When I called her, she was pale and not her usual bubbly self. Somehow, we had gotten on the subject of who was at the after party and to be frank, I hadn’t really taken much notice because I’d been chatting with Craig and a couple of guys from the supporting band.
“Are you okay, babe?”
“Mm-hm,” she said and may as well have said, ‘No I’m fucking not.’ I knew her better than that.
“Is it because I’m at a party without you? You know you can trust me, Valerie. I swear—”
“I’m not insecure, just feeling…barrel-like when that party is probably full of long-legged, tall, thin model types or sweet girls cute on the outside, but who’ve been to plenty of rodeos.”
“And they’d be riding who…me?” I said, knowing how pissed off with her I’d sounded. What I’d loved about Valerie previously was I’d never once heard her gripe about her changing body shape until that moment. She hadn’t seemed self-conscious about being pregnant after the news was out there.
Staring at the screen I saw her eyes glisten with tears, and immediately wanted to kick my own balls for hurting her.
“Stop. Don’t you dare cry. Valerie, my balls think my dick’s lost its homing device, my brain keeps fucking with my dick all day long about getting some pussy, and I haven’t even hugged another woman since we said goodbye nearly a month ago. And you know what? I’d give anything to hold you close to me right now…just have you near me, than fuck every pussy that’s parading around that room combined.”
Valerie giggled through her tears, “I know…I just…miss you, and it’s only five more days,” she whispered and tucked her hair behind her ears for something to do. She was trying not to lose it and all I wanted was to be with her.
“Babe, you’re the only one for me. Understand? Never doubt that. I have to go, but we’ll talk later, okay? Take care of that baby of ours and I promise I’ll call soon.”
I closed the Skype call out and turned to Lee. “Get me a plane. I don’t give a fuck how much it costs or who’s got to get out of bed. I’m going home to see my girl.”
*****
Weaving our way up the drive to the cabin at 4:10 am, I was dead on my feet, but my heart felt full at the thought of finally slipping into bed beside her. Imagining her warm little body next to me and putting a smile on her face was all I’d wanted to do. Valerie was worth the three-hour flight, and the drive from the airport. It meant leaving around eight that evening to catch up with the band in Tennessee the next day, but I could have cared less.
Her bedside light came on as soon as I’d entered the cabin, “It’s okay, babe, it’s me,” I’d said not wanting to scare her.
“Flynn?” she screamed unable to contain her shock.
I reached the top of the mezzanine and she clumsily rose to a sitting position.
Rubbing both eyes with her index finger and thumb she cleared the sleep then started to cry, “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to make you come home. I was just feeling a little lost without you,” she blurted through watery tears, as I sat on the bed. I placed my hands on either side of her face and brought her lips to mine.
“Shh, I’m here. I’ve missed you so much, babe.” I whispered softly.
The smell of her jasmine and pear shampoo, and her familiar scent on her neck gave me a sensory overload. It felt like I was home. I was home. I brushed her tears from her cheeks with my thumbs and kissed her salty tear-stained lips. Valerie moaned softly and sighed as her body slumped back when I claimed her mouth in a punishing kiss.
Breathless, I pulled away, my passion to comfort her turning to desire, and I lay her back on the pillow and shrugged and tugged myself out of my clothes. Pulling back the thin comforter I slid in beside her and my foot slid down the long silky skin on her leg.
Turning her away from me I kissed her neck tenderly for long minutes before I wrapped my arms around her from behind. One hand cupped her tender breast, and she winced while my other hand slid across her belly. I can’t describe the way it had made me feel that night to be everything she needed in that one small gesture.
Valerie’s breathing evened out and deepened, and I knew she was asleep. We hadn’t even spoken but a few words since I’d arrived home. All we’d needed was to hold each other. I lay there in the dark, and all I could think about was how much I loved her and kicked myself for not coming home overnight before.
My thoughts were interrupted by the strong, rolling movements inside Valerie’s belly, and once again my heart squeezed and filled to bursting at the thought I was going to be a father. I held Valerie and her belly and felt my family in my hands until dawn cracked through the blinds when I think eventually I fell asleep.
I woke to a sticky feeling below the sheets and for a split second, I thought I’d had a wet dream I hadn’t remembered. Pushing the comforter down, I jumped in fear when I saw a dark red blood stain between Valerie’s legs and down one of mine. Panic set in and I was on my feet before I’d even drawn another breath.
“Valerie?” I shouted, alarmed and confused about what to do. I fumbled for my phone and called 911. Something in me wouldn’t allow me to call her mom. Valerie stretched, and her eyes sprang open.
“What’s wrong?”
My heart was struggling for rhythm as I tried desperately to sound calm.
“It’s okay hon, you’ve bled a little, is the baby moving okay?”
Shock registered in her eyes and on her face as she eased the rest of the comforter back not really wanting to look.
Her eyes caught mine, and I saw the frightened look in them. Easing to the side of the bed her hand slid to her belly.
“The ambulance is coming, Valerie,” I said noting she hadn’t answered about the baby, and I was too terrified to ask again.
As soon as I said it, I thought I was wasting time, “What do you say we get you into the car and meet it on the way?”
Valerie nodded, and I helped her out of the bed, put a t-shirt and warm robe around her and carried her downstairs. She rang Lee while we walked, and within two minutes I had loaded her into the back seat. Lee had grabbed a couple of towels for Valerie, and she lay on her side like the doctor had told her to. The white towels were to gauge how much blood she was losing.
The fact there was no more bleeding other than what we’d seen, was comforting on one hand, but we’d both read that placental abruptions can be ‘silent’ as well, meaning it was possible for something to be going on without it showing.
Lee drove as fast as he could, avoiding the bumps in the road, and I called the ambulance people to tell them we weren’t waiting. I told them the make of the car and the call center advisor passed the information on to the ambulance dispatch.
Less than five minutes later, we’d met at a service area and transferred Valerie into the ambulance. The paramedic immediately took her blood pressure, cannulized her, and set up an intravenous drip of an opaque looking liquid to reduce shock. Oxygen was administered through nasal tubes, and her vital signs were good. It was only when he thought that Valerie was stable he listened to our baby with a hand-held sonogram.
Bump- bump- bump—the regular beat of his heart made Valerie cry, and I let out a long ragged breath of relief. While I’d sat holding her hand, I tried to be strong, but I’d felt like my world was falling apart before my eyes. I stared in frightened silence watching some guy she’d never met give her what I couldn’t for once. I’d never been so helpless where Valerie was concerned.
When the attendant reached up and took another syringe out, he attached a large needle, before he thumbed through a box containing drugs. I wondered what he was doing. Pulling out a small rectangular box he quickly snapped the top of a small glass vial container, and drew the clear liquid contents into the syringe.
“As you’re only thirty two weeks pregnant, Valerie, we need to take some precautions and try to help the baby’s lungs. This is a steroid that will help mature them and give your baby a better chance to breathe on his own, should they need
to deliver you.”
Valerie squeezed my hand and looked terrified. Her eyes pleaded for reassurance.
“It’s okay, babe. We talked about this. We knew he might come early. You’ve done a great job hanging in as long as you have. Look at his parents, we’re fighters. He’s going to do just fine,” I said trying to sound as if I believed my words. I wasn’t comforted by them—I was talking bullshit. What the fuck do I know about any of this? Please God, I’ll do anything. Please don’t take them away from me.
Dr. Clark was waiting at the entrance for her. The staff wanted to transfer her to another gurney, but the doctor barked for them to stop wasting time, and helped move the machines from the back of the ambulance that were still attached to her. Within seconds, we were all running with the gurney down the white polished floor. When I saw the operating room sign, I almost lost it.
An orderly in a white uniform said, “You have to wait here, Mr. Docherty, Valerie’s safety comes first.”
I’d wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves, I was staying with her because my heart was beating out of my chest in fear that I might lose them, but I didn’t. I couldn’t interfere because every second counted, so I stopped suddenly and watched them take her away from me. My heart shredded as my hand covered my mouth and supported my head. I chewed on his asshole words, and all I could think of was that I’d never even gotten a chance to tell Valerie I loved her before she’d gone in.
I was still standing staring bleakly at the heavy white operating room doors when Lee caught up with me. He hadn’t been able to ride in the ambulance with us and had followed in the car behind us.
“Come here,” he said, gruffly. “I’m not your employee tonight, Flynn, I’m your friend and you sure as fuck look like you could do with one.”
Constricting muscles in my throat made me swallow with difficulty, and even though I hadn’t wanted to cry in front of him, the tears fell anyway.
“Can you tell me what’s going on? What did they say, Flynn?”
My eyes scanned the ceiling while I tried to suck up the overwhelming feeling of fear. My world had just been turned upside down, and I’d stood by watching it spiraling out of control. There was an ear-piercing scream in the distance, and even though I knew it wasn’t Valerie, I sunk to my knees on the floor.
Within seconds, I was transported back in time to the traumatic scene in the hallway of my childhood home where my mother lay dead on the floor, and my brother rocked backward. I’d heard a terrified scream like the one I’d just heard, before he too, hit the floor and lay lifeless.
My head buzzed with white noise, and an echo coincided with my tingling lips before everything faded to black.
“Jesus, Flynn. Are you okay?”
Staring up in a confused state at Lee, I glanced around the corridor. I was lying on the cool floor and noticed the blue plastic seats that were arranged along one wall. It was a few seconds before I remembered where I was. When I did, I felt my chest tighten again and my head started to swim, I knew I was about to throw up.
Struggling to my feet, I cupped my hands over my mouth, and staggered toward the picture sign for the restroom, halfway down from where we were. I didn’t make it and spewed the half-digested contents of the turkey and salad airplane sandwich from the night before, all over the white laminate door.
Lee caught up to me with a nurse, “Don’t worry, Mr. Docherty, I’ll have that taken care of, you’re in shock. Let’s go and sit in the family room, and I’ll see if there’s any news about your wife.”
“She’s not my wife,” I mumbled then felt disgusted for not asking her to marry me before. Properly. Even if she’d said no, at least Valerie would have had that choice.
“Sorry, I’ll find out how Ms. Darsin is for you,” she said pushing open the door to a relaxing mint green painted room. The furnishings were soft and comfortable, and I guessed my impression of it was exactly how it was intended. Calming.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back when I have some information,” the petite blonde nurse said, as she closed the door softly. Lee came and stood beside me, placing his hands on my shoulders. A second later he put enough weight on them to buckle my legs.
“Sit down, boss. You need to get yourself together. Do you want Valerie to see you like this?”
At that point, I hadn’t cared what I looked like, I just wanted to know they were safe, that our baby and she were still alive and okay.
Chapter 38 ~ Flynn
Trying times
Suppressing the overwhelming distress I felt for Valerie and our baby, almost made me lose my cool. I had to muster every ounce of strength I had to not get out of my chair and go looking for the answers to the questions rolling around in my brain. Is she alive? Is our baby okay? Why isn’t someone telling me they’re safe?
So, I sat with my head hung low, bent over with my legs apart and my hands hung between my knees. I felt so inadequate to deal with the new curve ball life had thrown me. My hands had never been so thoroughly inspected as I twisted the long, silver diamond-shaped pinkie ring my foster mom had given me for my eighteenth birthday, while I waited for news.
“What the fuck are they doing in there? How long have we been in here?”
“Forty minutes,” Lee said, as he stood and stretched his arms up above him then placed the flat of his hand on the panel of the door, “Going to grab us coffee, I’m putting sugar in yours after your…dizzy spell. Will you be okay until I come back?”
I stared pointedly at him, “I don’t want a fucking coffee. I want to know what the hell is happening to my family. I’m giving them another five minutes then I’ll find her myself. I just need someone…fuck… anyone…to tell me she’s okay. They’re okay.”
When he left I started making a deal with God, but less than a minute after he’d gone the petite nurse came back, her badge said, Angela Martin. Call me a new age weirdo, but I took that as a sign the man upstairs had heard me. I’d hoped Martin was around, and was looking out for Valerie. A sense of calm came over me, and I watched the nurse’s body language before she spoke. I felt her direct unfaltering eye contact and a soft smile were a good sign as well.
“Dr. Clark is just changing, and he’ll be right out to see you,”
“Is she okay?” I asked, anxiously.
“She’s doing well, Mr. Docherty, but you’ll have to wait for the doctor to explain everything, I wasn’t in there with them. I’m just the messenger,” she added with a small sympathetic smile.
When she’d said, “She’s doing well,” I exhaled long and hard, realizing my breath had caught in my throat the moment she’d entered the room.
Smiling again, she adjusted the blinds to shade some of the sunshine streaming through, “Can I offer you something to drink.”
Fighting feelings of frustration, I declined, Lee was bringing back coffee. And honestly, I didn’t care if I had something to drink. “How long will he be?”
My question had barely passed my lips when I saw the familiar face of Valerie’s doctor through the tiny rectangular window as he opened the door.
“How is she? Is she okay?” I asked as I shot to my feet and yanked the door open the rest of the way.
The doctor put his hand on my shoulder and directed me to sit. I did as he asked, and stared with baited breath as he took a seat beside me. He pulled out a piece of paper and a pen.
“Valerie’s doing well, Flynn. You were right not to wait to get her here. She had a partial placental abruption. As I was scanning her, I found she had a much larger bleed, and I’m afraid we had to do an emergency C-section,” he said, as he drew a diagram on the paper and began to explain. Once he’d made it visual for me, he glanced at me again.
“Can you see why I was concerned?” I did.
My heart began to beat at twice the speed, and Lee opened the door with two cups of coffee in his hands. The shock must have been clear on my face because he quickly crouched down and placed the cups on the coffee table. He reached out and put
his hand on my back in support.
“What is it? What did you tell him,” he asked, anxiously turning to address the doctor in an aggressive tone.
“Valerie was bleeding,” I said. I’d wanted to ask about the baby, but I couldn’t face the answer if he wasn’t okay. Lee went ahead and asked anyway.
Dr. Clark cleared his throat and looked me straight in the eye. I knew instantly I wasn’t going to like what he said, “As you know your baby was only thirty-two weeks in gestation. That means he’s very small, vulnerable to infection, and his organs aren’t mature. He’s doing well at the moment, breathing on his own, and he’ll most likely become jaundiced by his prematurity, but he’s quite stable at present.” Stable at present? That doesn’t mean okay.
When I hadn’t responded he continued, “He’ll lack some of the basics for a while, like his sucking reflex and the ability to regulate his temperature, so he’ll have to be kept warm with the use of an incubator. The staff in the unit will pop a small tube down his nose to feed him whatever breast milk Valerie can provide, and we’ll top that up to what he needs until he’s a little heavier and Valerie is producing enough milk to support him. The staff will give him special care until he’s a bit stronger and can feed on his own.”
My head was spinning as he continued to give me instructions and information I just couldn’t comprehend at that moment. “So Valerie’s had our baby?” I asked, stupidly.
Looking awkwardly at me, the doctor gave me a tense smile, “Someone will come and take you to see him soon. The neonatal staff nurses are preparing to transfer him to our neonatal ICU in a portable incubator as we speak.
Standing, I felt like my brain was saturated with information. I couldn’t absorb anything else, and I needed to see my girl. “I want to see Valerie,” I stated. There was no ‘Please may I?’ or ‘is it okay’s,’ I’d waited patiently and tolerated the bullshit hospital protocols for long enough. I had to see for myself she was all right.
Ready For Flynn, Part 2 : A Rockstar Romance (The Ready For Flynn) Page 33