Page 28 of Room 710 (The Scarlet Hotel #15)

Elijah

One Year Later

“Say hi to everybody!” Ziggy leaned into my side, angling the camera at my face.

“Hi,” I grunted, offering a tight smile, indulging him.

I absolutely adored my husband, which meant I would always give in to whatever Ziggy wanted, but at this exact moment, I was ready to take over running this gong show.

“Hey, darling dearest, light of my life, most precious gem of my heart… don’t you think this maybe isn’t the best time to live-stream? ”

“Are you kidding me? There are over 5000 people watching right now!” He pointed to the counter in the bottom corner of the screen.

I sighed, and the doctor and I shared a look.

He was currently sitting between Ziggy’s legs, my husband’s feet up in the stirrups.

The man’s eyes above his mask were wide, eyebrows raised in complete shock and confusion.

I bet he’d never had one of his patients go live on social media mid-childbirth before.

I suppose I should’ve been grateful Ziggy didn’t angle the camera to get a NSFW peek at the action.

Ziggy and I hadn’t waited long to jump into our future with both feet.

We’d learned early on what it felt like to be apart, and neither of us were fans.

I’d been serious when I proposed marriage on Lonely Alpha ’s finale, and I wasn’t about to let the best thing to happen to me slip through my fingers.

Not even a month later, we’d been halfway through picking a wedding venue when Ziggy had thrown his hands up.

“Fuck this. Waiting sucks. We should just elope.” And of course, whatever my omega wanted, he got—especially when it meant fast-tracking what I wanted more than anything.

Was it a rash decision, after technically only dating for a month?

Sure, but we’d already been living together, and there wasn’t a single thing about Ziggy that I didn’t love.

We decided that we’d waited long enough and refused to let anything else stand in the way of us being together in all the ways that mattered to us.

We were married the next day, and when his next suppressant shot came due, it was an easy decision to discontinue them.

His doctor told him that it might be some time before we conceived, that the suppressants often lingered in the body for up to six months.

Well, it seemed our future didn’t want to wait for us either, because Ziggy was pregnant within a month.

And now, here we were, live-streaming our most intimate, precious moment on the internet for all of Ziggy’s fans—of which he had many.

I couldn’t even blame them, because he was simply vibrant and so full of life, it was hard to look away.

Even now, in the middle of squeezing out a baby, he was simply glowing, the flushed skin and sweat adding a sparkle that no filter could replicate.

“Um… you are fully dilated and ready to push?” the doctor said from the end of the bed, and it sounded like a question, like he wasn’t sure if he was talking to Ziggy or his entire fanbase. Same, Doctor. Same .

“Did you hear that, folks? It’s time to push! Yay!” But then Ziggy’s excited smile faltered. “Shit, here comes another contraction,” he moaned, and I knew it must’ve been a bad one because he even forgot to keep the camera on his face, and it drooped until it was facing his chest.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” I said firmly.

“I’m putting my foot down.” I plucked the camera from his hand before it could get crushed in his grip, replacing it with my hand for him to squeeze instead.

“Okay, everyone, while we really appreciate all your support, you’ll just have to wait to meet the baby until after I do. ”

“Remind them about the show,” Ziggy groaned, panting.

I closed my eyes and would’ve counted to ten, but I wasn’t sure we had that much time to spare. “Yes, please, everyone, be ready for Lonely Alpha ’s new spinoff series, Lonely Omega , coming soon. Alphas, you can submit your audition tapes online now.”

Ziggy had collapsed back on the bed, so I let him say a quick goodbye before I logged off and set his phone aside. “Now, what do you say we deliver this baby?”

“We?” he asked, arching a brow like the sassy brat he was.

I chuckled. “You’re right, it’s all you, babe. And I am in utter awe of everything you’ve done so far.” And I knew there was still so much work to come.

The door swung open, and Ziggy’s mom came running in, wearing her pink scrubs. “Am I too late?” she asked, panting like she’d run all the way from her unit. “I was watching your live stream, but you went offline.”

“You’re just in time,” Ziggy told her, offering a sleepy smile. “I’m about to push.”

“He’s even got a free hand,” I said, and she came around the bed to take the one I wasn’t holding.

You couldn’t ask for a better support team than Judy.

She’d given me the third degree when she first met me, since for months she’d been expecting Devon as her future son-in-law, not this burly, gruff alpha.

I couldn’t blame her for being suspicious of me at first, but in the end, it was hard for her to argue with my single-minded focus on making her son happy.

Over the next hour, Ziggy just kept impressing me.

I was helpless to do much beyond dab his forehead with a cold cloth, feed him ice chips between contractions, and offer him all the praise.

It made me feel so helpless. I knew Ziggy was strong enough to stand on his own, but I still wished I could take away all his pain.

I would step in and do it for him in a flash if I could.

He knelt on the bed, braced against me. “You’re so strong,” I whispered as he sobbed into my shoulder.

“I have loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you,” I told him as he rocked his hips back and forth, desperate for a moment’s relief.

“You are already such an amazing father,” I assured him as he screamed and bore down, bringing our son into the world, wailing and waving his tiny red fists.

“Would Papa like to cut the cord?” Judy offered, holding out the scissors for me.

My eyes filled with tears as I made the cut, and then she took our son to get him cleaned up, and I helped Ziggy to lie down in bed.

“Oh my gods,” he gasped as his mom finally handed him our beautiful boy, swaddled and already rooting around for his first meal. It was too early to tell what color his eyes would settle on, but if I had to guess, they might be my gray. “He’s so perfect.”

“Just like his daddy,” I said, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I am so proud of you.”

“I guess I am pretty awesome,” he admitted with a drowsy smile, and I chuckled, wrapping my arms around my little family.

Leaning down, I kissed our son’s fuzzy head. “Welcome to the world, Brandon.” It was the name we’d picked roughly eight and a half months ago, about five minutes after that second line appeared on the pregnancy test.

I was going to miss his sexy round stomach, but if I had my way, it would be round again soon enough.

We had both loved the entire experience from start to finish, and we were currently in debate over how many children was enough—or too many.

I had my suspicions that it would depend on how many Levi and Grayson had.

Ziggy and his best friend were thick as thieves, and I suspected they were already trying to figure out how to sync up their next pregnancies.

Ziggy had asked me if twins ran in my family, likely trying to figure out how he could catch up to Levi’s two babies, to his one.

And sure enough, as soon as Levi slipped into the room to visit, he and Ziggy got straight to whispering, gushing over how cute Brandon was.

Then Judy nudged me off the edge of the bed so she could join their scheming, so I left them to it and went to greet Grayson at the door.

As usual, the stoic alpha was dressed in a sharp suit, but the somber image was obliterated by the giant teddy bear and bunch of balloons he was holding.

“Congratulations,” he said, shaking my hand. “Welcome to fatherhood. It really is the best.”

I laughed. “Thanks! Maybe it’s a little early for me to judge yet, since I haven’t even had the chance to change a diaper yet, but so far, it’s everything I hoped it would be,” I joked, but honestly, there wasn’t a single thing about being a parent that I wasn’t looking forward to—even the diaper blowouts.

And I knew Grayson agreed with me. I’d seen the way he doted on his son Asher and their new baby girl, Dawn. He was a man smitten.

Levi walked over holding Brandon and whispered, “Gray, you’ve got to hold him! He’s got that new-baby smell.”

I wandered back to Ziggy’s side and cuddled up as close to him as the narrow bed would allow. “So, what do you think? Should we keep him?”

He laughed and nodded, his eyes still on Brandon. When he tilted his head back to look up at me, there were tears of joy in his eyes. “Every time I think my life is perfect, it keeps getting better. What’s next?”

“Next?” I asked, leaning down to kiss his tears from his cheeks. “How about a lifetime of love and happiness.”

“Throw in some mind-blowing sex and you’ve got yourself a deal,” he said, tipping his chin up until our lips were a breath apart.

We sealed the deal with a kiss.