Chapter 63 Desiree Dixon

Chapter 63: Desiree Dixon

A Minivan with Ninjas Painted on the Side

I glance up as Asher walks into the private room we were moved to after recovery with my mom and dad, and all three of them are smiling. I wonder what I’m missing and what they’re smiling about.

My dad and Asher are walking into a room together. Smiling .

A deep and pure happiness seems to fill me at a time when I already thought I was at the peak of happiness.

Somehow, this life just keeps getting better and better.

“Hey, Grandma and Grandpa,” I murmur with a smile. The baby is swaddled—something the nurse did since I’m still learning what that even means—and he’s sleeping, but I got a look at his eyes before, and they’re Asher blue.

He’s perfect.

Both the baby and the baby’s daddy.

Asher dropped everything to travel over three hundred miles to be by my side even when we didn’t know if I was actually in labor, and the thought that I’m not a priority to him is long cast aside. I know he’d do anything for me, including calling my parents to ensure I wasn’t alone here when he knew how upset my dad was with him. Including finding some way to patch things up with my dad—a story I still haven’t heard, but one I’m sure they’ll fill me in on someday.

My dad stares at the baby in my arms, and my mom clasps her hands in front of her and pulls them up to her chest.

“Would you like to hold him?” I ask them.

“Ooh, me first,” my mom begs, and I laugh.

“Wash your hands first, please,” the nurse says, and my mom complies with the request before she walks over toward me. The nurse ducks out to give us more space, though Asher somehow talked them into giving me what has to be the biggest room in this place.

Asher moves in beside me on the far side from the door, and my dad stands at the foot of the bed while my mom washes at the sink by the door.

“What’s his name?” my dad asks, and I wait for my mom to walk back over as I stare down at him.

“Meet Jacob William Nash,” I say, handing him carefully over to my mom as if he’ll break.

“Jacob William?” my dad repeats. “William?”

I look up at him and nod, and the big, tough football coach looks like he’s about to cry.

God, just the thought of it makes me cry. These hormones are no joke. I thought I’d go back to normal now that the baby is out, but I guess not.

I look at my mom, who looks so happy and content as she holds the baby, and the thought that my parents would ever not be okay with whoever I ended up with is the furthest thought from my mind.

My dad was upset, and I get that. Two people who are important to him kept something big from him, and he threw a tantrum. If anyone ever wondered where my stubborn streak came from, well, it’s pretty easy to see it now.

My mom coos quietly to Jake, and Asher leans down and brushes his lips to my temple.

The doctor said it will be six to eight weeks before I can have sex, and I am not looking forward to that.

I mean…I’m not exactly horny mere hours after delivering a baby, but fuck, Asher looks hot as a daddy. Seeing him as he holds our newborn would’ve made my ovaries explode if they weren’t currently recovering from a pretty damn big explosion.

My dad washes his hands next, and he awkwardly takes the baby from my mom. My mom slings her arm around my dad’s waist as they smile lovingly down at their grandchild, and my dad looks up at Asher before his eyes move to me.

“You did good, kids.”

I grin, and Asher chuckles.

“Oh, and Dad?” I say. He glances up at me, and I smile. “Thanks for giving Asher your blessing. I said yes.”

“Oh!” my mom squeal-gasps, and I laugh as she lets go of my dad to rush over to the bed to grab me gently up into a tight hug.

I only stay in the hospital for forty-eight hours after delivery, and as it turns out, we were lucky that the baby was the son of a football player since he was a big baby. He had developed perfectly despite the preterm scare, and he’s ready to go home with us when I’m discharged.

He’s too little to fly, so Asher rents a minivan, and after a tearful goodbye with Addy, Chloe, and Lauren, I sit in the backseat and stare at the sleeping baby for the better part of the five-hour drive back home.

“This thing’s pretty fucking sweet,” Asher tells me at one point about the minivan, and I can’t help a laugh. It would be exactly Asher’s style to get a souped-up minivan to tool around town in, if I’m being perfectly honest. And knowing him, it would probably have ninjas or tigers painted on the side just to really irritate the shit out of his brothers.

We walk into the house with Jake in his car carrier and find a surprise party waiting for us—a quiet one, anyway, filled with my future in-laws here to give us gifts and meet the newest Nash. They all whisper, “Surprise!” when we walk in, and Missy rushes up to us first.

“Congratulations, my sweet girl,” she says to me with a huge hug. “On everything. The baby, the engagement, just all of it.”

“Thank you,” I say softly with a smile, and she looks down into the carrier I’m holding at her grandson.

“Oh my goodness, he’s absolutely perfect!”

“He is,” I agree with zero modesty.

He wakes up, and he’s ready to meet everyone—after he eats first, of course—and it’s a big Nash family party with Lincoln, Grayson, and Spencer, along with their wives, Lincoln’s stepson and daughter, Missy, and even Tanner and Miller.

The only one not here is Eddie, and it isn’t until after Grace heads up the cleaning crew so we don’t have to lift a finger and then everyone leaves that I ask Asher about it.

“My guess is he didn’t want to face the entire family with our half-brothers here. The charity ball was one thing. He could escape there. Here? Nowhere to go.” He shrugs, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket. “But he did text me with an apology. He claims he had to work, but last I checked, he didn’t even have a job.” He shrugs. “We haven’t spoken much since I moved out.”

“Hm,” I murmur with a shrug, and then I get back to my new favorite activity in the world—holding the baby and staring down at his precious little face.

“I need to run a quick errand. Will you still be awake when I get home?”

I laugh. “Me or the baby?”

“You. I know he’ll still be sleeping since he’s only awake for a total of about six hours a day.”

I laugh. “And collectively, those hours are all at night when we want to sleep.”

“Exactly.”

It’s our first night at home with the baby, and it’ll definitely be an adjustment. We were able to get some rest at the hospital when the nurses took the baby out to give us a break, but we won’t have that at home.

Asher leans over and kisses me. “Be right back.”

“We’ll be here.” I say it in a cooing voice like I’m talking to the baby.

“Need anything while I’m out?” he asks.

“Just your quick return since we’ll miss you while you’re gone.”

He grins. “You got it.”

He’s only gone about an hour, and I must doze off with the baby in his bassinet right next to me as I lay on the couch because I didn’t realize he was back until I feel the couch dip beside me.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay. I could use some dinner. Where’d you go?”

“I picked up dinner. Scallops and mushroom soup.”

I smile as I sit up and stretch, and I wince a little at the sharp pain below deck. It’s sort of like a bruise every time I sit after pushing a baby with a head the size of a watermelon out of there.

I pad over to the kitchen table, where I find mac and cheese, chicken fingers, fries, and chicken noodle soup. I glance over at my future husband. “You got all this for me?”

“Addy told me it’s your comfort food meal, and I added in the chicken soup since I made you some the day your stomach flu turned out to be Jake.”

I giggle. “That’s really sweet.”

He moves in behind me, and he wraps his arms around me. “Get used to being taken care of because I plan to do it for the rest of my life.”

I spin in his arms and lift to my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. “I love you.”

He smiles down at me, and then he lets go of me without saying it back. Instead, he bends down and kneels on one knee. “I love you, too. And the first time I asked, it wasn’t in the traditional way, so I wanted to ask you again.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring. “Desiree Joy Dixon, will you marry me?”

My lips tip up. I’m in sweatpants and a T-shirt stained with breastmilk, and my hair is piled in a messy bun on top of my head. I’m exhausted and could use a shower, and we won’t be able to seal this promise with sex for another six to eight weeks. And somehow, it’s perfect. “Yes.”

He slips the ring onto my finger as he grins at me, and I can’t help but stare at him as he pushes to a stand. His dark blue eyes are heated on me, and those full lips are tipped up into a smile. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and his scruff somehow makes him even hotter, and he’s wearing a T-shirt that proclaims he’s the best dad ever.

I never believed in fate until she deposited me directly into the chair right beside the tight end I always dreamed of. And that was just the start of our happily ever after.