It was one of many moments in the past six months that made me realize there was a certain wisdom to be found in my man’s psychopathic tendencies, that it was those very characteristics that made him so uniquely beautiful.
“Okay,” I agreed easily. “Until then, sit with me.”
Reluctantly, he sat. He was tense, muscles coiled with potential energy just in case any little thing happened that would need him to spring into action. Watching him, knowing how conflicted he was sitting there because I asked him to when he really wanted to rush me to the hospital, my heart clenched for one long, almost painful moment with agonizing love for him.
“I love you,” I told him, feeling the words were so inadequate when it came to what we shared. “I love you with everything I am.”
Priest blinked at me the way he always did when I was effusive as if he couldn’t quite acclimatize to my professions or the truth of them. Then he shifted, a slow uncoiling of lean muscles so that he lay half-propped on a bulging forearm facing me.
“You are my whole heart,” he explained factually without a shred of intonation. “And so is this baby.”
He placed his large, death stamped hand on my belly, splaying his fingers. I read the names of the deceased on each knuckle, the newest addition on his thumb a constant reminder of what we’d been through.
Linley.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a painful reminder when I caught a glimpse of it as I often did, but a powerful one. It was a seemingly insurmountable obstacle we had overcome together, and maybe it was strange, but I was proud of that.
We were quiet then for a time, both sinking deep in our own thoughts. We weren’t a couple who watched television or went out drinking at bars. We were the people who threw knives at the old cross Priest had transplanted to my backyard, the couple who practiced self-defence for fun on the pink-patterned carpet in our living room, and the pair that sat quietly together while he whittled or read and I studied for classes.
It wasn’t exactly a quiet life we led or a normal one, but it was the only life I’d ever wanted.
His hand was still on my belly when, minutes later, my abdomen contracted so hard it made my teeth ache as they ground together against the pain. He could feel the tightening of my womb under his fingers, and seconds later, I was being lifted up in his arms, extra weight and pregnant belly and all as easily as if I was a sack of flour.
“Our stuff,” I cried out, looking over his shoulder as he stalked away from our blanket and picnic basket.
“I’ll send the prospect to pick it up when we get to the hospital.”
I sighed dramatically, but he ignored me as he walked through the long, swaying grass to cut straight to the parking lot.
It had been months since I’d been on the back of his bike. I missed it, but I loved the fact that Priest drove us in my pink 1982 Fiat 124 Spider. He didn’t give a crap what anyone thought of it, so he was completely unfazed by the idea of folding his long body behind the wheel and transporting us around in the pink car. Boner had made a joke about it once but met with Priest’s stone-cold stare, he hadn’t uttered one again.
Only when I was tucked in the passenger seat with my belt buckled and Priest behind the wheel did he finally look at me again like I was human. I didn’t take it personally. This was the makeup of his brain, to tackle problems systematically.
“If this is it, in a handful of hours you’ll have given me the greatest gift I’ve ever known and always feared,” he murmured as he squeezed my thigh before placing it on my headrest to check behind him as he reversed the car. “Thank you, mo cuishle.”
I patted his hard thigh, then gave it a reciprocal squeeze as I stared out the window to hide my happy tears.
* * *
* * *
Thirty-seven hours.
Of course, no child of Priest would be easy.
The little devil took his time, and nothing we did would rush him.
“He likes it in there, safe with you,” Priest guessed at one point as he mopped my sweaty brow and fed me ice chips with his fingers. “Don’t blame him. The world’s not an easy place.”
“You’ll protect them,” I said because I knew he would do anything and everything to make sure our baby had the best life possible, a different kind of life than Priest had suffered through.
He grunted, but there was a softening to his mouth as he unpeeled a strand of hair from my slick cheek.
The entire club was outside in the waiting room of St. Katherine’s, this time, waiting for a birth instead of a possible death. Loulou filtered in to hold my hand and make me laugh to take my mind off the pain and Phillipa too, though she was nervous around Priest even though she tried not to be. We were working on our relationship—my mum, sister, and I—being open and honestly communicative for the first time in our lives. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it in the end to try to earn each other’s love and loyalty instead of just assuming it by proxy.