Erik has wanted to be a father for as long as he can remember -- but now that the day is finally here, he's terrified. Surely a ham-fisted Viking of a man like Erik shouldn't be allowed to handle things as tiny and delicate as his new baby girl?<br><br>But it's not just his daughter that's come into Erik's world. His partner has finally returned too. After nine months of watching Andreas struggle with the mental and physical toll of being a man and being pregnant at the same time, the birth of their daughter is both a beginning and an ending.<br><br>Erik is a father for the first time -- but not everything that comes next is new.

Erik the Pink

“I thought he was a woman,” he whispered to Beatriz. “I bought him another drink and when I came back with it, I said ‘sorry miss’ and he said ‘mister.’ And I don’t know what came over me then. Just as well your daddy doesn’t care if the chat-up line is smooth, because I just said he was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, man or woman or anything else, and if he had a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a personfriend, would he mind dumping them for the evening so I could persuade him I was a catch instead of a big hairy barman?”


She curled her little fist around his entire finger, and he jiggled it gently.


“I guess you know the ending, huh?” he whispered.


Turned out he did have a boyfriend. But they’d had a huge fight the day before, and Andreas was three quarters of the way towards dumping him. Erik had asked why. Andreas had pinked, and pointed to the flags on his face.


Chapter 22