Page 53 of Bear with Me
He laughed. "Of course. Have I ever been able to pass up buying cute clothes?"
I scoffed when I pulled the first onesie out of the box. "This is cute?"
It had instructions on where the baby's head, hands, and feet went. Across the middle, it said, "You've got this, Papa!"
I uncovered a second onesie that said the same thing, only it was green where the first had been yellow. He'd gotten us a whole stack of twin onesies with fun sayings, and a stack of burp rags with the same sayings, only bigger.
The pain in my back worsened for a moment, deepening my scowl. "I should throw these out with the trash."
"You will not." Vic tugged the box from my arms and set it on the other side of Ollie, where I couldn't reach it.
"Thank you," I said again. "Thanks for coming."
There was so much more I wanted to say. Vic had stuck with me through it all. When I thought he'd gotten sick of me and left, he'd merely nudged me in the direction I needed to go all along. If Vic hadn't moved out, we would probably still be living in that apartment, and I would still be overthinking whether Ollie and I should be together.
I opened the rest of the presents with blurry eyes. Once I finished and thanked everyone for coming, we spilled out into the yard, where the kids played hide and seek in the nearby woods. No one batted an eye when the four-year-old twins shifted into their bear and mountain lion forms. Our construction crew were all shifters or mated to shifters, and Cassie had met the twins and their animal forms over the summer.
The shifted children were far better at seeking than the ones who stayed in their human forms, but of the two eldest cousins, the mountain lion kit could climb higher than his bear sister. He made it back to base on the front porch with the bear cub and a couple of our friends' wolf pups trailing behind him.
Vinny and his mate held their babies to their chests and grinned at each other over their heads. "That'll be these two before too long."
"Liam will beat them, too." Walter didn't even try to hide the pride in his voice.
The kit studied the snack table with wide eyes. He shifted back to his human form with wispy brown hair and green eyes.
"Well done, Liam!" Walter wrapped the naked boy in a towel and picked him up before he could swipe a cup of punch. "Let's get you dressed for lunch."
My back had been bothering me all morning, but I passed it off as stress. Now that the most stressful part, being the center of attention, was over, I thought it would ease, but the cramping only got worse. It was like heat cramps, only worse.
"Are you all right?" Ollie walked up behind me and rubbed the spot I'd been kneading with my knuckle all morning.
"Keep doing that," I said.
"Do you need to lie down?"
"Not with all these people here! I'll be fine."
He dug his thumbs into my flesh on either side of my spine. It was the first bit of relief I'd had all morning, and I wanted to wallow in it like a mermaid in the shallows. My moan drew everyone's attention. Once again, I wished I could sink into the floorboards.
"Oh, Blake, your pants." Nora pointed. "Have you had any contractions?"
"My what?" I looked down and saw that a dark blotch was spreading from the seam to the knees of my gray sweatpants. It was worse in the back, but still noticeable in the front. "Is that …"
"Your water broke." Nora wrapped her arm around my waist. "We need to get you inside and call Denise."
What a way to end the party.
CHAPTER 23
OLLIE
After a few tense moments,my siblings agreed to go to their hotels, leaving only our parents and Blake's sister Cassie at the house to await Denise's arrival. Our birthing assistant was on another call, also in Chicago. She promised to come as soon as she could, but insisted, "You still have plenty of time."
Mom didn't believe her. "His contractions are already three minutes apart. He's in active labor."
I fluffed the pillows and helped Blake into bed. We wanted a water birth, but Denise had the comfy inflatable tub.
"It's fine," Blake said through clenched teeth.
