August 2022

Aaron could not tear his eyes away from the baby in his arms. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about today and how it would feel to hold her in his arms but nothing he'd imagined came close to the reality. He'd thought fatherhood would make him feel older, but it was the opposite; he felt young. He felt like an overgrown twelve year old that someone had put in his father's suit and handed a baby. When Emily had asked him if he'd wanted to hold the baby while she tried to get some sleep, he'd been ecstatic to have some time to bond with the baby. Everything had been so rushed and hectic, with nurses and doctors in and out of the room for the first few hours that he'd felt like he hadn't even gotten a chance to take her in. But now he wished one of those nurses would come back in, or Emily would wake up. Because right now he felt scared to even slightly shift his arm.

"Just me and you kiddo, huh?" He said softly, looking down at her face. She was sleeping soundly, and he studied her face again, searching for a hint of Emily in her features. Maybe it was insecurity about raising another man's child, but he realized that he had been expecting this baby to be a carbon copy of Emily. But so far he didn't see anything that screamed Emily, certainly not the blue eyes or the blonde hair. He gently traced a finger down her cheek and over her nose, before deciding he was being crazy. It didn't matter who she looked like; the one thing he did know was how much he already loved her.

During the delivery he'd been hit with this fear that he wouldn't be able to connect with her. That all of this was a mistake and that he would hold her in his arms and feel nothing; no connection. But thankfully the moment he laid eyes on her he'd just felt overpowering love, it was like nothing he'd ever felt before. Maybe it was being there for the birth, and all the time leading up to it, or just how much he loved Emily, but he felt it in his bones that this baby was his.

He just thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't missed this. It was just over five months ago Emily had told him that she was pregnant, and he had thought to himself that he wanted to be a part of her baby's life. Maybe as some kind of honorary uncle, and he'd thought that after the baby came, when things had settled down, he'd ask Emily out. Maybe rather than his lucky stars he should be thanking Emily's idiot cousin. Because it was her and Emily's night of bar hopping that made him realize there was no reason he needed to wait, and more importantly that if he did he shouldn't expect to find Emily single and patiently waiting for him.

"Aaron." He heard Emily's tired voice from her bed.

"Up already?"

"Mmm, it's seven. I need to call work and stuff."

He blinked. Had he really just spent over an hour staring at the baby, terrified to do anything more than run a finger down her cheek?

"I should really try to feed her again soon too." Emily said, reaching her arms out.

As carefully as he could Aaron walked over to Emily and tried to gently transfer the baby to her arms. Clearly he was not gentle enough because she immediately started crying, he watched with rapt attention as Emily quieted her down, cooing some nonsense and rubbing her back. He wished he was more like Emily, she was a natural at all this.

"So, any thoughts on a name yet?"

"What do you think of Caroline?"

He'd wondered if Emily would want to name her after her mother. He hadn't wanted to suggest it and upset her, but he thought it was a nice idea. "Caroline, I like it."

"We could call her Callie. So it's not exactly the same as my Mom."

"Callie's perfect."

"And I was thinking Lucia for the middle name."

"Really?" He could feel his face light up. It was his Mom's name. And knowing how protective Emily was of everything to do with her daughter, it meant a lot that she would do something as permanent as name her after his Mom.

"If it's okay with you. I don't want you to feel pressured, or if your family wouldn't like it."

"No, it's-. I love it." He leaned down and kissed Emily gently on the lips. "Thank you."

Emily took a deep breath and said, "Okay, I should call David first."

"You want me to take her?"

"No, I'll be fine." Aaron wasn't sure if he should give her some space, or stay sitting next to her for support. He thought she might need it if her last call with David was anything to go off of.

Emily had a determined look on her face as she pulled David up in her phone and called him. "Yep, everything is fine… I had the baby this morning… Yep, she's healthy, 6 pounds, 4 ounces… Caroline Lucia… Yeah, I'll send you some pictures over… Of course… We should be released from the hospital tomorrow, so it would probably be easiest to wait, but anytime after." Emily's voice got more and more cheerful as the call went on. From her end of the conversation it sounded like David planned on visiting. Which was a lot more than Aaron had been expecting to be honest. But before he had any time to give that much thought, or figure out how he felt about it things took a turn.

"What about you?... So you just never plan on seeing her?... What does he have to do with anything?... But she's your daughter... I didn't plan this either but here we are." Emily's voice was getting higher and more frantic. As if picking up on Emily's distress, Callie started crying. Worried, Aaron reached out his hands, he was thinking Emily would hand him Callie, but to his surprise she passed him her phone. Looking at him through tear filled eyes, she whispered, "Please?"

Putting the phone to his ear Aaron walked away from the hospital bed. He wasn't sure what he wanted to say to David, but there was a good chance he didn't want Emily to hear it.

"I'm not going to sit here and be blamed for your Daddy issues."

Where he got off saying anything to Emily about her supposed Daddy issues, when he was the one who thus far had abandoned his kid, Aaron didn't know. Thinking to himself that David was just as much of an ass as he had assumed, Aaron cut him off before he could get any further. "David. Aaron here."

That must have thrown him for a loop, because there was a pause, before he heard David clear his throat and say, "Sorry, what can I do for you?"

Leave my family the hell alone, Aaron thought to himself. There was nothing he wanted to do more then tell this guy to fuck off and lose Emily's number. But that wasn't what Emily wanted, and more importantly it wasn't the best thing for his daughter. "Listen, you and Emily aren't going to figure this all out today, and it's probably not my place to get involved, but at the end of the day there's a baby here now, your baby, who's done nothing wrong. So whatever happened between you and Emily, just keep in mind who you're really hurting with this."

The other line was quiet, and for a moment Aaron thought he'd been hung up on, but then David said. "Noted, well I'll let you get back to your family." And with that he did hang up.

Your family; Aaron wondered what he meant by that. Did this guy really have so little interest in his own child, that he was willingly handing her over to a man he had never even met. Aaron didn't get it, but he didn't know David at all, so maybe he really was that disinterested. He handed Emily back her phone and gave her hand a squeeze.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing important."

"His mom and brother want to meet her."

"Well that's nice. No such thing as too much family."

"Yeah. I guess." She didn't sound convinced.

He knew Emily had been putting a lot of hope into David coming around. It was possible he still would, but right now Aaron hated feeling so powerless to fix things for her. "Emily. You're an incredible Mom. Whether David comes around or not, that's a lucky little girl right there."

Emily just weakly smiled at him. He couldn't think of anything else to say, so he just sat there and watched as she tried to breastfeed. And he would not have thought it was possible but he could swear he feel more in love with the two of them. His girls.