“Yep…just, support her neck—mhm, great,” Gemma instructs me carefully, like one small and wrong adjustment will cause a horrendous accident. It’s understandable, though, seeing as the baby girl in my arms is only two days old.

I sit at the end of my sisters hospital bed, my body rigid and nervous to make any sort of movement that will disturb this little angel. Her eyes are shut peacefully, so tiny in my arms. Gem watches over me from the head of the small bed, already a helicopter parent—just like I teased her about when she announced her pregnancy.

My eyes flick upward in her direction, ready to give her that same teasing look, but they don’t meet her face. Instead, they lock on yours. Standing beside the bed, your gaze is trained on my form, studying the domestic scene in front of you.

There’s a certain look in your eyes, one only I could decipher after decoding every glint and glimmer in them for the past decade. Yearning sits at the forefront of your irises, and it punches me straight in the gut.

Since we started all those years ago, we’ve never been shy of having those deeper conversations. Weddings, families, buried or cremated—the whole lot. So, we’ve always been on the same page when it came to kids being in our future. But, of course, life got in the way for a while.

Between career ventures and spur of the moment choices, all the plans we discussed were constantly pushed back and back. Where we once planned on getting married before we were 25, it ended up happening just last year—when we were both in our late twenties. That obviously put our plans of having kids at 27 a bit back, but we were making new plans. We didn’t have to stick to a fake timeline we created—we didn’t even have to stick to those pipe dreams we listed of back then.

But now? Now I think you’re questioning putting it off anymore.

“{{user}}, do you want to hold her?” Gemma suggests, and—God—I might not be able to handle that.

Regardless of my feelings, you nod and move toward me to carefully take the baby from my arms. It’s as if the motherly instincts take over when you hold her, not even needing to be told me the small adjustments I was given. You support her neck, cradle your arms just right, and bounce her lightly like you were trained just for this. Standing there, staring down at the baby in your arms, my eyes can’t leave the sight.

Damn. You look good with a baby in your arms. Like, too good. Like, we’re definitely going home and throwing out every bit of contraception in our house. I don’t care if it’s spur of the moment, or if the timing isn’t what we hoped for—I want this. I want a family with you.

And when your eyes lift and connect with mine from just a few feet away, I know you’re thinking the exact same thing.