I offered her a forced smile. “Go, take care of your poorly people. We’d love to have Alex tonight.”
I made dinner while Charlie played with Alex; I cleaned away the dishes while he bathed him and got him ready for bed; I warmedAlex’s milk while Charlie sang to him. I watched my husband be a natural with kids.
“Come and sit with us.”
Charlie laid Alex on a playmat on the floor of the magical greenhouse, turning down the lights, so the night sky lit the space.
I moved slowly, sitting down next to them.
“He won’t bite, Princess. He only cries because he’s not used to you. You avoid him… them all, like the plague. Archer’s kids as well.”
I shrugged. “You’d be a great dad.”
“And you’d be a great mum.”
“They seem so fragile. What if I broke one or ruined them, so they needed a lifetime of therapy? I mean, my childhood was… well, you know, and even Elise has never left me alone with Ari.”
Our relationship had improved over the years, rebuilding the bond we had before James ripped through our family, but she’d never asked me to watch Ari.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing either.”
“But they all love you… you have a knack. All they seem to do is cry around me.”
Charlie laid down, turning on his side and offering Alex his finger. He took it willingly in his tiny grasp, pulling it to his mouth and sucking the tip hard.
“Do you want kids, Princess? I know we’ve talked about it as something we want to do in the future… but, here we are, in the future.”
I rolled over on my side too, staring at the tiny person between us.
“What if a baby changed things? It’s been just us for so long.”
“It would change things, Princess. It would be trying and hard work and they’d get ill and we would have to put them first, but I’ll be honest. I would really like to have a baby with you. I’d liketo make a baby with you.” He pressed his hand to my stomach. “I’d like to watch your belly swell and your boobs get bigger. I’d love to feed your cravings and take care of you. I’d love someone who is half of each of us and who we can watch grow and laugh and play. I’d love to build a family with you; one we’d protect with our everything.”
I wrapped my hand over Charlie’s, imagining what it would be like for him to touch me like this if I had a hard, swollen stomach that wriggled when the person growing inside me moved.
“I’m scared,” I admitted.
“Me too, Princess, and if you’re not ready to do it or even talk about it, then we can leave it here and revisit it in a few years.”
I couldn’t help but smile because my husband had the hugest heart. He made me feel incredibly loved and special every day, and suddenly I felt very selfish by trying to keep that to myself.
“And how many kids were you thinking we’d have?”
“Four,” he replied without hesitation and I realized how much he must have been thinking about this and my guilt deepened.
“Four?” My eyes widened.
“We have two hands each, so I think we could handle four. Tanner and Emmy have two sets of twins. I like that idea.”
I shook my head quickly. “No twins… nope.” Charlie chuckled. “But maybe we could start with one.”
His beautiful brown eyes widened. “Yeah?”
I sat up, crossing my legs. “I don’t know anything about babies. I don’t even know how to hold one.”
He sat up too, lifting Alex from his mat. “Here, it’s not hard.” He shuffled closer and placed Alex in my arms. I froze, not sure what to expect, but when he reached up and grabbed my lip, pulling it, I couldn’t help but smile.
“We’ll do it together… all of it?” I asked, despite the tiny hand gripping my lip.
