I try to push it down, not think about it, and go about my day to day with work, the boys, and Colton, but every once in a while it rules my thoughts. It doesn’t matter that I’m seven months along now. The worry this will all be taken away from me like it has the two times before still sits in the back of my mind with each twinge of my belly or ache in my hips.

And so here I sit in the nursery amid piles of onesies, diapers, and receiving blankets afraid to open a single thing in fear I’ll jinx this. That if I open one package of clothes, pre-wash one load of laundry, put sheets on the mattress of the bassinet, I’ll cause my long-awaited dream of motherhood to come crashing down.

The rocking chair is safe though. I can sit here and close my eyes and feel the baby move, enjoy the ripples across my hardened belly that allow me to breathe a little easier each and every time I feel a kick. I can rest my hands on my abdomen and know that he or she is a fighter, is healthy, and can’t wait for me to hold him or her in my arms. I can sit here and feel the love surging through me for this baby Colton and I made together, and know without a doubt, this perfect little being will only cement and make stronger the love we feel for one another.

And I try to maintain this feeling to will away the worry when I rise from the rocking chair and run my hand over the mattress on the crib. I can’t believe this is really happening, that in less than three months’ time, there will be this new addition to our life and everything and nothing will change all at once.

Moments in time. How easily we shift from one role to the next and never question the butterfly effect of these transitions. How will this one event segue into the next? Or will it?

A baby. Our baby. Even though the life is growing inside me, and I can feel him or her move every now and again, I’m still staggered by the reality of it.

Carefully, I sink to my knees to sort through the baby gifts stacked on the floor. By the looks of the stacks, our friends and family are excited to meet and spoil Baby Donavan. I reach out and pick up a fuzzy yellow blanket, my smile automatic as I hold it up to my cheek to feel its softness.

“Does a baby really need all this stuff?” Colton’s voice startles me. He’s leaning with his shoulder against the doorjamb, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his shorts. Every inch of his toned, tanned chest all the way down to that V of muscles, calls to the pregnancy hormones that have been ruling my sex drive these past few months.

And even without the hormones, I’m sure I’d still be staring because there is no shortage of want on my end when it comes to him. Just the sight of him gets my blood humming, my heart racing, and makes my soul content.

I take a moment to appreciate my handsome husband. My gaze scrapes over every inch of him before lifting to take in that cocky smirk on his lips that tells me he knows exactly what I’m thinking. And when I lock onto his emerald irises, the amusement I expect to be there isn’t. Instead Colton’s eyes are a mixture of guarded emotion I can’t quite read. It’s reminiscent of those first months of dating, when secrets were kept, and I hate the feeling of unease that tickles the back of my neck from its reappearance.

Forcing aside the innate need within me to ask and fix, I tell myself if something’s wrong, he’ll tell me when he’s ready. I shrug off the niggling worry. It’s probably just pre-baby jitters. He’s been handling this all so much better than I thought he would, but at the same time the past few weeks he’s withdrawn some. And while that concerns me, I know he’s bound to have some fears and reservations like most impending parents.

“I’m not sure if it’s all needed. It’s definitely a lot of stuff for one little baby.” I finally answer as I glance at the piles of gifts around me.

“You’re gorgeous.”

The unexpected comment has my eyes flashing up to meet his and love to swell in my chest. Disbelieving he can see me as beautiful when I feel like a beached whale, I let the soft laugh fall from my mouth as I shift onto my butt, brace my hands behind me for support, and stretch out my legs. “Thanks, but I don’t really think that a huge stomach and toes swollen like sausages qualifies me for the gorgeous category.”

“Well, in that case, maybe just the beautiful category,” he teases with a flash of a grin as he enters the room. He looks around, picks up a checkered flag baby quilt that causes his eyebrows to lift in amusement before he moves to where I’m sitting.

“Hmm,” I murmur, nowhere near agreeing with the beautiful consensus. But when I look back up to meet his gaze, I can see that when he looks at me, beautiful is what he sees, and I’ll take it, because when a man sees you at what you feel is your worst and thinks you’re at your best, you don’t question it.

“You’re working too hard, Ry,” he says as he lowers himself to the floor in front of me. I force myself not to sigh at the refrain, but it’s the one thing we’ve argued about lately, his want for me to take maternity leave. “You need to stop doing so much. Let others help you.”

I look down to the blanket in my hands, hating he’s right and that he can see how much I’m struggling with ceding control. “I know, but there’s just so much to do before the baby comes that only I can do. With the new project coming online and Auggie struggling at The House and . . .” My voice trails off thinking of the newest addition to the brood and how much attention he needs that I’m not going to be able to give him. Everything on my invisible task list is screaming at me for it to be done—like yesterday, done—and there are not enough hours in the day. Becoming overwhelmed by the mere thought, I blow out a breath as tears sting the back of my eyes. My internal struggle about letting people down resurfaces; I already feel I’m dropping the ball, and I haven’t even started maternity leave.

“Breathe, Ry. I know your type-A personality wants to have all your ducks in a row,” he says, “but it’s not possible. Other people can do things. It might not be just how you want it, but at least it’s help. And if it doesn’t get done, it will still be there after BIRT comes.”

“Colton!"

“What’s wrong with BIRT? Baby In Rylee’s Tummy,” he states innocently, knowing damn well he’s just trying to irritate me. Or make me smile.

“Stop calling him that.” I smack a hand on his leg as he laughs out loud, and he grabs my hand before I can pull it away.

“Him? Did you just say him?” Our long-running debate about the baby’s unknown gender just became front and center. He pulls my arm, and I move forward at the same time as he leans in. He presses a tender kiss to my lips that sends a shockwave of desire way down to my core. I can feel his lips curve into a smile as they remain against mine.

“Yes, I said he . . . but that’s just a pronoun,” I murmur, loving being close to him. The past couple days he’s felt so far away. I’ve just chalked it up to him feeling as overwhelmed as me but for different reasons: the points lead he’s barely hanging onto with the Grand Prix coming up next month, the baby shower today with over fifty women filling his sole private place on earth, and the impending changes in general with the baby’s birth. It’s a lot for any man to adjust to, let alone a man who never expected to have most of them in his life.

Is he still okay with all this? Saying he’s ready to have a baby and really meaning it are two completely different things. I know he has no regrets—wants our baby as much as I do—yet I can’t seem to quell my concern about how he’ll adjust to the inevitable changes to our lives.

He holds my hand idly in his lap. The need to connect with him and ease my worry rides shotgun beside my want and desire for him. And the impulse to sate both is just too great to not give in to, so I graze my fingertips across the fabric covering his dick and love his quick intake of air.

“Are you trying to distract me, Ryles?”

“Never,” I tease, my mind now fixated on the temptation just beneath my fingers.

“We were talking about pronouns, remember? He is just a pronoun?” he asks trying to get back to the topic at hand. He swears I should know the gender because after all, I’m the one carrying the baby. Men.

And while I have a fifty-fifty chance of being right, I know it’s a boy. Has to be. The little boy with dark hair and green eyes who has filled my recent dreams. A freckled nose that scrunches up when he causes mischief and melts my heart just like his daddy. But that’s all an assumption, mother’s intuition, and is not something I’m going to verbalize.

“Uh-uh.” His fingers tighten on my arm as I try to cop another feel of him, distract him from becoming fixated on a pronoun that may or may not be right. “Pronouns.”

“Well, if you want to talk grammar . . . I seem to remember that wet and willing are adjectives,” I murmur, knowing damn well he’ll be able to read both mischief and desire in my eyes. Two can play this distraction game, Ace.

He throws his head back and laughs, and I know he has caught my reference to the words he teased me with the very first night we had sex on Sex. He pulls me even closer this time and doesn’t hold back when his lips meet mine. We kiss like we haven’t seen each other in weeks. Need mixes with greed. Passion collides with want. My body vibrates with desperation because how can it not when he can push every one of my libido buttons with such a simple connection?

His kiss is like gravity, pulling at every part of me until I want to cling to him and hold on so I’m never taken away. Our tongues meet, demanding at first, before the kiss morphs into a tender reflection of love and desire. His free hand comes up to cup the side of my face, his thumb running over my cheek as he ends the kiss despite my protests. And at first I take the look in his eyes as one of amusement over me wanting some form of physicality with him yet again, but when he speaks, I know it’s because he is seeing right through my attempts.