Rolani Xavier Pracher Jr. was five hours old.
She was amother.
RJ’s mother.
She hadn’t stopped looking at him since the nurses placed him on her chest in that delivery room, and she didn’t plan to stop now.
Rolani was reclined in the hospital chair they’d dragged close to her bed, shirt off, RJ skin to skin against him the way the nurses had shown them. The room was dim, and the hallwayoutside had finally settled into its late-night quiet. The monitors kept their steady rhythm. Everything else was still.
RJ’s little fist was curled against his father’s collarbone. Rising and falling. Rolani’s hand covered his entire back. His head had dropped back, mouth slightly open, locs loose around his shoulders. He’d been awake through all of it — every contraction, every push, every moment Kennedi had needed someone to hold onto — and the exhaustion had finally claimed him.
She watched them and didn’t move.
Her phone sat on the tray table; notifications stacked from people who loved them and wanted to know. They’d asked everyone to hold off until tomorrow. This night belonged to the three of them. She’d respond in the morning.
Right now, she had no interest in anything that existed outside this room.
RJ stirred. A small sound, barely anything, but Rolani’s hand moved on his back before his eyes opened. Before he was even fully awake, his body already knew.
His eyes opened slowly. Found her across the room watching him and their son.
Neither of them said anything.
After a while, he spoke.
“Talk to me, baby. You good?”
“Yeah.” She looked at him, then at RJ, then back at him. “I’m perfect. I can’t believe he’s here with us.”
He nodded slowly, eyes moving down to their son. His thumb moved in a small unconscious circle on RJ’s back.
“You?” she asked.
He leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her lips.
“Best day of my life so far,” he said quietly.
“So far?”
“Yeah. The next will be when I make you my wife. Go ahead and start planning. I’m ready.”
Epilogue
Kennedi stoodat the full-length mirror in the bridal suite they’d set up in the main house, and for a moment she looked at herself.
The ranch had been taken over. Voices everywhere, someone’s heels on the hardwood, her mother directing traffic she hadn’t been asked to direct. It was loud and real and exactly what she needed because the only sound she could hear was her own heartbeat.
She was about to marry her best friend. The person she called first. The person who showed up before she finished asking. The person she’d been trying not to need and had needed anyway, completely, without apology.
Unequivocally.
“Kenny.” Her mother appeared in the mirror behind her, already crying, which she had promised she would not do until the ceremony. “Look at you, baby.”
Kennedi reached back and took her hand without turning around. “Mama, you said you weren’t going to cry.”
“I lied.” Her mother squeezed her fingers. “I’m allowed. I’m your mother and you look so beautiful.”
Shadow appeared in the doorway, RJ on her hip, pointing at Kennedi. He’d been passed between aunties all morning and seemed unbothered by all of it, which tracked — he was his father’s son.
