Brandon walked in holding him against his chest, and of course Liam was completely silent. “Someone’s hungry, he kept trying to go for my chest.”
“Did you tell him the restaurant is closed?” I snickered as he handed our son to me. I smiled widely back at the toothless smile facing me and kissed his forehead before setting him up to eat. Didn’t matter that we were exhausted, I loved seeing my little man.
“I told him that restaurant had never even opened.” Brandon laughed heartily and kissed both of us before climbing into bed next to me. He flipped on the TV and turned on the news, the only interesting thing on in the early mornings.
“How was your nap little Liam?” I played with his hand as he greedily ate, like he wouldn’t ever get another meal.
Brandon placed a hand on my thigh and leaned over to be closer to us, “How was your nap Harper? You’ve been getting less sleep than I have.”
“I know,” I sighed and lay my head on his, “I can’t help it though. Ever since he went to the nursery I feel like if I go to sleep, something will happen to him.”
“He’s fine, and he’ll continue to be fine. But you need to sleep. Maybe –”
“No Brandon, I don’t want to bother them.”
“Harper.” He moved his head out from under mine and tilted my chin so I was looking into his brown eyes. “You know you wouldn’t be bothering them. They’re here almost every day and they ask every time if they can babysit, so don’t act like we can’t call my mom or yours. Tell me what’s really stopping you from asking them.”
I looked down to my precious son before glancing back up to my amazing fiancé. Tears began rapidly filling my eyes.
“Sweetheart, you’re crying? Why?”
“I can’t Brandon…I can’t.” I choked on a sob and put my fist to my mouth to muffle it, Liam had started dozing off again.
“Harper what is wrong? Please tell me.”
I was trying, I just couldn’t speak yet so I held up a finger, silently asking him to give me a second to calm down a little, “I can’t leave him. I’m terrified of what might happen if I do. Chase and your dad were gone just like that. I don’t want to lose him and I don’t want him to lose one or both of us. We know what it’s like to be without a parent, I can’t do that to him.”
“Aw hell, sweetheart that won’t happen. I know why you’re scared, but we can’t live like that. We can’t let what’s happened in our pasts, rule our lives now and in the future. That’s not fair to us, and it’s not fair to Liam. Nothing is going to happen, you need to allow yourself to enjoy our lives, as well as his. I don’t want to be away from him either, but I will admit, I want alone time with you. We need to have time where it’s just us. Even if it’s just a couple hours, once a week.”
“I’m sorry.” I pulled Liam up to my chest and tried to burp him before taking him back to the nursery.
“For what?”
“For neglecting you. You’re right, we do need time for us.”
Brandon chuckled and removed the pillows from behind my back, so he could slide in behind me. “Harper, you haven’t been neglecting me. Not at all. We’ve been extremely busy, and spending time as a family is more important to me than anything.” His deep voice got even lower and he leaned forward to nibble at my ear, “But I’m selfish, and I want my girl for myself sometimes. Do you think we can figure out some us time?”
My heart started hammering from his lips brushing against my skin and I realized we hadn’t had anything other than hugs and chaste kisses since Liam had been born. “I think we need to.” I said a little breathless.
“Date night, every Thursday?”
“How convenient that it’s Thursday.” I smiled and nestled deeper into his chest.
Brandon lightly brushed his hand over Liam’s head before he dropped both of them to my waist and then over where my stomach used to be.
“Do you miss it?” His hands had stilled for a second before sliding over my flat stomach again. I know, I know, I already have a lot of women that hate me. When we walk into the appointments for Liam, everyone asks if we adopted because within a week, my stomach went completely back to normal. It was mind blowing even to Brandon and me, and we definitely knew that my stomach had been close to the size of a beach ball not long before. I had one stretch mark, and it was mostly unnoticeable because it ran along a tip of one of my lilies. But if it weren’t for that and my chest, I would think I’d made the entire pregnancy up and just stolen a baby from the hospital.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen either way.” He shrugged and kissed the top of my head, “I do miss it, but I’m glad that he’s here now. It will just take some time to get used to not having your stomach there. Like right now, I keep going to run my hands over it, and then they just continue to slide straight across and it throws me off for a second.”
“Throws you off? Think about how I felt when I went to set that bowl on my stomach and it fell into my lap.”
Brandon’s husky laugh sent a shiver through me. “I’m sorry, but that was funny as hell. Your face was priceless.”
Liam stirred and we both held our breaths until we were sure he was still asleep. “I’m going to put him back in his crib.” I whispered, “I’ll be right back.”