Like you never have been here before

Like you never have been here before
 “You think boy?” I placed my hand on his. I thought boy too, mostly because Chloe was so adamant for a girl. I would be happy either way. I had wasted so much time believing I was barren that it still wasn’t completely real to me.

“I do. Chloe is going to be mad.”

“No, she’s going to love him as much as we do.” I downplayed what we both knew would be her initial reaction. She would love him or her, it was true, but if and when she found out it was a boy–whoa nelly. “She’s a pretty amazing kid.”

“She’s a lot like her mama.”

“You still miss her.” I wasn’t jealous or even uncomfortable with it. “And I always will, but that doesn’t make me love you less.”

Ryan King was with me because he loved me. His love for her didn’t detract from that at all. We each held a place in his heart, one of significance. I just Happened to be the one lucky enough to be here to enjoy it now.

“This I know.” I squeezed his hand, still nestled on my belly. “I’m glad you miss her. It means your love was real. I wish you didn’t hurt, but never once did it cross my mind that I wanted you to have loved her less. Your love made Chloe, and my life is exponentially better with her in it.”

I meant every last word. We laid there enjoying the last few minutes of his knot. There was something magical about that time, the time after sex but before we separated. I’d never had that before. Before it was always from behind and we would lay on our side, asshole alpha falling asleep until his knot was down enough to disentangle our bodies. I had no idea how amazing this anatomically forced together time could actually be. It was pretty freaking amazing.

“I want to show you something.” Ryan King was the one who started speaking first. He sounded almost nervous, but cute. “It’s kind of a weird thing to show you right after make-up sex, but I think it is important.”

“What is it?”

He sat up, taking me with him.

“A video. Of Jen. For our little girl.” He looked at me, almost as if waiting for reassurance which I offered with a smile. “I feel like it will show you who she was and why she will forever hold a place in my heart.”

“It’s going to make me cry, isn’t it?”

“Like you never have before,” he admitted. I didn’t need to watch the movie. It was burned into my brain. My eyes were focused on Laudis, who was tearing up before the video even started.
Is this on?
My hands had been shaking, but thankfully we had a tripod for the camera. I hadn't wanted to do it. Hadn't wanted to consider the idea that Jen might not live to see our baby girl grow up.
Laudis leaned into me, seeking the comfort I was more than ready and willing to give. He held it together pretty well until the part where Jen mentioned him, as I knew he would. Of course, Jen hadn't known about Laudis specifically, but she had talked about the person who would come after her up to her last day. She had been determined that at some point I would move on. But until Ryan King, Jen had been my only. We'd had the perfect love at first scent whirlwind romance. We waited to have Chloe, and there were definitely times I wish we hadn't, that we had started sooner to give Chloe more time with her mom. And maybe they would have found the tumor sooner if she had. But none of that was the path life took us on. And I happened to love the path I was on, even if it wasn't what I could have ever imagined.
...someday, he'll find someone to help him take care of you. They won't be me, and they won't take my place. They'll build a new place in your heart and daddy's. I already have a place for them in my heart because I know they will love you both as much as I love you...
Laudis was biting his knuckle, trying to hold back the sobs. I paused the video before the lullaby.

"She... was... beautiful..." Laudis sobbed. "She really would have liked you," I told him.
"I wish I could have met her," he whispered when his sobs calmed down. "Me too." I pulled him down to be my little spoon and pulled him as close
to me as I could. "She was right." "About?"
"You have built a place in both our hearts. It sucks that Jen left us, but we needed you, Laudis, and I didn't realize how much, even once we got together, until I almost lost you."
"I'm sorry," he apologized for the hundredth time.
"Well don't let it happen again," I admonished playfully. Today had been heavy. I hadn't gone through so many emotions in such a short time span since losing Jen.
"I don't think she left you," Laudis said suddenly. "What?"
"Jen. She loved you both so much, I can't imagine, that if there were any way possible, that if there is any kind of afterlife, she must be here. She could never leave you."
Tears pricked at my eyes, and my voice was rough as I said, "You think?" "I know." Laudis turned in my arms to kiss me sweetly. "If I can love you two halves as well as she loved you, then I will have accomplished something
good in my life."

"ARE you sure we should make Chloe wait?" I asked for the third, or maybe tenth, time.
Laudis rolled his eyes. "Ryan King, you've been at this parenting thing longer than I have. Do you really want to deal with toddler-like tantrums right away if the tech says we're having a boy?"
"I know, I know," I conceded. "But she's just so excited."
"And she will be just as excited whenever we do tell her, but we will be more prepared to deal with the outcome."
I kissed his fingers, clasped in my own. "What did I do without you?" "I honestly have no clue." Laudis sighed in exasperation.
My knee jiggled nervously and Laudis pressed his hand to my thigh.

"Why are you the nervous nelly? You've been through this before." "And I was much worse then, let me promise you."
"Everything is going to be fine," Laudis assured me. "Every checkup has been perfect. Today is the day we get to finally see our little baby. Think on the good things."
"I am." My knee started jiggling again. "It's just that I'm thinking a million miles a minute and there are good thoughts and worried thoughts and the sky is falling thoughts and it's really hard to filter through them."
He shut me up with a kiss.