A Bundle of Mannies

by Lorelei M. Hart

  To their credit, the starstruck ambulance guys didn’t fanboy my friends so I threw them a bone. “Freddie, could you give these nice fellows an autograph? They treated me great.”

  “Of course.” And that’s what they were doing as a hospital orderly took over and wheeled me down the hall. Just as the doors to the department were closing, I heard pounding footsteps behind me and heard my alpha’s voice shouting, “Wait, that’s my omega about to give birth to our child! Don’t close the doors.”

  “Then hurry up,” the orderly said. “We need to get this patient into a room. You can go to admissions and take care of the paperwork, alpha, then come back here in a hurry because I’ve seen a lot of pregnant omegas and this one is ready.”

  “But he’s not due for a few weeks,” Judson protested.

  “Babies come on their timetable.” This from a nurse who stood from behind the desk. “And even if Gus is our expert, we’re going to have a doctor examine your omega anyway.” She rolled her eyes and they wheeled me into a room and pulled a curtain across the doorway. And suddenly I was terrified.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Judson

  The boys looked up at me all frazzled when they caught a glimpse of Edwin on the gurney. I couldn’t blame them. It was freaking terrifying to see someone you love that way, and pregnant people shouldn’t need one. It was supposed to be a beautiful natural thing even if it was filled with pain and screaming and bodily fluids. Yeah, birth was weird and terrifying, come to think of it. The kids had that down.

  Freddie collected the kids before they got more than that one peek, promising they would be well looked after, and I knew that to be true. They were great. But he and Rich also needed to know about Iliana because, knowing her, she was going to find her way to the kids, figuring out I’d be otherwise occupied. How had she even found a house we’d just started to move into? I’d have let her attorney know the address eventually but hadn’t yet. The woman’s mind had more twists and turns than a switchback highway, and I’d stopped trying to follow it long ago. I had no idea her end game, but it was so not gonna happen.

  “Iliana was at the house,” was all I said. It was all that needed saying. They were as protective of the kids as probably even me and had known enough of what had gone on in the past to piece things together. I threw him the keys so they had their boosters and off I ran after my omega.

  I barged in not caring about protocol. He was in the ER and not triage, and since we hadn’t begun our classes or even picked the hospital yet, I didn’t know if that was because we were in a hospital without a decent parent baby unit, or if it was because he was extremely at risk or what.

  “I’m here!” I had been just starting to fill out paperwork—and realizing how few of the answers I had to their questions about my mate—when the admitting clerk answered her phone and told me I could come back and finish a little later. She sent me back to the unit and I was called into the room just as a doctor came in. I grabbed my omega’s hand as the nurse put a bunch of things on Edwin. I recognized the blood pressure cuff and the oxygen monitor, but the rest of it was foreign. It almost looked like the heart monitors in movies, but I’d had a pregnant mate before, and that wasn’t how they did things when the twins were born.

  “Hello, Dad, I’m Doctor Gilsom, and we are going to get your baby delivered here in just a moment.” Her calm voice so very much did not match her words.

  “Just a moment?” I asked. Edwin looked quite a bit paler than when I walked in, and the machine to his left started beeping. The doctor reached over and pressed a button, making the sound go away, but the flashing red light continued.

  “Yes.” She reached over and put her hands on the two of ours. “Your omega is having trouble with his blood pressure. Up and down the entire ambulance ride here and again in the short time since he’s been here. We are just going to wheel him to Delivery and have this baby.”

  Because it was that simple. I had so many questions and probably, had I started asking them, a ton more after that. But before I could ask even one, a bunch of people came in and asked me to step aside, so they could transport him in.

  “It will be fine,” I lied as I gave my omega a kiss. His eyes glazed over. It had better be fucking fine. I couldn’t take losing them, not after just finding them.

  They wheeled him out, the doctor calmly asking me if there were any medical allergies or conditions he needed to know about. How she stayed so calm had me questioning if she was part android.

  A nurse took me by the arm and led me across the hospital to a small waiting room, babbling the entire way probably about what was happening. I processed none of it. All I could think about was my omega in there scared and alone about to have our baby. They hadn’t even gotten him into a hospital gown which told me all I needed to know—this was serious and the possibility of me losing them both was real.

  I started to pace in front of the fish tank they probably placed there for its supposed calming effect, and after 1843 times across the floor, because yeah, I counted as a means of distraction, I broke down and texted Freddie with a simple text I hoped said everything because it was all I could manage: I need someone here.

  Two hundred sixty-one more paces later and Freddie was by my side, his arm around me, pacing with me. I didn’t have answers for him, and he didn’t ask. Instead, he gave me the one thing I needed, someone by my side to help me stay strong for my omega.

  “Family of Edwin Black.” A nurse came out still in scrubs and the fancy hairnet that surgery entailed. I ran over to them needing answers. They weren’t crying and I took that as a good sign, although would they be? This was their job.

  “I’m his alpha. How are they?” Freddie stood behind me, his hand on my shoulder.

  “He is in recovery. We had to do full anesthesia due to time. Your daughter is perfect and waiting for you in the recovery room. Doctor will be here to get you and give you all the details and then bring you back. I just figured you didn’t want to wait that long for word on their condition.” Did anyone?

  Ten minutes later, the doctor explained she had no idea what caused the fluctuation and we probably never would. And while it was something to keep an eye on in future pregnancies, it could easily have been the baby constricting an artery and that was basically a fluke. I honestly was more just shaking my head and trying to get through the conversation so that I could get back there and see Edwin and the baby with my own eyes.

  She walked me back to the recovery room, and the beautiful sound of our baby crying sent such reassurances through me. I walked in, my eyes zeroed in on Edwin. I’d seen him looking far better, of course, but his color was good, and he wore a small smile that didn’t match his drooping eyes.

  “We have a girl,” he said as I pulled a chair over to sit beside him. “She’s perfect.”

  “You are perfect.” I’d been so scared, and seeing him there with a monitor not flashing red or beeping and a smile on his face was exactly what I needed.

  “Here, Dad.” A nurse held out our baby girl, and I brought her close to my chest, cradling her in my arms.

  “She’s so perfect.” She had a patch of reddish hair peeking out from under the hospital-issued little hat, her body all swaddled, looking extra tiny. “You did great, Dad.”

  “Iliana.” His eyes opened wider as if he just remembered and, given the anesthesia, he might’ve.

  “It’s fine. The kids are with Rich, and she had no legal rights,” I reassured still not sure what I was going to do about her or why she mentioned the stupid gossip rag. She didn’t deserve my energy. Not on this day, the day my daughter was born. “We never picked a name.”

  We’d batted around a bunch of them, sure, but never solidified one, Edwin thinking that once he saw her he would know.

  “Janis. She looks like a Janis.”

  I could not agree more.

  “Hello, little Janis. We love you so much.” I kissed the top of her head and looked up at Edwin. “And I love you, omeg
a mine, with all that I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Edwin

  They kept us at the hospital for three days, while I panicked over expenses until Judson finally asked me why I kept wringing my hands and told me the band still had me on their health insurance somehow and that there would be minimal copays and certainly nothing we couldn’t handle. I’d actually saved almost every penny I made all summer, thinking I’d need the funds to survive the end of pregnancy and until I could go back to work again. Judson had refused to allow me to pay for a thing since we got back, either.

  With that worry abated, I was able to relax and allow the staff, my alpha, and our friends to wait on me while I recovered from the surgery. It had been so much of a rush, they hadn’t been able to be delicate and I would have a noticeable scar on my lower abdomen. If I’d been in that situation without my alpha and my new life, I’d have been in deep shit. Nobody wanted a scarred-up stripper.

  But as it was, I knew I could not do that job anyway. Even if I had liked it, which I had not. But that mark of honor, as I thought of it, would not impede me from doing anything else with dance. I had a vague idea in the back of my mind of using my savings to open a little studio. If I had a couple of other teachers there, I could still travel with the tour in summer when a lot of our customers would be on vacation anyway.

  It was a vague idea and one that I’d have to talk to Judson about once we were home and settled. And once I hurt less. Even today, when I was going home, I was still moving pretty gingerly, and the nurses told me it would be a while before I felt 100 percent again.

  I wouldn’t be doing a lot of dancing for a while.

  “Here you are!” Judson crowed, as if he hadn’t spent all of three days here without leaving the building except to go to the cafeteria or the bathroom. Thank heavens for our friends who brought him clean clothes and things for the baby, which they had gone to the store and bought. What kind of parents were we, bringing home a baby to a house with nothing ready for her? Little Janis didn’t even have a bed to sleep in. No cute outfits or tiny socks. No toys or pacifiers.

  No diapers.

  I moved to stand from the armchair and he darted to my side, pushing the wheelchair ahead of him. “Time to go home, omega. You’re all checked out and the orderly is waiting to wheel you to the car.”

  “We have to stop at Walmart on the way home,” I said, pushing to my feet with a wince. “And the baby store. Maybe Bed Bath & Beyond.”

  His eyes were like saucers. “We what?”

  “Our baby needs everything. We can’t just wrap Janis up in a towel and lay her on the couch. The couch...have you seen the boys with their dirty feet on that? I think we need a new couch.”

  “We have enough diapers and things for a couple of days, Edwin. You can barely walk.”

  “I can ride one of those scooter things with the basket on the front.”

  “And you want to take our newborn to germ central, maybe put her in that basket? I’ll take the germs from Jagger and Bowie’s feet over those any day.”

  My eyes filled with tears. “But she needs everything. She needs to know she’s loved and been waited for.”

  Judson crouched in front of me and wiped away the droplets starting to fall. “How could she doubt how loved she is? By us and our friends...the boys already adore her.”

  This made me grin. “I can’t believe Freddie and Rich managed to sneak them in here to meet her.”

  “They wouldn’t let up, drove Rich crazy. Had to see for themselves that they, and you, were okay.”

  “I guess it was lucky they didn’t bring all five.”

  “The rest are waiting outside. Lady Sarah in particular is delighted to have another girl in the pack. She’s already told everyone Janis is a duchess.”

  With the baby safely tucked in my arms, we paraded out to the parking lot where a small crowd waited for a glimpse. Maybe Janis was royalty because it was very like the scenes of princes and princesses leaving the maternity hospitals I’d seen on TV. All we needed was a news camera.

  Like the one in front of the van topped with an antenna and parked next to our car.

  “Is that channel seven?” I asked, which was a stupid question since the station ID was plastered on the side of the vehicle.

  “Looks like it,” said Judson. “I guess they’re wondering why Creature and all their road crew are here.”

  Indeed they were attempting to interview our friends, but the other guys were keeping them at bay. “We’ll need to record the five o’clock news so when Janis is older she can see her arrival as a superstar.”

  “A duchess,” he reminded me, helping me into the backseat of the car and helping me fasten the carrier into place. “Let’s go home. I’ve already gotten everyone to promise not to visit until at least tomorrow. And that’s when they will bring the boys home, too.”

  The drive didn’t take long at all, and soon we were in our own driveway where I had no handy chair to roll me inside. The doctor had offered me another day in the hospital, but I really wanted to be home. Since I hadn’t had a place worthy of the name in many years, I was anxious to get everything put away and a nursery set up. “I guess we can order everything we need online,” I mused, leaning on the porch rail while Judson opened the door. “That way I can shop, too, and we’ll have a big selection.”

  “Uh-huh.” My alpha stood in the open doorway, baby carrier in his hands, staring. “Edwin, you won’t believe this.” He stepped aside and waved me ahead of him into a living room with everything in place. No boxes littered the floor or were piled along the walls. I took careful steps toward the kitchen where I found a similar scene. All of the rooms were set up except the one for Great, as the kids called my gramps. He hadn’t officially agreed to move in yet, but he’d asked us to paint it anything but that baby poop tan that was already there, so I crossed my fingers it would be soon. Who...I mean, how?”

  Together we moved from room to room, finding them all shipshape and ready to live in. Finally we stood outside the last room, the nursery-to-be. A note was taped to the door.

  Welcome home! We know we probably didn’t put everything exactly where you’d want it but with the boys and Janis, we know you’ll be very busy and wanted to help. Behind this door is a surprise… Please love it!

  Simon, Freddie, Rich, and everyone

  “What did they do? Those guys are crazy.” And I was crying those hormone-fueled tears again. “I’ve never met anyone like them.”

  Judson had his hand on the knob, and I put mine over it and together we opened the door into a nursery fit for a princess. Or a duchess. Our duchess.

  “What do you think, omega?” he asked, turning in a circle and taking in the pink and purple wonderland.

  “I think Lady Sarah had a hand in this, and I think we are the luckiest family who ever went on tour.” Judson opened the window to let in a little air and the door blew closed. On the back was a poster from the Summer of ’19 Creature Tour.

  “It’s just perfect.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Judson

  “I’ll get her,” I mumbled as I rolled off the bed and over to the bassinette we had put in our room, gathering little miss in my arms and cooing. “Let’s get you changed and bring you over to your yums.” She ceased crying the moment I picked her up. She was such a good baby. I had her changed and to Edwin within a couple of minutes.

  He was still recovering from his surgery, and while he was doing a thousand times better, he still had some flinches of pain from time to time if he moved too quickly. Or the time he thought it would be a good idea to vacuum. But for the most part, you’d never guess he had had anything other than a typical birth, if you just saw him out and about.

  “Here you go, sweet duchess.” I handed her to Edwin who brought her to where she wanted to be most. She was an eater, already gaining from her birth weight, something that had the doctor smiling when he had told us he was hoping she would be back to that point at the start
of the visit.

  “The boys will be up soon. I should go start coffee. Today is going to be a many cups of coffee day.” I’d spent a good part of the day before dealing with my lawyer to make sure Iliana didn’t have a leg to stand on. He’d assured me that due to the paperwork she originally filed, she would have an upward battle at best. I wasn’t quite sure I believed him—she was persistent if it was something she wanted, and I had a feeling what she wanted was to be back on tour with me and that just wasn’t going to happen.

  “We’ll join you in a minute, love,” Edwin promised as I kissed him and then her little head.

  I’d misjudged the boys being up soon, and they were both in the kitchen attempting to make a bowl of cereal but having trouble with the inner seal. That didn’t make me sad, given they each had a mixing bowl in front of them.

  “Do you maybe want some breakfast, guys?” I looked from the cereal to the bowls and back.

  “Good. You’re up. Rich told us not to wake you guys in the morning until our sister slept all night long, and we asked when that was, and he just laughed.” Bowie rolled his eyes, not getting Rich’s sense of humor or, in this case, lack thereof.

  “Jagger and Bowie, you can always wake us up if you need things like food.” I took the cereal from their hands and one of the mixing bowls. “How about pancakes instead?”

  That earned me some claps and a promise not to get sticky if I allowed them to have the maple syrup we picked up in Vermont while on tour.

  I poured the first round of batter onto the griddle just as Edwin and the baby came in. Edwin wearing Janis in a wrap Rich swore was the best invention ever.

  “Pancakes?” I offered.

  “Yes!” all three of my guys said in unison. I had a platterful ready and on the table in record time, loving the gas stove in our new home. So much better than the electric coils we’d had.