by Thorpe, Elle
“El? You okay?” I asked tentatively.
She straightened her posture and smiled at me, which did little to settle the nerves building in my belly.
“I’m great. Let’s keep going. We still need to do another lap. Sorry I’m so slow today.”
Our regular Monday morning walk being slower than usual was the least of my concerns. “Do you think that’s a good idea? We’re right near the car. Maybe one lap is enough today.”
She laughed. “B, I’m fine. I swear. Your face is hilarious. These are just Braxton Hicks contractions. They’re not a big deal. I had them for weeks before Sophie was born. And walking is good. It helps get everything dilating and effacing. It’ll make my eventual labour easier and quicker.”
I had my doubts but what did I know? She’d had two kids already. I didn’t even hold other people’s babies. She was the boss. “Okay then. But you tell me if they get any worse, and I’ll have you at that hospital in no time. Red lights and speed limits be damned.”
She shook her head. “You’re so dramatic. Always the actress.”
We started up our walk again, but we’d barely covered ten meters when Elodie’s phone began playing Love Shack.
She sighed as she fished it from the waistband of her workout pants. “It’s Jamison. He’s been calling me every hour, on the hour, to make sure I’m not in labour. Like I’d forget to ring him If I was.”
She answered the call as another pain caught her, and handed the phone to me.
“Hey, Jam,” I said to Elodie’s husband.
“Bianca?” he asked, his voice immediately concerned. “What’s happening? Where’s Elodie?”
“She’s here, but she’s having those Braxton thingos.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, she had those for ages when she was pregnant with Sophie. They’re no big deal.”
“So she said.” They still looked like a big deal to me.
Elodie was upright and smiling again, so I handed the phone back. She listened for a moment before glancing over at me with a worried expression on her face.
“What?” I mouthed.
She shook her head and waved me off as she said to Jamison, “Okay, no worries. Yeah, I love you, too. See you tonight.”
She lowered the phone, and I raised an eyebrow in question.
“Jamison needs me to…uh, pick up something. So we will have to cut our walk short after all.”
Relief loosened muscles I didn’t realise I’d been tensing. “Good.” I fished my car key from my workout armband. “Your fake contractions make me nervous. Where are we going?”
“South Street.”
I held her door open for her and waited while she gingerly lowered herself in. Then I climbed into the driver’s side of my convertible.
South Street was only a few blocks away, so it was only minutes later when I asked Elodie for the house number. “What are we picking up anyway?” I asked, cruising the street, looking for number eighty-seven. We rounded a bend in the long road, and a familiar black jeep came into view. My heart sped up. It was parked right out front of our destination.
I knew that jeep. Intimately. I knew there was a rip in the front passenger seat. I knew there was a pine-tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror that had been there so long it had no smell left. And I knew the back seat was just big enough to have sex on. I knew, because I’d spent a lot of time naked on it, doing just that.
“Seriously?” I hissed to Elodie, pulling up next to it. “What are we doing here?”
She held up her hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot the pregnant lady. His car won’t start, and he needs a lift to work.”
My eyes widened as I glared past the jeep at the house. “Whose place is this? Are we picking him up from a hookup?” Oh my god. It was that woman’s house. The one from his date on Friday night. It had to be.
Elodie shrugged. “I’ve no idea. He called Jamison for a lift, but Jam has a court case in half an hour and couldn’t do it. He knew we would be walking around here so— What are you doing!”
I’d put the car in drive and was taking off the handbrake. “Leaving! You know how we are, El! We can’t even be in the same room without trying to kill each other.”
“You didn’t seem to have any problems with that at the wedding a few weeks back.”
I cringed. She was referring to the time Riley and I had gotten down and dirty in a tent at Low and Reese’s wedding. She didn’t even know about the disaster that was this past weekend. Thank God. That would have just been feeding her ammunition to use against my protests.
“Yeah, well, that was a mistake.” Just like every other time we’d hooked up over the past ten years.
Elodie steeled me with a look that I was sure she’d perfected over the years on her two eldest kids. It made me want to shrivel into my seat.
“I know there’s more history between the two of you than any of us will ever know, but he’s our friend, Bianca. And he’s stuck. He’d do it for you.”
“Unlikely,” I huffed, though I knew that was unfair. He probably would have picked me up, but he would have been just as childish about it.
Elodie rolled her eyes and picked up her phone, shooting off a message to tell Riley we were here. A moment later, the front door opened, and Riley came out carrying his phone and wallet. Despite my protests, my heart skipped a beat, just like it did every time I saw him. I didn’t know what it was about him, but he had an effect on me that no other man ever had. Because trust me, I’d tried to find it elsewhere.
He wasn’t overly tall, a little under six foot, but his shoulders were broad, and his tight white t-shirt left nothing to the imagination. My mouth dried. I knew exactly how chiselled he was beneath that shirt, the daily grind of the construction work he did evident in every muscle. He paused when he saw my car, then walked stiffly across the lawn, as if he were forcing his feet to move.
Shit. He had to be pissed after the way I’d left things at the baby shower. There was only two ways for this to go down. It would either be epically awkward. Or we’d end up in a screaming match. It was the only way with the two of us. Unless we were having sex. That seemed to be the only time we were in sync.
Elodie rolled down the window. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said to him in her no-nonsense mum voice. “Bianca’s already tried it. Get in.”
Riley opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, but Elodie hit the button that rolled the window up, leaving Riley no option but to open the back door. As soon as he did, his scent—his cologne mixed with something that was uniquely him—filled my nose, and my stomach flipped. I’d always loved that cologne. Whenever I walked by someone else wearing it, I immediately thought of Riley. I couldn’t help it. I breathed him in while trying to ignore the butterflies that rioted in my stomach. They were no longer fluttering about in worry over Elodie. These butterflies had Riley’s name stamped all over them.
I refused to make eye contact with him as he slid into his seat, pointedly staring out the windscreen, waiting for him to get his seat belt on.
Elodie rubbed her belly and groaned as another Braxton Hicks contraction hit her, and in the rearview mirror, Riley’s head snapped up. He scooted to the middle so he could see between the two front seats and took in Elodie’s pained face. His eyebrows pulled together in concern.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Is it the baby?”
Elodie was too busy sucking in lungfuls of air to answer him.
So I answered on her behalf. “She’s having contractions. But it’s okay. They’re just the practice ones.”
“Why is she in so much pain then?”
“She’s okay.”
“She’s obviously not.”
Irritation prickled at me, even though I’d said exactly the same thing a few minutes before. Dammit, I’d meant it when I said I needed space from him. I didn’t want to be stuck in this car with him! “She’s fine.”
“She looks like she needs a doctor.”
Irritation
turned to anger as I twisted to face him. “Do you ever listen? She told me she’s fine. She’s had two babies before this. How many have you had? No offence, Riley, but I’ll take her opinion over yours any day.”
Riley winced, and I immediately realised that had been a low blow. I knew how much it had hurt him that Eliza had kept Sadie from him for so long. I opened my mouth to apologize, but a shield came down over his dark eyes.
“Fine. Of course, you know everything. If she has this baby in the car, that’s on you.”
What? How would that be on me? My slight feelings of guilt disappeared. My gaze bored into him, locking with his like a magnet. “She knows her own body, Riley. If she says she’s not in labour then she’s not. Just mind your own business.”
Riley’s face went red, and he pressed his lips together. I knew that look. It was the look he got right before he exploded. My blood thrummed through my veins, welcoming the fight. I knew how insane we were. I complained about us fighting all the time, but something inside me obviously fed on it. It fed him, too. I knew it did. Every argument only fuelled the fire that had always been present between us. It had never quite gone out, and after ten years, I wasn’t sure it ever would. And I had no idea if that was a good or a bad thing.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that? She’s my friend, too. I’m allowed to be concerned about her.” His voice got louder with every word as he continued on his rant.
I was just as loud when I yelled back, “Oh, here we go again. Neither of us own our friends, Riley, we’ve had this argument before. If you hate it so much when I’m around, why—”
Elodie groaned long and loud, cutting me off. Riley and I both whipped our heads in her direction and stared. There was something distinctively un-practice-like about that noise. As the contraction subsided, she gasped, her eyes going wide.
“My water just broke.”
9
Riley
Elodie’s gaze darted between Bianca and me, her eyes so panicked the whites were visible the whole way around. “Can one of you say something, please?” she asked.
Bianca’s jaw was on the floor, but I managed to choke out, “Your water did what? Here? What do we do now?”
Elodie looked to Bianca apologetically. “I’m so sorry, your car seat is ruined.”
That seemed to snap Bianca out of her trance, which was good because I felt like time was standing still.
Elodie moaned, another contraction hitting her, and Bianca put the car into drive, slamming her foot down on the accelerator.
We sped through the streets, and I tried to mutter supportive and encouraging phrases, but even with Elodie in labour, it was Bianca who kept drawing my attention. It was always the same. Her very presence short-circuited something in my brain until all I could concentrate on was her.
It was a shame I was the last person she wanted in her car.
“Aaaaah!” Elodie yelled, drawing my attention back to her as she clutched the ‘holy shit!’ bar with one hand and her belly with the other.
I slid forward on the seat and grabbed Elodie’s arm, adrenaline coursing through me. “What? Is it coming already?” Oh my god, I wasn’t prepared for this. I hadn’t been there for Sadie’s birth. I didn’t know what to do. I was already picturing delivering this baby on the side of the road, and that thought freaked me right the fuck out. I couldn’t do that. “Bianca, drive faster,” I urged.
“I’m already doing ten over!”
Elodie shook her head. “No, no, it’s just the contraction combined with the bumping car—”
“Bianca, watch the bumps,” I yelled.
She shot a death look over her shoulder. “Do you think I’m deliberately hitting them?”
I rolled my eyes. Any tenderness between us at the bar on Friday night had been completely forgotten.
I found Elodie’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll call Jamison and get him to meet us at the hospital.”
She nodded, but another contraction gripped her, and she dropped my hand. I dialled Jamison’s number.
Straight to voicemail. “Shit!”
“Call again. He’s in court,” Bianca said, her fingers locked tight around the steering wheel. Her gaze alternated between the road and shooting worried glances at Elodie.
I nodded and dialled again, relief coursing through me when he answered. “Elodie’s having the baby,” I gasped before he could even say hello. I probably sounded as if I were the one having contractions. I was oddly out of breath.
Elodie’s guttural moan ripped through the car again. Hadn’t she just had a contraction? She shouldn’t be having another one yet, should she?
“She is?” Jamison asked. “Where are you?” There was a shuffling of papers and voices in the background.
“Bianca and I are with her, we’re taking her to the hospital. You need to hurry.”
“I’m leaving now. But stop stressing. Her labour with Sophie took hours.”
Elodie moaned again, and I took in her panting and shifting on the front seat.
“I don’t think you have hours, Jam. Hurry.”
Bianca gave me a questioning look as I ended the call, and I shrugged. It didn’t matter, because Bianca was pulling up to the emergency entrance. Before she’d even lifted the handbrake, I was out of the car and at Elodie’s door.
Elodie stared at me with big brown eyes. “Where is he? I can’t do this without him.”
I gave her my most reassuring smile. “You won’t have to, he’ll be here soon. Can you walk? I can carry you if you can’t.”
“Or maybe I’ll just get a wheelchair, hero,” Bianca quipped.
I glared, but it landed on her back. She was already running towards the entrance. She returned in under a minute and held the chair steady while we helped Elodie into it. Then we ran for the electronic doors.
“Slow down!” Elodie yelled, gripping the armrests so hard her knuckles turned white.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Bianca and I said in unison, slightly slowing our panicked pace from sprinting to just running.
I felt better now that we were at the hospital and I knew the baby wasn’t going to be born on the side of the road, but the noises coming from Elodie and the fact Jamison wasn’t here was not good.
We skidded into the delivery suite’s waiting room, and Bianca pushed the buzzer on the locked doors.
Elodie clutched her hands to her belly, her body tensing, while I hissed to Bianca, “Press it again!”
“I’ve pressed it three times, Riley, I can’t make them unlock the door. Quit ordering me around.”
“I’m not!” God, she was infuriating sometimes. “Why are you always on my case?”
“Ugghhh you two are the worst birth partners ever! Can you just shut the fuck up with your fighting for three seconds and think about something other than yourselves? All the people in this room don’t give a shit about your squabbling. And neither do I. So shut up or leave me alone. I’d rather have this baby by myself than listen to the two of you for another moment.”
Bianca and I stared at Elodie in shock. Mild-mannered Elodie, who never swore, never had a bad word to say about anyone. Beautiful, sweet Elodie who had just called us on our shit in front of a waiting room full of people.
Over the top of Elodie’s hunched back, my gaze met Bianca’s, and I shook my head slightly. She nodded. We didn’t need words to communicate. It was written on her face. Put this aside and work together. Elodie needed us more than we needed to argue. I felt like an asshole.
The doors finally opened to admit us, and we were met by a middle-aged nurse. “What do we have here?” she asked with an easy-going smile.
“Baby coming,” I panted.
The nurse smiled kindly at me. “Your first baby, is it?”
Bianca scoffed as I shook my head. “I’m not the father. Just the friend.”
From the wheelchair, Elodie shifted and looked up at the nurse. “There’s so much pressure. I need to push.”
Holy shit. Where was Jamison?
The nurse nodded then shifted her focus back to me. And then at Bianca. “Take her straight into delivery room two. It’s just there, on your right. I’ll meet you there in a moment and we’ll see where we’re at.”
Bianca and I both nodded and hurried into the room the nurse had pointed out.
I closed the door behind us and wheeled Elodie into the middle of the small space. It was sparsely furnished—a bed in the centre, a leather recliner by a small, high window, and a door which presumably led to a bathroom.
“You doing okay there, El?” Bianca asked, kneeling in front of her.
I did the same thing. Elodie seemed paler than normal, a fine sheen of sweat sticking to her skin. She’d shifted to the very edge of the wheelchair and was tugging at her pants. “I think I can feel the head,” she gasped.
The blood drained from my face.
“I need to get these off. I need you to look.”
“I can’t—” Bianca’s panicked gaze met mine, and I grabbed her hand. Despite the situation, my skin tingled the minute I touched her. I made my gaze as steady as possible.
“I’m going to go get the nurse. You help her, okay?”
Something changed in her eyes, and she nodded, turning to help Elodie with her pants as I opened the door to the hallway. And crashed straight into Jamison.
Thank you, Lord.
“Where is she? In there?” he cried.
I nodded, then clapped him on the back, a little of the pressure I’d felt since I’d heard Elodie’s first moan easing. “Your kid is in a hurry, mate. Get in there. I’m going to find the nurse.”
He nodded, pushing past me, and I grabbed the nearest professional, ignored her protests, and dragged her into the room with me. Jamison and Bianca had managed to get a gown on Elodie and had helped her to the bed. They stood either side of her, gripping her hands while Elodie pushed. I hovered in the doorway, unsure of what to do. The nurse got down the business end and sat back with a laugh. A laugh! This didn’t seem like the time for laughing.