this naturally.”
Steph blew a hair out of her eyes. “That was then, and this
is now, Sister.”
“Let’s get you settled in your room and you can talk to the
doctor about it. You should know it won’t be as good for your
baby.”
Steph’s face contorted as if she was being tortured, and she
choked out a shriek. One hand grasped at her side, the other
grabbed the front of the nurse's scrubs. When she spoke, her
voice had dropped an octave. “Listen, Florence Nightingale: this baby is three quarters Irish, and she’s a Brier. Her liver can take anything you can dish out! Now get me something for the
fucking pain!”
Gerald cackled, and Cheyenne covered a wide smile.
“So you’re having a girl?” Cheyenne’s faux innocence
made the color run out of Steph’s cheeks. Panicked eyes shot
around the hall as if she expected a camera crew. It was under-
standable. The paparazzi have been following Steph since she
started showing.
“Don’t tell Phillip. He wants to be surprised,” she begged.
While Gerald wheeled Steph off to her birth suite, Cheyenne
headed back downstairs to the entrance to wait for Phillip. Five minutes later, Bret’s tricked out SUV pulled up to the door. Phillip jumped out before they came to a complete stop and rushed
through the doors as if he were in a disaster movie. David and
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TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE
Scot trailed behind him.
Phillip whipped his head in either direction then looked
helplessly at Cheyenne. “I can’t remember where the maternity
ward is!”
Cheyenne pointed to her right, and Phillip lit off down the
hall like his hair was on fire.
Scot crossed to Cheyenne and greeted her with a peck on
the cheek. His looked amused. “The whole way here he was try-
ing to remember Lamaze.”
“And Bret told him just to remember the beat to “We will
rock you” and to quit being such a sissy boy,” David laughed.
Cheyenne shook her head. Since Sarah had given birth to twins
last spring, the lead guitarist now had four kids, so the veteran father could dole out such casual advice.
“Laugh if you want, but I feel very sorry for Phillip right
now.” She replied as Bret moseyed in the door. “Steph said
they’re having a girl.”
“Oh thank the lord. Phillip’s boy name was atrocious.” Scot
ran a hand through his long hair.
David titled his head to the side. “It wasn’t going to be Phil-
lip Junior?”
“No worse. Bartholomew Callahan Kersey.”
“I just threw up in my mouth.” Bret shook his head critical-
ly. He glanced at his watch facetiously. “So…let’s see…first
baby…water broke less than one hour ago…I think we should go
have some lunch and buy a novel or two at the gift shop.”
David’s phone rang, and he held up a finger to them. “Hey,
Babe.” He answered, “No…no hurry. She just went into labor,
and the baby’s not going anywhere. Keep your flight for tomor-
row. I miss you more.”
As David wandered off with his cell phone to his ear, Chey-
enne and Scot exchanged a smile. Yara was in New York for
Fashion Week, but she still called David about once an hour and
texted more often than that.
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RAGE
As they followed Bret to the gift shop, Scot took Chey-
enne’s hand. “Do you think I should go get Liam?”
She shook her head. “No. He’ll throw a fit if you pull him
out of school early. I’ll text Kara. She can just pick him up at his normal time and bring him straight here.”
“Cheyenne, its nursery school. He’s three and a half.
They’re not studying trigonometry.”
“You tell him that.” She replied as she wandered down the book and magazine aisle. She froze when she saw her book on
an end cap. Her autobiography I Married a Rock Star: My Life with the Boys in the Band had spent four months on the New York Times Best Sellers List. She was trying her hand at fiction now that Liam was happily in school. She loved writing without
tight deadlines and had to credit her husband for pushing her to make the transition from music journalist to author. Though she
occasionally submitted pieces to Adam, she was no longer on the
payroll at The Sound Wave. Running in the circles she did, she often stumbled across great new acts and interesting tidbits of
musical interest, and Adam’s magazine would always get first
dibs.
“What the hell is this?” Bret asked, pulling Cheyenne out of
her reflection. She turned and saw him holding up a Fury lunch-
box. They all commenced laughing so loudly that the clerk
shushed them.
“Oh my. You know you’re a sell-out when kids drink
chicken noodle soup out of your head,” David chimed in as he
pulled out a thermos that featured a close up of Phillip’s seductive face.
“Does anyone else find this inappropriate for grammar
school?” Scot flipped the lunchbox over to the backside which
featured the name of their album, Freudian Slip.
“I’m getting one.” Bret announced, taking the thermos back
from David.
“I want one,” Cheyenne whined.
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TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE
“Well, this one’s mine, so bugger off.” Bret taunted her.
“I’ll see if there are any more in the back.” The clerk
snapped her gum without looking up at them.
“Oh, Lord.” Scot shook his head.
As her most recent contraction passed, Steph wearily leaned
back against Phillip. She’d been sitting between his legs and
he’d been rubbing her back when it came, and it was a mon-
strous one. She’d been at the hospital for three hours. Her con-
tractions were now six minutes apart, and she’d nearly jacked the nurse in the mouth when she checked her a few minutes before
and claimed she was only two centimeters dilated.
Phillip wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek.
“You’re doing great, love. You’re so fearless.”
“Uh, shut up and get off of me, Phillip. I can’t breathe.” She
pushed his arms away and tried to move forward.
“I do believe you’re on me.” He joked, and she rolled her
eyes and scooted toward the edge of the bed. She’d had the epi-
dural, and it had made it even harder to move around than usual.
There was a light tap on the door, and Cheyenne poked her
head in.
“Need a break?” she asked, her eyes meeting Phillip’s.
“Yes!” Steph and Phillip said in unison.
