Page 52 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)
We walk down the hallway in single file, passing the baby giraffe mural and the volunteer, who finally gets her selfie with Grey, and into the delivery wing, where everything smells sharper, more electric.
My heart is pounding, and for a second, I wish it was a playoff game after all. At least then I’d know the rules.
We stop outside the double doors, where a nurse says, “Only one at a time,” and I look at Finn, then Grey, and then back at the door.
I say, “We’ll go in order of height.”
Grey says, “That’s not fair to Finn.”
Finn shrugs. “I’ll keep the bench warm.”
The nurse is confused, but she motions me in first, and I take a breath so deep my lungs almost seize.
Inside, Sage is on the bed, eyes closed, face calm for the first time all night.
I take her hand, and this time she lets me.
She says, “Don’t let them name the babies after hockey positions.”
I promise nothing.
The nurse says, “Doctor will be here any second,” and then it’s just us, the beeping, and the knowledge that everything is about to change.
I squeeze Sage’s hand, look her in the eyes, and say, “You’re the toughest person I know.”
She grins, teeth bared. “Damn right.”
A nurse breezes in with a tray of plastic-wrapped implements, barely giving us time to process before another contraction sweeps through Sage and her eyes go so wide I’m sure they’ll stick that way.
I don’t even have time to stand before she’s gripping my wrist hard enough to bruise.
I have been on the receiving end of many death stares, but this is the first time one of them has felt literal.
The nurse checks under the blanket and says, “You’re not going to believe this, but it’s time,” and then leans her head out the door and shouts for the doctor, who is, I am told, “just coming up the elevator.” The hallway fills with a noise like the start of an air raid.
The rest is an escalating series of scrambles: another nurse flying in and booting up a monitor, Finn reappearing at the bedside with the hospital iPad (password already updated to stormfront3 ), and Grey stepping in with surgical precision to adjust Sage’s pillow, her blanket, and then, when she begins to growl at the world, her entire bed.
Sage is all business now, her sarcasm weaponized into a laser that incinerates every platitude. The nurse says, “Try to focus on your breathing.”
Sage says, “Why, is the baby going to do it for me?” I tell her she’s beautiful, and she tells me to shut up or she’ll bite my hand off.
There’s a brief moment when Finn tries to insert a joke about the birth playlist, but he aborts mission at the look Sage gives him.
Grey, for his part, is a rock. He stands at Sage’s shoulder, one hand on her arm, eyes steady.
He has never looked more like a dad, except maybe when he bought out half a Target “in preparation.”
The doctor finally bursts in, snapping on gloves while apologizing to Sage for being late. “We had twins in 11B,” she says, “but they only have two dads. Looks like you win.”
Sage says, “Does that mean I get an epidural for each of them?” The doctor laughs, but the next contraction hits and nobody is laughing, except maybe Finn, who’s trying to breathe for everyone. The beeps on the monitor accelerate; the nurses begin talking in a code I don’t understand.
The doctor does a quick check and then says, “It’s time to push, Sage. You ready?”
Sage says, “I have literally never been less ready for anything in my life,” but then she grabs both my hand and Grey’s, and, God help us, she starts.
It’s a blur. The room is a beehive of people and motion, but my entire world is Sage’s face and the sound she makes when she pushes.
I have never been so out of control, not even the time I got concussed on the ice and forgot my own middle name for two hours.
The doctor is calmly issuing instructions—“Push, push, push, breathe, rest”—but I hear it only as a rhythm in the background.
Finn is at the foot of the bed, white as a sheet, and narrates the process under his breath, as if he’s the game announcer for an audience of one. “Okay, crowning. Oh my God, that’s so much hair. That’s, like, a helmet of hair. Is that normal? Are we sure that’s normal?”
There is a moment, after the first big push, where the entire room goes silent. Not the literal kind, because the machines are still doing their thing, but it’s as if time holds its breath. Sage stops, eyes closed, sweat beading on her temple, and the rest of us are just waiting.
Then, suddenly, a wail. Not Sage, not any of us, but a voice new and impossibly loud.
The nurse says, “We have a baby,” and the doctor pulls a tiny, squirming human into the light.
It’s so small, so instantly and unmistakably alive, that my knees actually buckle.
I would fall, but Sage is still squeezing my hand.
I can’t look away. The nurse wraps the baby in a blanket and places her on Sage’s chest, and for a second, Sage is perfectly still, as if she is scared to breathe and ruin the moment.
Finn has stopped talking. Grey is blinking so hard I think he might dislodge his eyeballs. I want to cry, or laugh, or say something poetic, but all I can do is stare. The baby has Sage’s eyebrows. They’re already angry at the world.
There isn’t time for much else, because the next contraction hits and the room goes from awe to adrenaline.
The doctor says, “All right, here we go again,” and this time the process is faster, more urgent, and somehow less terrifying, because now we all know what’s coming.
Sage digs in, every muscle in her body straining, and within what feels like seconds but must be minutes, the doctor is holding a second baby, this one so red and slippery I almost drop my phone trying to take a picture.
The second baby is quieter, eyes open and darting, and the nurse says, “You got a little thinker here.”
Finn says, “Did you see that? They came out with a fist!” And for some reason this makes Sage laugh, which triggers the third and final contraction.
The last baby is the smallest, and for a second, the room tenses.
The nurse moves quick, suctioning and patting, and then there’s a cry, weaker than the first but gaining power by the second.
Sage doesn’t even look tired now. She’s looking for the baby, reaching with both arms, and when the nurse hands her the little bundle, she smiles so wide I think it might split her face.
Grey is next to her, one hand on her back, and he says, “You did it,” in a voice so soft I barely hear him.
I am still holding Sage’s hand, but now I don’t want to let go. Finn is crying, and I mean really crying, which surprises none of us but makes everything else okay. The doctor says, “Three for three. You’re a legend.”
Sage says, “Yeah, I am.” I look at her, then at the three babies, all wriggling and wailing in unison, and I have never loved anything more.
The nurses swarm in, cleaning and weighing and tagging each baby, and the room fills with the sound of paper tearing, plastic snapping, and the gentle chorus of three newborns discovering their lungs.
Finn takes a picture, then another, and then says, “We did it, guys,” which is technically true, though I feel like all we did was survive.
The room is chaos, but the four of us are locked in a bubble of exhausted joy.
I am still standing, but just barely. Grey is smiling, which is a miracle, and Finn is taking selfies with the babies and texting them to Cass and probably the entire team.
Sage is cradling all three babies, eyes half closed, face serene.
I lean in and kiss her on the forehead, and she doesn’t even flinch.
The doctor cleans up, says, “Congratulations,” and leaves us alone for a minute. It is the quietest minute of my life.
I look at the three babies, squirming and perfect, and then at Sage, who looks back with an expression that is equal parts triumph and disbelief.
I say, “You’re amazing.”
She says, “We’re all going to be terrible at this.”
Finn grins. “At least there’s four of us.”
Grey puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “We can take shifts.”
Sage laughs, and the babies all stop crying at the same time, as if they’re already in on the joke.
I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we are here.