I moaned against his mouth. My thighs wrapped tighter around him. “Please don’t stop.” He didn’t. His pace increased, his strokes deeper, and I felt him grow. I knew he was close too.

“Come with me, baby.” He grunted, one hand fisting into my hair while his other was traveling between us, pinching my clit and setting me off. My whole body tightened around him, pulling him deeper inside of me. I moaned into his mouth as he groaned into mine. I could feel his strokes start to slow and turn lazy. He kissed me all over my face and down my neck. “I get this for a lifetime,” he whispered into the skin below my ear.

I tightened my arms and legs around him. “Love you, babe,” I whisper against his shoulder. He rolls to the side, taking me with him.

“Love you, baby,” he says against my hair. Closing my eyes, I cuddle deeper into his chest and fall asleep. My stomach growls so loud that it wakes me from my doze. I can feel Asher’s silent laughter against my cheek. “Sounds like both my babies are hungry.”

“Yeah,” I mumble. I know I need to eat, but seeing the expanse of his chest in front of me, I can’t help but want something else that has nothing to do with food.

I'm rolled to my back and Asher is hovering over me. His eyes are watching his hand travel down my throat between my breasts. “I'm excited for these to get bigger,” he says, palming both my breasts.

He smiles up at me and I shake my head and giggle. Then, his hand starts to move again and he stops gently on my stomach, which has become slightly rounder over the last few months.

“I'm going to be a dad.” He shakes his head in disbelief. His eyes focus on his hands as he gently rubs my belly. Then, he kisses me right below my navel. His eyes meet mine and I see nothing but the same happiness I feel reflecting back at me. The mood is completely broken when my stomach gives another loud growl. We both start laughing.

“Alright, Daddy’s going to feed you,” he says into my stomach. We get out of bed and I pull on one of his shirts and a pair of panties. He pulls on a pair of baggy sweats that hang low and give the most amazing view of his abs. I hear him clear his throat. I look up and he’s smiling.

“I'm going to waddle and you’re going to walk around looking like that?” My hand moves up and down, indicating everything that is him.

“You’re carrying the life we made together inside of you. Your body growing to take care of our child is amazing. I can’t wait to see you with a big belly,” he says.

“I love you,” I blurt out. “I mean, you already know that, but I'm glad that you’re happy about this.”

“Happy is not the word I would use to describe how I feel, baby.”

“I know,” I whisper. “This is bliss.”

“Yeah,” he says, walking towards me. “This is bliss.” His hands frame my face and he softly kisses my nose then my lips.

***************************

I wake up feeling the sun warm the skin of my back. Last night, after Asher fed me a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich, we lay in bed and talked about the sex of the baby. I said I wanted a girl. Asher was still stuck on having a boy first. Really, I don’t care what I have as long as he or she is healthy. I smile into my pillow, thinking about the ring on my finger, the child growing inside of me, and the man who put both of them there. I pull my hand out from under my pillow and hold it up in front of my face, watching the light reflect off the gems. The diamonds are shining so bright that I could go blind by looking at them.

“You awake, baby?” I scream and almost fall out of bed from flipping over at the sound of his voice. “Jesus, what the fuck?”

“You scared the crap out of me.” I say, holding the sheet to my chest. “I thought you were working today?” I look at the clock and see that it’s ten thirty.

“Took the day off so we could go to the doctor.”

“Doctor?” I ask, confused.

“You’re pregnant and need to get checked out. Your appointment is at one.”

“Oh…yeah, of course.” Yikes, I knew I needed to go to the doctor, but hadn’t even thought about calling to set up an appointment. “You just beat me to it,” I say, playing it off and grabbing the shirt at the end of the bed.

“Come to the kitchen. I made you some tea.”

“Tea?” I ask in disgust. I'm sure my face shows how revolted I am at the idea of tea. “I only drink tea if I'm sick,” I say, shaking my head at him.

“Baby, you’re pregnant.”

“I know that. I took four tests yesterday to prove it,” I snap. First, he offers me tea then he reminds me that I'm pregnant. Seriously?

“You can’t drink coffee when you’re pregnant,” he says softly, and I realize that I just sounded like a total bitch. It must be the hormones.

“That’s not funny, Asher.”

“Baby,” he starts laughing, “it’s the truth. No coffee when you’re pregnant.”

“Is that a rule? Where did you see this?” I ask, starting to panic. This can’t be true. What was I going to do if I couldn’t drink coffee?

“It’s in that book that you brought home yesterday.”

“Did you check Google?”

“Baby,” he says again, shaking his head, and I can tell he’s fighting a smile. “We can ask the doctor today and see what he says about it. But for now, come eat something so we can shower and get ready to go.”

“Fine,” I grumble, getting out of bed. Once I ate breakfast and showered we headed out to the doctor’s office.

“Well, there you go,” the doctor says, pointing at the screen beside my head. We had been at the doctor’s office for a while. First, they ran a urine test to confirm what I already knew. Then, we had to wait for the ultrasound machine to free up. Now, I am looking and listening to our baby. Tears start to pool in my eyes from the overwhelming emotions I’m feeling. I can see little arms and legs and the heartbeat is so loud in the background, it drowns out all the other noise. Asher is squeezing my hand so hard that I lost the feeling in my fingers. He has a look of amazement on his face. He bends his head and kisses my nose, smiling. The doctor types some information into the computer then clicks several times on the screen.

“From the measurements, I would say you’re about fifteen weeks along,” he says, looking at me. I immediately feel guilty for not knowing sooner that I was pregnant.

“Is everything okay? I mean, is he healthy?” Asher asks.

“Everything looks perfect.”

“I was on the shot and had no idea I was pregnant,” I blurt, not wanting him to think that I'm going to be a horrible parent.

“You would be amazed at the number of times I’ve heard that story. It’s not as uncommon as some might think.”

“Really?” I was so glad I wasn’t the only one this had happened to.

“Really!” He chuckles.

“You’re far enough along to know the sex, if you would like to find out?” he says, looking back at the screen.

“Um.” I bite my lip and look at Asher. He nods his head, so I take that as a yes.

“Yes, please.”

“Okay, let’s have a look,” the doctor says, moving the wand around a bit. “I hope you like the color pink.” He smiles.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, looking up at Asher’s pale face. “Babe, are you okay? You look sick,” I say, trying to sit up. I didn’t expect this from him. He seemed so excited.

He swallows and shakes his head. “I'm having a daughter.”

“Yeah,” I say slowly, hoping that he isn’t going to start freaking out. I need him to be together. I didn’t even remember that I needed to make an appointment. I didn’t know that I couldn’t drink coffee until he told me. He had to be the one to hold it together.

“Look at you.” His hand frames my face, his eyes roam all over me. “Jesus, God is fucking playing a joke on me.”

“What?” I whisper.

“You’re so beautiful. I was not a good guy before you. God is getting even.”

I can’t help it, I start laughing. I grab his face and look into his worried eyes. “Honey, you’re going to be able to pick out the bad boys from a mile away. She will be a total daddy’s girl, and you will keep her safe. I love you, okay?”

He takes a deep breath and kisses me, bringing his hand to my stomach where we know our daughter is. His eyes come back to me. “I keep thinking that this is all a joke, that no one should ever be this happy.”

“I know.” I laugh, shaking my head. It feels unreal.

“So, I read in that book that you should wait to tell people until you’re twelve weeks. We’re past that so who do we want to tell first?” he asks with a smile.

“Ms. Alice,” I say right away. She has been so happy since me and Asher got together. I know that she will be excited to hear that we’re having a baby.

Asher smiles and I know that I chose the right person.

**********************

I was standing in front of the barbecue. I had the lighter in my hand and was getting ready to set the stupid pregnancy book on fire. It’s been four weeks since we went to the doctor and confirmed that I was pregnant. Everyone has been so excited. When we told Ms. Alice that we were having a girl, I thought she was having a seizure. She started jumping around in her chair, clapping and mumbling incoherently. Then she told me that I needed to go to her old house and pick up all the stuff for the baby’s room. I looked at Asher and he shrugged his shoulders.

After we left Ms. Alice, we went to my dad’s house and told him that he was going to be a grandfather. I think he almost fainted. Then he called my grandmother, uncles, and cousins, and had everyone come over so we could share the news. For Asher’s mom, I sent her a dozen pink balloons and a card telling her that she was going to have a granddaughter. When she called me screaming into the phone, I knew that she was happy. She made us promise not to tell James or her boys until that evening at dinner. When Asher stood up at the table and announced that he had, as he said, knocked me up, I thought I would be bruised from the amount of hugs I got from everyone. After that, the book started to make appearances like Chucky. Two days after dinner with his family, we went to Ms. Alice’s house to see what she was talking about. We found a beautiful antique baby bed, dresser and changing table that she had put up in the attic. They all needed to be refinished but even with the paint chipping and peeling, I could tell they would be beautiful. I told Asher that I wanted to repaint them but he’d read in the book that strong chemical fumes weren’t good for the baby. But he promised to get his brothers to help him refinish them in time, so I agreed without a fight. A week later, when all of Asher’s extended family came over for a big barbecue to celebrate our news, I had been getting ready to dig into a delicious looking tuna steak, when it was taken from right out under my fork. Asher told me that I wasn’t allowed to eat it due to the mercury in the meat. Again, I wasn’t happy about this, but I wasn’t going to risk anything happening to our baby, so I had a piece of chicken instead.