Page 79 of The Omega's Secret Baby
“Oh, then there should be ice cream too,” Jake suggested. “Cause it’ll be hot.”
“Like you need it to be hot to want ice cream,” I joked. “We just really wanted to talk to you about this because we’ll also be moving together when we’re married. All three of us. I want to make sure you’re okay with that.”
“Three?” He looked skeptical. “Does that mean Uncle Griff isn’t coming with us?”
“No.” I put an arm around Jake’s shoulders. “Uncle Griff needs to live alone for a while. But he’ll come visit. And you can visit him anytime you want. We’re not leaving town.”
“Oh. Okay, then. He should get a piece of the cake, though.”
“He will.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded once, apparently satisfied.
I inhaled. “There is… one more thing.” I looked to Matt, who gave me a reassuring smile.
“There’s more?” Jake asked.
“You’re going to be a big brother,” Matt said, before I could get another word in.
Jake seemed suspicious. “A big brother?”
“Yes, in a few months, you’ll have a baby brother or a baby sister.”
“Tommy got a baby sister.” Jake grimaced. “He says babies are stupid and cry a lot.”
Ugh. Part of me wanted to strangle Tommy for making this hard on me, but Matt took over the conversation before I could get too upset.
“Babies cry because they don’t know better,” he said. “They’re these helpless little things that can’t even talk. They can’t really do much. They can’t run like we just did. They can’t even walk until they’re almost a year old.”
“Do they cry because they’re so bored?” Jake asked.
“No, they cry because they need our help and our protection.”
Finally I could see where Matt was going with this, trying to appeal to Jake’s alpha instincts to get him on board. Pretty clever, actually. I wouldn’t have thought of that, at least not so quickly. It was nice not being alone in figuring this stuff out.
“I can protect them,” Jake said, puffing out his chest and totally taking the bait.
“I know.” Matt nodded. “The baby will be lucky to have a strong big brother like you.”
“Iamstrong.” Jake beamed and jumped off the bench. “I can lift Fiona!”
I pulled him back by the arm. “But you won’t.” I couldn’t leteverythingslide. “She’s an old lady and you need to be gentle with her.”
“Okay. But I could!”
“I’m sure you could.” Matt stood up as well. “Race you again? First to the swing set!” And as soon as he’d spoken, he started running.
“Unfair!” Jake yelled, trying to catch up.
I stayed behind laughing, feeling in my bones that everything was going to be just fine somehow. Having another baby wasn’t what I’d planned, and it put a stop to my dreams of returning to college, but I was used to life interfering with my plans. I wasn’t going to feel bitter about it. What was the point?
* * *
Over the next few weeks, we tried hard to include Jake in everything that was going on. We took him to see the house we wanted to buy—which was gorgeous, two stories, huge backyard and just outside town. We let him help pick out some toys for the baby—and made sure to buy him one as well. We even took him along to a doctor’s visit so he could see his new sibling on an ultrasound—which he actually found pretty exciting.
The only thing that bothered him was that we didn’t want to find out the gender before birth, but we weren’t going to budge on that. I wanted there to be an element of surprise.
In the first week of May, just around the time I was really starting to show, Matt announced our engagement in the local newspaper. It was a little bit embarrassing when I went grocery shopping that day and every other person stopped to congratulate me. Especially knowing that many of these people had been talking about me behind my back not too long ago. But Matt said I should be proud, and I tried to be, answering everyone with a smile before excusing myself to get on with my day.
