by K. C. Crowne
“They’re…they’re around five minutes. I remembered to keep track this time.”
“Good. That’s what Gavin says is enough minutes apart to go to the hospital.”
Annie shook her head. “No hospital. No way I get stuck in traffic.”
As if he somehow knew what we were talking about, my phone buzzed with a text from Gavin. It was a screen shot from Google Maps, the route from Annie and Duncan’s house to the hospital. The drivetime was twenty-two minutes.
No traffic. Plenty of time to call an ambulance and get there. Still looking for Duncan.
To save time, I showed Annie the phone. She stared at it, thinking. “We go, but we’re not taking a damn ambulance – we go in your car.”
“But—”
“Not up for discussion. I’m not sitting around while we wait for some ambulance to show up.”
There were plenty of reasons Annie and I were such good friends, and one of them was we were both stubborn as hell. No sense in trying to talk her out of it.
“Where’s Oliver?” I asked, looking around as if I might spot him hiding silently in the corner.
“He’s over at the Abernathys,” she said, referring to one of their neighbors. “He and Ben are having a playdate. I was supposed to run some errands today, but…”
She didn’t get a chance to finish as another contraction began, and I grabbed Annie’s hand to help her work through the pain. When it faded, I helped her off the couch, my hand on the small of her back as I led her through the house.
“You’re going to be fine,” I said. “We’ll find Duncan, and before you know it, you’ll have a sweet little baby girl in your arms. Alright?”
She nodded, but the look on her face suggested she didn’t feel confident. I didn’t blame her. She was pregnant, and her husband was nowhere to be found. All I could hope for was that Gavin, the man only a week ago I’d sworn never to speak to, would be as good as his word.
Gavin
What a fucking mess.
I paced slowly back and forth through the living room of my house, going through one number after another trying to see if I could track down the missing-in-action husband.
“No, I haven’t seen him.” Dr. Charles Kendrick, a pediatrician at one of Duncan’s nearby clinics, had been my next attempt. “In fact, I haven’t heard from him all day.”
“That’s weird. I mean, is that weird?”
“A little. He usually calls sometime before lunch to see if he needs to stop in for anything. But not today. Is something wrong?”
I almost told him the whole story, but like me, Duncan was a man who didn’t care for his personal business being blabbed all over town. Not to mention I didn’t want to risk causing a panic at the idea of a missing boss if it ended up being nothing.
“Nah, just need to get in touch with him about some business matters. Thanks for your help, Chuck.”
“Yeah, of course.” His tone of voice suggested he didn’t quite believe me when I said nothing was wrong. But that didn’t matter – all I gave a damn about was finding Duncan.
I went through the contacts in my phone, trying to see if there was anyone left I could try. I stopped on one of the names – Dr. Andy Schwann. I paused for a moment, debating whether or not to call him. Andy was a good friend of ours, not to mention Duncan’s preferred golf partner whenever he wanted to hit the links. There was a good chance that if Duncan was out golfing, Andy would be with him.
No way he’d have his phone off so he could play golf while his wife’s on the verge of giving birth.
But it was worth a shot. I hit call and brought the phone to my ear.
“Yo, Gav!” came the gregarious voice on the other end. “What’s up?” Laughs sounded in the background, like a handful of guys having a worry-free time out on the back nine.
“Andy…is Duncan with you?”
“Sure is. Why?”
At that moment I wanted to reach through the phone, wrap my hands around Duncan’s neck, and give him a throttling like he’d never known in his life. But I took a deep breath and let the frustration run through me, knowing there was a good chance a reasonable explanation would be found.
“Put him on, will you?”
“What’s going on?”
“Just do it.” My tone was serious as all hell, and he didn’t give another word of protest.
“Hey!” Duncan said. “What’s the word?”
Where to fucking begin.
“Duncan, is there a reason you’re not answering your phone?” As frustrated as I was, I had to admit there was some humor in how I sounded like a wife pissed off at her husband for being late.
“Because it hasn’t rang. Just out with Andy right now, knocking some balls around with a couple of clients. What’s going on?”
“Wait, your phone hasn’t rung? How is that possible? Annie’s been trying to call you for the last hour.”
“Why has Annie been trying to call me? Why are you calling me?”
“Check your phone.”
“Uh, sure.” Duncan, like me, wasn’t the type of guy to worry under pressure. But I could tell by the tone of his voice he knew something was up. “Uh, what the hell?”
“What do you mean what the hell?”
“I’m over at Alpine Country Club right now, we’re right near the mountains. And I’m not getting a bar of reception on my phone.”
“What?”
Duncan called out a question to the guys, the back-and-forth that followed about why they had reception and he didn’t.
“Shit,” he said. “My carrier’s reception sucks out here. I had no idea no calls were getting through.”
“Dammit.”
“What’s going on?”
“Annie’s in labor.”
“She’s what?” A beat of silence followed. “And you wasted all this fucking time asking about my fucking phone?”
“Sorry, man,” I said, realizing I should have started with the news.
“Where is she?”
“I sent her to St. Vincent Memorial with Gia. You get your ass in gear now and you’ll catch up with her.”
“Got it.” His tone was serious, panic-free – determined. “You coming?”
“I’m coming. Meet you there.”
Without wasting another moment, I grabbed my keys and coat and phone and flew out the door, firing off a text to Gia on the way out to let her know Duncan was on his way. It was no small relief to know that particular situation had been resolved, but there was still the matter of the delivery.
Once behind the wheel of my car, I started toward the hospital. And to my chagrin, I found myself not thinking about the birth or Annie or Duncan. But about her.
I scolded myself for letting my thoughts drift to Gia. That was the thing about love – it made you selfish. It made you think about what you wanted, and all I wanted was Gia. The situation was a mess, but Annie going into labor had brought her back into my life. I’d be seeing her at the hospital, and my heart tingled at the idea.
What if it wasn’t over between us? Had she really meant what she’d said about never wanting to see me again. I planned to find out.
The highway was clear, and relief washed over me in waves. A clear highway for me meant a clear highway for Gia and Annie.
A text lit up my phone.
We’re almost there.
More relief. They were at the hospital, Duncan was on his way, and with any luck it’d be an easy birth.
St. Vincent Hospital appeared in the distance. Now that the worst was behind us, I could have a wry grin at the idea of Duncan showing up there. Pitt Medical had become the largest private medical company in the Midwest, which had made him no friend of public hospitals. He’d offered me a job in the past at one of his clinics, but I liked my private practice too much to sell out and work for “the man,” as I liked to jokingly call him.
I put my mind right, focusing on the birth ahead, not to mention seeing Gia again. I was scared and excited and nervous all a
t once. The last time I’d felt this way was…with her – when we were just kids. Gia had always been the only woman to make me feel this way.
There was something special about her. No sense in denying it.
I reached the emergency room and whipped into a parking spot. Just as I came to a stop, I watched as Gia and Annie pulled into a spot a few rows down. Gia parked and hurried out of her car. She looked so beautiful it fucking killed me to lay eyes on her.
Focus, dumbass. You’ve got a pregnant woman to worry about – not your dick.
“Yo, Gia!” I shouted as I stepped out of the car.
She glanced at me, and what happened next I couldn’t believe – Gia smiled. After what had happened between us, the idea of the sight of me bringing a smile to her face was hard to believe. I’m sure it was because she was relieved to see help had arrived, but that didn’t make a bit of difference to me.
“Gavin!”
I trotted over and a beat of awkwardness seized the moment as we stood across from each other, staring at each other as if neither knew what to say to the other.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
It was a good damn thing we had something more important to worry about than how we felt about each other. And as if underlining the point, Annie let out a cry of pain from the backseat of the car.
“Gia, go to the entrance right now and tell them we’re bringing in a pregnant woman.”
She shook her head in disbelief, and I could tell she was in a bit of a daze. “The front’s crowded so I didn’t pull up, but I was so stupid to park like this.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Tell them what’s going on and come back with a nurse and a wheelchair.”
Gia nodded, then turned and broke into a run. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She ran so fluidly, with such incredible form. No doubt she ran to stay in shape.
A gasp from Annie’s direction put my focus back to where it needed to be. I broke my gaze from Gia and dropped down, putting myself at eye level with the bottom of Annie’s sneakers. I lifted myself up a bit and saw her face, deep red as she took in one breath after another.
“How you doing?” I asked.
The answer couldn’t have been more obvious – she was in the middle of a contraction. I grabbed her hand and let her squeeze the life out of it as she worked through the pain.
“Just breath,” I said. “I know it hurts, but it’ll pass.”
She nodded, her face red as she huffed and puffed through the wave of the contraction. When it passed, she calmed. “Where’s Duncan?” she asked. “Where’s my dumbass of a husband?”
I couldn’t help but grin at her language. “He’s on his way. But you’re in good hands now.”
“I swear, if he let his phone die again, I’m gonna freaking kill him.”
“Okay, what we’re going to need to do is get you on your feet, alright? Gia’s getting some help now, and they’ll take care of the rest. But first, we need to get you out of the car.”
“I…I can barely move.”
“You’re fine. Let me give you a hand.” I began to lean forward, preparing to slip my arm under her back to help her out of the backseat. But she was too quick for me, pivoting her body to avoid my reach, then shimmying forward.
“I got it, I got it,” she said, planting her feet on the ground.
I chuckled. “I swear, you and Gia are cut from the same stubborn cloth.”
She grinned, then grimaced. “There’s a reason we get along so well. And speaking of Gia – why the hell aren’t you two talking?”
“That’s…that’s really something you’re thinking about now?”
The grin stayed on her face. “Of course, it is. Gia’s been weird whenever I bring you up, and I want to get to the bottom of it.”
“How about this,” I said with a smile. “We get that baby out of you and we can do all the gossiping you want.”
“Deal. Now, help a pregnant woman stand on her feet, would you?”
She leaned against me and right as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, another contraction hit her, and I frowned. “Has your water broken?”
She nodded, incapable of speaking as she breathed through the pain. I held her hand again, noting the contractions were closer than five minutes apart. Gia rushed up to us, a couple of nurses with her. I let them know I was a doctor, and together we helped Annie into the wheelchair they brought along.
Everything next happened in the wild frenzy that was so typical of births. We flew to the entrance of emergency room, Annie’s contraction lasting longer than the last. Gia held her hand, running by her side as I monitored the situation.
Then Annie and the team disappeared through a set of doors we couldn’t go through. One of the nurses let us know in what room they’d be so we could tell Duncan when he showed up.
As quickly as the commotion had started, it was over. For us, at least.
“That…what was intense,” Gia breathed, sucking in a deep breath.
“No kidding.”
Concern knitted her brow as she turned toward me. “Will she be okay? I mean, her and the baby.”
“See seems in good spirits. And I didn’t see anything that would lead me to believe she’s going to have anything other than a normal birth.”
She let out a whoosh of air in relief. However, as soon as the subject of the pregnancy had been settled, there was only one issue left to discuss – me and her.
“So much for the two of us not seeing each other ever again.” I smirked after I spoke, and the expression of mild annoyance that fell on her face made it abundantly clear I’d mis-stepped.
“You think this is the right time for that?”
“Not sure if we’ll get another time.”
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
“Ouch.”
The emergency room doors opened and Duncan appeared, still dressed in his golf polo, khakis, and shoes. The man looked about as worried as I’d ever seen him, and the moment he spotted us he rushed over.
“Where is she?” he asked. “And how is she?”
“She’s fine,” I said.
“Through there,” Gia added, pointing to the double doors where we’d been stopped. “Room thirty-five.”
He shook his head, his brow sheened with a nervous sweat, a few loose strands hanging over. “I feel like such an asshole. But I had no idea I wasn’t getting any reception.”
“We’re not the ones you need to convince,” Gia warned him, smiling at him.
“But you’re here now. And if I were you, I’d let her vent while she’s going through the contractions.” I offered a half-grin, letting him know he wasn’t in as hot of water as he thought.
He smiled, a little goofily. “If she needs to punch me in the dick, it’s the least I deserve.” Duncan put one hand on my shoulder, the other on Gia’s. Then he squeezed and a smile that silently said, “thank you both.” With a nod, he was gone.
And we were alone again.
“You think he’s going to be in the doghouse?” Gia asked, shaking her head and grinning. “I mean, she’ll probably give him hell, but it won’t last.”
“It was an honest screw-up. And I’ve seen enough births to know that as long as the baby’s happy and healthy, all’s forgiven.”
“Good.”
“It might take a while,” I warned. “If you want to go home and wait—”
“Not a chance. I’m here until that baby comes out.”
“Same here.” I glanced to my left, over at the small waiting area. “Want to sit?”
She nodded, and we wandered to the waiting area and sat down in the hard chairs next to one another.
And we sat.
There was so much to say.
I had no idea where to even begin.
Gia
For the next ten minutes, we did what anyone else would do when they felt awkward – we played on our phones.
I scrolled Imgur absent-mindedly, the gifs of cats and memes
a blur as I swiped down with my thumb. I wasn’t sure what Gavin was looking at, and I didn’t want to risk glancing over and making eye contact.
But one thing was for sure – the more the adrenaline wore off, the less comfortable I was in his presence.
The last time we’d spoken I’d told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted him the fuck out of my life. And I’d meant it, too. The time before that, I’d been crawling out of his bed, looking at the smug smile on his face, like everything was going according to plan.
However, he was sitting right next to me in some antiseptically lit waiting room, swiping through his phone like he didn’t have a care in the world. I had no idea what the jerk was thinking about, whether or not he cared how I felt, or even if he thought the whole thing was funny.
The guy was hard to read and had a way of hiding however he felt below a layer of smug, self-satisfaction. That was Gavin summed up – I wanted to kiss the guy and smack him at the same time.
But I had no idea what to say or do. Why did he want to sit with me? Did he think we were buds again or something?
Hell, what did I think? I was uncomfortable, but was it because of him or because I had a torrent of emotions running through me that I didn’t have the slightest clue how to deal with?
And he wasn’t helping. God, maybe if he were to say something diplomatic like “do you want to be alone?” That’s what a normal, sensitive man would say. But Gavin wasn’t sensitive. And he was hardly normal.
Someone had to say something. And with each second that passed, I was sure it would have to be me. Swallowing my pride, I cleared my throat and spoke. “Listen…”
He didn’t take his eyes off his phone, chuckling to himself. He furrowed his brow, but still, he didn’t look up.
Irked, I asked, “I’m sorry, am I interrupting your meme time?”
“Check this one out,” he said, showing me his phone. “It’s a series called ‘cats where they shouldn’t be.’ This one’s on a ceiling fan.”
I didn’t even bother to look at his stupid cat meme. “Are you serious?” I asked. “Or are you just trying to piss me off?”