Sin With Me

10

Gulping and hiccupping, A.J. nods emphatically.

“Abigail Aleksandra Elizabeth Edwards,” whispers Kat, her voice shaky.

It’s the name Chloe and A.J. had picked out if they had a girl, honoring their mothers with the two middle names. I meet Kat’s watering eyes, and reach out for her. We clasp hands and squeeze hard, smiling at each other.

“When can we see the little muggle?” sniffles Kenji.

His face is blotchy. His cheeks are streaked with mascara. One of his false eyelashes is hanging askew. If he had any idea what he looked like, he’d faint.

“Chloe can have visitors as soon as she’s ready. She’s going back to the maternity suite in a few minutes. I know she wants to see you all right away.” Elizabeth turns her gaze to me. “She really wishes you girls were with her during the delivery, but the hospital policy is two people maximum in the delivery room.”

“We know.” I swipe beneath my eyes with my fingers. Then from over my shoulder, a tissue appears.

I turn. Brody winks at me and wordlessly waves the tissue.

“Thanks.” I take it, wipe my face, try not to like him even more for being so sweet and thoughtful, fail utterly, and then decide I need another drink because this day is far too emotional for me to handle sober.

“Thomas,” I say, turning to him. “Do you have any champagne in that minibar?”

“Do I have any champagne?” he scoffs, squaring his shoulders and jutting out his chin. “You might as well ask if the pope has any funny hats!” He raises his arm in the air like a general giving marching orders to his troops. “To the maternity suite!” he cries.

“To the maternity suite!” everyone shouts back in unison.

Like a crazed horde of barbarians, we throng down the hospital hallway, hooting and hollering, scaring the s**t out of several unsuspecting nurses and doctors on the way.Blinking up at me in hazy, slack-mouthed confusion like someone awakening after a long night of hard drinking, the creature snuggled in a pink blankie in my arms is so astonishingly beautiful I can only stare at it in silent awe.

Her, I correct myself. I stare at her, little Abigail, feeling as if everything I thought I knew about life is complete and total bullshit.

Today is a day of two huge firsts for me: I cried, and I fell in love.

With a baby, of all things.

Next thing you know I’ll be wearing sweatpants in public and taking in stray cats.

“She’s so perfect,” I whisper, marveling at the teeny fingers gripped around my thumb. She has her father’s startling eyes—clear golden amber, the color of fine whiskey—but everything else about her is pure Chloe, from her rosebud lips to her long, elegant limbs, to the wispy blonde curls on the top of her head, fine as chick fluff.

Well, she did get one other thing from her father.

She’s huge.

“This kid’s gonna be an athlete,” muses Barney, looking at Abby over my shoulder. “Swimmer, maybe. Or volleyball player.”

“Or basketball star,” pipes in Nico. “How long did you say she was?”

He looks at Chloe. She’s propped up on a pile of pillows in the hospital bed, smiling dreamily, glowing and gorgeous like no person who’s just shoved nine pounds and five ounces of infant through her birth canal has any right to be.

She says, “Like half a mile, I think.”

A.J., sitting in the chair next to Chloe’s bed and finally composed, chuckles. “Sixty-one centimeters.”

Nico does the math faster than the rest of us. “Jesus. That’s two feet of baby, brother!”

Equal parts horrified and impressed, we all stare at Chloe.

She says, “You’re gonna feel even worse for me when I tell you that I was too dilated to get an epidural. I had her with no drugs.”

Fanning himself and softly moaning, Kenji sinks into a chair on the opposite side of the room.

Kat glares at A.J. He can’t see it, but it doesn’t stop her. She barks, “I have one word for you Mr. Edwards! Diamonds!”

Smiling, A.J. lifts Chloe’s hand to his lips and gently kisses it. “Already on it, Auntie Kat.”

Hearing him say the words “Auntie Kat” makes her lower lip quiver. Mollified, she says, “All right, then.” Her voice breaks over the last word.

Grinning, Nico pulls her into his arms and murmurs something into her ear that sounds like “big softie.”

“Can I hold her?”

We’ve all taken turns holding the baby except Brody, who now stands in front of me with his arms out, wiggling his fingers in a “gimme” gesture. I carefully place Abby into his arms, and then step back and watch him as he starts to coo down at her, rocking her gently and making funny faces.

He appears to be very comfortable holding a baby. I wonder how close he is with his sister and her kids.

Then I wonder what the hell is happening in my uterus, because I could swear that watching him cuddle that child just made my ovaries twinge.

I abruptly turn away. “Thomas—more champagne, please!”

“Coming up!”

When he hands me a full glass of bubbly, I ignore the way Kat is looking sideways at me with narrowed eyes.

That woman should be spying for the CIA!