Beauty from Love (Beauty 3)

“I think that kid bouncing around in her belly is considered an attachment, but what would two pregnant women do in Wagga? We can’t drink, smoke, or have random sex, so what’s the point?”

Damn right she can’t do any of those things—with one exception. “I can provide you with one of those three things—some form of random sex, here, tomorrow night. The kitchen table, the bathroom counter, maybe the arm of the couch. What do you think?”

“Eh, if nothing else comes up, you can pencil me in.” That’s my girl.

I can hear a voice but can’t make out who it is or what it’s saying as I struggle to abandon the dream. I feel someone shaking my shoulder and I become more alert to my surroundings. “Wake up.”

“Hmm?” I groan.

“I’ve got to go to the hospital.”

My heart takes off like a helicopter as I shoot up in bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me. Addison’s in labor.”

I roll over and look at the clock and see it’s two in the morning. “They just got married—like eight hours ago.”

“The baby doesn’t care how long they’ve been married because he’s coming.”

“Ugh!” I groan as I sit up and turn to put my feet on the floor. “I’ll get up and drive you.”

“I can drive myself. Besides, this could take a while.”

No way I’m letting my pregnant wife go out by her herself at two in the morning. “Sorry. Not happening.”

She scoots over to put her arms around me and places a kiss between my shoulder blades. “Thank you, my sweet, darling husband.”

“You can properly thank me later.”

She squeezes me. “Horn dog.”

“You’ve got that right, babe.”

29

I’m nervous on the drive to the hospital and it’s not even me in labor. “I can’t believe Addison will be pushing another human being out of her body today.”

“I can’t believe they were married only eight hours ago and now she’s in the hospital having a baby. I guarantee he fucked her into labor.” Leave it to Jack Henry to say something like that.

“If he performed anything like you did on our wedding night, then I can believe it.”

“I’m telling you, L, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been together before your wedding night, having your wife for the first time is different.” He squeezes my hand. “And having your pregnant wife for the first time is even better.”

I know how it was different for me but I’d like to hear his take. “What was different about it?”

“There’s a surge of testosterone when the human male takes a mate and then that combines with a man’s intrinsic drive to procreate.”

“I’m calling bullshit.”

“You’re right,” he says, laughing. “I totally made that up.”

“You were scared as hell the first time we were together after we knew I was pregnant.” I had to get on top because he would hardly move.

“True, but doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the hell out of it.”

As if. “Name a time you didn’t enjoy the hell out of it.”

“Right.”

We pull into the parking lot and Jack Henry lets me out at the front entrance. “Do you want me to wait for you in the lobby?”

“No, you go on up. I’ll be hanging out in the waiting room if you need me.” I’m not worried about him finding his way. He’s very familiar with this place after our scare a few months back.

I go through the waiting room outside labor and delivery on the way to Addison’s room. Her family is here. Even if she’s delivering early, the timing couldn’t be better since her family is here for the wedding—unless she has complications because the baby is early. I hadn’t considered that until now.

All of Addison and Zac’s family is here, including Ben. Great. Jack Henry sitting in the waiting room with him won’t go over well, but at least Chloe’s here to defuse her brother.

“Where’s Jack?” Chloe asks. “He better not have stayed at home while you drove yourself here in the middle of the night.”

“He’s parking the car. He’ll be right up.” I make small talk until he arrives because I feel like he’s been forced to tolerate Ben a lot lately and his patience could be coming to an end.

He walks in and I detect frustration on his face when he sees Ben. I can’t tell him what I’d like, so I mouth for him to please be nice before I leave the waiting room. He draws his imaginary halo over his head. “Thank you,” I mouth. That’s one less thing for me to worry about.

I walk into Addison’s room and she’s sitting straight up in the bed, her legs frogged out, applying makeup. Good grief. That’s not at all what I pictured. I thought she’d be bucking and screaming for sure. “Why are you putting on makeup and not acting a fool?”

She stops and looks up from her mirror. “I want to look good for the pictures.”

What the hell? “I thought you were in labor.”

“My water broke but I’m not having contractions yet.”

This doesn’t sound right. “Don’t you need to have contractions to birth a baby?”

“Apparently so since I’m not dilated, but they’re about to start a drip that will stimulate contractions.”

The drip is one of the topics I read about on a childbirth forum I follow and everyone said it makes the contractions much harder. I bet Addison has no idea what’s about to happen to her. She’s not a researcher like I am. “Maybe you should be practicing how you’re going to breathe if you’re about to be given a pitocin drip.”

“I’ve got this, Laurie.”

Ninety minutes into the pitocin drip and Addison so obviously does not have this. She’s writhing in the bed so hard, she has a huge rat’s nest in the back of her hair. “Omigod, this is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. I didn’t think it was going to hurt this bad. It’s awful, Laurie. Terrible.”

I don’t know what to say except to remind her of the things I’m learning in my birthing class. “Breathe in slow, deep breaths.”

Zac is sitting in a chair at the bedside watching the fetal monitor. “Here comes another one.”

“Shut the fuck up, Zac!” She beats her hands on the mattress. “You think I don’t know when another one’s coming? I’m the one feeling this shit!”