I burst out laughing.
Ty pulled out slowly, rolled mostly off me, got up on an elbow in the bed, his long, heavy legs tangled with mine, body pressed the length of me, hand at my belly, eyes watching me laugh.
I turned slightly to him as my laughter waned and sought to assure him, “I feel it; this one’s a boy.”
“You said that last time. You were wrong,” he reminded me.
“I really feel it coming through strong, Ty. He’s speaking to me,” I promised him.
“Babe, you said that the first time. You were wrong then too.”
I decided to be quiet since he was not lying.
Ty wasn’t quiet.
“Lex, Lella’s four and a half and I had to paint the living room last weekend because she got in your fingernail polish and painted her fingernails, her fingers, her hands, her toes, her toenails, her calves, her belly and a three foot square space of wall with that shit.”
I bit my lip because he was still not lying.
He wasn’t done.
“And Vivian’s two and a half and she was screamin’ just last night ‘cause she got hold of one of your hoops and was trying to shove that fucker through her earlobe. She was in pain but, fuck me, she didn’t quit. My baby girl was determined and she didn’t care if it ended in carnage.”
My body started shaking again because he was still not lying.
He wasn’t finished.
“And she pitches a fit every time she sees a game on television.”
I pressed my lips together hard and rolled into him, wrapping my arm around his waist and holding tight, my body still shaking because he was still not lying.
“I need another dick in this house and soon before the whole fuckin’ place is painted pink and I slip on a glitter pen and break my neck.”
I swallowed laughter and promised him, “You won’t slip on a glitter pen.”
“I will, you don’t quit buyin’ that shit for Lell. How many does she have now, a thousand?”
It was more like nine hundred and twenty-five. But I decided not to quibble and instead change the subject.
“We should probably get up and shower. I have to start cooking.”
He held my eyes. Then his big, warm hand pressed lightly into my belly and his gaze moved there.
When his touch didn’t ease and his gaze didn’t shift for some time, I called softly, “Ty?” and his eyes, those beautiful, light brown eyes with their thick, black, curly lashes came to me.
“Proof,” he whispered.
“What?” I whispered back, lost in his eyes, over five years with my man and, still, I frequently got lost in those eyes.
“Proof,” he repeated then explained, “Lady Luck likes us.”
I grinned because she did. I’d had five beautiful years and I wasn’t sure but I was thinking we were favorites.
“Yeah,” I said softly.
His hand pressed slightly deeper as his head bent so he could touch his mouth to mine. Then his lips went away but his forehead touched mine.
Then he was out of bed but reaching in and then I was out of bed.
Then we were in the shower.
It was a long one.
Seriously, if my man didn’t want so many kids, he should probably stop fucking me so much.
Then again, at that point, the damage was done so we might as well have fun.
*
The doorbell rang and there were three, “I’ll get its,” one from Bess, one from Honey and a deep, rumbling one from Ty.
Ty won and I knew this because Bess and Honey didn’t stop what they were doing and Ty moved.
At his rumble, I had looked over the counter and I saw Bess’s man, Roland, and Honey’s man, Zander, sitting in armchairs but I watched my husband appear from behind the couch in our sunken family room. Ella Alexi was on his back. We called her “Lella” or “Lell” because, when she started speaking, that was how she referred to herself.
She called my other Ella Gramma.
My husband shifted to his feet with his daughter on his back with practiced ease. This was because both Lell and Vivie considered their father’s large frame their own personal jungle gym and treated it as such.
He didn’t complain. Not once.
Lell locked her arms around his neck, her little legs not long enough to surround his chest (even though she was well off the charts for height, still, she wasn’t even five) but they still clutched tight. Ty helped, curving a long arm behind him under her bottom.
Lell secure on his back, I watched as he bent then I heard a squeal and he came up with Vivian Bess, our Vivie, carrying her under his free arm like a sack of grain. She kept squealing but it wasn’t her pissed off squeal, it was her giggly squeal.
Then he strode to the four steps then up them carrying his daughters while his head turned and his eyes slid to me. I grinned at him. He grinned back. Vivie squealed again. His grin turned into a smile.