When Abby reached to ease up my dress, Jake threw up his hands defensively. “Wait, I’m sorry, but I have to get the hell out of here,” he said, before ducking out of door. I caught a glimpse of Rhys pacing outside with Brayden and Lily before Jake closed the door.
Abby gently reached under my dress to remove my soaked panties. She tossed them to the side, and then pushed the hemline up. “Oh my God!” she screeched.
“What?” AJ and I demanded in unison.
“You were right. Bella’s head…it’s like…right there.”
“Oh, shit, I’ve already crowned?”
“Whoa, what the hell is crowning?” AJ questioned.
“Didn’t you read any of the baby books I gave you?”
A sheepish look entered his face. “I skimmed some of them. Those birthing pictures were way intense.”
“Well for your information, crowning means it’s time to push.”
He shook his head wildly back and forth. “But you can’t push yet. The paramedics aren’t here. Can’t you just hold it in?”
The death glare that both Abby and I shot him caused him to shrink back into the seat. He held up his hands defensively. “Sorry, that was a really stupid question.” He swallowed hard. “Okay, then what do we do?”
I opened my mouth but was interrupted by the wail of an ambulance’s siren. At AJ’s horror stricken face, I squeezed his hand. “It’s okay now. The EMT’s will know what to do.”
Just as they knocked on the window, another pain seized me—this time it felt like a giant’s hands were squeezing my abdomen. I couldn’t help but pinch my eyes shut and push, regardless of whether the paramedics were there or not. Voices echoed around me, but all I could do was focus on the contractions as they came harder and faster.
As I crouched down at Mia’s side in the back of the limo, the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. We’d come together sexually as a couple for the first time on a limo floor and now our daughter was going to be born in one. Mia was advancing so fast that the EMT’s refused to move her.
When I’d dared to protest that maybe having a baby in a limo wasn’t the best idea, they had ignored me. Instead they’d jerked up Mia’s dress even further and widened her legs for the delivery. Shit was getting epically real, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it.
But when I got my first sight of Bella’s crowned head, it was like a lightning bolt zapped me. Even from my vantage point, I could see she had a head full of jet black hair. Something about seeing that tiny head sent wonder and instant adoration rippling through me. This was
While I whispered soft words of reassurance in Mia’s ear, she huffed and puffed out breaths of air as her face contorted in pain. I hated that she had to do this shit without any good drugs. The entire time she was pregnant she had never once advocated for natural childbirth—she’d even refused those classes where they teach you to breathe because she knew she wanted drugs. But now she was being denied that all because of me, and her stupid honor as my loyal fiancee to tag along with me to my Grammy party shit.
An electricity crackled in the air as one of the paramedics began moving faster between Mia’s legs. A flurry of activity was going on below her waist, but I focused on her. I held her gaze as she rode the waves of pain, and then finally I resorted to singing Spanish into her ear. I knew she’d always said that Spanish turned her on and that was the last thing she was thinking about now, but I figured it might be a little soothing. It seemed to help a little.
And then almost like magic, one minute Bella wasn’t there, and the next she appeared, bloodied and wailing in the paramedic’s hands. Tears stung my eyes at the sight of her, and I didn’t bother trying to hide them.
As the EMT suctioned Bella’s nose and mouth, Mia squeezed my hand. “Is she okay?” she questioned.
The EMT smiled. “Looks fine—great, actually, considering everything. Of course, they’ll check her over at the hospital.” Turning to me, he asked, “Would you like to cut the cord?”
“Sure,” I replied, taking the scissors from him. Once Bella was freed from Mia, the EMT wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to me. “Sir, I’m going to get you to hang on to the baby while we get your wife ready for transfer to the hospital.”
Unable to correct him on our marital status, I merely bobbed my head. I couldn’t have spoken if I had wanted to. I was too enthralled by the tiny bundle in my arms. Even though she was still a little bloody and messy from delivery, Bella was the most breathtakingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life, next to her mother that is. Her lungs seemed to be working just fine because she was wailing her head off, her tiny features scrunched in anger. “Welcome to the world, my love,” I murmured in Spanish.
At the sound of my voice, she cut off her screams before popping her eyes open to stare up at me. “Holy shit,” I muttered before shaking my head. “Great, now I’m already cursing in front of you. You’ll have to cut your old man some slack, okay?” She continued eye-balling me like I was the greatest mystery in her new world. The truth was she was the greatest mystery in mine—the greatest treasure I could ever possess.
The EMT’s hand on my shoulder brought me out of my trance. “Okay, I need you to step outside with the baby, so my partner can get the stretcher for your wife.”
When I eased out of the limo, I found a throng of people had gathered around both the limo and the ambulance. Thankfully, our EMT’s partner, along with the police, had worked at erecting sheets up to block the view of any bystanders or paparazzi.
Through the faces, I caught sight of Jake and the others standing to the side of the ambulance. Walking as carefully as I could, I made my way over to them. “Hey,” I said lamely.
Jake snickered. “Dude, you like you’ve just come back from war. I thought it was Mia birthing the kid, not you.”
“Shut up, douchebag.” I glanced down at Bella before looking back at him. “Seeing her born, holding her in my arms—it’s the most fucking intense thing I’ve ever experienced.” At the f-bomb, I winced. “Great, she’s been here less than ten minutes, and I’ve cussed twice.”
Abby smiled as she leaned down to kiss the top of Bella’s head. “There are worse things you could do besides cuss in front of her. You’re obviously doing something right because she seems very comfortable.”
“I guess you’re right.” My attention was drawn over my shoulder where the rattling wheels of Mia’s stretcher came screeching up to the open ambulance door. Although she was pale and sweaty, Mia had never looked more beautiful to me. She gave a smile to the others before she was loaded into the ambulance.
“See you at the hospital, okay?” Abby called.
“Okay,” Mia replied.
“Congrats Big Daddy,” Jake said, before slapping me on the back.
“Thank you.” I smiled before turning to hand Bella to the EMT. I didn’t trust myself to climb inside with her in my arms. I hopped in and then slid across the bench. The EMT had handed Bella to Mia, and she was cradling her in her arms with tears streaming down her cheeks. When she glanced up at me, she smiled. “Thank you.”
“For making you have a baby in the back of a limo?”
She shook her head. “Thank you for giving me everything I hadn’t realized I had ever wanted.”
I leaned over and kissed her. “I feel the same way.”
26
Blinking my eyes, I tried remembering where I was. The antiseptic smell of a hospital assaulted my nose, and for a minute, I thought I was back on the Cardiac Care floor at St. Joe’s. But if I was on a shift, what the hell was I doing in bed? When I shifted slightly, a wave of pure exhaustion rippled through my body along with an ache
