Chapter 151 I Love Babies
ADRIANA
Leo spoke on a random day midweek.
It happened in the middle of an entirely ordinary conversation between Elijah and me about the wedding and whether it should happen before or after the baby arrived. It was the kind of logistical discussion that kept circling without landing anywhere definitive, because both options had things to recommend them and neither of us felt strongly enough about the order to push. We kept drifting back to it anyway, as though repetition might eventually produce certainty.
“Baby.”
It came out as barely a whisper, slipping under the rhythm of our conversation, and I paused mid-sentence because I thought I’d heard something but wasn’t sure. It felt like the kind of sound your mind fills in when it’s expecting something.
Elijah kept talking. He hadn’t heard him.
“Baby.”
Clearer this time. Not imagined. Not accidental. A word shaped carefully, deliberately—small but distinct.
We both went still.
Then we looked at Leo simultaneously.
He was sitting on the rug with his train, one hand still resting on it as though he hadn’t quite decided whether to keep playing or not. He was looking up at us with an expression that was somewhere between serious and quietly pleased with himself, like he had been considering this moment for a while and had chosen his timing with intention.
“Can you say that again?” Elijah’s voice had gone very quiet, almost reverent. He was already moving, lowering himself to Leo’s level, every motion controlled.
“Buddy. Say it again,” he urged gently, though the excitement threaded through his voice was impossible to hide.
Leo blinked at him once, steady and composed.
“Baby,” he said again.
Perfectly clear.
Looking directly at his father.
The change in Elijah was immediate and unguarded. The tears came without warning or resistance, like something that had been waiting just beneath the surface for permission. I had seen him emotional before—restrained, contained, carefully managed. I had never seen him cry like this.
For a second, he just looked at Leo, as though trying to memorize the exact shape of the moment.
Then he pulled him into his arms.
He held him tightly, one hand at the back of his head, the other braced against his small back, like he was anchoring himself there. I stood where I was with my hand over my mouth, watching them, feeling something warm and overwhelming move through me—slow and steady and almost tangible.
I knelt down beside them, unable to stay back any longer, and Leo allowed it without protest. He shifted easily, wrapping one arm around my neck while his other hand stayed fisted in Elijah’s shirt, holding both of us at once.
“I am so proud of you,” I told him softly, brushing my fingers through his hair. “Do you hear me? So, so proud.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me, those same serious eyes focused and intent, and then he said, with great deliberation, like he was assembling each piece of meaning carefully:
“Baby coming.”
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then Elijah let out a laugh that broke straight through the remnants of his tears, unsteady and bright and full in a way I hadn’t heard in a long time. It filled the room, settled into the walls, turned something ordinary into something we would remember.
⸻
The pregnancy itself was a continuous education in things I had not expected and had no framework to prepare for.
My body was doing things I had not given it permission to do, changing in ways that felt both miraculous and deeply inconvenient, and adjusting to all of it required a particular combination of patience and humor that I was still developing in real time.
The exhaustion was its own entity.
The hunger was another, always demanding attention in a way that couldn’t be ignored.
The physical changes were the most disorienting. I would catch my reflection at unexpected angles and for a split second, I wouldn’t recognize the person looking back. The shift wasn’t just external. It felt like my center of gravity had changed in more ways than one.
The doctors said everything was going well.
I held on to that.
I repeated it to myself on the days when the rest of it felt overwhelming, when my body felt unfamiliar and my emotions ran ahead of me without warning. Everything is fine. Everything is good. This is supposed to happen.
⸻
Hazel came that afternoon with a bag slung over her shoulder and a look on her face that meant she had bought something and was extremely pleased with herself about it.
“Another one?” I asked, eyeing the bag with suspicion as she stepped into the room.
“Open it.”
I reached in and pulled out a stuffed penguin, round, impossibly soft, wearing a small yellow hat tilted slightly to one side. I turned it over in my hands, studying it for a moment, and then looked up at her.
“Is this penguin pregnant?”
She pressed her lips together, failing completely to suppress her smile. “You should see yourself from behind when you walk.”
I burst out laughing, the sound coming easily. “I know exactly what I look like. I have mirrors. I walk like I’m carrying a piece of furniture.”
“Accurate,” she said, pleased.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, watching as I added the penguin to the steadily growing collection of gifts she had been bringing since we got back. The pile was becoming something close to architectural.
“I cannot wait,” she said, with real feeling. “I love babies so much. Babies are the best thing.”
“You could have one yourself.”
Her expression flattened immediately.
“Why?” she groaned, dropping her head back slightly. “Why do you do this?”
“I’m just observing,” I said mildly, “that Aiden is extremely available and very willing.”
“Please stop talking.” She held a hand up without even looking at me.
“He’s a good man, Hazel. You know he is.”
“He is a good man,” she agreed, sitting up again, “and he is also Aiden. Those two things exist simultaneously in a way that makes the second one extremely relevant.” She glanced at me. “I’m very clear on what I feel about him.”
“Which is nothing.”
“Friendship,” she corrected, stressing the word. “At most. And I’ve tried to be honest with him about that. He doesn’t make it easy.” She hesitated, then added more quietly, “It’s not even really about Aiden specifically.”
I didn’t interrupt. I just waited.
She exhaled slowly, like she had been holding something in for longer than she wanted to admit.
“I don’t think I’m going to like a man,” she said finally. “I don’t think I ever have, really, if I’m being honest about it. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say that out loud for a while.”
The room went still.
I looked at her. She met my gaze, steady but searching, like she was bracing for something else.
“Okay,” I said.
That was all.
Something in her shoulders loosened immediately, a tension I hadn’t fully noticed until it disappeared.
“That’s it?” she asked. “Just okay?”
“You’re my friend,” I said simply. “That’s the part that matters. The rest of it is just information.” I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Thank you for telling me.”
She squeezed back, her grip firm, and didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to.
We sat there in comfortable quiet, the stuffed penguin between us on the bed, the afternoon light slanting through the window in a low, golden angle that made everything feel softer than it had a right to be.
I did not have anyone before. and there had been a long list of things I had never known had been.
And now, in ways I had never thought to anticipate, that list had been rewritten.