I smiled as I watched Benny try to figure out what “two babies” meant.
“I the baby?” he asked.
Jason tickled his belly. “Nope. You’re gonna be a big brother.”
Benny frowned, his eyes—so much like Jason’s, greenest green and beyond expressive—thoughtful. Then he held up his stuffed animal, the question forgotten. “I got ’Raffey. Have nem-in-ems?” He opened his mouth like a baby bird, waiting for M&Ms to be deposited.
Nonno to the rescue. Paper crinkled and Benny twisted in Jason’s grip, his attention laser-focused on the sound of a candy wrapper. My dad plunked M&Ms one by one into Benny’s mouth, much to my disgust.
“Dad! It’s eleven o’clock at night! He’s never going to sleep now!”
Dad just shrugged. “It’s a wedding, figlia. Rules go out the window.”
It was well after midnight before Jason and I got Benny asleep on the cot in our hotel room. We shed our wedding finery and curled up in bed, Jason spooning me.
Jason was silent for a while, drowsing. “I hope it’s a girl. We’ll name her Bella.”
I snorted. “We are not naming our daughter after Twilight.”
“Joking, babe.”
“What about Evelyn?”
“Hmm. ’S a possibility.” He was drifting off, so I let him go and mused through possible names for boys and girls until I, too, was asleep.
At some point in the night, Benny crawled into bed with us, wedging his warm little body between ours. Jason’s arm draped across Benny and over my hip, sliding up to caress my belly in his sleep.
I was half-awake, feeling Benny’s breath on my shoulder and Jason’s hand on my skin. I was totally content, blissfully happy.
THE END