Poppy snickered and then it turned into a full-blown laugh as she took in the jealousy written all over my face. That was when I knew I had to leave and give them some time to talk without my being there. She was mine. I knew she was. That didn’t mean I could stand to watch a man who had been pining over her for years talk to her with a familiarity that, in some ways, we were still working on together. “I’m going to grab a coffee then find the nurse to hunt down the doctor to see when we can spring you from this joint. You two catch up until then.”
Ghost and Chief followed me out of the room, and we all made our way to the end of the hallway. “You doing okay?” Chief asked.
“As good as I can considering my woman’s sitting in a hospital bed because she was so sick that she passed out and stayed asleep for two fucking days.”
Ghost clutched onto my shoulder. “You have a strong woman there. It’ll all work out.”
“Speaking of working out,” I started to say, and then I launched into my plan to buy a house big enough to accommodate our growing family. “I need you both to be on the lookout for something with enough room, and in a nice school district, but close to the club.”
“Jesus, you already sound like Mr. Mom,” Chief teased.
“Don’t laugh, Chief. You’ll find yourself settling down soon enough.”
Chief scoffed and then the two of them bantered back and forth as I got lost in my head with my own plans for the future. Of course, I never saw a trip to Georgia in our plans, but that’s exactly what happened. We ended up heading down there for a court ordered mediation where upon seeing my, by then, very pregnant fiancé, the court finally granted Poppy her divorce. Though, it didn’t turn out all roses seeing as to how we ended up in the damn hospital one more time for our troubles.
Chapter 16
Sweat dripped from her hairline as she grimaced while clutching her belly again. I knew this trip to Georgia was going to be fucked from the beginning since we had to deal with Walker trying once again, to hang on to the scraps of what he thought he had left with Poppy. It didn’t work. What it did do was add stress to my woman that sent her into labor early.
“Ow! It fucking hurts!”
“I can tell, honey.” Just watching her go through this shit was painful for me. I couldn’t imagine actually having to live through it. I had wanted a big family with Poppy, but I was beginning to rethink things when she asked me a stupid fucking question that caught me off guard for a just a moment.
“How can you tell?”
“You mean besides the fact that you’re dropping f-bombs left and right and damn near ripping my arm off with each…” I stopped speaking dead in my tracks as she gripped on to me with claws from hell and refused to let go. The pinch and scalding hot sting as two of them pierced my skin didn’t even phase me beyond the initial reaction my body had to the onslaught of pain.
“Damn, dude, that looks like it hurts,” I heard Chief interject into the situation.
“Why is he still here?” Poppy cried out while trying to see around me to find her brother, as if he could possibly be just a disembodied voice in the room.
“I was just dropping off your bag since you two were out of the house so fast you forgot it.”
“Hi, everyone! How is our patient doing today?” A nurse who looked as though she should still be in high school asked in a chipper manner as she skipped her ass into the room. She was wearing scrubs, but the damn things were so tight they were highlighting every damn curve she had. Something I was sure Chief had noticed, and appreciated, considering how his tongue was still wagging in her direction.
“I’m doing,” Poppy started to answer before another contraction rolled through her. If her reaction was anything to gauge it by, this one was the mother of all fucking contractions, because I kid you not, she was about to start speaking in tongues. At least that was what I thought before she opened her mouth and started yelling at the too-perky-for-her-own-good nurse. “FUCK THIS SHIT, I’m not doing just fine at all! Get this baby out of me!”
“Oh dear, that sounds like it was a bad one.” The nurse was clearly an idiot for speaking to a woman in pain like that. Poppy looked fit to be tied, and damn near reared up off the bed. I stepped a little closer to hold her down if I needed to, because I couldn’t allow her to go off and start a fucking brawl with the nurse while she was in active labor with our child.
“Honey, you’re doing just fine. You use as many f-bombs as you need. I’m sure they won’t be our child’s first word,” I told her. Okay, now I was the one poking fun at her because she had told me that I wasn’t allowed to curse once she went into labor because she didn’t want the baby’s first words she heard being an f-bomb.
“Oh, God, something’s happening down there,” Poppy hissed out and I nearly made the mistake of looking. Only Chief’s vehement shaking of his head caught my attention first and managed to warn me away from looking.
The nurse proved herself to be the idiot I thought she was. “It’s a bit too early for all that. I’ll be checking you in just a few minutes when the doctor comes in. She glanced down at the little tablet in her hand and nodded her head as if she needed to agree with herself. “Yep, it says here that your nurse prior to shift change just checked you about 45 minutes ago.”
“There is a head coming out of my body, and it burns like a motherfucker!” Poppy seethed at the woman.
That was the moment I lost my damn mind and moved just enough so that I could take a look between Poppy’s spread legs. A knee to the face stopped me from actually seeing anything this time! I had to physically shake the blow off, and apparently it did not knock any fucking sense into me whatsoever because I kept on moving around the offending leg and managed to see what my woman had been screaming about. Sure as fuck, there was a head full of hair staring at me from between Poppy’s legs. “There’s a head, get the goddamn doctor in here, now!”
Bubbles, what I had dubbed the dumb bitch of a nurse in my head, jumped into action and ran to the bottom of the bed, dropping the end portion out from under Poppy’s feet. The nurse caught one of her calves in her hand, and I instinctively managed to grab the other which effectively held her splayed out for anyone and everyone in the room to see what was going on down there.
“Shit! I did not need to see that!” Chief yelled just before I noticed him hightail it out of the room. I could hear his loudmouth at least calling for help as he went though. “I just saw the head, someone better get my sister’s doctor in there now!”
“Oh-dear-lord-sweet-baby-jesus-take-the-wheel!”Poppy screamed the last as I watched her push despite the doctor yelling for her not to do it.
“Please, you have to stop pushing, because the doctor isn’t here yet.”
A doctor came rushing in the room immediately and damn near dove between my woman’s legs. Any other time and I might have punched a mother fucker out, but it just so happened that Chief pulled me from my murderous thoughts with his loud as fuck question from the hallway. “Anyone have some whiskey? Jesus, I can’t un-see that shit.”
“Are you fucking insane?” Poppy screamed at Nurse Bubbles. “Get out! Get the hell out of here. My husband can deliver our baby, because it isn’t waiting!”
“Whoa, now, honey. We’ll get you there. If you need to push, you push.”
The doctor basically shoulder-checked the nurse to push her out of the way. “Get her out!” Poppy yelled some more.
After Bubbles gave a feeble attempt at protesting the order, the doctor turned a hell of a glare on her. “You heard the patient. Send someone else in, right now.”
“One more good push, and we’ll be handing your baby over to you, Poppy!” The doctor explained while the nurse was retreating from the room in tears. I pushed against Poppy’s leg to help her as she attempted another push, and then I watched as the relief flooded through her. The tension in her face slackened and she took a deep breath before laying back. That’s when I realized it was done and looked back toward the doctor who
was now holding a squirming, somewhat bloody body with white shit coating it in spots. The doctor wasted no time in getting rid of his burden on my woman’s chest. A new nurse, an older woman, had entered the room and moved quickly with a suction bulb thing to try to clear everything for the baby and then after a few quick seconds, a squall filled up the room as our baby let us know she’d made her entrance into the world and she might not be entirely happy with how that happened.
“It’s a girl!” The doctor called out a bit late.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of the sight of my daughter lying there on Poppy’s chest. They were beautiful. Our daughter was perfect, and my woman was an amazing creature who had just worked her ass off to bring her into this world. I’d never in my life been prouder and more overwhelmed with emotion. No one ever tells you that it’s the happiest moment of your life when you get bowled over completely by emotion.
“A baby girl,” I finally managed to get out and watched as my baby girl tried to wiggle toward my voice, obviously recognizing the sound.
“You want to do the honors and cut the cord?” The doctor asked me, pulling me out of my reverence. I shook my head indicating that I did not. I tucked a single finger in my daughter’s grasp and stood in awe as she clamped her tiny little fingers around my larger one.
“Do you have a name for her?” The nurse asked.
“Sophie,” I told her, while trying to get the words past all the emotion that was clogging me throat.
“Layla,” Poppy added.
“Lewis,” I tacked on in the end while smiling down at Poppy and still holding on to our daughter.
“Sophie Layla Lewis?” The nurse confirmed the name, and we both agreed while watching our daughter. “That’s a beautiful name.” The nurse did whatever she was doing off to the side before moving back over to the opposite side of the bed than I was on. “I need to get this little one cleaned up for you real quick. I promise I’ll bring her back quickly.”
I immediately went on edge as I watched Poppy’s demeanor change immediately. She didn’t want anyone taking her daughter from her, and I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t too fond of the idea either. Not even realizing I was doing it, my chest puffed up and I prepared for a fight.
“Calm down, daddy. You can come and watch her get her first bath. She never has to leave your sight.” I wanted that, because we were all our daughter had back here to protect her, but at the same time there was no one else here with Poppy aside from the doctor and another nurse who had come in at some point. Still, they were strangers.
“I’d rather you stay with her,” Poppy finally said after registering the conflict she could see playing out on my face. I finally agreed and followed the nurse out in the hall. Chief was standing out in the hallway still and when I realized I tipped my head in the direction of the room.
“Stay with her while I go keep an eye on the baby, yeah?”
“Never had to ask, brother. I’ve got your girl. Go take care of the little one.” Chief wasted no time moving back into the room.
I nodded and followed the nurse out of the room, reluctantly leaving behind my love to chase my daughter. Somehow, I felt like this was a bit of foreshadowing. A girl. I was happier than hell to heave a healthy baby girl, but flashes of her teen years starting hitting me as I watched the nurse roughly washing the white cheesy shit and blood from her tiny little body.
“Hey, you need to tone that shit down!” I called to her as the bitch rolled her eyes at me. Did she know who she was fucking with right now?
“Calm down, Mr. Lewis. All babies get this treatment. They’re not as breakable as you think, and we need to get her clean.”
“So you say,” I told her as I glared while she continued to do her thing. My baby girl wasn’t even putting up a fuss at all the attention, so I figured all was well.
“Look at this sweet thing. She wants to be clean, don’t you, suga?”
I had to laugh at that. “Don’t you laugh, daddy. I betcha any amount of money this little one is going to be the high maintenance type. She gets dirty, it’s going to be a screaming fit until she’s cleaned up again. Isn’t that right, little miss?”
Another nurse came by and tucked a little notecard looking thing into a holder on the back of the plastic bassinet on wheels that had been set aside for my daughter. The card proudly announced that she was Sophie Layla Lewis. The grin on my face at seeing the name Poppy had given her couldn’t be contained. Our baby girl had been named after both of our sisters. Baby girl’s aunts would never get to know her, but she would carry their memories with her forever.
“Whoa, whoa, what the hell is that?” A second nurse had just approached my daughter with what looked like a security device stores used to put on clothing back in the day. Both nurses smiled at me.
“It’s a security device. You and your wife will be given a matching wristband. If anyone other than the two of you attempt to leave the premises with the baby and they don’t have the matching band, they will be stopped. If the baby is moved to a location not authorized while wearing the band, it triggers a lockdown of doors and elevators as necessary. Alarms will be triggered if the band is tampered with as well.”
“Damn, girl, they knew they had a biker baby coming in and they slapped an ankle monitor on you already. See that, you’re already trouble.” Both nurses laughed as I continued just watching my daughter, in total awe of her.
“Mr. Lewis, if I could have your left wrist?”
“Sure,” I held out my hand to her and she attached a band to it. I read the information on my band and compared it with what was on Sophie’s band. They were a perfect match. “Are we good now? Can we get her back to her momma?”
The older nurse gave the younger one a knowing look. “She’s probably tuckered out and sleepin’ right now. Why don’t you give her a little more time?”
“No offense, lady, but you don’t know my woman. She won’t rest until her daughter is back in her sight.”
“We hear that all the time,” the younger nurse tittered just as an intercom went off.
“Is baby girl Lewis ready? Her mother is throwing a fit that her baby hasn’t been brought back to her yet.”
I just cocked my brow at the two women as if to ask them what they thought now. “Just point the way, ladies,” I told them as I took my daughter into my arms.
“Sir, you have to transfer her down the hall while in the bassinet.”
I glared at the woman. “If you think you can tell me I can’t hold my daughter, you have another thing coming to you, lady.”
“Sir, it is hospital policy.”
“Well, it’s my personal policy to bond with my daughter as much as possible, and that requires actually holding her instead of wheeling her around in a plastic tub.” One of those twats could follow me to my woman’s room with the fucking tub that my daughter wouldn’t be rolling around in as long as I was there.
The minute I walked into the room holding our daughter, Poppy’s eyes were all for the baby in my arms. Her smile was something I wish I had been able to take a picture of, because there had never been anything more beautiful on this earth. “I got it,” Chief called out from somewhere to my right.
“Got what?”
“The picture of her face,” he told me, and then I turned my gaze from the love of my life to her brother, my club brother, who understood what that moment meant to me. I tipped my chin at him and then went to place our daughter in Poppy’s arms.
“She’s so sweet, just look at those pouty little lips. Oh my God, she’s going to be gorgeous,” she cooed at the little bundle.
“Might want to bump up the armory in a few years,” I commented. Chief stood and came over to the side of the bed and took a look at his niece.
“I’ll help with that.”
Chapter 17
Truth be told, I thought I’d have us in a bigger house before the baby came along. There always seemed to be something that got in the way when I thought about house hunting th
ough. Then, our little Sophie-bug came early and well, that meant I had to get creative in order to surprise Poppy. I managed to find one just before we headed down to Georgia, and I put an offer in, but I hadn’t heard anything until the day we got back. As much as I didn’t want to leave her to her own devices after just giving birth and having to travel with a newborn right after going through that bullshit divorce proceedings, I needed to get help to distract her.
That was where Leanne came in. She managed to weasel her way in the door and asked politely if I wouldn’t mind going to help Ghost with some shit they were working on at the clubhouse. I saw Poppy’s eyes dim a bit when I readily agreed. “I’m a phone call away, honey. You need me, I’ll come running.”
“I need you,” she whined.
I smiled down at her as Leanne laughed softly. “Let’s have some girl time for a bit and let Smoke go do the guy thing. He’ll be back as quickly as he can be.”
It took a little more convincing before I managed to make it out the door and down to the real estate office where I signed the papers and paid out the hefty fee to be able to move in immediately rather than wait. Over the next two days, the guys managed to help get all new furniture moved into the place, as Poppy had been marking things in magazines and saving shit to her Pinterest account that gave me an idea of what she’d want in the house. The whole process was tiring and quite frankly, pissing Poppy off every time I made a new excuse to run out the door. I’m sure she was having flashes of Walker doing just that and running to be with a club whore, especially since she was out of commission in the sexual department during her postpartum rest time.
Redemption Duet (Aces High MC - Cedar Falls Book 0) Page 42