Offically Over It Page 14

  It was sitting on the counter beside Nathan’s.

  I turned his on, too, and hurried back to the room to get dressed in my nursing clothes that were the only thing hanging up in the closet.

  I really, really needed to unpack.

  If anyone came over here, they’d see all my shit in boxes.

  Speaking of anyone coming over, I turned toward the door just as I was pulling my scrub pants on and yelled, “Hey, are your parents meeting us for dinner?”

  There was a long pause and then, “Yes.”

  “Do you want me to invite mine? That way we can just get this all out of the way at once?” I reached for my top.

  I had it halfway over my head when Nathan emerged with his mouth foaming with toothpaste.

  It was running down his chin and into his beard.

  “I like how you refer to our marriage as ‘it’ and you say ‘get it over with’ as if we’re admitting to something terrible instead of us being married,” he mused.

  I shrugged. “I just… Nathan, they’re going to give us hell.”

  They were, too.

  We’d spent the last twenty years fighting like cats and dogs.

  There was no way that we were going to get out of this unscathed without telling the truth.

  “And, to top it off, they’re going to know that we’re having sex,” I continued.

  He burst out laughing, spraying toothpaste foam all over the foot of the bed.

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

  “That’s gross,” I told him.

  He covered his mouth with his hand and walked back into the bathroom.

  I slipped my feet into my socks, then my shoes, and headed for my cup of coffee that was finished and waiting for me to drink.

  “Since when do you drink black coffee?” my husband asked as he came into the room.

  “Since I started hitting snooze eight times a day,” I told him as I looked at my watch. “I gotta go.”

  He frowned. “I’ll be up there as soon as I get my run in and visiting hours are up.”

  I shook my head. “Come as soon as you’re done. That’ll give you at least two uninterrupted hours before you know who comes.”

  He grinned and watched me gather my nursing bag.

  “What do you have in that thing?” he wondered.

  I looked down at the rather large bag that I carried around with me when I went to work.

  “A few forks, spoons, knives and condiments. Some paper plates. I think I have a couple of nutrition bars, some emergency chocolate, emergency tampons, and an extra set of clothes. And some pen lights, gel pens, and a stethoscope.” I paused. “At least, that’s what I remember. There very well might be more. I haven’t emptied it out in a while.”

  He shook his head. “Be careful on the way to work.”

  My heart started to pitter patter.

  I wanted to walk up to him and hug him. Place my mouth onto his.

  Instead, I smiled at him and headed for the front door.

  I was just pulling it open when he said, “I want you to kiss me from now on when you leave.”

  I froze with my hand on the knob, my heart starting to burst with excitement.

  I wanted to kiss him before I left.

  In fact, I would like nothing more than to press my lips against his.

  To…

  “Come give me a kiss. You’re going to be late,” he murmured.

  I walked slowly back toward him and stopped right in front of him.

  He had miles and miles of bare skin, and I was just about to allow my fingers to touch those muscles along his sides when he reached forward and placed his hands on both sides of my face.

  He pressed his lips to mine in a quick, fast kiss, then looked me in the eyes and said, “I forgot to wash my hands after I went to the bathroom.”

  I punched him in the stomach and laughed. “Fuck you.”

  He winked and stepped away, unaware that he’d just caused my heart to skip a beat.

  “Have a good day, Reg. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  Chapter 18

  Did you fall from heaven? Because so did Satan.

  -Text from Reggie to Nathan

  Nathan

  Yesterday had been scary as hell.

  Today was even scarier because now I knew what that little person meant to me.

  The moment that I’d seen him, so fucking tiny with a thousand tubes connected to him, I realized that I wanted the baby. That I’d wanted a kid of my own for a long time.

  Though, I’d always thought that I’d have one with Reggie, not some other woman.

  Even if that baby hadn’t been conceived with another woman the normal way.

  Today, though?

  Today as I walked into the NICU, I’d expected it to be something like yesterday.

  Only, it wasn’t.

  But it wasn’t because of my kid.

  It was because of someone else’s.

  I walked into the room and everyone was crying, even Reggie.

  She was talking to two men, one of which was holding a baby in his arms.

  There was another man with them who was rubbing his hands up and down his face. When he turned, that was when I realized that the man was Dare’s doctor. He was dressed in scrub pants, a scrub top, with a scrub hat on his head.

  He also looked wrecked.

  I walked over to the area of the room where my son was yesterday and realized that he’d been moved.

  I frowned and looked around, my eye-catching Reggie who was standing in the corner of the room.

  I headed her way when she gestured me over.

  “We moved everyone around.” She paused. “Our charge nurse, Peyton, thought it’d be best to have Dare next to the nurses’ station. Where hopefully we can keep an eye on things in case they get out of hand.”

  My eyebrows pulled together. “Did something happen?”

  I looked at Reggie to see her wincing.

  “Apparently, this morning before shift change, Eerie tried to get Dare moved out of here again. She got the director of the hospital involved. Things escalated, and it was only when police were called and Peyton got here that she left.” I scowled hard at Reggie’s explanation.

  “I thought it was discussed with the night shift what was going on.” I paused. “And that I was to be called?”

  She pointed at herself.

  “I was informed after rounds this morning. I was going to call you, but then…” She looked over my shoulder and her voice lowered. “Their baby died. He just stopped breathing and we couldn’t get his heart restarted. The doctor came in and worked the baby with us but…” She blew out a breath, wiping her eyes. “He died.”

  My stomach dropped and I pulled her into my chest, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tight.

  “Fuck,” I said. “Of course you’re allowed to not call me when that happens.”

  I felt like a grade-A asshole.

  She rubbed her nose along my chest for a moment before pulling away and wiping her eyes.

  “Let’s look at our guy,” she ordered. “Give them some privacy.”

  I looked at them over my shoulder, wondering if the devastation would ever go away.

  I highly doubted that it would.

  I looked away from them and toward my own child.

  One that had just as much of a chance of dying as theirs did.

  “How’s he doing?” I wondered.

  “He’s doing well,” she said. “His O2 stats are wonderful. We also got him to take his pacifier for a little bit today.”

  “I thought pacifiers weren’t good,” I wondered.

  At least, that was what I’d always heard, anyway.

  “Pacifiers are great, especially for premature infants like Dare,” she said. “They help the baby learn to bottle feed.”

  They had my son on a feeding tube. There was a nasogastric tube that went down his no
se into his stomach that was used to feed him formula.

  The sight of that tube going into my baby’s nose was making my heart palpitate just looking at it.

  “Cool,” I said.

  Anything that would get that NG tube out of my baby faster was a-okay in my book.

  “I also wanted to talk to you about breast milk,” she said.

  I frowned. “Um, what?”

  “We talked to Eerie about this, but she said absolutely not,” she continued. “But then I thought, what’s it matter if we talk to both of you?”

  “What about breast milk?” I pushed.

  “Okay, so formula is great for your baby. But, in cases of prematurity, we like to encourage parents to use breast milk. Normally the baby can tolerate it a little better, and it’s so much healthier—or better for them in all ways. The only problem is, you’d have to go to a milk donation bank. All milk from them is sent through a significant health screening, so you’ll for sure be getting…”

  “I said no yesterday!” Eerie’s angry, way the hell pissed off voice, bellowed.

  I whipped my head around in anger.

  “Eerie,” I said quietly. “Keep your voice down.”

  I looked over at the crying men that were mourning their child and found that I was getting pissed.

  There was something that would be great for our baby, and she didn’t want to do it?

  That pissed me off.

  Like big time.

  ***

  Reggie

  These babies in the NICU needed all the help they could get.

  The baby that had just perished had been doing well. He’d been fighting and going strong until this morning. One second he’d been fine, and the next he had a massive stroke that had taken his life way too early.

  “I don’t care!” Eerie yelled. “You’re trying to convince this man, who might I add had no desire to have this kid, to make a decision when it comes to my son!”

  “Not just your son,” Nathan said softly. “Both of ours. I had just as much of a part in making that child as you did. It may not have been the traditional way, but it definitely doesn’t matter any longer. My kid. Mine. Half of my DNA is in that kid, so you can bet your ass that I should get some say when it comes to my kid. Like it or not, if I think breast milk is a good idea, then it’s going to happen, even if I have to go to the judge and do it.”

  “While you’re at it,” she said, “why don’t you go ahead and have a DNA test performed by someone that’s not fucking you. The kid isn’t yours, Nathan.”

  That was a weak attempt at trying to get him to give up.

  But she should’ve known Nathan better than that.

  Nathan liked a challenge.

  And, more than anything, Nathan valued family, which was likely why he’d backed out of wanting to help Eerie once he was able to think about it more clearly—and when she hadn’t manipulated him at a young age because she was sick.

  He would’ve always wanted to be a part of his son’s life.

  The really scary part was that had Dare not ended up in this particular NICU, would we have ever known that Nathan had a child running around outside our lives?

  The answer was pretty scary—probably not.

  A monitor started to go off on one of my babies, so I gave Nathan a ‘keep her in line’ check and started walking toward the far wall where little Miss Anna Gray had hopefully kicked off her pulse ox monitor and not anything too scary.

  Luckily that was the case, and as I fixed the monitor, I gave a wan smile at the Grays.

  “This girl is getting feisty,” I said to the mom and the dad. “Not much longer now for sure.”

  “That’s our hope,” Mrs. Gray said, looking over at the scene behind me.

  It wasn’t Eerie, who was still being loud, that they were looking at. It was the baby that had just passed away and his family, as well as Dr. D.

  “My heart aches for them,” Mr. Gray whispered.

  I touched his shoulder and he looked at me.

  “Focus on what you have in front of you,” I suggested. “It’s scary when we lose one, but you can’t let that fear control you. Let Anna do the work and support her. Because she’s almost there, Mr. G. She’s almost there.”

  Making my rounds through my other patients, I met up with Sierra in the middle of the room, followed shortly by Peyton.

  Just as we met up, Nathan made his way over.

  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 t
he 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.”