The rest of the house is a sight to see. The guys all lounging on the couches, spilled over onto the floor, surrounded by pizza boxes and cans of soda. Normally I would care about the mess but before I can even take it in, Liam is on his feet and by my side kissing my temple with a gentle hand on my belly. Just in time for our little girl to kick the hell out of him.

“My girls’ doing good?” he asks, but instead of answering I stretch up onto my toes to plant a kiss right on his lips.

After all this time, I feel like I’m starting to accept it as reality: these people are my new family. I have spent time and energy on Eleanor today, wasted it thinking she is the only family I had; she’s far from it. She might have given me life but Jack and Liam and his rabble of friends have made me feel alive. That’s what I am going to focus on from now.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

September

Ellis

Stabbing pains pull me out of the sweet lulls of sleep. Even though earlier today the contractions were there, this feels a lot more prominent. It takes a lot not to double over in pain.

Soon enough it subsides and I am left in bed next to Liam, sweating slightly from the pain, but knowing sleep isn’t going to come again. Falling asleep pregnant is hard as hell anyway, no position is comfortable and the ones that are I have been advised by a doctor not to lie in. Add in my regular pain and trouble sleeping, despite the fatigue, and it equals a cluster-fuck of sleepless night and ten-minute naps during the night. I moved myself into Liam’s master bedroom at the end of July, and stopped fighting the fact I wanted to be in his arms every night.

Knowing it will be a long while before I can get comfortable, I decide it’s better to go to the toilet now because, knowing my luck, the minute I get comfortable again my darling daughter is going to step on my bladder.

I pad as quietly as I can across the wooden floors to the hallway before I feel a popping sensation followed by a gushing of water from between my legs.

“Shit.” I guess this time it wasn’t Braxton Hicks. I expect a sense of panic to fall over me but it doesn’t, instead there is a wave of calm. There is no feeling of doom; this time I feel tranquil, ready.

Liam won’t be ready. I love him but he is going to panic, everything is going to hit him at once. I don’t know which would be better, to wake him now and give him the time to panic or to wait and hope he can hold it together.