Beloved: A Henry Dawncraft Novel |boyxboy| Sequel to Lover for Pay

XIV - Almost

It'd been eight months since Henry and Daniel successfully found the perfect woman to carry their first child. Her name was Annalisa Dales and she was probably the most enthusiastic person either of them had ever met. She was sweet and beautiful, and displayed so much support and happiness for them going into becoming parents. With three other families, two same-sex couples, and a straight couple, she'd delivered a total of four healthy babies without any sort of complications, and as of right now, she was carrying what would be Henry's biological child in her womb. If anything, with this wonderful, kind-hearted woman, neither of the fathers to be felt the worry of her wanting to keep the baby once it was born. So, that was a weight off their shoulders.

As a mother of one herself, Annalisa lived in a pretty fancy condo downtown with her daughter who was on the brink of heading into university. Apparently, Annalisa was the cofounder of a very popular food chain with her best friend, and the reason why she'd gotten the idea of becoming a surrogate mother, was for her belief that everyone who loved children and the passions of becoming a parent, being unable to have a baby shouldn't hold back someone from becoming a mother or a father. So, if she could help provide some of that lifelong happiness, then she would do what she could. Annalisa was proud of what she could give these families.

When the time proved appropriate, they would all usually get together to spend sometime around each other. Annalisa had insisted this in the beginning, because she wanted the baby to become familiar with their voices from inside the womb, as a baby would with their own mother's voice. And they were happy to do so as well. To feel the kicks of their child, hear the heartbeat at check-ups, it was the little things that filled the fathers to be with joy.

And the closer to the due date they got, the far less anxious Henry got about the fact that he was going to be a father soon. After years of harboring the memories left behind by his childhood, living and reliving how poor his previous life turned out, it all got easier and easier to stomach when he realized that he forgave his own father for all the torment he'd gone through. Never would Henry get back the childhood he should've had, but he'd finally come around to understanding how remorseful Travis had been afterwards. If anything, Henry wanted so much to give his own child the life they deserved.

With one more month until the delivery date was upon them, Henry and Daniel thought it the perfect time to start setting up their child's bedroom, which meant Daniel finally got to order the things he wanted from his online baby store wish list. Everything had arrived in four boxes total, and when they were signed for at the door, Henry carried them in one by one and set them in the living room. They were both off work together for the first time in two weeks, so these two days they had were going to be spent putting the baby room in order.

After closing the front door behind him and lugging the first box to the bedroom two doors down from their own, Henry paused in the doorframe of Dorian's bedroom and looked inside. His brother was lounged back in bed holding his phone above him, and his brother could already guess at who he was texting with that goofy grin on his face.

A couple months back, Dorian had been able to get in touch with Tamina Summers, and ever since then, the boy had shown unconcealable signs of lovesickness. He was constantly texting, talking on the phone at night, and the tone in his voice even got a little lighter over the past months. If anything could be told just by Tamina's reintroduction into his life, it was that, no matter how small her presence was, Dorian's unquenchable love for her certainly had an effect on him.

As for finding his biological mother, he was still debating on whether it was a good idea or not. He'd found her. She lived in Corpus Christi now and was married with two middle school aged kids, a son and a daughter, so with that information alone, it held Dorian back from pursuing Becca Gurvich.