Page 68 of Savior

I slump on a chair and put my head between my knees. “I’m sorry, man. I’m just a little out of it.”

Someone claps a hand on my shoulder. I can’t be bothered to look up because I’m focusing all of my energy into not throwing up all over their feet.

“You’d think a cop and a Marine would be used to emergency situations,” Jack says.

Sofie snorts. “We’ve already established you were no better.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “but it’s so much more fun when it’s not happening to me.”

The patterns on the floor are starting to give me a headache so I just shut my eyes. “I hate all of you.”

“Poor guy,” Livvie says. “I always said having kids was worse on the men than the women. And we’re the ones who do all the hard work!”

“Why did they send you out of there, anyway?” Ben plops down on the chair next to me.

“Sienna told me to go before I punched the doctor.”

“So you punched me instead?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Shouldn’t be long now,” Livvie says.

I groan into my hands and then stand up and hope the room doesn’t decide to turn on its head. “I’d better get back.”

“Don’t worry,” Sofie says from behind me. “You’re going to do great!”

I don’t have as much faith, but I shoulder through the door to the hospital room anyway. Much as I’d rather turn and high-tail in the other direction, I can’t leave Sienna. She’s probably terrified.

Instead of finding her wild-eyed and screaming at the nurses, I find her laughing and chatting with them. I rush to her side and take one of her hands in mine. She looks up at me and smiles. “There you are.”

“How are you doing? Is everything okay?” I look to the nurse who’s standing at the end of the bed, but she just smiles at me.

“Well, things are going good—” she breaks off, and her face crumples. She takes my hand and draws in a deep breath through her nose.

The contraction lasts a hell of a long time, but I focus on brushing her hair back from her face and stroking her arm until it passes. When it does, she blinks up at me. “Hey,” she says.

I kiss her brow. “Hey.”

“So I have some news.”

“News.”

“Yeah. Well remember how you didn’t want to know the baby’s sex?”

Frowning, I straighten. “Yes?” The word is drawn out. “Where are you going with this?”

“Well, since you wouldn’t let me tell you, I couldn’t tell you—”

I put my hand over her mouth. “Don’t you dare. I don’t care what we’re having so long as he or she is healthy.”

“But—”

I don’t have time to cut her off because another contraction hits, and she grits her teeth.

“Shh, it’ll be okay,” I say. Then I find myself echoing Ben’s advice. “Breathe, just breathe.”

When it passes, she’s panting. “They’re coming closer together,” she says.