"I'll let her go. I'll allow fate to decide what happens to us."

He nodded. "You say that now. It's easy to act brave now. But you have no idea what you're talking about. Still as green as the first day you walked into my classroom."

"I'm not green, and I'm not an idiot, and I'm not unmoved by the thought of Everly dying. The year I knew she was alive in this world, but unreachable, I could barely breathe. But I won't allow all of the life Everly has given me-literally will give to me in the form of our son-go to waste by wallowing in the grief of her death. I will miss her, and I will wish for her, but I won't be crippled by the pain. I will welcome the agony, because it will remind me every day-every goddamn day-how lucky I am to have ever felt something that could spear me in such a way."

He looked down to his desk and shuffled around papers. I was about to turn on my heel, but he stopped me with his words. "I never abandoned my daughter."

I stared at him until he raised his eyes to mine.

"I might have given her to you," he lamented. "But I didn't abandon her, and I never would."

"This is beyond insane." Tatum watched from the corner of the hospital room as Everly thumbed through a magazine, and I waited for Dr. Saul to confirm what I already knew.

My name had never been screeched louder, and my legs had never (if ever) leapt over a staircase banister faster in order to rush to someone's aid.

A puddle surrounded her feet when I found her standing in the bathroom.

"I think I broke it," she said staring at the floor.

I tried not to laugh. "Can you feel any pressure? Any kind of contractions?"

"I . . . I don't know. Maybe?"

"Lie on the bed. I'll check you."

"And I'll die of embarrassment. No thanks. Let's just call Dr. Saul."

"Not to point out the obvious but I am a doctor, Everly Anne."

"Not to point out the obvious, Callum Andrew, but one look at this hula hoop and you're never going to desire me again."

I stifled my laughter. "It's called Va-gi-na, first of all."

Hands on her hips. "I assure you after this baby comes out it will in fact be closer to resembling a hula hoop."

"Hula hoops are a lot of fun to play with, so bearing that in mind, I'll agree with you, Everly Anne."

"If you keep trying to charm your way into seeing my hula hoop I'm going to say two words and one start with F. I'm not a fan of cursing, Callum Andrew."

I finally laughed. "Then I'd say it's a lucky thing you can't feel pain, Everly Anne. Because today, you'd be saying more than one dirty word that begins with F."

But she won. We called Dr. Saul.

"She's fully dilated," he concluded with a snap of his glove. "We can begin pushing."

Everly scoffed, "We."

"I mean," Tatum continued, "I know women get epidurals and shit, but this is just one for the books. She's seriously not in any pain whatsoever!"

Everly looked over at her. "I'm a bit pained about the hula hoop my body is about to become, Tatum."

If it hadn't been for the ogre shoved in the other corner of the room, I'd have fallen to pieces laughing. Timothy was the statue of Satan's scorn as he watched a man less equipped than himself oversee the birth of our child.

"Ya'll thought of a name, yet?" a nurse asked as she checked Everly's vitals.

"Andy," Everly answered.

"Thor," I argued.

Tatum snorted. "Thank God these things don't come out of a man. It's the only way most people are named semi decent."

Everly flipped the page and smiled as she read. "Exactly."

The stirrups made an appearance and I was suddenly very nervous. Watching her give birth didn't bother me; not knowing how it would go drove me to the brink of insanity. Pregnancy had brought severe anemia back into the picture, and she would experience child birth pain free-I wasn't sure how that would work. No one truly knew-it had never been done before-not like this. Timothy was still silent brooding Satan from the sidelines, but he turned slightly away as to avoid the view.