- Sorry this took me so long to get up! Thank you for your love on this story. Only a few more parts to go! (:
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"Do we have any pickles? Or peanut butter? I really want to dip them in something and I could've sworn-" she paused in her interrogation and cast her gaze around the corner into the kitchen where her hazel eyes landed on his bewildered expression, one of his hands reaching for a beer and the other on the handle of the refrigerator door but his search for a cold one was abandoned as she chuckled at his furrowed brow and her request rang in his eardrums.
"What in the world are you feeding her?" Jay demanded and he let the door close behind him without grabbing a bottle because she was smiling at him, and her cheeks were adorably flushed and those damn dimples were out to play and how in the world had he gotten to be this lucky with the hand of cards he'd been dealt?
Her bottom lip stuck out in a feigned pout as her hands came to rest on the top of her stomach but she couldn't even pretend to be offended when he was looking at her like that with those perfect blue eyes and kissing her forehead with his gentle lips because Jay Halstead was a beauty of a man and somehow she got to call him hers. "Wings. Can we go get wings?" She was back on food because he damn well could easily distract her with the way his hands found the small of her back and pulled her closer, or the way his mouth brushed ever so softly against her neck but the baby girl growing stronger inside of her was having nothing of it and she heard her stomach rumble in protest. "Please," she murmured, running the tips of her fingers down the front of his t-shirt.
The 'please' got to him accompanied by her adorable little pout and her delightful little grin when he nodded his head in compliance and after laying his hand softly for a brief moment over her bulging belly he wandered over to the door to pick up his keys and then his leather jacket and after a quick glance over his shoulder he looked at his girlfriend quizzically because she hadn't moved from beside the kitchen counter. "Babe-" Jay began, taking a few hurried strides back towards her because he couldn't help the sudden jolt of fear that shot through his stomach because damn, so many things could go wrong now but he shouldn't have worried. Not in the slightest.
"Jay, come here." He watched her hazel orbs fill with tears but her lips turn up into a grin and he stepped even closer to her tiny frame because he still wasn't quite sure what was happening and he was still ready to dial his brother and demand some answers or at least a sane, medical explanation for what was happening, but then she was taking his fingers and placing them on her belly and though he'd done this a million times before- in bed before they fell asleep, watching an old documentary snuggled under a blanket in the living room- this time was different. This time he felt his baby girl kick and move and squirm under the warmth of his hand and that made this real. This made it feel a hell of a lot more like reality and when Erin's tinier hands rested on top of his he couldn't stop the few tears that fell down his cheeks.
He remembered playing baseball with his mother and Will in the backyard of their suburban home, swinging the bat as fiercely as he could and missing every single time. He remembered Will snorting in the outfield and his mother's gentle words of encouragement and he remembered the look of utter elation falling across her delicate features as the wooden bat finally made contact and sent the ball flying over the neighbor's wooden fence and into their yard.
He remembered Sunday morning service and wiggling on the uncomfortable wooden pew between his father and his mother in a god-awful suit and tiny little tie because Will had thrown a fit and gotten to sit on the end, to the right of their mother and farthest away from their father who sat tense and on edge for the entire hour and a half they ventured out into public because he fared better in the own four walls of his home and an arm's length away from his bottle of whiskey and package of cigarettes.
He remembered his first football game and his first touchdown and the cheers of the crowd and the whistles of the refs and then the sounds of the banging of helmets and shoulder pads and bodies and remembered the one pat on the back from his ol' man he probably ever received after the clock winded down and his team came out on top and the band erupted into the school song in celebration as the crowd stormed onto the home field.
He remembered the airport and the bustle of the people and the scratchiness of his new uniform and the way his mother's striking blue eyes widened with tears because he was headed off to fight the good fight and his father hadn't even bothered to come and Will was probably off drowning in booze and desperate women but that plane was still waiting and wouldn't return with him on it and that was suddenly a hell of a lot to bear, having cast one last look over his shoulder at his good-hearted and kind and loving mother and in the darkness of Afghanistan her eyes are what he clung to.
He knew that reality. He had lived all of that. But here, standing in the kitchen with his hands on the pregnant belly of the love of his life and feeling this tiny baby girl he was ready to face a new one. A new, beautiful and perfect one. Because he wouldn't turn out to be like his father and she most definitely wouldn't turn out to be like her mother and they had each other's backs. Always.
"Anabel Camille. That should be her name. After your mother and Camille. Anabel Camille Halstead," she whispered and he let his forehead fall against hers and he felt her fingers drift up to his cheeks and then to the back of his neck pulling him even closer and then they were kissing and his hands were all over her body and she forgot absolutely everything about wanting to even leave the apartment in the first place because no place was better than right here with him.