.
“I see the head,” he says firmly.
Together, as if they’ve done this a million times, they get me through it. Each supports and guides me along every contraction, every push. There is nothing but their quiet murmurs as I bring our baby into the world with an indignant wail straight into Veyn’s waiting palms.
He swaddles the bundle of pink flesh in blankets as I slump against Marcus. Hours of the worst pain I’ve ever felt vanishes the moment the tiny creature is placed against my chest.
“A girl,” Veyn says with a tightness in his voice. “She’s beautiful.”
He’s not wrong.
Everything about her is perfect. All ten fingers and all ten toes, and soft, pale eyes that contrast with the thin, dark wisps matted to her scalp.
“You did wonderful,” Marcus murmurs into my sweat-slick temple. “What do you want to name her?”
I skim my fingers along the downy curve of her cheek. Emotions thick in my throat.
“Ella Gloria Usher.”
Marcus presses a kiss into my cheek. “It’s perfect.”
I nod but say nothing as I hold the gift I’ve been given. A piece of my boys forever with me. A piece of them I can continue loving until I can join them one day and tell them about the daughter we had together. A precious bundle named after both her fathers and her grandmother. Who has her fathers’ eyes and their hair.
They would have loved you so much,I think with fresh tears.
I hold her tight to my chest and release her only when Marcus takes her from me to clean. Veyn does the same to me. Changing the sheets and using a damp cloth to pat me down. I’m bundled in a fresh top he unearthed from the dresser and tucked beneath clean linen. Ella is returned and carefully placed in my arms. Both men flank either side of me as we peer down at the tiny miracle fast asleep against my chest.
It’s hours later that I’m tickled out of a deep slumber to the soft whisper of voices. The room sits in a murky hue of deep twilight. The kind where not a soul stirs, except the stars.
I blink and focus on the ceiling of my room at Usher House. The sight momentarily confuses me, and I lie still and listen as the hushed conversation continues somewhere to my right.
“I always knew we’d make beautiful babies.”
“Has my nose.”
“We have the same nose.”
My heart kicks up even before I lift my head and see them bathed in the soft kiss of silvery moonlight.
