Page 255 of G.O.D.S Omnibus

The doctor nods and starts ordering some tests, and the nurses all start doing what they need to.

“Okay, guys, everyone else is too afraid to tell you, but we need to limit it to two of you at a time. You kind of take up a lot of space,” Grace says, and Laughn laughs at her.

“I like you. If I wasn’t stupidly infatuated and in love with Jolie, I might have kept you as a pet.”

“Um, thanks I guess,” she says, and I snort. In a Laughn way, that’s a compliment, but it’s still weird as fuck.

Everyone decides to get food and check on Jolie. I take a seat beside the cot and press my face to the clear plastic. They are so small and fragile. Zadom has a fine layer of really dark hair, and my baby girl’s wisps of snow-white hair are surreal—it’s just like Jolie had when she was younger. A tear runs down my face. I might not have a super memory like Brennan or Boston, but I still remember the first time we were taken to meet her.

“Do you want to hold them?”

I look up, and the older nurse in charge of the babies stands before me.

“Shouldn’t Jolie do that?” I hedge.

“Skin to skin is important for their development. After having a C-section, Jolie may not be able to get up here.”

I chuckle, as she has no idea. Jolie will be up here not long after she opens her eyes or as soon as she can force Chester to let her leave her bed.

“Come on, everyone will get a turn. Take off your shirt and sit on that chair.”

I do as she asks and pull my shirt over my head. Her eyes linger on my skin longer than they should, but she wouldn’t be the first woman to try to take in all my tattoos at once. I sit down on the recliner near the little crib, and she brings me my baby girl, placing her on my chest. I look down at her as her tiny hand rests against my heart, and there is this feeling in my chest that I have never experienced before. A sound that resembles a small kitten howling starts beside me and I look over as the nurse moves a crying Zadom from the crib and brings him to me. The second he is placed on my chest and his sister touches him, he stops crying.

“I’ll be over there if you need me,” the nurse says, pointing to a small desk in the centre of the room. I nod, and she walks away.

“Hi babies,” I whisper to them. They look so tiny in my arms. “Your mum is going to be so in love with you, and I think some of your daddies will be so jealous.”

This moment will be forever imprinted in my soul, just like the day their mother was born. There are very few moments in life that hit you so deeply. I have three—the day Jolie was born, the day she told me she loved me, and today. My entire being bleeds for Jolie; I was designed for her. But these two, this is a love so pure, and that is a foreign feeling. Another tear slides down my cheek, shocking me. I haven’t cried this much in, well, forever.

We are a family now, and fuck knows how that will even work with all of us, but I have a feeling these two are going to show us how it’s done. We won’t be selfish with them. We will all do what’s best for them, and we will all love them unconditionally. I know that’s how we should love Jolie, but that love is selfish. We are blinded by our love for her, and it makes us recklessly impulsive. We would burn the world to the ground for her, but for these two, I want to build a world for them. And that rightthere is the hardest thing I have ever had to contemplate. How does a man like me navigate both worlds?

It’s not going to be easy, but nothing about this life ever is.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jolie

I woke up to Chester by my side, and his tear-stained face was beaming with happiness. Out of all my guys, he struggles with his emotions the most. He warned me plenty of times, but seeing that side of him reassures me the man I see is in there. While he is all kinds of red flags to the average person, I’m so far from average that his brand of crazy speaks to me.

“Good news,” Chester says as he strolls back into the room. “The nurse gave me this.”

He’s pushing a wheelchair with a shit-eating grin on his face. I don’t know who he had to threaten to get it, but I don’t care. I have been awake for an hour and want to see my babies. They say it’s too soon to get up, but if they didn’t let me, I would have just walked myself there regardless of their thoughts. I heal twice as bloody quickly as the average person, and everything inside me wants me to be with my children. I don’t know if that’sa normal feeling or something that comes with being the way I am.

“Finally! No one died though, right?”

“It was a close call,” he jokes, parking the wheelchair next to the bed and pulling back the covers. My legs have full movement, and the regular nurse that came in to check on me was baffled. She also has no idea that what they knocked me out with wasn’t your average drugs—I would have been wide awake and felt every damn part of the C-section if that were the case. Chester lifts me out of the bed, and I let him because I know it makes him feel useful. Besides, I don’t hate the feeling of being cradled to his chest.

Once I’m situated in the chair, Chester wheels me out of the room and to the NICU. The security guards waiting in the hall see us coming and scan the door open, one nodding politely as we pass.

I touch Chester’s arm as we walk in. “Stop,” I whisper and point towards the babies. Creed has them on his chest, and he is quietly talking to them.

After they saw me in recovery and reassured themselves I was okay, I forced all the other guys to go home and shower. But Chester refused. I had wondered where Creed was, and now I know.

“Have you seen them yet?” I ask Chester.

“No,” he states simply. “I couldn’t leave you. It has and always will be you, and that’s why I will make a shit father.”

“You will be a fantastic father, just you wait and see.”

---