case, and no, Laura didn’t mind the blood, or the vernix that lingered on Bump’s skin like waxy chalk. They could wash it off later.
Samir came back as she lowered Bump to her breast. The baby snuffled around like a piglet, and she wondered what was supposed to happen now. Some people had trouble, the midwife had told her—it wasn’t always plain sailing. But the midwife had also told her to relax and let it happen, so with astonishingly little effort, Laura chilled the fuck out. Must be the magic air.
“Hey,” Samir said softly, his hand sliding over her hair.
She smiled weakly up at him, her muscles loose, as if the strings that controlled them had unravelled. Her eyes felt slightly blurry. “Hey yourself.”
“How do you feel?”
“I’m… I can’t believe I can be so thoroughly uncomfortable in every way, and happier than ever at the same time.”
He gave her one of those soul-shaking smiles, and somehow, impossibly, she became even happier. “You did good,” he said. “You did really fucking good. And Christ, I’m gonna have to stop swearing, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but you can have a pass for now.”
He chuckled even as he ran a single finger over Bump’s mucky little shoulder. “It’s amazing,” Samir whispered. “So amazing. That he was in there all this time, coming to life…”
“I know,” she whispered back. “Look at him! Look how pretty he is!”
Samir grinned, shaking his head. “Look how pretty you are.”
“Oh, shut up.” She shouldn’t be blushing. She was a mother. She had never been so mature in her life as she was now. She definitely shouldn’t be blushing.
He kissed her cheek. “I love you.”
Oh, God, was she blushing. “And I love you.”
“And I love Bump.”
“But he needs a better name,” Laura admitted sadly. She quite liked Bump, to be honest. “A proper name. Like… Fire.”
Samir rolled his eyes. “No.”
“With a ‘y’?”
“You say that like a ‘y’ makes it better.”
“You can’t say no to me! I just pushed out a whole baby.”
“True,” he admitted, his brow creasing into a frown. “Oh! Here’s an idea. Let’s call Ruth in. I’ll let her say no to you.”
She snorted, then winced as the laughter caused all kinds of uncomfortable twinges below her waist. That did not bode well. But the midwife didn’t seem concerned about anything down there, and really, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not about the state of her nether regions, or the fact that she might be lying in her own blood right now, or even the sleepless nights ahead of her.
Laura couldn’t worry about a damn thing. Not with her son lying on her chest and the love of her life holding her hand.
Not when she’d stumbled headfirst into a happiness that she’d once thought she’d never deserve.
Epilogue
Twenty-one Years Later
“Phoenix Bianchi!”
They were supposed to hold their applause ’til the end of the ceremony. Samir should’ve known the twins would ignore that rule.
As their big brother took to the stage in his flowing, black robes, Willow and Sol gave a whoop so perfectly coordinated, it had to be pre-planned.
“Girls!” Laura whispered sharply.
At the iron in their mother’s grey gaze, the twins settled down. But that iron melted away like so much city snow when Samir caught his wife’s eye over their heads. She gave him a smile that showed every inch of her beaming pride, her pure, unadulterated happiness, and it hit him like an arrow to the heart.
So beautiful. She’d always been so beautiful.
Usually, it took him forever to look away from Laura’s smile, from her round, pink cheeks and the creases that cradled her laughing eyes. But today he managed it in record time.
He couldn’t miss the sight of his son graduating, after all.
Phoenix shook the presiding officer’s hand, standing a head taller than the older man, his auburn hair aflame under the hall’s harsh yellow lights. Then, the scroll that symbolised his degree firmly in hand, he strode off the stage.
But not before taking a moment, the barest second, to look out into the crowd for his family. He caught Samir’s eye because, though Phoenix loved his mother, he was Samir’s boy first.
Samir nodded, knowing his son would understand. I am so proud of you. Almost too proud to bear.
Phoenix’s smile stretched wider, his cheeks plumping up like his mother’s. As if he’d never paused, he left the stage, those robes floating elegantly behind him.
Samir studied his family, the girls in dresses for once and sitting nicely, Laura grinning so wide she might burst. Sometimes he wished