“Where have you been?” Sage’s voice was accusing.
Ally held up a stuffed unicorn. Or was that a pony? I was eternally grateful that my son didn’t go for anything in the girl realm of toys. Not that I wouldn’t let him play with anything he wanted to, but I sure as fuck didn’t need to buy him anything else since I currently owned every damn dinosaur I could find on Amazon.
“I have Sparkles.” Ally waved the stuffed toy.
“Oh.” Sage made grabby hands. “I need Sparkles. Thank you. I love you. You’re the best.”
Kelsey buried her face in my chest. “Sparkles is what she focuses on to breathe through the pain.”
“Oh.” Considering I hadn’t been able to get Katherine to show up to a birthing class, we definitely hadn’t known about anything like that.
Yeah, it was time to hustle my girl out of the room.
We got down the hall, but instead of turning into the waiting room, she went out through the front doors of the hospital. “Kelsey!”
She shook her head. “Nope. I’m good. We don’t need to do any of that.” She waved her hand up in the air. “I changed my mind. Having a baby isn’t what I want after all.”
My belly twisted for a second before I chased after her. She didn’t mean it, but God, hearing that was fucking sobering. “Kel, come on.”
“No way. There is no way I can do that. Nope. I take care of kids after they come out and grow like five years or whatever. That part? Nope.” She shook her head. The curls from the ceremony were long gone and it was back to her long, perfect red hair. “I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. You’re the strongest woman I know.”
“You are sorely mistaken, sir. I am a wimp. I cry when I have cramps. You think I can do that?”
“Yes.” I curled my fingers around her upper arms and forced her to face me. “You are going to be awesome at that. And you’ve told me that Sage is a bit of a…what do you call it?”
“Drama llama,” she muttered.
“Right. And you can do anything you set your mind to. You wrangle twenty-four six-year-olds and seven-year-olds. Having a baby is nothing compared to what you do every day.”
“Yes, but there’s no blood—well, usually no blood.”
“See?” I tipped her head up and kissed her. “You’re already ahead of the game.”
“You’re just trying to placate me.”
Fuck yes, I was. I truly didn’t know how any woman gave birth, but I wasn’t telling her that. “Yes, how am I doing?”
She stuck out her lower lip and crowded into me. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
Her lips twitched.
“I see that smile trying to come out. Come on, let me see it.”
“Stop. You are being ridiculous.”
“Oh, and flying out of the hospital saying you changed your mind isn’t?”
She punched me in the belly. “Get used to it, buddy. I haven’t even begun to be an irrational pregnant woman yet. I reserve the right to get way worse.”
“Looking forward to it.” I curled my arm around her shoulders. “Now let’s get back in there before you freeze.”
“Too late.” She shivered and huddled in close.
An ocean-liner-sized vacation home on wheels pulled up and a woman scrambled down the stairs.