by Lainey Reese
“Just stop moving so much, all right? For my sake?” Luke motioned as if he were trying to place a force field around her. “Just hold still, and I’ll get the apples. Just point to the ones you want, and I’ll pick ‘em. Okay?” At his adorably pleading tone, Andie relented, cupped one hand under her belly, and pointed at the apple she had been about to pick. When Luke walked to where she was pointing, he stood directly in front of her and, with is eyes locked to hers, plucked the apple that swayed at her temple. Then his lips were on hers, and Andie felt her giggles melt like sugar on her tongue. Sunlight dripped through the full trees and warmed her upturned face while his kiss warmed her from the inside.
Without warning, the heat he kindled became uncomfortable. Andie’s brow furrowed, and her hand slipped automatically to the side of her belly, where she felt a strange sort of pressure. Confused, Andie pulled back and looked into Luke’s eyes questioningly. Before a single word escaped, Andie felt a tightening across her midriff that made her gasp in surprise.
“What?” Luke’s hand covered hers on a belly that had gone hard as stone. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“I-I don’t know.” Andie felt that band loosen, and as it did, she felt a rush of relief with it. “I think so. That was weird. Everything got really tight, like I was flexing my muscles, only I wasn’t and couldn’t relax it.” She wasn’t prepared for the way the color drained from his face.
“We’re going to hospital. Now.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and apples tumbled to the ground unnoticed.
“What? Luke, no,” Andie protested, trying to laugh off the icy fear his stricken expression caused in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t be silly. It was probably just gas. I’ve heard some stories about pregnant women and gas pain, let me tell you.” But he didn’t appear to hear her objections, or rather give a damn about them.
“I’ve been through this before, remember?” If he had sounded his old bossy and sarcastic self, she could have argued with him and kept her worries at bay. But Luke’s voice was exceedingly gentle. “We’re going to go in and have the doc take a look at you, and if it was all for nothing, then at least we’ll know. That sound all right? Let’s just go see. Just to be safe.” He led her gently but insistently back the way they’d come.
“What’s going on?” Kiki’s voice was sharp with worry when she caught sight of them heading back toward Luke’s truck. “Are you okay, Andie?”
Andie opened her mouth to tell her friend she was fine, but then she felt a horrible rush of liquid. Shock had her gaping down as fluid, so much fluid, splashed to the ground between her feet. That tightening was back, stronger than before, and it turned her belly to stone. Everyone froze. Shock, she guessed, this must be what shock looks like. The moment lasted forever, and Andie felt like she was caught in some kind of Twilight Zone type nightmare as they all just stood there gaping while that puddle she was making got bigger and bigger.
“Oh, God. Fuck, no, shit!” Kiki was the first to break the spell, her panicked croak ricocheting around them like machinegun fire.
With an anguished, half-muffled sound, Luke scooped her on one side when Jax bounded off the porch and swooped in to pick her up from the other side. The two men who could hardly stand to be in the same room together grasped hands to form a sort of cradle and carried her the rest of the way to the truck.
Not knowing what to feel or even really understanding what was happening, Andie was nonetheless humbled. These men were practically comic book nemesis, and yet here they were, literally bonding together to help her. She was so touched by the moment tears stung her eyes, and she loved them both so much right then she didn’t know if she’d be able to contain the breadth of emotion that swelled. The emotion felt too big to hold in, like she would explode if she tried.
“Guys?” Andie said, choking on the effort to hold herself together. “I think I just peed. I think I’m okay. It’s just gas. And pee. I’m fine. We’re fine. You can put me down. I’m fine.” But they didn’t put her down or even slow down. Because it wasn’t pee, and she didn’t have gas, and Andie felt that emotion she tried to contain shift and morph within her, changing from joy and gratitude to something dark and sinister. An emotion that had teeth.
Kiki beat them to the truck and had the door open when they got there. Andie reached out to her as soon as the guys got her eased into the cab.
“Don’t leave me.” Andie’s voice sounded like a squeak to her own ears, but Kiki didn’t hesitate. She gave the backs of Andie’s fingers a quick kiss then clamored up and over until she was crouched in the back of Luke’s cluttered king cab. Then Luke leaned over to buckle her seatbelt and their baby kicked. They both felt it and froze momentarily while their eyes met. She was in labor, and it was way too early, and to Andie, that kick convinced her they weren’t the only ones frightened. Their baby was too. Andie’s control snapped, and that monstrous emotion she’d been trying to rein in broke loose. It used teeth and claws to rip her insides to shreds. Tears, choking, and heart-stopping sobs of fear ruled her now, and as her arms cradled the life she felt struggling within her, Luke bolted around the hood to his side then raced them to the hospital with a white-knuckled grip on the wheel and fear etched in every line of his body.
“What’s happening?” Kiki pleaded.
“Her water broke and she’s in labor.” Kiki knew it already. Of course, she knew it, but she still felt compelled to ask the question from Andie’s solemn-eyed doctor. The confirmation only solidified her fear. It was now embedded within her, a festering tick, engorging in her gut like a cancerous mass.
“But the baby?” she choked out, the words acid on her tongue. “Will the baby be okay?”
“Time is our enemy now.” The doctor’s cool gray eyes held an inescapable truth in them that Kiki hated. The look in them gave her no place to hide from this oh-so-grim reality they were facing, and Kiki hated her for it. Where were the empty platitudes and reassurances? Where were the “there, there” and “everything is going to be all rights”?
“She’s not quite six months along. At this stage, the baby is too small, and the lungs won’t be developed enough for it to breathe on its own. The baby is so small we don’t even have needles or tubes small enough to aid us. That’s on the slim chance the baby survives the birth.”
Kiki wanted to punch her. She wanted to claw into this cool, collected woman who spoke these soul-crushing words with such calm composure. She wasn’t unkind or dispassionate; on the contrary, she was like a port in this storm of turmoil and fear. Maybe that’s why Kiki hated her so much. There she stood like a beacon of safety, and yet she offered no hope.
“Make it stop.” Andie’s voice was haggard with the tears she tried to contain; one hand clung to Kiki’s while the other was engulfed in both Luke’s. “Please. Please, make it stop.” Her imploring eyes bounced between the doctor and Luke. When she found no solace there, she turned those desperate eyes her way, and Kiki would have given anything—anything—to have the power to stop this. To change the fate of this dreadful day and make everything okay again. Kiki felt as if the fear and pain were filling up the whole room until she was going to suffocate in it. She lifted her eyes from her best friend’s desperate plea to meet Luke’s across from her, and it was even worse there. The man looked as though he were facing a firing squad; terrified and resigned, he could see the end coming, and he was just as helpless to fight it as the rest of them were.
Kiki bent, laid her lips on her friend’s temple, and felt how cold she was. Dread had leeched all the warmth from Andie’s skin, and Kiki’s chin wobbled as she pressed her lips in a kiss meant to convey all the words she couldn’t say. Words that would adequately describe all she felt in this moment hadn’t been invented yet, so Kiki did the only thing she could. She tucked her head into the pillow next to Andie and cried with her, sharing her friend’s pain as deeply as she had shared her joy.
“I don’t wanna do it. No! No, I don’t wanna do it. Not if the baby won’t live. No. God
, please no. Knock me out or something. Please don’t make me go through this if my baby’s only going to die!” The desperate pleading was devastating in its quiet delivery. Andie’s cry was muffled into Kiki’s neck and for her ears alone. It was the hopeless prayer of a child trying to wish away the monsters that lurked in the night. But today, the monsters were all too real. And there was no escaping them.
Kiki heard a stifled sob and looked across the bed to see Luke on Andie’s other side, clutching her free hand and glaring at the monitors. If he could stop things with will alone, the world would cease its turning with that look. The effort he was putting into holding back his fear brought a fresh rush of sorrow to Kiki. Andie wasn’t the only one losing a child today. The wave of sorrow that realization brought almost drowned her.
With trembling lips and a quivering chin, Kiki pressed a watery kiss to Andie’s temple then reached out to give Luke’s tightly clenched fists a squeeze. “I am going to find Jax and Logan, make sure they made it okay and know where we are.” When Andie stiffened and turned panicked eyes her way, Kiki’s anguish multiplied. “I’ll be back in a jiff. Luke’s going to be right here. He’s—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Luke said, his voice rough gravel amidst the beeping and buzzing of the hospital room. Andie’s gaze swung his way as if she’d forgotten he was there—or maybe forgotten this was his tragedy as much as it was hers.
“Oh, Luke,” Andie sobbed. “Our baby.” The last came out nearly inaudible, and yet it echoed louder than any of the machines. Like the final drop of water breaking a dam, Kiki watched as Luke lost his battle with control. Chest heaving, tears flooding, Luke braced his elbows on the bed, bowed his head, and gave in to the storm of emotions battering him. His grief as rending as Andie’s, and it stopped the breath in her lungs to see it.
Andie tugged until Luke released her, and then she wrapped both arms around him, and they clung to each other, mother and father adrift in an ocean of anguish. Kiki backed away slowly. Leaving felt like sawing off a limb with a rusty blade, but this was a moment for the two of them. As much as she loved Andie and had grown to love Luke, this loss was theirs, and she was going to give them the space they needed to get through it.
Out in the hall, she saw Jax and Logan barreling her way with the matching expressions of shipwreck survivors. When Logan caught her eyes, she saw a desperate hope fill his, and she would’ve given all she owned to give him the reassurance he sought.
“I’m sorry, Logan,” she told him before he could ask questions she didn’t have the answers for. “They’re saying if the baby comes now, there’s no hope.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes, and she rubbed them away with a rough palm then told him the rest. “And the baby’s coming. They’re trying to stop the labor, b-bu-b-but—” And she cracked, unable to finish. She didn’t need to though. The horrible truth was already evident, and Kierra covered her face with her hands and let the grief come. When Jax’s arms engulfed her, she welcomed his warmth, burrowed into it, and clung while fear and sorrow had their way.
“It’s going to be all right.”
It wasn’t, but she didn’t contradict Jax, knew he was only trying to comfort her.
Logan moved aside, and Kiki lifted her head to see him drift to stand in the open doorway. New cracks of pain broke into her chest as she watched the young man look into the room where his unborn sibling struggled for life. He looked so young, she thought, too young to face an ordeal of this magnitude, yet too old to be told to not worry about it and go out and play.
Kiki pulled away from Jax slowly, tapped his arm, and indicated with her eyes where her attention had gone, and the two of them moved as one toward Logan. She had no idea what either of them could do to help, but they were going to offer what comfort they could. Unfortunately, when Logan caught their move in his direction, his expression shuttered up and he stepped back. When they continued to close in, he lifted both hands in the air and backed farther away.
“I can’t. I just can’t be here. It’s too much. Tell Dad. Tell him—” He gulped, looked back to the room in despair, and then closed his mouth, turned on his heel, and fled. Kiki tried to go after him, but Jax didn’t let her. “Leave him be.” She turned drenched eyes his way. “C’mon. Let’s find coffee and a waiting room. Logan’s a good kid. Smart. If he needs to step away for a while, nothing we can do about that. Let him process the way he needs to process. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”
“M'kay,” Kiki gave in reluctantly. She didn’t like to think of Logan out there dealing with this on his own, but Jax was right. She had no option but to let him. It wasn’t like she could order the boy back.
They found a vending area that offered rancid coffee in one machine while the other three offered a wide variety of stale and repulsive-looking snacks. After she and Jax made their selections, they wandered to a waiting room close to where Andie was. It was a maternity ward though, and it only took thirty seconds of sitting in a room surrounded by photos of happy, healthy babies before they both fled out the door without needing to say a word. Theirs was not a joyous wait, and the smiles of anticipation on the faces of the others there were more than either could bare.
So they walked. Kiki didn’t know when they started holding hands; she only realized that, as they made their third or fourth lap of the ward, she wasn’t as afraid as she’d been on the first go-round. When she looked down to see her fingers tightly entangled with his, her heart did a funny little flip; not joy, no, there was no place for joy during this time. But something, something small yet monumental was happening between them as they paced and worried. She hoped whatever was trying to grow between them now didn’t get strangled by the weeds of despair growing with it.
Chapter 16
“I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this. Not today.” Sharon had been expecting this.
“If not today, then it’s just going to keep festering until you do. He’s known we’ve been back for months now, and he hasn’t come calling or answered the notes we left on his door.” She rubbed a calming hand over Christy’s shoulder. They were parked in front of some beautiful, old country farmhouse out in the middle of Bumfuck. Sharon had no idea how Christy could tell where they were out here; all the orchards and fields looked the same and they’d driven miles without seeing anything she could’ve used as a landmark. It baffled her that Christy had driven straight here without getting lost. Twenty years later, and she still remembered where everything was.
“I know,” Christy hedged, stalling for time. “I thought it sounded like a good idea back at home. But now that we’re here, I can’t believe we decided to bother him at work. We should go.” Before she could restart the car, Sharon pulled the keys from the ignition.
“No, you don’t.” She steeled her resolve against the beautiful pleading eyes her lover flashed her way. “I’m not letting you chicken out. We decided to do it here, because you didn’t want to risk having another run-in with Logan’s dad again. And it’s not like we’re expecting him to sit down and have an hour-long chat with us. We’re just going to invite him for lunch. That’s it. That’s all.”
“But this feels like an ambush, doing it at work, where he’s not free to say what’s on his mind. He’s bound to want to yell at me.” Christy firmed her chin, lifting it with a determined glint in her eye. “He has the right to yell. He should be free to say what he wants.”
“Okay, Joan of Arc.” Sharon tried to keep her own expression neutral. Her girl was never one to pass up the opportunity to be dramatic. “Look, I agree the boy is going to have some pretty strong feelings about you, and I agree he should be able to express them. But do you think I’m going to sit by and let anyone tear into you, regardless of the reason? Well, you haven’t been paying much attention to the woman you fell in love with.” Christy’s expression softened when she tore her gaze from the house to meet Sharon’s. “People aren’t allowed to be rude, or cruel, or mean. He can say all he wants about how he feels, but you know I’m n
ot about to let some kid—even your kid—hurl insults at you. I think making this first step here where he works is gonna be best. That way, we can get a good handle on the situation. See if he’s going to try to freak out on you. If he can keep his cool at work, then we can reasonably trust he’ll be able to stay calm away from work too.”
“Okay, good point.” Christy turned her blue eyes back toward the big house and took a couple deep breaths like she was preparing to go underwater. “This is just a quick test run. He can see me. I can see him. We’ll pick a day to meet and then be gone. Then we’ll both have time to process before we actually have to talk.” The words sounded rational, but when Christy lifted her hands from their white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Sharon saw they weren’t just shaking; they were quaking. Her girl was terrified.
Sharon leaned across the distance separating them, took Christy’s face between her palms, and held her until blue eyes met brown. “You got this, baby girl.” She kissed soft pink lips and tasted the bubble gum Christy loved. “You’re his mother, and you’re back. It may take time, but God, sweetie, if he gives you even half a chance, he’s going to love you so much. I promise. How could he not? You’re amazing.”
“How do you do that?” Christy was looking at her with an expression of wonder on her pretty face.
“Do what?” Sharon asked.
“Make everything bad melt away.” She was gazing at her with such open adoration in her expression that Sharon felt humbled.
“I love you. Love is supposed to cancel out the bad. Or at least make it bearable.” It was Christy’s turn to touch. Sharon felt her lover’s cool, slender fingers slide up her neck and gently play with her retro chandelier earrings.
“I wouldn’t have the courage to come back here without you. Do you know that? Have I told you how much you mean to me? I wish we had met years ago. God, I wish we had met as teens. Nothing in my life made sense until you came along. My whole world was upside down until you loved me. If I had known this was what love was supposed to feel like, I would have waited for you.” Those lips that looked as fresh and pink as the bubble gum they tasted of brushed against Sharon’s and made her gasp a little at the perfection of it. “Nothing compares to what you make me feel.” She kissed her again, deeper. “Nothing even comes close.” Then they were kissing in earnest, tongues and lips meshing as they clung to each other as close as the confines of the car would allow.