Page 67 of Misery In Me

Fuck. She’s already sick.

“I’m…fine.”Her voice shakes, then she retches again.

“Is the door unlocked, baby?” I turn the knob and it is. “Let me take Zoe.”

Pushing the door open, she’s on her knees in front of the toilet, and Zoe sits on her hip. I crouch down and reach for our daughter.

“No!”

“Baby, let me help.” I move closer. Zoe wiggles excitedly, waiting for me to take her.

“I—I need to do this on my own, Gage.” Sweat glistens on her brow, and I reach for a washcloth and wet it under the faucet. “For when you’re gone. I need to know I can handle it.”

I press the cloth to her head. “Remember when I told you that if I’m here, I’m going to help you? Well, this is part of it,Hermosa. When you’re throwing up because you’re growing a baby, I hold the other baby.”

“We’re going to have a rule on spacing the kids out.” She laughs weakly. “They have to sit up on their own. I can’t hold one and throw up at the same time.”

“You’re the boss, baby.” I grab Zoe and give her a kiss and lift her up and pretend to eat her stomach. Which makes her do the cutest little almost laugh.

“You’ve got to shower. Let me take her and get her fed. Let me just brush first.” Ale stands, flushes the toilet, and reaches for her toothbrush. A few minutes later, I’m in the shower and hauling ass to wash up. After I’m dressed in my uniform, I head downstairs, where Ale hands me a lunch bag. “Breakfast and leftovers for lunch.”

Works for me.

“Hey, before I go,” I spin her around and pull her arms around my neck, making her smile. “Victor and his wife, Rebecca, want to throw us a baby shower.”

“You already told someone? We haven’t even seen the doctor yet.” I lean in and kiss her, leaving her breathless.

“When is the appointment again? Maybe I can go with you.” My hands run down the length of her ribs, over her hips, and grip under her ass.

“Wednesday. The notes say it’s a fifteen-minute appointment, so I don’t think you need to come with me.” She pulls back and I tilt my head, watching her hips sway in her dress as she grabs her glass of water from the island.

Your wife just puked her guts up and you want to fuck her already?

I am but a simple man.

“Baby, it says fifteen minutes, but you better plan to be there for at least two hours.” I chuckle. “Victor said with their last kid they waited for their ultrasound for three hours. Trust me.”

“Zoe will be five months old on Wednesday.” She looks over at Zoe in her little activity center that I put together last night. “She looks so much like you, Gage.” Turning to face me, she steps closer to me and takes my hand in hers. “Do you think this baby will look more like you or me?”

I move our hands to her stomach and smile. “I hope they look like you, because I love everything about you. And call me crazy, because it will sound crazy. All I see when I look at Zoe is you. I don’t even see myself in her.”

It’s the truth. Not that I try to see Kiera in Zoe, but all I see is the love that Ale has poured into raising Zoe as her own. It must have blinded me to seeing anything else. And I just know that this baby is going to have their mother’s beauty and her kind heart. I want them to have every single quality she exudes.

Ale stares at me and I must be looking some type of way because she leans in and kisses me. “Our children are lucky to have a father like you,Cariño. I’m lucky that I get to have babies with you. You are perfect the way you are.”

This woman is over here trying to fix the broken parts of me. Parts that she didn’t break.

What the fuck did I do right in life to have her?

“Better get going,amor. Can’t have you late again.”

Right.

“See you tonight,Hermosa. I love you andPrincesa.”

“We knowthis unit has been deployed more than any other in the regiment, but that just means that y’all are the best of the best.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

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