CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Paris screams louder as Blake rocks her in his arms. He repositions her on his shoulder and pats her back, but it doesn't prevent her screams from growing louder. London winces under the shrieking noise which makes Angela frown.

"How about we go into the kitchen and see if there's any muffins in there." She winks.

    "Do you think they're blueberry muffins?"

    "I have a sneaky suspicion they are." She nods.

    London leaps up and follows Angela into the kitchen. The poor thing has been just as exhausted as us because Paris is always crying at night.

Lucky for her, she can escape and sleep at daycare or at Angela's house, which is her new favourite place. I don't blame her, it's one of my favourite places too!

I rummage through the baby bag and grumble. I must have left the dummy at home, ugh, how could I forget that? I trail my fingers through my hair and sigh. Still don't understand how I'm functioning on no sleep.

Blake half-bounces, half-paces the room which somewhat soothes her. I semi-relax into the chair and take a deep breathe. Another thing I forgot, is how hard it is to raise a newborn baby. I don't remember London being this tiring.

    Jude and Freya creep into the lounge room with excited smiles. Blake turns around and smiles at the pair. He stops walking which makes Paris ark up. Blake frantically bounces her and she settles down.

    "I think that answers my first question, how's it going?"

    Blake roughly sighs, then tugs on a smile.

    "Somehow we're surviving, but we're in love with this little human."

    Jude peers over Blake's shoulder and nods his head.

    "She looks like an alien, but congratulations."

    Freya pokes Jude's ribs and shakes her head.

    "I'm sorry, she looks cute." Jude grins.

    Blake bumps his shoulder into Jude's body and paces on. Jude shakes his head and wraps his arm around Freya's waist.

    "Since Mum and Dad are happy, I might escape the 'when are you having a baby' question for a couple of years now." He grins.

    "No you won't, my parents are nagging me for a baby." Freya laughs as Jude goes pale.

    "I miss the conversations where Mum and Dad said we shouldn't knock girls up." Jude sighs.

    "When are you going to settle down?" Blake raises an eyebrow.

    Jude squirms under Freya's gaze which makes the rest of us laugh.

    "What did you name this little cutie?"

    "Paris," I say.

    "Aw, that's a beautiful name!"

    "Thank you." I smile.

    "Would you like to hold her?" Blake stops pacing to rock a sleeping Paris.

    "Are you sure?"

    "Yes." He quickly nods.

    Freya takes a seat and Blake gently places Paris in her arms. Our hearts stop as Paris's eyes open, then flutter closed.

    "Oh my." Freya gasps. "She's so tiny!"

    London and Angela return with muffins which keeps Lo happy. Angela hugs Jude, then plops beside Freya and Paris.

    "I wish Jude and Blake were this tiny, but they were big babies," Angela comments.

    "Really?" Freya chuckles.

    "I think I have a baby album around here somewhere," she mutters.

    "Please don't do that." Jude cringes.

    "Oh please." Freya eagerly nods.

    "We're going to put Paris to bed and catch some sleep ourselves."

    "I'm surprised Mum doesn't have a nursery set up." Jude laughs.

    "I do." Angela grins. "I changed your room into the nursery and Blake's into Lo's bedroom. Well, any grandchild can stay in these rooms."

    "What?" Jude gasps.

    "You moved out, you don't need your room."

"I'll put Paris to bed so that you two can sneak away and enjoy some sleep."

    "Thank you, Mum."

    Blake pushes himself off the couch and wanders to the bookshelf. He reaches for a book on the top shelf and passes it to Angela.

    "There's the family photo album."

    "Thanks, Blake!"

    Jude scowls while Blake snickers.

    "That's what you get for calling my baby an alien."

    Jude glares while Blake takes my hand and leads me outside. We enter our old place and I'm taken back by how different it looks with boxes and old furniture cluttering the space.

    He leads me up the stairs and we dive onto the bed that's still here. I curl into his chest and he kisses my forehead.

    "We have so many memories in this room. It's kind of crazy to be back here."

    "So much pain and happiness." Blake sighs.

    "Sometimes I wish we could skip back to the beginning, do it all over again."

    "What would you change?"

    "All the times I hurt you, like leaving you after Ivan."

    "As much as it hurt, I'm glad you left. You became this strong, independent woman who helped me get through the custody trial. I wouldn't change anything about our past, other than spending more time with you."

    "We can fix that now." I smile.

    Blake cups my cheek and brushes his warm lips against mine. His fingers slide into the base of my hair and he tugs on the brown strands.

    He pushes himself on top and I wrap my arms around his neck. Blake kisses my forehead, my nose, then my lips. I nip his bottom lip and he chuckles.

    Blake trails kisses down my neck and onto my chest. He pushes my shirt up and kisses across my stomach and back up to my chest.

    I trail my fingers through his hair and sigh.

    "We can't do anything fun for another week or two."

    "That's unfortunate, but I can appreciate my wife's amazing body." He winks.

    "I hope I have enough energy for this."

    "We'll find energy, we seem to be good at that." He laughs.

    Blake's hands roam my body and I giggle.

    "You're crazy, we should be sleeping!"

    "You're the crazy one for not taking advantage of this free time."

    "I can't be bothered arguing with you."

    "That's good, because I was always going to win." He winks.

    Blake kisses down my body and I grip onto the pillow to stifle my moans.

    For a tiny moment, it feels like we're back in time, a time where I'm not exhausted or covered in baby vomit and breast milk, and it feels damn good.

It's so weird to read Baby Steps then Passing Motions 😱