Hours had bled into a restless afternoon since Frankie and his wife had been rushed back for delivery. You and Santiago were the only ones left in the waiting room, pacing the linoleum floors and checking the double doors every time they swung open.

Santiago approached, extending a cardboard tray. "Black, right?"

"Yeah. Thanks." You took a sip, the bitter heat helping to ground you. "I gave them three cases of diapers at the shower, but I’m already thinking I should have bought more. They're going to need a mountain of them."

Santiago chuckled, leaning his weight against a nearby chair as he glanced toward the delivery wing. "At least they're prepared. So, place your bets. What do you think? Boy or girl?"

"Girl," you said without hesitation, a smirk tugging at your lips. "Definitely a girl. Frankie would spoil a daughter rotten."

You could already see it: Frankie, a man who usually kept his guard up, completely leveled by a pair of pigtails. He’d be an overprotective mess, sure, but he’d be the gentlest man on earth for her.

"God, I can’t even imagine it," Santiago mused, shaking his head. "If it's a girl, he won't let a boy within six feet of her until she’s thirty. He’s going to be a nightmare."

You were about to laugh when the heavy doors finally creaked open. Frankie emerged, looking disheveled, exhausted, and strangely fragile. Both you and Santiago shot to your feet, the coffee forgotten on the side table.

"How is she? How did it go?" you asked urgently.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Santiago blurted out. You gave him a sharp nudge to the ribs, but Frankie didn't seem to mind.

He stopped a few feet away, a dazed, lopsided grin spreading across his face. His voice came out as a breathless rasp.

"It’s... it’s a girl. A beautiful little girl."