My feelings must’ve shown clearly on my face because his smile grew as I made my way into the NICU.
Chapter 15
Behind every great woman is a pile of fucking shit her man can’t seem to pick up on his own.
-Reggie to Nathan
Reggie
I went to work, content in the knowledge that she would no longer get to take our boy somewhere else without us knowing.
My first stop was to the nurses’ station to get which babies I’d be working with today. After the night nurses gave reports, they signed off and we signed on, collecting who would get what baby today.
We had a new admit while I was away.
I smiled at the name when I read it.
“Ohhh,” I said as I made my way to the tiny little baby.
She was by far one of the plumpest babies in the entire room.
She was a nearly full-term thirty-five-weeker. She was a solid five pounds eleven ounces, but had come out with some breathing issues that they felt needed to be addressed for twenty-four hours before they let her go home.
Smiling wide at the woman hovering beside the baby’s bedside, I said, “Well hello there.”
The woman jerked her head up and smiled hesitantly at me.
“Hello,” came her soft spoken reply.
“My name is Reggie.” I winked. “My name and this little trooper’s name are the same.”
“Regina,” I heard from behind me. “Did you get named after a grandmother?”
I turned to see a man standing behind me also decked out in the NICU gear.
The father, I imagined.
“Actually, no,” I said. “My mother stuck me with that name all on her own.”
The dad huffed out a laugh as he walked up to his girl’s bedside.
“This is Alison,” he said, introducing the mother. “My name is Rod.”
Rod.
Nice.
And he was teasing me about my name?
Slipping on gloves, I checked out the little girl.
“Nice to meet you,” I said as I lowered the side glass and started to do my routine checks. “How’d the delivery go?”
Alison went on to explain her labor, what had gone wrong, and how her birth plan had completely gone out the window.
I couldn’t help but smile at her frustration.
“I think we all come into the hospital wanting everything to go perfectly,” I admitted. “Things rarely go as planned, though. I’ll likely go in myself with a third and fourth option, just in case.”
“Oh, are you pregnant?” Alison looked excited for me.
I was already shaking my head.
“Actually,” I said as I closed up the glass doors on baby Regina. “My husband just had a baby over there.” I pointed to Baby Cox’s area where Sierra was doing her own routine checks.
“Oh.” Her eyes went wide. “We did a lot of listening today.”
I snorted out a laugh. “I’m sure you heard a lot. Let’s just say you don’t even know the half of it.” I paused and glanced at her. “They had frozen embryos from when the mother had cancer when she was seventeen. My husband didn’t know, um… he was having any kids. It’s really complicated, but needless to say, we’re just as surprised as you are.”
I realized rather quickly that these people probably didn’t want to know my life story.
“You should sue her,” Rod suggested. “I’d be pissed if I’d found out I was having a baby and hadn’t actually taken any part in it.”
My sentiments exactly.
“We’re still in the really early stages,” I admitted. “Right now we just got the DNA test back saying that Nathan was the father.”
“Oh, holy shit.”
I looked up, startled to find Nathan walking into the room, Eerie following closely behind looking utterly pissed.
She looked like she was about to start spitting fire any second. All the while, Nathan did his utmost best to ignore her and her scowling, very unhappy self.
His eyes caught mine and he stared at me with so much terror on his face that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for his predicament.
“Is that Nathan Cox?” Rod asked in an awed whisper.
“Yes,” Alison replied, just as awed. “We named our daughter after him.”
I blinked. “You what?”
Had I missed her name somewhere having Nathan in it?
“He once said the name Regina in an interview on SportsNation Talk show. He said that Regina was wholly responsible for his ability to catch every single ball that’s ever been hit to him,” Rod said. “We heard the name on a repeat of SportsNation, and we fell in love with it.”
Holy shit.
I looked at Nathan who was standing back, seeming as if he was waiting for me to get to him.
“I’ll be back,” I said softly, holding one finger up in Nathan’s direction.
I stopped to strip off my gloves and toss them in the trashcan in the middle of the room after I checked on my other three patients.
When I finally got to Nathan I said, “What’s wrong?”
He looked at me steadily and said, “I’m scared fucking shitless.”
I reached for his hand and pulled him toward the bed where his boy was at.
“Everything good?” I asked Sierra.
Sierra looked up at me from where she was speaking quietly to Peyton.
“The night nurse was saying that she heard what she thought was a wheeze on his left lung,” Sierra said. “But I don’t hear anything now. “I’ll check on it throughout the shift to…”
“I don’t want you touching my kid,” Eerie snapped when I went to put some gloves on.
I paused and turned to survey her.
“Sadly for you,” Peyton interrupted. “Regina works here. The touching is inevitable. And if one parent says it’s okay…”
“Perfectly okay,” Nathan interjected, staring hard at me.
He still hadn’t looked at the baby.
“And visiting hours are over,” Peyton continued.
“What?” she asked.
Peyton pointed to the sign on the wall. “Visiting hours. They’re over. Do you see all the other parents leaving?”
Eerie looked at Peyton, then at Nathan.
“Is he leaving?” she asked.
Peyton stepped in front of Nathan, which then gave Nathan a clear view of the incubator that his son was in.
He blanched upon seeing him.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the bed, as close as
