Beyond These Walls (The Walls Duet #2)(68)

I gave him a sheepish grin. “Maybe?”

“Do you even remember what you ordered?” he asked, looking down at the shipping label with an inquisitive stare.

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “Definitely.”

“Well, you want to give me a hand then?”

I looked up from the book I was reading. “Right now?”

“Yeah. Why not?” He grinned.

A flutter of excitement mixed with nervousness rushed through my system as I followed him down the hall. I’d ordered every single item in those scattered boxes that lonely night last week with the intention of moving forward with this pregnancy—no more waiting, no more hiding behind fears.

Then, I’d ended up in the hospital, and suddenly, I was back behind that line again, struggling to move past the point where I could tell myself that it was okay to decide on wall colors and baby names. Four months from now, this child growing in my stomach would become a reality.

It wasn’t just a fantasy I was trying to will into existence. This was happening.

And the strong-willed fighter I’d become after years and years of battling a diseased heart needed to step up to the plate and realize that.

I placed a hesitant foot into the empty room, taking note of the many boxes neatly stacked in each corner.

“So, where should we start?” I asked him, looking around from one end to the other, as I twisted my hands together.

“Why don’t you just take a seat and let me see what we have?”

“But I could help you—”

“Nope,” he answered, cutting me off.

“Not even for a little bit?”

“Sorry.” He shook his head. “Ass on the floor, Lailah.”

I pouted, slumping to the ground. “How am I supposed to help on the floor?”

He took a wide step forward, bending down to capture my lips. “Well, sitting there is helpful on the eyes.”

My head cocked to the side, and I gave him an amused stare.

“And . . .” He paused. “You can direct with these lovely little arms of yours. Tell me where to put everything. I’m at your disposal. But no getting up. In fact . . .”

He rushed out of the room and came back with two kitchen chairs. Helping me up, he sat me in one, and after positioning the other across from me, he raised my feet up on the other.

“See? Comfy.”

I rolled my eyes.

Using a box cutter, he began pulling everything out.

Okay, so maybe I had forgotten some of the things I’d ordered. That one-click feature should be outlawed.

“So, it looks like I’ll be putting together a crib and whatever the hell this is,” he said, pointing to the large box in the corner.

“It’s a glider,” I explained.

“A what?”

“A glider—kind of like a rocking chair but smoother. And it’s upholstered.”

“So, the La-Z-Boy of baby furniture?” He grinned, looking at the picture on the side.

“It’s supposed to be soothing.”

“It looks great,” he encouraged sweetly, pushing up his sleeves to dive into the assembly. “We’re going to do this one first. It will give you a better place to sit.”

I giggled as I watched him pull out a million different parts and pieces, never once complaining that we could have easily paid someone to do this for us or just gone to some fancy furniture store where all of this would be preassembled. It felt like a rite of passage—something all parents must do before the birth of their children. For the first time during this pregnancy, I felt normal, extremely mundane and normal. It was as if the fear and anxiety of everything that could happen had been left at the threshold. This was our safe space—where life was planned, not feared.

Eventually, I ordered a pizza and then turned on some music on my phone, and we sat around, eating, laughing and figuring out which side of part A fit into part B. Around two hours later, we had a glider.

“Hey, look at that. It works!” I exclaimed, sitting in it for the first time.

It moved back and forth with little to no effort, and as I perched my feet up onto the matching ottoman, I tried to picture myself here, late at night, with a tiny child in my arms, rocking him back and forth, back and forth.

My eyes closed as the picture formed and blossomed in my head.

Blue eyes to start, but eventually, as he grew, they’d fade into green, soft green eyes like his father.

He’d have his compassion, too, his big heart.

My eyes flashed open as a trickle of fear wormed its way back into my soul.

Dear God, what if he got my heart? A weak, brittle broken little heart.

Thump, thump.

What was that?

My hand flew to my stomach.

“Lailah? What it is?”

I chased the sensation, my hand racing everywhere, as if I were hunting a cell phone signal.

“I think—I mean, I know”—I laughed—“the baby just kicked.”

“Different from what you’ve been experiencing?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “This wasn’t a flutter or a kind of whoosh. This was a solid kick. He—if he really is a he—is making his presence known.”

Jude rushed to me, kneeling by my side, his eyes staring up at me with an intense sense of wonder on his face. I grabbed his hand, and together, we gripped my stomach, waiting for another moment.