by Nikki Ryan
“I do not like her,” Emma said as she, Kat and Alyssa watched her flirt with Sam.
“If she rubs her boobs against Sam one more time, I’m going to pop a cap in her ass.” Emma laughed. Alyssa felt numb. Why is he standing there with her? Does he even remember that I’m here?
Tiffany leaned in and whispered something in Sam’s ear and gently rubbed his back.
Kat stood. “That’s it. The bitch is going to die.”
Sylvia walked up just then and placed her hand on Kat’s shoulder. “Sit down, dear. I’m not happy about it either. I’ve asked John to take care of it.”
They watched as John tapped Sam on the shoulder and speak to his son.
“I’m sorry for his behavior, Alyssa. I’ve never seen him drink this much; not even during his young and stupid days. I’m a little disgusted with him right now.”
All Alyssa could do was nod in acknowledgement. She fought the tears when her eyes met Sam’s. He broke the contact first and looked down. He walked past their table and met her stare once more and walked out the French doors.
“He’s going upstairs to sleep it off. I’ll be right back. I need to make sure he makes it to the room,” Alyssa overheard John tell Sylvia. Kat joined Connor at the bar. Alyssa saw her say something to Tiffany who retreated back to her table where her parents sat.
Alyssa felt like her bladder was going to explode and excused herself. When she returned, Tiffany was nowhere to be seen. And she knew she wasn’t in the bathroom. Alyssa took the elevator to the fourth floor. She had a sick feeling in her stomach as she opened the door to their suite. She heard Tiffany’s voice right away emanating from the bedroom.
“Oh, baby. Remember how it used to be with us. So hot and sexy.”
Alyssa tiptoed to the bedroom doorway in disbelief. How did she even get in here? Did Sam give her a key?
“Oh yes. Sam you’re going to make me come.”
Alyssa reached the doorway and covered her mouth with her hand. No Sam! How could you? She couldn’t see his face.
Sam laid on his back naked from the waist down. His hands lay at his sides. Tiffany was on top of him with her skirt pulled up and she was going to town on his flacid sex.
“That’s right, baby. I’m almost there. We were always so perfect together.”
Alyssa fled the room and ran down the four flights of stairs; tears flooding her eyelids. When she turned the corner to descend that last flight, her heel caught and she went down. Fear gripped her as she flew down the stairs, hitting each stair as she went down. She did her best to protect her belly. Someone from the lobby witnessed her fall and ran to her side when she finally landed at the bottom in a heap on the floor.
“Are you okay?” the same woman who had checked them in days before asked.
Alyssa laid there, silently performing a body scan. Nothing felt broken. Bruised maybe but not broken. Her hand instinctively went to her belly. There was tightness but then it dissipated.
She began to stand when John and Sylvia come flying out of the ballroom.
“Oh my God! Alyssa, what happened,” Sylvia said.
Kat was right behind them. “Alyssa don’t move. Let me check you out.” Kat was scary when she went into nurse mode. You don’t want to mess with her.
“I’m okay. Nothing is broken. And the baby is okay.”
“Oh thank goodness,” Sylvia said, placing her hand over her heart.
“Kat. Take me home. I want to go home.”
“Now? What happened?”
Alyssa began sobbing. “I saw Sam and Tiffany . . .”
“You what?” Sylvia asked.
“Sam and Tiffany are upstairs together. Please take me home Kat. Right now!”
“Son of a bitch. Here,” John said, handing Kat his car keys. “Get her out of here. Mike, Connor, come with me.” John kissed Alyssa on the forehead. Sylvia did the same. “I’m going to kill that little bitch,” she said before following her husband and two sons up the four flights of stairs.
The ride home was a quiet one with the exception of Alyssa’s choked sobs. Kat said nothing, just held her hand the whole ride home.
Sam had placed a spare key under one of their flower pots. Alyssa walked over to it and removed it and set the pot back down.
Kat followed her into the bedroom.
“Do you want me to draw you a warm bath?” she asked.
Alyssa sat on the edge of the bed with her shoulders slumped. She nodded.
Kat turned the faucet on and grabbed a towel from the linen closet. She set it down near the whirlpool.
“Do you mind if I borrow some clothes? I don’t feel like wearing my bridesmaid dress to bed.”
Alyssa shook her head.
Kat found a pair of sweats and tee shirt and quickly changed. She walked over to where Alyssa sat and started removing the 101 bobby pins that held her hair up.
“I’m so sorry, Lys.”
Alyssa’s body shook as the pain engulfed her. Kat wrapped her arms around her best friend and held her until Alyssa had no more tears to shed.
“I need to shut the water off or we’re going to have a problem. Why don’t you get undressed?”
Alyssa walked into the bathroom and stepped into the tub. She sank down until her body was submerged to her neck. Kat sat on the edge and continued to pull out bobby pins from Alyssa’s hair before she got to work on her own.
Kat helped her out of the tub and went into the bedroom to find pajamas for Alyssa. She grabbed a maternity tank and maternity pajama bottoms and handed them to Alyssa.
Kat slept next to Alyssa that night, holding her until she cried herself to sleep.
A few hours later, Alyssa woke with extreme pain in her abdomen. “Ahhhh! Kat, wake up. Something’s wrong.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Kat went from a dead sleep to totally alert in a matter of seconds.
“The baby. I hurt,” she said.
Kat flew out of bed at lightning speed and called rescue. Alyssa was in premature labor.
“Try not to fight it, Lys. We need to get you to the hospital to stop these contractions. Hang in there, baby.”
Five minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
“Rescue!” they called out.
Kat swung the door open. “Jack! It’s Alyssa. She’s in premature labor. Her contractions are about ten minutes apart. She’s in the bedroom.”
“Alyssa? Pregnant?”
“Not now Jack.”
They followed her into the bedroom where Alyssa lay on her side clutching her stomach.
Jack knelt beside her. “Hi, Lys. Everything is going to be okay, honey. We need to get you on the gurney, okay?”
Alyssa began sobbing. “Please save my baby, Jack.”
He and his partner hooked her up to an IV and pushed magnesium sulfate to stop the contractions.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Kat said, getting into John’s vehicle.
Jack held her hand while en route to the hospital.
They wheeled her into the ER when they arrived where nurses and physicians took over.
Kat met Jack in the lobby.
“What the hell is going on Kat?” he asked.
“What do you mean? She’s in premature labor.”
“She’s pregnant. When did this all happen? And where is the father? And whose house did I walk into earlier?”
“Sam and Alyssa’s,” she told him.
“Sam who?”
“Sam McKiernan.”
“What? I had heard he had finally fallen for a girl but I didn’t realize it was my Alyssa. Fuck me,” he said. He ran his hand through his hair.
“For starters, asshole, she’s not yours. You threw her away for that bimbo . . . what was her name? Skank?”
“Come on, Kat. I loved Alyssa. I made a mistake.”
“A big one.”
“Well. I’m going to rectify it. I’m off shift in an hour. I’ll be back in plain clothes then.”
“You don’t have to stick a
round. I can take care of her.”
“It was always a pissing contest with you, wasn’t it? You couldn’t stand me being in her life; her needing someone other than you.”
Kat narrowed her eyes and stood face to face with him.
“You’ve never deserved her, Jack. She’s always been too good for you. That’s why I didn’t like you.”
“I’ll be back in one hour.”
“Asshole,” she hissed.
Her phone rang. It was Connor.
“What?”
“Hey. Why are you mad at me?”
She sighed. “I’m not mad at you. Alyssa went into premature labor and now we’re at the hospital. If the paramedics had been any later, she would have delivered. Her contractions were getting dangerously close to a point of no return; meds or no meds.”
“Oh my God! Is she okay? I need to go wake up Sam. I need to tell him”
“Fuck him, Connor.”
“No it was a huge misunderstanding. You missed the fireworks around here once you left. Mom was magnificent.”
Kat smiled at that. She couldn’t wait to hear the story now but Dr. Evans just came out and was standing in front of her.
“Connor, I need to go.”
“I’m waking everyone up now. Love you. See you soon. Kiss Alyssa for me.”
“I will.”
She disconnected the call and looked at her colleague. She’s seen that look a thousand times and it was never because good things were happening.
“How is she? Can I go in and see her?”
Chapter Nineteen
Connor reached into his pocket to grab his keycard. It wasn’t there. He checked his other pocket in the breast of his jacket. Nothing. “Well, I guess we know how Tiffany got in. The bitch stole my keycard. I must have put it on the bar when I grabbed my wallet and forgot about it. Wait here. I’ll get management.” He sped down the hallway to the elevator and returned five minutes later with a new keycard in hand. He opened the door and let his parents pass through first.
“Sam! Where are you?” He stopped short when he walked into the bedroom doorway and saw Tiffany holding her crumpled dress to her chest in an effort to cover her now naked body. Sam was in the same position Alyssa had seen him in. Passed out. John placed a pillow over his exposed man parts.
“What have you done?” Sylvia closed in on Tiffany.
“Nothing we haven’t done before.”
“Don’t get smart with me, you little bitch.”
“Who are you calling a little bitch?”
The McKiernans turned to see Mark and Gertie behind them in the living room. They had heard what had happened and came upstairs to investigate.
“Your daughter, Gertie. I’m calling your daughter a little bitch,” Sylvia said.
Gertie walked up to Sylvia and slapped her across the face. Sylvia slapped her back.
“That’s enough!” John and Mark said in unison.
Connor looked at Mike with a shit eating grin on his face.
“You don’t see this every day,” he said.
“Shut up, Con.”
Sylvia turned back to Tiffany. “You’ve been nothing but trouble, young lady. And I’ve had just about enough! You need to go back to California and screw up your own life; leave my son out of it . . . for good!” She turned to her son. “And what the hell is wrong with him?” she asked John.
“Don’t talk to my daughter that way. Tiffany come here. We’re leaving.” Tiffany skirted past Sylvia into her parents protection. Gertie looked back at Sylvia. “Our friendship is over!”
“Well, at least you’ve got something right,” Sylvia responded.
John shook Sam. “Hey. Get up.” No response. He did it again. Nothing. He felt for a pulse. “He’s alive.”
“He won’t be once I’m done with him,” Sylvia threatened.
“Looks like our boy got good and drunk this time,” Connor said. He walked into the bathroom and filled a cup with water and poured it over the Sam’s face.
“What the . . .” Sam sat up holding his head. “Ugh! My head is pounding. What happened?” He looked down at his attire. “And why the fuck are my pants down to my knees?”
He looked at the four of them. He pulled his pants back up and buttoned them.
“What happened? What happened? I’ll tell you what happened young man.” Connor and Mike slowly retreated into the living room and closed the bedroom door. Their mother was scary when she was mad.
“You got piss drunk, ignored your pregnant girlfriend who came up here and caught you and Tiffany having sex!”
“What? I didn’t have sex with her! I passed out right when you left, Dad. I swear. The room was spinning. How did she even get in here?”
“She stole Connor’s keycard and she was naked when we got here. She and her parents just left.”
Sam laid back down on the bed and covered his face with his hands.
“Fuck. That means she had to have been on top of me probably grinding against me when Alyssa walked in. There’s no way in hell she could have gotten me hard in my drunken state.”
“Your mother is in the room, Sam.”
Sam peeked at his mother. “Sorry, Mom.”
She folded her arms across her chest and nodded.
“You need to make this right . . . with Alyssa.”
“I know. I know. What time is it?”
“11:30.”
Sam grabbed his cell from his pants pocket and called her cell. No answer.
“I need someone to drive me home. I need to talk to her.”
“No. We all need to go to bed. We will leave first thing tomorrow morning. I think Alyssa has had enough drama for one day. She needs to rest.”
“Yea. You’re right. I’m so sorry guys.”
“We’re not the ones you need to apologize to,” Sylvia said. “Peter and Elizabeth deserve one as well.”
Sam nodded his head, defeated. He should have never started dating Tiffany in the first place. She was a first class sociopath.
John, Sylvia and Mike left Connor and Sam.
“You okay?” Connor asked.
“No.”
“So what really happened? We shut the door when mom started yelling. I thought she was going to kill you. She went all banshee crazy on you but we couldn’t hear your replies though the door.”
Sam recapped what he suspected had happened. Connor shook his head and laughed.
“That’s fucked up, man.”
“Tell me about it. I think it’s the first time that I’ve gotten a woman off and didn’t even know it.”
“The chick has serious mental problems.”
“You think?”
“So now what?”
“I go home to Alyssa with my tail between my legs and beg her to forgive me.”
Connor patted him on the knee and chuckled. “Good luck with that.”
“Piss off!”
* * * * *
Early the next morning Connor flew into his room shouting his name.
“Get up. Sam, Alyssa’s in the hospital.”
“What?” Sam bolted out of bed and got dressed. “What the hell happened? Is she okay? Is my baby okay?”
He scurried around the room in a panic gathering his and Alyssa’s items. He found a pair of shorts and hastily put them on.
“She went into premature labor last night Kat said.”
Sam stopped dead in his tracks and looked at his brother.
“Con, did she deliver our baby?” he whispered, frightened for the answer.
Connor shook his head. “No. Kat said the paramedic gave her meds to stop the contractions in time but she had been very close. If Rescue hadn’t come when they did, the situation might have been different.”
Sam was an EMT. He knew enough about pregnancies and when it was relatively safe to deliver a baby early and chances of survival being favorable. Alyssa wasn’t there yet. He said a silent prayer as he continued to pack.
“I’ll go wake Mom and Dad. Dad gave K
at the keys to his car to bring Alyssa home so they need to ride with us.”
Sam nodded. “Tell them to hurry.”
“No worries there. Mom is really going to want to kill you now.”
Sam cringed. He had no doubt about that statement. This was all his fault. No. This was Tiffany’s fault. But if he hadn’t been so drunk this would have never happened. He prayed that Alyssa would understand.
Chapter Twenty
“Hi, sweet face,” Kat said, walking towards Alyssa. “I just spoke to Dr. Evans and he is going to admit you for at least a week. If all goes well, you’ll be able to go home after that.”
Alyssa nodded. “He told me.”
“You were dangerously close to delivering this baby. How are you feeling?”
“Scared.”
Kat sat on the edge of the bed and held her hand.
“I know. On the plus side, I’ve picked up more shifts this week so I’ll be close by should anything happen.”
“Thank you.”
“Alyssa?” Both Kat and Alyssa turned to the form in the doorway.
“Jack.”
Jack walked to the bed and took Alyssa’s free hand. Kat glared at him.
“Thank you for saving my baby.” A tear escaped and fell down her cheek.
Jack knelt by the bed and stroked her arm with his other hand.
“Hey now. Everything is going to be all right,” he said.
“Why are you here?” she asked him.
“There’s a lot I want to say to you but it can wait. Now is not the time.”
Alyssa nodded.
Two nurses walked in. “Kat. We’re going to wheel her up to the third floor. Can you help us?”
“Absolutely.”
The three ladies wheeled Alyssa to the elevator. Jack walked behind them. “I’ll take the next car up,” he said.
Kat gave him a warning look but said nothing.