Rose steps forward, excited. “Thank you, Hunter.”

  He sits down beside me and takes my hand. I open my other hand, prompting Rose to take it. She does, lightly bouncing on her toes as she waits for me to say it.

  “It’s a girl,” I say.

  Rose squeals, clenching my hand. “I knew it!”

  “We’re going to name her Violet.”

  Her jaw drops. “Oh, that’s beautiful.”

  “It was my idea,” Hunter says, flashing a smug smile.

  My belly rumbles with a sudden pain. I squeeze their hands tightly as it fires through my body.

  “Okay,” Rose says, attempting to tug her hand away. “Ow.”

  Hunter nods, wincing but taking it in stride. “I’ve been doing this for thirteen hours, Rose.”

  She slips from my grasp. “Yikes.”

  “Oh, yes, please,” I say through my teeth. “Tell me all about how much pain you two are in!”

  They sit back and sip their coffees.

  CHAPTER 39

  HUNTER

  Daisy sleeps. She’s earned a good rest.

  I thought I knew how it felt to be exhausted, but I’ve never been as tired as she looks right now. She’s been through hell and back again.

  But in the end, she smiled.

  I move with soft feet, refusing to make any noise at all as I walk away from the window to stand over them. Daisy’s out, her little eyes twitching behind her lids. I want her to be like that for as long as possible. She’s done enough. And the baby, well…

  Every moment spent not admiring Daisy is spent admiring her.

  Violet lies in a bassinet beside the bed. My baby. My daughter. A year ago, she didn’t exist at all. A few hours ago, she was still just a concept to me. Now, she’s my entire world.

  She suddenly kicks her little feet, jolting out of sleep. Just that is enough to make her eyes well and lips tremble.

  “Oh, no. No,” I whisper, glancing over at Daisy. The last thing I want to do is wake her up, but I have no idea how to handle this. I lean over the bassinet, waving my hands to draw the baby’s attention, but I think that just scares her. “Shh. Shh…”

  She starts to cry.

  “Ah, crap.”

  Again, I look at Daisy. She’s still lost in a deep sleep. Another moment of screaming and she won’t be anymore.

  I’m the adult.

  I’m the parent.

  I’m the one who has to pick her up and rock her back to sleep.

  I reach into the bassinet. She’s so small, her entire body fits in my palms. I try not to think about how weird that is as I sway around like an idiot.

  “Hey, hey,” I whisper, tiptoeing away from the bed. “Don’t cry. Nothing to cry about.”

  And then she opens her eyes and closes her mouth. Those eyes. Just like Daisy’s in every way. Small and blue. The tuft of dark hair on her head is all mine, though, so I guess that’s something.

  “Hey,” I say again. She squints at me as if to question what the hell I want, but that’s yet another thing she’s got in common with her mother. “I’m your daddy,” I tell her, adjusting my hands to hold her a little closer. “I’m not sure exactly what I’m supposed to do here, but I guess I’ll fake it. I mean, I have almost a quarter of a century on you, but you seem to have your shit together way more than I do right now.”

  She doesn’t laugh. I can’t imagine why she would.

  We drift closer to the window. A bit of moonlight falls in between the slats, illuminating her face with a subtle blue.

  I clear my throat. “So, this is pretty awesome, Violet. I’m having a really strange experience here.”

  She blinks at me.

  “I created you,” I say, mostly to myself as reality sets in. “Well, she did most of the work. Like ninety-nine percent of it, but you wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t ask her to come home with me, so I’m taking some credit. I’m not sure if I should ever tell you about that night, though. I don’t know what the rules are on one-night stand babies, but maybe when you’re older — like thirty. Christ, when you’re thirty, I’ll be—”

  “What are you doing?”

  I spin away from the window to find Daisy staring at me from the bed. She grins at me, just barely lifting her head.

  “Oh, sorry.” I wince. “She started crying, and I didn’t want to wake you up so I just kind of… grabbed her and she stopped.”

  Daisy nods. “Good job.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You okay?”

  I look from her to the baby and back again. “I’m freaking out a little bit,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Does she still have arms and legs?” Daisy asks.

  I pause to check. “Yes.”

  “Is she still breathing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she wearing clothes?”

  I look at my daughter in my hands; pristine and perfect. “Yeah.”

  She smiles. “Then, you’re doing okay.”

  “Good,” I say, exhaling hard.

  “Come here.”

  Daisy waves me over as she sits up, moving as slowly as I do as I walk across the room.

  “You know,” I say, standing beside the bed, “if this could be the last time I see you in the hospital, that’d be great.”

  She laughs. “If this could be the last time you put me in the hospital, that’d be great.”

  “Hey, that first time was an accident.” I look at the baby. “I guess this was, too.”

  Daisy opens her arms. I lean down to pass our daughter to her.

  “So, what were you guys talking about?” she asks me.

  “I honestly can’t remember,” I say. “The conversation was one-sided.”

  “It probably will be for a few years.”

  “Yeah, until she develops your wit,” I joke. “Then, I’m screwed.”

  “It took the better part of two decades to master this wit. You’ve got plenty of time to prepare.”

  I pause, looking between the two of them, and everything else stops. Right here, sitting in front of me, is the next two decades of my life — maybe more. Hopefully more. That should terrify me. It does, but not in the way I’d expect.

  It terrifies me it came so close to never existing at all. Daisy could have stayed at her sister’s that night or gone to some other bar. I could have chickened out and gone home alone. The two types of contraception could have done their job — a statistic that still baffles me to think about. This era of my life came so close to never happening and the thought of not standing here, gazing down at my daughter and the love of my life, makes me sick.

  Love.

  This is love.

  “Daisy, I love you.”

  She pulls her attention away from the bundle in her arms and looks up at me, her eyes widening with each silent second.

  Finally, she smiles at me in the dark. “I love you too, Hunter.”

  I lean down to kiss her. “How are you feeling?” I ask, my forehead resting against hers.

  “Tired,” she says, her voice weak.

  I lay down beside her on the bed and she rests against me, positioning the baby on our laps to give both of us a good look. They yawn, which just makes me do it, too. It’s been a long day for all of us.

  I take a breath, letting it all sink in. Daisy and I are getting married. We have a healthy, beautiful baby girl. I accepted an offer from Los Angeles, happy to follow Daisy across the country. There’s still plenty of time to work out the details of how this will work, but it will work. I’m certain of it.

  I kiss Daisy’s forehead. She sighs from the edge of sleep.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to her. To our daughter. To whatever it was that brought us all together.

  All right, universe.

  You can stop now.

  EPILOGUE

  DAISY

  One Year Later

  “Smile, everybody!”

  Rose and John smile from ear-to-ear from the head table. I raise my camera, centering them in the frame before snapping another photo. Their grins don’t drop as I lower the camera, but they deserve to have permanent smiles on their wedding day.

  Or our wedding day.

  “Alyssa! Junior!”

  Rose waves to her friends nearby. They rush over to hover over their shoulders and pose for me.

  I make myself laugh by forcing them to hold the pose for longer than necessary.

  Rose leers at me. “Take the damn picture!”

  I click the shutter three times in quick succession, giving her plenty of options for later when we inevitably obsess over these.

  “All right,” I say. “I think we got it.”

  Alyssa slips into Junior’s hands, and he leads her toward the dance floor. Rose and John instantly follow them as a fast-paced song starts up over the speakers. DJ is on fire tonight.

  I turn away and slink through the small crowd to the table in the corner. A three-tiered white cake sits in the center, surrounded by plates and silverware, just waiting to be carved into.

  I raise my camera at it and turn the focus.

  “You know, we hired photographers for this.”

  “I know,” I say, smiling at Hunter over my shoulder. “But these are my pictures.”

  “Ah.”

  “I have my style. My own personal touch.”

  He stands behind me with his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo. “And here I thought you were sick of taking pictures of… How did you put it? Overpriced, multi-tiered, gluten factories?”

  “Well, this is my overpriced, multi-tiered, gluten factory,” I say. “It’s different.”

  He nods. “Makes sense.”

  Hunter extends his hand. I take it, happily taking him with me as I stroll back to the head table to put my camera down by my chair. The crowd shouts with approval and we look to the dance floor to see John engaged in a dance battle with Dennis. Rose and Trisha stand off to the side, laughing and only partially horrified by the display.

  I laugh. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

  “They’re surprisingly graceful,” Hunter notes.

  “Do you want to dance?”

  “Around that?” He wags his head back and forth. “No, thanks.”

  “Good.”

  I stare into his eyes — my husband’s eyes. I catch him looking me up and down again. He hasn’t stopped doing that since he first saw me in my dress a few hours ago. Not that I’m surprised. I look fucking great in white.

  “Where’s Violet?” I ask.

  He points across the room at a table in the corner. Violet sits in a highchair, sandwiched between our mothers, along with the rest of the tiny humans invited to attend. Alyssa and Junior’s adorable toddler, Courtney, has taken it upon herself to share crayons with Violet and the two babble back and forth in some mystery baby language.

  Hunter plants a kiss on my cheek. “Wanna get a drink?”

  “Sure.”

  He takes my hands and leads me toward the exit.

  “Uh, Hunter.” I point behind us. “We have an open bar.”

  “We do,” he says. “But I know a better place.”

  We slip out of the reception hall unnoticed, and I follow him through the hotel lobby. “A better place? Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Yes, but where?”

  He exhales by the exit. “You really don’t understand the concept of a surprise, do you?”

  The summer sun blinds me as we step outside, but I can easily see the wide, amused eyes of the people we pass by. I guess it’s not every day you see a bride and groom booking it down the sidewalk.

  We travel two blocks. When we arrive, the familiar alleyway makes me smile. “Hunter…”

  He glances at me, but doesn’t say a word.

  The door to Bruno’s is as red as it was that night. Hunter moves slowly to make sure I don’t leave my dress behind as we step inside.

  I scan the dimly lit bar. It looks exactly the same, smells the same. That scratchy old jukebox sits in the corner. All that’s missing is that old man at the edge of the bar with his crossword puzzle… and the hot bartender waving me in, of course.

  I skim the magazine articles hanging on the walls as we head toward the bar. A few of them spark memories, taking me even more back in time to that night.

  I pause, locking eyes on a familiar article framed at the end of the line.

  By now, everyone has heard the story of the woman who got hit in the head by a college baseball player’s home run only to wake up in the hospital pregnant with his child. The Home Run Baby dominated the airwaves for weeks after the news broke. A modern-day miracle tale for sports fans across the country that made Hunter Novak even more of a household name than he already was.

  The truth is far more coincidence than magic, but it’s hard to argue that fate didn’t have a little something to do with it in the end.

  “We will never outrun that, will we?” I ask.

  Hunter slips behind the bar. “Honestly, I hope we never do.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, sliding onto the same ancient stool across from him. “Why not?”

  He withdraws two glasses from beneath the counter. “It’s our story,” he says, tossing a few ice cubes into each.

  “It’s our highly exaggerated, slightly fictionalized, heavily sensationalized story.”

  “But it’s ours.”

  I smile as he pours a whiskey sour for me. “Touché. I just think Trisha made it sound too easy.”

  He nods and lays the glasses down between us. “I’ll drink to that.”

  We tap our drinks together before taking a quick sip.

  I hum with delight. “The bar guy still knows his booze.”

  “It’s a job requirement.”

  “For major league baseball?”

  “For marrying you.”

  I raise a brow. “Oh, really?”

  “Yep.”

  “And what other skills does that require?”

  He licks his smiling lips. “Patience. Lots of it.”

  “Well, that goes without saying.”

  “Grace and humility.” He looks up in thought. “Stamina.”

  “Lots of it.”

  He chuckles. “All skills I look forward to honing for the rest of my days.”

  My heart beats a little faster. “I’m really happy we did this.”

  “I’m happy my old boss wasn’t too pissed off that I stole that whiskey.”

  “No, I mean…” I take a breath. “You and me. I always thought that relying on another person made me weak, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Hunter lowers onto his elbows with his drink in hand. “I never once thought you were weak, Daisy. A little fragile, maybe. But never weak.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “We’re all fragile,” he says. “We all have the potential to be broken, inside and out. I could shatter my hand catching a fastball at any time.”

  I wince. “Please don’t.”

  “And it broke me a little when you walked away.”

  I take a drink to feel the burn. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I gained a lot of respect for you then, more than I already had. You made the choice I was too scared to make.”

  “Turned out to be the wrong one, though.”

  “Everything worked out in the end.” He glances at the article on the wall. “But you’re right about one thing. She made it sound too easy. Loving you is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve watched you cry. I’ve watched you struggle. I watched you endure weeks of pain to bring Violet into this world, and all I could do was hold your hand. That’s not weakness, Daisy. You’re one badass bitch.”

  “I guess I am.”

  “And I’m a stronger man because of you.” He looks me in the eye, unblinking. “I don’t know if I made this clear before when I stood beside you at an altar and said my vows, but I’m in. I never want you to stop challenging me.”

  A tear falls down my cheek. Hunter reaches across the bar and brushes it away. “I’m gonna hold you to that,” I whisper.

  He smiles and refills my glass.

  Hunter slides the key card into the hotel room door and the light flicks from red to green. I heave a quiet breath, careful not to jolt Violet as she snoozes against my shoulder.

  Getting married is absolutely exhausting. I’m not sure which day left me more desperate for a warm, comfortable bed: this one or the day I birthed her.

  He peeks back at the two of us with happy eyes before pushing the door open. As he steps inside, he holds up a quiet hand to keep me from following him and I shoot him a look. I really just want to fall into a bed right now…

  Hunter sets our suitcases down and returns to me. “I’ve been looking forward to doing this for months,” he says.

  “Doing what?”

  He reaches around me and lifts me off the floor, cradling me the same way I’m cradling our daughter. My guts instantly lurch in surprise, and I cling to Violet as he carries us both across the threshold into the hotel room.

  “Well, aren’t you the gentleman?” I ask, balanced in his arms.

  “It’s not every day you get to carry two beautiful ladies into a place like this.”

  He sets me down, and my eyes grow wide. “Oh, wow,” I say, glancing around the suite.

  We’ve officially graduated from cheap motel rooms on the side of the highway. The major league likes to spoil their star athletes, that’s for sure. It doesn’t hurt that one of his LA teammates is Hayden Botsford, one heir to the Botsford Plaza Hotel fortune, and he insisted on us enjoying the honeymoon suite for as long as we wanted to.

  The suite sits near the top floor, giving us a perfect view of the Chicago skyline. It enters into a large sitting area with a connected bedroom. A cold bottle of champagne sits beside the bed (king-sized, obviously) and I can already feel the steam on my skin as I glance into the bathroom and spot the hot tub in the corner.

  I pause by the bed, noticing a large bowl full of multi-colored condoms sitting on the table with a note sticking out the top of it.

  “Where did this come from?” I ask, chuckling.