“Every time,” I added, sitting up to clothe myself again. Through his boxers, I could still see that he was ‘standing at attention’, so to speak, as he slipped his t-shirt on. Eventually covering his lower half with a pair of basketball shorts, I almost protested out loud. A heavy sigh left my lungs as he turned to shoot me that irresistible, boyish grin of his as he went to Anthony’s rescue.
I fell back on the bed, listening through the monitor as he quieted our son almost instantly, by simply walking into the room. AJ had such a way with our boy. I lay there, smiling to myself as father and son carried on a one-sided conversation, consisting of AJ asking Anthony what all the fuss was about as the little one whimpered and squealed softly in response. I leaned to the side to steal a glance at them across the hall and my smile only broadened. AJ had his arms full, letting the last of Anthony’s tears absorb into his shirt as he soothed him. He truly was in his element with this whole ‘fatherhood’ thing. He loved being a dad almost more than anything.
My conversation with Terrell from earlier came back to me. Maybe he was right. Maybe AJ was more ready to grow our family than I thought.
My two guys ventured back across the hallway and into my bedroom. AJ closed the door behind him again and plopped down on the mattress with Anthony still in his arms. I rubbed my baby’s back, but my attention was mostly on AJ.
“Terrell and I had an interesting talk today.”
He laughed. “Every conversation with Terrell is an interesting one.”
I smiled. “True. But he mentioned that you two had talked about us having more kids.”
He let his back rest against the headboard and Anthony started dozing again in his arms. “Mmm… I mean, it’s something that’s come up once or twice before, but not anything too deep. Why?”
I shrugged and rested my head in his lap with my back to him since having his arms around me wasn’t an option. His free hand came down on my neck gently and he pulled my hair away from my skin. “No reason, really. He just got me to thinking,” I answered.
“About?” AJ asked.
“Us. Our family.”
“Our family’s perfect,” he countered, and I could hear him smiling when he did.
That made me smile, too. “I agree,” I said, adding the next part just a bit hesitantly. “When you mentioned it to him, the part about having more kids, did you mean right now?”
He gave that some thought and then I had to glance at him over my shoulder when he laughed. “Well… I mean, we never really have been much for planning, Sam. We tend to do things how we see fit, not the way everyone else thinks we should.”
I turned to face him, wanting to see his expression while we talked. Anthony yawned and placed his tiny hand on my name tattooed on the side of AJ’s neck before letting his eyes close again.
There was a long bout of silence. I stared at AJ while waiting, but the more that time ticked past, the more curious I became about what he’d say next. “I encouraged you to start your own business, right?”
I nodded, feeling the satiny material of his shorts against my face. “Right.”
“I did that because I know this is something you’ve wanted for a long time, something you’ve been waiting for.”
I nodded again.
The hand not cradling our son extended toward me and warmed my chin when he cupped it, tilting my head just a bit so we were staring into one another’s eyes. “Above everything else, I want you to be happy. If that means putting our family on hold for a bit, I’m okay with that. Once you get settled and have your feet planted firmly, that’s when we can start discussing what I want.”
I thought about that, listened to every syllable, wondering if I was misunderstanding him. It sounded to me like he’d just admitted to being more than ready to work on bringing another little Hahn into the world, but wanted me to be able to focus on my career… because he thought that was the most important thing to me? While I appreciated his concern, I was also a bit insulted at the same time. Had I really given him the impression that my career was the end-all be-all for me? If so, he was sadly mistaken.
“Okay, so I’m gonna say something, and I don’t want you to be offended. Let me know when you’re ready,” I said, still wondering where he’d gotten that idea.