“See? I know it’s hard as much as we work, but I have a good bit of money saved up. I can accelerate my five-year plan.” Laird chuckled, warm air stirring Devon’s hair.
“Do you want to be a dad?” That seemed to be really important.
Devon did, of course. He’d always wanted to be a parent. It was one of the reasons he was a good accoucheur; he loved helping to bring babies into the world.
“God, yes. I’ve just never met anyone I wanted to change my life for. But you make me want to settle in and be a family man.”
He searched Laird’s eyes and he didn’t sense any deceit there at all. “I—at least you know that when you’re studying your anatomy and everything, you have someone who can help run all the muscles and nerves for you.”
He held out his olive branch.
Laird grinned at him. “You are absolutely right. I picked the perfect person to get pregnant with. We like the same sorts of things. Even though I can’t knit. You forgive me for that?”
Devon snorted, “Well, I can’t bench press seventy thousand pounds or whittle koalas either.”
He waved to his mantle with the three little carved koalas Laird had made for him.
“But you can run for a long damn way. You put me to shame on the treadmill. Speaking of, is it safe for you to be on the treadmill?”
“For now, absolutely. Later, I’ll have to think about the dangers of falling and also, you know, balancing my weight. It may be smarter for me to just do long, long walks and slower jogs on terra firma.” He didn’t intend to be foolish about it.
Laird nodded to him. “I would walk with you. Is Raven going to be your accoucheur?”
“I was his; it’s only fair.” To be honest Devon was sort of waiting to be able to yell at Raven the way Raven had hollered at him for two babies.
“That’s cool unless you think it’s going to be weird to have somebody you know do that for you.” He could see Laird mulling that over, and he thought maybe it was in a medical practitioner sort of way, not in a “I don’t want to have your friend there when you have a baby” sort of way.
“No, I don’t think so. Raven and I don’t have a whole lot of secrets between us.” He just had no problem with his friend seeing all of his parts, he supposed.
“Well, cool.” Laird kissed the top of his head again, stroking his hip. “What’s our next step?”
“Obviously I’ll need to set up a baseline with Raven, and then we do a bunch of tests off and on and checkups. That sort of thing. But really, it’s not that hard.” Maybe he was oversimplifying things a tiny bit because he had a feeling Laird was talking about their relationship as well as the baby, but he focused on one thing at a time, which was the easy thing.
He got another soft laugh at that and Laird just patted his belly with one hand. “We can wait and discuss things as they come up, I guess. But, I want you to know I want to be there through the whole process. Not going to leave you hanging and I really care about you, Devon.”
Well, it wasn’t an “I love you,” but it was really close, right?
“I feel the same way. I’m totally into you, Laird, and I know that we have a lot to talk about right now. I just want to sit here with you and pretend that everything is fine.” Maybe that made him a coward, but Laird was so warm and he was so comfortable. He finally felt like all the tension from the day was draining out of him, and he just wanted to sit here and breathe.
“We can totally do that, you know? You and me, breathing.”
“Right on.” He kissed Laird’s chin and leaned in, resting. There was plenty of time for dealing with all the realities of him being pregnant.
Chapter
Nine
Laird needed to call his folks.
He and Devon had agreed to tell family first. Then, when Devon was a bit farther along, they would tell their friends in Secret Springs.
God, he was going to be a dad. And, while he hadn’t broached the subject of moving in with Devon yet, he was going to. Because he’d been thinking in that direction before the pregnancy test.
“Hey.” His partner, Nick, poked his arm. They were cleaning the bus post shift, and he guess he’d gotten lost in thought and stopped moving.
“What?”
“You’ve been distracted for days. What’s up with you?”
