Lovely Trigger (48 page)

Our pods were at least next to each other, and we were face to face.
 
Still, I felt restless and antsy, and I knew that if we’d been sitting together, if I could have just held his hand, it would have helped.
     

He was reclining, his eyes closed.
 
I didn’t understand how he could be sleeping at a time like this.
 

I wanted to shake him awake.
 
I needed company right now.
 

“Psst,” I called to him.

He smiled, eyes still closed.
 
He hadn’t been sleeping.
 

I looked around, grabbed a grape off my fruit plate, and threw it at him.
 

He laughed, opening his eyes.
 
He looked so relaxed and happy.
 
I had no idea how he could be so calm.
 

I reached for an almond, and beaned him in the forehead with it.
 
He just kept laughing.

“What if we can’t…?
 
What if they won’t…?”
 
I was speaking in a furious, agitated whisper, so stressed I couldn’t even get the full questions out.
 

He moved his chair until he was sitting up, giving me the Troublesome smile.
 
The one that had changed my life.
 

“Come over here,” he said softly.
 

I looked around.
 
“I can’t.
 
We have to stay in our assigned seats.
 
And besides, there’s no room over there.”
 

“Come over here,” he repeated softly, his smile even softer.
 

I glanced around, saw that the two flight attendants in our cabin were working in the galley, then moved quickly around until I was standing in the entrance to his pod.
 

He didn’t hesitate, pulling me down to sit on his lap.
 

“We can’t do that!”
 

He shifted until I was squeezed in next to him, his arm thrown over me.
 
It was a very tight fit, but I felt instantly better.
 

His free hand reached for mine, and he threaded our fingers together while I burrowed my cheek into his strong chest, breathing deep as I listened to the steady thud of his heart.
 

“Stephan told me the trick to having sex in an airplane bathroom.
 
I think the flight attendants are too busy to notice us.
 
Whataya say?”

I elbowed him hard in the ribs.
 

He grunted then started laughing.
 
“Not the time, huh?”
 

He stroked my hair for a while before he spoke again, voice serious now.
 
“Everything is going to work out just how we want it to.”
 
He said it softly against the top of my head.
 
“In just a few days, we’ll be flying home as different people.
 
Everything is about to change.
 
It’s going to be everything we’ve talked about, all we’ve dreamed of.”
 

I squeezed his fingers until mine turned white.
 
“I’m just so afraid we won’t get to—”

“We will.
 
I promise you this: We’re not going home without her, not this time.”

“She won’t understand us.
 
What if she doesn’t like us?”
 

“Love has its own language, sweetheart, and of course she’ll like us.
 
We’re her parents.
 
It might take some time, but we’ll teach her what that means.
 
It’s going to be just perfect.
 
You’ll see.”

Her name was Ming, and I loved her before I ever met her.
 

I fell in love with a picture, and it was true love.
 
The unconditional kind.
 
I didn’t get to take her home with me until she was nine months old, but that didn’t make me any less her mother.
 

It wasn’t blood that created a mother.
 
It was love.
 
Ming taught me that.
 

Tristan and I clutched hands as we entered the orphanage.
 
I recognized her instantly.
 
They had her in an outfit I’d sent her, a little dress with strawberries all over it.
 
They’d even put her in the matching ruffled shorts and bonnet.
 

I started crying, but Tristan kept pulling me along.
 

“I’m a mess,” I told him, patting my cheeks.
 

“You’ll be fine.
 
And don’t cry.
 
I’m not even proposing to you today.”
 

It helped.
 
I laughed.

Ming looked right at me, blinking her big dark eyes.
 

Tristan got to her first.
 

I hung back, watching.
       

He crouched down in front of her.
 
She was being held by one of the ladies that worked there.
 
Ming seemed attached to the woman, clinging to her.
 

Tristan held out his arms to our daughter, his smile so tender it made my breath catch.
 

Ming touched his hand, studying him.
 
He had to be the biggest person she’d ever set eyes on, but she wasn’t scared.
 
She looked fascinated by him.
 

“Hi Ming,” he told her very softly, his voice rough with emotion.
 
“I’m your daddy.
 
You have no idea how long your mommy and I have been waiting for you.”
   

She was too young to understand, and even if she’d been older, she had very little exposure to English.
 
Still, some communication seemed to make it through to her, and she launched herself at him.
 
He hugged her tight, straightening.
 
Her little head looked so perfect, so trusting, laying on his strong shoulder.
 

Like they’d done it a thousand times.
 
Like it was fate.
       

His tender eyes swung to me, and they were bright with tears.
 
He smiled at me, biting his lip.
 
“Come here, Mommy.”
 

I moved as if in a dream, touching her little back, stroking her short black hair.
 

She pulled away from his chest to look at me, her little face so solemn.
 

“Hello Ming,” I choked out.
 
“I’m your mommy, and I’ve been waiting my
whole life
to meet you.”
 

She touched my face, running her tiny fingers over my brow, my nose, over my tear-streaked cheeks.
 

I held my arms out to her, holding my breath, and after one endless minute, she launched herself into my arms.
 

I held her tight and never let go.
 

We sat in economy class on the way home, as babies weren’t allowed in first class.
 
We sat side by side, and Ming was our lap child.
 
I couldn’t have been happier.
 

We took turns holding her.
 
I couldn’t stop staring at her, even when she slept.
 

“Pinch me, Tristan,” I told him quietly, as we just stared at her in wonder.
 
“I must be dreaming.
 
This little angel can’t be ours.”
 

He actually pinched me.
 

“Ow!” I said, giving him a dirty look.
 
I didn’t dare punch his arm with the baby.
 

His smiling lips moved close, kissing the corner of my mouth.
 
“This is real, and you aren’t dreaming.”
 

TWO YEARS LATER
 

James let us borrow his private jet and crew for our trip to Sofia, Bulgaria.
 
It was a Godsend, with Ming, now a precocious toddler, literally climbing the walls.
 
The flight time was fifteen hours and counting, and it would have been
miserable
, if he hadn’t done us this huge favor.
 

“Nikowash,” she said, for maybe the hundredth time.
 
She was practicing.
 

“That’s it.
 
Very good,” I told her.
 

“My brover.”
 
She jumped up and down, the yellow ruffles of her dress bouncing.
 
Her hair had gotten quite long, and I’d smoothed it into two pigtails that bounced as much as her dress.
 

Of course, I was biased, but she was the most beautiful little girl in the world.

“Yes, yes he is,” I assured her.
 

Tristan plucked her from the aisle, settling her in his lap.
 
“Your baby brother.
 
Trust me, you’re going to appreciate the distinction as you two get older.”

“Baby brover,” she repeated dutifully.
 
She was very much her daddy’s girl.
   

His name was Nikolaj.
 
He had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
 

He was born in Bulgaria and dropped off at an orphanage by his biological mother at two weeks old.
 
We were extremely lucky to take him home at just ten months old.
 
He wouldn’t let go of Tristan’s neck for the entire plane ride back to Vegas.
 
Ming kept crawling onto her daddy’s lap and giving her new brother kisses on the cheek.
 
She must have done it a hundred times.
 
We couldn’t stop her.
 

He was ours.

Even our little Princess Ming knew it.
 

I was no more controlled, stroking his back, his little hands, bending to rub my lips on his slumbering, baby soft cheek.

Tristan held him without complaint, often shutting his eyes and pressing his cheek or lips to our baby boy’s head.
 
It was official.
 
We’d been through hell, but here we were, in our own little slice of heaven.
 

TWO YEARS LATER

I had the kids over at Bev’s house for some girl time.
 
Nikolaj was climbing all over Bev, and Ming was getting her hair braided by Frankie.
 
It was a pretty typical Thursday afternoon for us all.
 

Except that it suddenly wasn’t.
 
Frankie had just asked me the strangest thing, and then Bev’s response had absolutely floored me.
 
I just sat there in stunned silence for a while, trying to figure it all out.
 

Frankie and Estella wanted a baby, but they were missing one of the important ingredients to make one, so they were in need of a donor.
 

“Estella wants to breed a linebacker, I think,” Frankie joked, but she looked ill at ease.
 
This couldn’t be an easy thing to ask somebody.
   

And…”why are you asking me?
 
Shouldn’t you be asking Tristan about this?”
 

“No, I think this is the proper course of action,” Bev butted in.
 
“What could he say, without your permission?”
 

She had a point.
 

“But now I just need
his
permission,” I said numbly.
 

“If you told him you were okay with it, he’d do it,” Frankie pointed out.
 
And she was right.
 

“Which one of you wants to carry the baby?” Bev asked her.
 

Frankie’s nose wrinkled up.
 
“We’re working that out.
 
You’re going to think we’re demented, but we both want to get pregnant.”
 

Bev nodded.
 
“Yes, you’re right.
 
I
do
think you’re both demented.
 
Danika, aren’t you guys trying to adopt again?”
 

I nodded.
 
“Yes.
 
Domestically, this time.
 
You know how it goes, though.
 
A lot of waiting.
 
We are very lucky we got our first two babies as fast as we did.”

“I might have an idea that will give both you and Estella a chance to go through a pregnancy,” Bev said quietly to Frankie, as sweet Nikolaj kissed her all over the face.
 
He was the most affectionate boy.
   

That stumped me, and I just stared at her.
 

“Oh yeah?” Frankie asked her, sounding just as stumped.
 

“One of you can get inseminated, and the other can act as a surrogate for Tristan and Danika.
 
A baby for everyone.”

Cue the long pause.
 

I blinked.
 
Several times.
 
“Bev, you know I had a hysterectomy.”
 

She was unfazed.
 
“I also know they were able to leave your ovaries intact.
 
There’s a chance you can still produce eggs, my dear.
 
And eggs, combined with sperm and a surrogate makes baby.
 
And these two lunatics
want
to get pregnant.
 
There are no certainties, but it’s certainly worth looking into.
 
The stars seem to be aligning for this.”

“I feel a double pregnancy coming on,” Frankie said, looking just thrilled about it.
   

I felt like an idiot.
 
I’d heard the lingo, but I’d never even realized that you could produce eggs after a hysterectomy.