Page 61 of Like the Season
She shook her head with a pained smile. “I think this is it, Gramps.” While she called Boyd Dad, she’d playfully taken to addressing Caleb as Gramps over the past several weeks.
He didn’t mind.
In fact, he not-so-secretly relished the title.
Still not fully awake, Caleb wasn’t quite processing. “It?”
“It. You know, time? Baby time? As in she’s ready to upgrade her accommodations to something with a view?”
“Time? Oh. Oh,shit! Boyd!Boyd!” He hurried over to her and was helping her toward her bathroom to get her cleaned up when Boyd flew out of the bedroom, shirtless but with his slacks on.
“What?”
“Get dressed! The baby’s coming!”
“Ohmygod!”
She started laughing. “Gee, Dad, don’t freak out on me now.”
Considering it was no longer a secret at work that the two men were married, Boyd took care of calling them in as missing the day, and possibly Monday, while Caleb drove them to the hospital.
After Ella spent nearly ten hours in labor, they welcomed Lily Lee to the world and Caleb and Boyd both cried as they took turns holding her while one of the nurses took pictures for them.
Before the men left to return home for the night, they had pictures taken of them flanking Ella, with her holding Lily. Caleb assigned one as his Facebook profile picture.
Caption:Welcome to the world, Lily Lee! Granddad and Gramps love you! #happiestdayofmylife #cutestgranddaughterintheworld
By the time they’d returned home, he’d had dozens of congratulations and “love” votes on the post.
And one “angry” one—from his mom.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
He showed Boyd.
Caleb watched as anger flashed across Boyd’s features before he schooled his expression. “How do you want to handle this?” he asked Caleb.
Caleb reached to take his phone back and called up her profile. They weren’t friends on Facebook, and he didn’t have the follow feature enabled, so apparently she’d been stalking him.
He blocked her and showed Boyd.
“You sure that’s how you want to handle it?”
“Yep.” He put his phone on the charger. “It’s their problem, not mine.”
Boyd turned him and pulled him into his arms. “This is one of those times I’m forcing this to be Cay and Boyd, not boy and Sir, or Daddy. Is this really what you want?”
“Yeah.Wehave a gorgeous, brilliant daughter, who just gave birth to our beautiful granddaughter. Nothing is pissing on my good mood today.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“There’s nothing I’m more sure about.”
* * * *
The next afternoon, they brought Ella and the baby home and Boyd felt torn between joy and melancholy that not only was Helen not there to be a part of it, but that he’d missed out on this with Ella.
As Ella took a nap in her bedroom, Boyd sat on the couch with the baby cuddled against his shoulder, Caleb dozing with his head in Boyd’s lap.
This is what happiness feels like.
He took his cell phone and held it up, at an angle, capturing all three of them in the picture.
It became his new Facebook profile picture.
Caption:#joy
