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“Oh, right!” I turned our baby towards the camera, kissing the back of their head and brushing a mess of curls out of golden-brown eyes. “Meet your uncle Jonah. Jonah, meet Elisha.”

Tristin returned and was staring at the screen with wide eyes. “They look like—” Eli proudly interrupted,

“Like Delaney.”

“With your hair? But you…” Tristin trailed off, blinking at me.

“Still can’t have kids, but with a rich ass husband, surrogacy was possible.”

Jonah asked the question that I knew was coming, “Why did you hide Elisha from us?”

I didn’t really have an answer for that, well I did, but I wasn’t sure how it would work if I used the same reason as I did five years ago. “I didn’t want to jinx it. And then honestly, we just got busy. Life really lifes when you have an infant.”

“We didn’t believe Delaney had viable eggs, but he did. And well a little shake and bake and…” Eli trailed off, gesturing towards Elisha.

Asher ran back into the room, repeatedly squawking, “Papa. Papa. Papa. Papa. Where’s ‘Lisha? I went to their room and they weren’t there?” She pushed Eli’s arms out of the way and crawled into his lap. Upon seeing her younger sibling, she visibly relaxed. “Morning ‘Lisha,” she cooed in Mandarin. She used Eli like a jungle gym to lean over and give the baby a big kiss. After she was done, she looked back at Eli. “Ready, Daddy!”

“Wait!” I stopped Eli and Asher. “Uncle Tris has news.”

Tristin held up an invitation, his smile slightly shy as a blush settled on the apples of his cheeks. “It’s in six months. Can you make it? And—”

“If you had asked anyone else to stand beside you on that day, I would have flown across the globe just to strangle you with your own necktie.”

Tristin wiggled his eyebrows. “Kinky.”

Eli and I groaned loudly. Surely enough, Asher’s little voice sounded from behind us.

“What does ‘kinky’ mean?”

Epilogue

As soon as Elisha was old enough, I told Eli I wanted to return to work. We discussed what that would look like and ultimately decided that moving back home needed to be a part of the plan.

Being back in the states came with a rough period of adjustment, but our family made do. Eli left his restaurant in the capable hands of Head Chef Jason, devoting his time to his other business ventures and being a work from, but stay at home, dad.

I appreciated that. For the first few weeks, I struggled with being back at work, but Eli sent me texts, pictures, and videos often, so I saw everything as if I were there.

Upon returning home, Eli’s mother reached out to him. She attempted to assert her “right” as a grandmother and I had the honor of watching, with pride, as he told her, “The damage that my upbringing inflicted on me took years of extensive therapy to work through. My children will not be put through the same thing. If you want to be a grandparent, try being a good parent first. It’s not too late and I’m willing to try if you and Father are willing to sit down and have tough conversations.”

The conversations never happened.

Life had a funny way of coming full circle and as Eli and I rushed through the same hospital where we met, I was reminded of that moment—the day my life changed for the better.

“Where’s labor and delivery?” Eli frantically asked. A nurse pointed down the hallway and he grabbed my hand, dragging me along. “We’re going to be late!”

“Are you aware of the fact that babies have their own schedule? There’s no concept of late or on time when one is giving birth, Eli.”

He pushed open the double doors, looking back over his shoulder and rolling his eyes. “Jonah called an hour ago and said they had been in labor for the past fifteen hours. He said they were going to start pushing. I want to be there for them because they weren’t able to be there for us. So…” he trailed off and continued pulling me towards the delivery room.

Before we entered, the aroma of nervousness, joy, fear, panic, and unrelenting and unconditional love nearly bowled us over. Both Jonah and Tristin were on either side of the hospital bed, coaching an omega as they pushed.

“One more!” Jonah encouraged.

Tristin looked down, immediately turning green and swaying on his feet as he swallowed thickly. “The baby… their head is uh…”

Eli rushed in just in time to help him sit. “You don’t look if you can’t handle it, dude.”

“Says the man who passed out when he cut both umbilical cords,” I teased.