The Body #4: Nico and Cosi

Chapter 29 (Nico): A Familiar Box

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA 

Once the doctor gave Costanza the all-clear, I made her wait another two months before I gave her the all-clear. 

"Extending my recovery period for two more months? Are you a doctor, Nico?" she teased me.

"No," I said seriously. "Just a man who doesn't think doctors know everything. I need to make sure you're fully recovered, Costanza."

She was in the nursery trying out the newest glider I'd gotten her, and I was sitting at her feet on the rug. The last two gliders hadn't been perfectly comfortable for her, so I'd had a third one delivered, hoping this one would be the perfect one.

"The other two were fine!" she'd protested. 

"But not perfect. I could tell by the way you moved."

"Nico," she said, exasperated. "I have a baby who's moving around inside of me and that can sometimes be uncomfortable, so I have to adjust my position occasionally."

"Is the baby moving now?" I asked her, and she nodded, smiling like she always did.

Getting to my knees, I placed my hands on her belly and felt the movements of our little girl. I'd been over the fucking moon when the doctor told us our baby was a girl.

"Maybe she's practicing throwing knives in there," I told my wife.

Costanza laughed at that. "She'll have a good head start before I give her lessons, then."

Without warning, she took my face in her hands. "Nico. Do you understand why I was upset about the birth control? Do you really understand?"

I placed my hands over her soft yet deadly hands. "Yes, Costanza. Really. It hurt your heart and your mind, making you worry about your ability to have children, it was deceptive, and it caused you to not trust me."

She nodded. "We both kept huge secrets from each other. I wasn't entirely blameless, Nico."

"I would have lost my fucking mind if I'd known what you were capable of and what you'd been doing while Dario was still alive. It would have been even more reason to worry about you, knowing that he wouldn't have been pleased to find out the Body was harboring fire-breathing ninja girls."

"You're such a worrier."

"When it comes to you, yeah."

"I also felt like some of the beautiful gestures you made were kind of lost to me. It always meant so much to me that you waited a week on our honeymoon for us to get to know each other, only to find out it was to give the birth control a chance to start working. And then feeding each other the chocolates..."

I took her hands from my face and kissed them.

"Listen to me. A few months after I turned twenty-one years old, having just completed three years of hell, I was fucking restless. Working my ass off for the Body, taking out three years of torture that I'd endured on our enemies; I was working through a lot of aggression and straight up rage."

"I hate thinking of what you must have gone through."

So did I.

"One night, my father came to my room and told me Rocco was interested in negotiating a betrothal between his step-daughter and me. I was surprised because your family was much higher ranking than mine. My father showed me your picture, and I was struck by your sweet expression. No twenty-one-year-old wants to think of a fifteen-year-old girl like that, so I focused on how sweet you looked. And for the first time since I began my training at eighteen, I felt something settle in me. Just from seeing your picture."

Costanza had never heard any of this before, so her eyes didn't leave my face.

"You have to reply within twenty-four hours to the negotiation request, so I made a plan. The next day, I watched your house before school, and I saw you come outside. You were waving good bye to your mother, laughing about something, and I knew you were just as sweet as your picture. I can still remember that first time I heard you laugh. It sounded pure and clean, and after the shit I'd been through, you can't imagine what that felt like."

"I had no idea you'd ever seen me before my sixteenth birthday."

"I did. After watching you leave for school, I went home and told my father I not only agreed to the negotiation request, but I wanted him to do whatever it took to make it happen. I told him to give in to whatever demands Rocco might make, whatever money he might ask for, in order to make our betrothal a fact. I didn't know it at the time, but it was right before your sixteenth birthday. I didn't even know your fucking name, Costanza, but I knew your sweet face. I knew we were meant for each other."

"Nico." Her soft voice said my name so tenderly.

"All I wanted then was to protect your sweetness. I wouldn't let myself think beyond that because you weren't even eighteen yet, but I always hated that we were limited to seeing each other eight times in the two years we were betrothed. It didn't give us time to know one another, and I'd always planned to give us time on our honeymoon to know each other better because you'd still be an innocent eighteen-year-old girl and I didn't want to overwhelm you."

I felt frustrated because I wasn't good with words, with what I was trying to convey to her, but I had to try.

"I wanted to let you get used to the idea of the physical side of our relationship. And then I realized I could also use that time for the birth control to work. So yes, I took advantage of that time, but I'd always been planning to give you a week no matter what. That first night, when I finally got to hold you in my arms, was everything I ever dreamed of, Costanza. It was the most beautiful night of my life, and every day of that week was something I'll always treasure, but I'll always regret that you now see it as something else because of what I did."

"These stupid hormones," she said as a tear escaped her eyes.

And then another one.

Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to each of her tears, then leaned back slightly. 

"As for the chocolates every night, my father and mother had that tradition. So did my father's parents. It was going to become our tradition, too, but it also became something else that I used in my attempt to protect you. I'm so sorry, Costanza."

She lunged for me and hid her face in my neck. My wife just held me and I held her, enjoying the feel of her, the feel of the baby's slight movements. Eventually, she pushed back from me and smiled as the baby kicked her hard.

"Baby girl is active tonight."

"We need to come up with a name," she said. "Or we're going to be calling her baby girl until she leaves for college. Have you thought of any girl names?"

"Not fucking Janie or Ginevra."

That made her laugh. "Janie's relentless. She'll never let up," she warned me.

"I have a plan to neutralize her," I told her, "since I'm not naming my innocent baby girl after a demon from the depths of hell. But, I would be willing to ask Janie and Lucio to be godparents, if you agree."

Her eyes softened again. "I think that's a wonderful idea."

"Let's ask them soon."

"This weekend," she promised, then pressed a quick kiss to my lips. "It's late, so I'm going to get ready for bed."

"I'll go make sure we're locked up and then be right with you."

I did my usual walk through, and then headed into our bedroom, stopping in surprise. Costanza sat in the middle of our bed, and in her lap was a familiar box.

"Would you like a chocolate, Nico?"