He looked at me with anger still simmering in his eyes.
“I’m going to go ahead and go,” he said. “I have to go to a SWAT training session anyway. I’ll just go a little early.” He looked over at Eerie who was glaring at us all over the top of the incubator. “She won’t willingly allow breast milk. But if you think it’s best, I’ll let my lawyer know, and hopefully we can get it done. I’m not sure the protocol on what’s to be done when parents disagree on a child’s care.”
“The baby will likely be issued a lawyer,” Peyton said. “If he hasn’t been already?”
Nathan’s face lit up. “He has. They informed me of that a few hours ago. The lawyer is in the best interest of the child. He’ll be able to make decisions for him.”
“Then talk to your lawyer, talk to the judge, and go from there,” Peyton suggested. “And believe it or not, you’re not the first to come in here disagreeing with the other parent. And you won’t be the last. I’ve seen some sketchy stuff. Though, yours is right on up there with the other crazy ones.”
Nathan’s smile lifted at that.
“Umm,” I heard someone say beside me. “Nathan?”
I looked over to see one of the crying men from earlier staring at me with deep, sorrow filled eyes.
“Yes?” Nathan asked warily. I could practically see the war within himself. He wondered if he should reach out and pull the poor guy into his arms.
“I…” He swallowed. “We have a woman that’s donating her milk to us. Or was.” He looked over at the man holding his child. “The hospital has a stock of it that we’ll no longer need. And we can give you the woman’s name and number. In fact, I think that you might know who we’re getting it from. Linc James, the ex-football player? His wife works at this hospital, too. She’s got a ten-month-old. She started donating to us as soon as we had our baby.”
My stomach absolutely sank. One second it was where it was supposed to be, and the next it was down around my knees as I stared in horror.
“Oh,” Nathan said, looking uncertain. “Are you sure? I… I don’t know… man, that would be great.”
Then, surprising us all, Nathan leaned forward and wrapped the man in his arms.
My big, badass, who doesn’t hug anyone, barely even me, had reached forward and willingly taken that poor man in his arms.
Then the man broke down and cried. “We named him after the type of moon that was in the sky the day he was born.”
I swear to God.
I could count on my fingers the times that I’d seen Nathan cry.
One time, I’d dared Nathan to pull a nose hair when he was fifteen. He’d done it and had promptly cried.
Then there was the time that we’d watched Hardball when he and I were both sick with the stomach flu. At the end, when the little kid died, I’d been inconsolable. Nathan had shed a few tears, but he’d swiped them away so fast that sometimes I even questioned whether or not I’d seen it happen.
The fourth and fifth times had been when people in his family had passed away.
The sixth and final time was right then.
With a man he didn’t fucking know.
“Well, this is sweet and all, but do one of you think you can come help me change my baby’s diaper? He’s wet.”
If it was acceptable to throat punch people, I would’ve fucking done it right then and there.
I hated Eerie.
Even worse, I hated that Eerie was a person that I would have to deal with for the rest of my life thanks to her being the biological mother of the baby I was quickly coming to love.
“Fuck you.”
That coming from the grieving father’s mouth would’ve had me laughing any other time.
This time I was just too dang sad.
Right before Nathan opened his mouth to say something, Dare’s monitors started to go off, and this time it wasn’t a pulse ox monitor slipping off.
***
Nathan
I walked into the SWAT training area and looked around, feeling like I’d left part of my heart at the hospital.
Two parts of my heart.
“Hey, man. Where the hell have you been?”
I looked up to find Saint walking toward me looking worried.
I scratched my head, more than aware that my hair was likely more than a little crazy.
I’d spent the last two hours sitting outside the NICU listening to Eerie bitch at me while I waited for word on what was going on with my baby.
The truly awful thing?
Paul and Justin Ross sat with me, too.
Paul and Justin weren’t gay like I’d originally assumed. They were brothers. Their sister, Melissa, and Melissa’s husband had died in a car crash. They’d been able to save the baby by doing an emergency C-section. Melissa had been kept alive long enough by the paramedics, then an ER team to be able to deliver and save the baby’s life.
And now, their only connection to their sister had perished, too.
They’d huddled with me, trading off barbs with Eerie, as we waited for news on Dare.
News that had come about two hours after I’d been kicked out of the NICU.
Dare had jumped over his hurdle, but sadly he wasn’t out of the woods just yet.
“Umm,” I said to Saint. “I’m good. Well, tired. But good.”
Saint tilted his head slightly to the side. “How’s the kid?”
I looked down. “He had a bit of a setback today, but he’s doing okay now.”
“What kind of setback?” Saint questioned.
I walked with him toward the training area where I could hear loud shouts and bellows of laughter, as well as some oldies hard rock pouring through the speakers.
“The kind where his heart just stopped for a few seconds.” I paused. “The nurses jumped in there and saved him. But shit. My fuckin’ heart still feels like it’s goddamn racing.”
“Preemies are pretty good at scaring the shit out of you,” Saint agreed.
My brows rose
