Page 67 of His Gift
Enzo whined, but I grabbed his hand and let him squeeze me tightly.
“You can do this, baby. You’ve got this,” I said, pouring all my love and reassurance through our bond. I loved the fact that we were bonded, especially in times like this, when I could give him my calm and share some of his fear.
“I can see it,” Papa said excitedly, gazing over the midwife’s shoulder. “It’s wonderful.”
Enzo let out his loudest cry yet, and within seconds, it was joined by a second, smaller cry. Everything else was forgotten when the midwife lifted the tiny, wailing baby boy to show us.
“It’s a boy,” she said with a triumphant smile.
Enzo wailed wordlessly, reaching for our son. He flopped back against the pillows in exhaustion, then the midwife placed our baby in his arms so she could handle the afterbirth.
“Look at him,” I said, completely choked up. “He’s so perfect.”
“He’s our baby,” Enzo wept, stroking the baby’s head.
Everything seemed to settle into that moment. Enzo and I had both been through a lot to get to where we were now. The Christmas Eve event had been a huge success, but that had meant that people wanted more events just like it. We had about a week off before Enzo and I hit the ground running in the new year. At least we had his friends Amy and Erica on board to help us with the whole new branch of the Wythe Foundation.
We’d had to deal with Enzo’s dad more than I wanted to as well. Jamie O’Neill was not the brightest bulb in the socket, and it took a restraining order and the threat of police action for him to stop showing up at our home or the office demanding money from his son. Last I’d heard a few months ago, he’d been jailed for petty theft anyhow.
The biggest change in our lives had come within my family, though. We’d all been exhausted on Christmas Day, but we’d made a point of getting together at Dad and Papa’s house to talk about all the things that had been hurting each of us for years. We didn’t have any major breakthroughs then, and despite the festive air, there had been a few hurt feelings, but it was the first step, and we’d taken it together as a family.
Now, seven months later, we all went to therapy together once a week, even Enzo. I wasn’t sure if we all really needed it anymore, but it was amazing how getting together with the intention of being honest and open with each other brought us all so much closer. There were a lot of things about Dad and Papa’s early life, before Walt and I were born, that they’d never told us. They’d been through a lot. And I meana lot. It was no wonder Dad had been so fierce about protecting the people he loved, even if it meant putting up individual walls around each of us and keeping the others out.
Those days were in the past, though. We had so much to look forward to now.
“You two look so happy and peaceful,” Papa said, coming over to join us at the side of the bed. “Excuse me,” he corrected himself. “You three look happy.”
I smiled at my omega and baby, then up at my papa in gratitude. “We are happy,” I said. “And I’m happy you were here to share this with us.”
Papa made a modest sound and brushed my compliment away. He smiled at the baby and said, “Do you have any sense of whether he’s an alpha, omega, or beta yet?” he asked Enzo.
Enzo made a thoughtful face and brushed a hand over our baby’s head. “He feels like an alpha to me, but we won’t know until the tests come back.”
There was a time, a long time ago, when parents had to wait for their children to start manifesting sex traits, sometimes not until their children hit puberty. Thanks to modern medical technology, though, the hospital would be able to tell us within half an hour what we were in store for. But then again, omega papas were almost always right when they sensed these things.
“I’m happy whatever he is,” I said, stroking my thumb over my son’s cheek.
“Here, it’s your turn to hold him,” Enzo said, shifting like he would hand the baby to me.
“Really?” I asked, both eager and terrified to hold my son.
Enzo laughed. “Really.”
We managed the hand-off, though I felt incredibly clumsy, like I would drop our son at any moment. I had zero experience holding babies. Well, I’d had zero experience until Holly was born. But when I looked at the sweet, slightly pinched face of my firstborn son, something melted within me. I loved him. I loved him so much. And I loved the omega who I’d made him with.
“Have you thought of a name yet?” Papa asked me.
“We have,” Enzo said, smiling at me and nodding for me to go ahead.
As had been tradition since before people could remember, I smiled at my son and said, “I name you David.” It wasn’t technically my first naming, since Walt didn’t have an alpha and had asked me to do the naming for Holly.
“David, that’s a beautiful name,” Papa said.
“It was my papa’s name,” Enzo said, sniffling a little. I could feel the joy and the grief swirling together in him. It would have been wonderful if his papa had been able to be here with us. I knew in whatever way was possible that he was, and we would tell little David who he was named after as soon as he was old enough.
“You’re going to have such a wonderful life, David,” I told my son, settling onto the bed and adjusting the baby so Enzo and I both held him together. “You have a family that loves you and parents that will make sure you never feel unloved.”
“We will,” Enzo sighed, leaning into me like he wanted to sleep for a year. “You’re the greatest gift any of us has ever been given.”
