Chapter 2

“Oh my God.”

She moved. Life rippled all along his arm, and he felt the jolt of love inside his very skin like an electric shock. The hairs on his hands stood on end. He’d waited his entire life to be here, and the enormity of it threatened to burst him right out of his own body. He held his breath as a tiny starfish hand emerged. As a head settled against his chest, supported by his wayward palm. His jaw sagged when the little pink nose rubbed against his chest once, screwed up, and—

And the most familiar eyes in the world peered up at him.

Andreas’ eyes.

Erik worked his mouth, but no sound came out. His heart was too big for his chest, and it suddenly hurt to see her. It physically hurt. He knew her face. He knew her eyes. He’d never seen her before in his life—and yet he had. Every day for the past two years, he’d seen those bottomless brown eyes. Every morning for the last thirty-seven years, he’d seen that nose in the mirror.

She looked like them.

He had expected her to look just like Andreas. All dark—hair, eyes, skin, the works. But he’d forgotten all about everything that wasn’t colour. She was dark like Andreas. Beautiful black curls, deep pools for eyes, skin that even under the angry red blush of being born was already noticeably darker than Erik’s lily-white hue. But the nose was his. The wide mouth that yawned at him stretched just like his did over coffee on Saturday mornings. And the little starfish hand that waved at him, then slowly curled into the world’s smallest fist, was somewhere between them. The same stubby, wide fingers as Erik’s—but the soft, shallow knuckles of Andreas’.

“She’s beautiful,” he whispered, and Andreas reached over to tug the blankets open a little.

She was dressed in a tiny white vest and nappy. Little socks hid tiny toes. Her whole body lay along his forearm, legs still curled up like they’d been since she’d stopped being a clump of cells and started being a baby. Big feet, compared to her size. His feet.

“She’s perfect.”

Her hands flailed at the disturbance, and the eyes disappeared as she screwed up her face and whined. Erik gingerly extracted a hand, balancing her carefully between chest and forearm, to close the covers up again. She whimpered, then snuffled and settled once more.

“She’s got your curls,” Erik mumbled hoarsely. God, she couldn’t have been more perfect if she’d tried. His nose, Andreas’ hair, all ten tiny fingers…

“She’s got your lungs,” Andreas murmured. “Should have heard her.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh. Knew the minute she was born, just from the noise.”

“I take it all back,” Erik whispered.

“What?”

“About wanting a boy.”

Andreas hummed softly. When Erik looked up, his eyes were closed, but then he spoke. “Never know. Might be hereditary. She might be a boy after all.”

“She’ll still be perfect, though,” Erik said, and touched a tiny hand with the tip of his finger. It opened like a flower—then seized tight like a vice. He laughed, thrilled by the sheer power in her grip. How could something so small be so strong? “So? Your name or mine?”

They weren’t married. Erik wanted to be—truth was, he’d wanted to marry Andreas the moment he’d met him—but they’d wanted a baby first. Marriage could wait. Andreas, and his original plumbing, couldn’t.

And way back when the bump had still been mistakable for indigestion, Andreas had said, “Your last name is ridiculous. I’m not having a child with that name.”

“Yours is unpronounceable,” Erik had fired back, and Andreas had rolled his eyes.

“Because you’re English and can barely speak one language.”

They’d never actually agreed on a surname—but when Erik looked up, Andreas had dozed off, one hand still resting on a corner of the white blanket that trailed over Erik’s elbow.

“Maybe we’ll find out your last name later, sweet pea,” he whispered to the drowsy bundle in his arms. “We know your first name though, don’t we?”

He jiggled her carefully. She grumbled, snuffling, and squinted up at him once more.

And Erik beamed down into the most beautiful face in the world, and said, “Hi, Beatriz. I’m Dad.” 2

Beatriz stared up at him as she devoured the bottle, and Andreas couldn’t help but beam tiredly back at her.

It had been nine months of absolute hell, but it was worth it. He couldn’t tell yet if she’d look more like him or more like Erik, but she was so unmistakably theirs that it made his heart ache. She had Erik’s nose and mouth, but her colouring was that of home. He could see his mother and father in her, all of his brothers and sisters, even some of his cousins.