The Sweetest Game (24 page)

I smiled, comforted by the depth of this man’s love for me. “I understand completely and I love you for it. It’s sexy as hell the way you love me, Jack. But I promise, I’m okay.”

He pulled our car into the hospital parking lot, grabbed my overnight bag, and helped me out. “I’ll carry you in if you want me to,” he offered.

“I’m fine, really,” I huffed as I waddled slowly. “I can walk.”

He wrapped a protective arm around me and guided me toward the emergency room doors. Once we were all checked in, Jack demanded a room as quickly as possible, telling anyone who would listen that I was hurting, about to give birth at any second, and I needed to lie down. The nurses tried to calm him while I mouthed an apology to any of them who looked my way. They didn’t seem fazed in the least, as if this type of behavior were an everyday occurrence in their department.

“Hi, Mrs. Carter. My name is Jane and I’ll be your nurse for today. If you’ll follow me, we’ll get you all set up.” The nurse’s hair was meticulously pulled into a tight bun, not a hair out of place, and I found myself mesmerized by this fact. Jack was right. Pregnancy had made me weird.

“Please call me Cassie,” I said, waddling behind her tiny frame down the long white corridor.

She paused in front of a wooden door and waved an arm. “We’ll be in here.”

“No one else is in here, right? She has her own room? I asked for a private room.” Jack fired off the questions without taking a breath.

“Yes, Mr. Carter. She will have her own delivery and postnatal room per your request.”

Jack walked into the room first and looked around, checking it carefully before heading back toward me.

“Sorry, he’s a little, um—” I paused, searching for the right word.

“Nervous?” She smiled. “Most of the first-time dads are,” she said, her voice gentle and comforting as she ushered us into the oversized hospital room.

Jack’s strong arm guided me forward once again. “It’s huge in here,” I said, glancing around at the spacious room. The hospital bed was small in size, but the rest of the room was elegantly decorated much like a hotel would be, with bedside tables and a desk.

A light green couch with a hideaway bed sat under the only window. An oversized brown leather chair sat in one corner of the room, and all I could think about was how cold it looked. I’d never been a big fan of leather. It always creaked and moaned whenever anyone first sat in it.

Across the room in the other corner rested the most comfortable-looking rocking chair I’d ever seen. It complemented the decor of the room with its neutral tones, entirely covered in thick cushioning. I wanted to sit in that.

“We need to get you changed and hooked up to the monitors,” Jane said as she pulled back the curtain suspended from the ceiling that surrounded the bed. “The bathroom’s right through that door behind you. Your gown is folded up on the counter. Remember, the opening goes in the back.” Jane smiled and pointed to the doorway before walking toward one of the machines.

I entered my private bathroom and changed as quickly as I could. Folding up my pajamas, I brought them out and handed them to Jack. He tossed them onto the couch into a messy pile, and I rolled my eyes.

Men
.

“Do you need help into the bed?” Jack offered and I waved him off, climbing into it on my own.

Once I was lying down, I noticed the walls were painted a seafoam green color and it soothed me to look at them. Above my head was a stuffed mock headboard nailed to the wall, flanked by art glass pendant lights on each side. For a hospital room, this was pretty nice.

“Okay,” Jane said efficiently. “I need to get the IV started first.” She poked a large needle into my hand and I winced as soon as the fluids hit my bloodstream.

Looking up at her, I asked, “Is it normal for that to hurt?”

Jack tensed and looked hard at Jane, who said quickly, “Some patients report a burning sensation at first. But it should fade in no time.”

I nodded with surprise. “You’re right. It’s already gone.”

“Great. Now I need to wrap this band around your stomach. It’s a bit uncomfortable because it’s tight. It measures your baby’s heart rate so we can monitor it during labor, as well as your contractions’ length and strength.”

“Okay.” It pinched as she tightened it around the top of my belly.

“Is that all right?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.

“It’s fine.”

“Good. See the monitor here?” She pointed at the green machine with several small LCD screens to my right. “You can see when your contractions hit right here. And your baby’s heart rate right here.”

“Cool.”

“Do you know what you’re having?” she asked, looking between Jack and me.

“We do.” I smiled at her before turning my head toward Jack, my eyes beginning to tear up. I didn’t subscribe to the whole “we don’t want to know the gender of our baby” way of thinking. My mind was far too organized for that sort of nonsense and I needed to be prepared for this little person entering our lives. Especially with the chaos that was Jack’s baseball schedule, the idea of any more surprises did not sound appealing.

Jane continued to hook me up to various things, another monitor on my arm for my heart rate, as well as the prepping for an epidural if I wanted. Just a few days ago, I’d felt like a beached whale. Now I felt like a science experiment with wires coming out of me from all sides. I couldn’t even walk to the bathroom without having to wheel the IV support with me.

I looked at Jack, who had moved the leather chair right next to my bed, and smacked my forehead with my hand. “Shit. I forgot to text everybody with the room number. Can you send them a text and tell them please?”

“Of course.” He reached for my phone and stood up. Leaning down to give me a kiss, he whispered, “I love you,” before kissing my belly and telling our baby the same. Then he walked around the curtain and out of my view, and I heard the door open and then pull to a close.

Two seconds later he was back in the room, a huge dimpled smile lighting up his face. “They’re already out there.”

“Who is?” I asked, completely confused.

“All the knuckleheads. They want to come in. Can they?” Jack directed his question toward our nurse, Jane.

She nodded. “They can come in until it’s time to deliver. Or,” she pointed at me, “until you want them out.”

“Warn them that I look like ass!” I shouted toward Jack’s back.

“You look beautiful, Kitten.”

Our families wasted no time filling up the room, all nervously beaming at me in expectation. My heart filled with love as I looked at them all and said, “I can’t believe you’re all here. What if it takes me a hundred hours to have this kid?”

My mom walked over to me first, looking incredibly happy as she leaned down and squeezed me. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m so excited,” she admitted, and I wanted to cry.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked, only half-surprised that he wasn’t here.

“He’s traveling for work,” Mom said without meeting my eyes. “He said he’ll try to get here as soon as he can.”

I wondered briefly if she believed the lies my dad told. I knew he most likely wouldn’t show up at the hospital, so I assumed she had to know this as well. Maybe she chose to live in denial? I couldn’t care anymore. I had my own family to worry about and take care of.

My eyes locked on to Melissa’s blue ones, then my gaze traveled down the length of her tiny frame to where her hand intertwined with Dean’s. She made a face at me and I laughed. “Get over here,” I insisted and she dropped Dean’s hand and ran over.

“I can’t believe you’re having a baby,” she said into my hair as she hugged me awkwardly.

“I know! I can’t believe it took you ten years to hook up with Dean. You guys look really happy.”

She pulled back and made a face at me. “How could you let me be such an idiot for so long?”

“Uh, you’re sorta stubborn. And you don’t listen.” I puckered my lips at her.

“I know. But to think I could’ve been this happy that whole time? I just want to kick myself.”

“So, you are happy?” I asked, reaching for her hand.

“The happiest. I never knew,” she said, then paused to gain her composure. “I just never knew it could be like this.” Her eyes began to glisten, then a few tears spilled over.

“I’m so happy for you. Don’t screw it up,” I whispered, my voice playful.

“My turn.” Dean’s voice cut through our whispers. He bumped Melissa out of the way with his hip and leaned down to hug me.

Everyone wanted to hug me but I could barely move, so it turned out to be this awkward grab thing that happened instead of a real hug. “Hurry up and make me an uncle, would ya?”

“Talk to the kid in the belly,” I told him sarcastically. “Clearly, I’m ready.” I opened my arms to point to all the machines and monitors attached to my body.

Dean leaned down to speak directly to my protruding stomach. “Come out, kid. We’re all ready to meet you.”

Jack faked a cough and Dean stood up straight. “Uh-oh, I think I’m pissing off the big guy. How shocking.”

“Step away from the belly that doesn’t belong to you, little brother,” Jack said in a booming voice.

“Are you serious?” I called out with attitude, and Jack instantly appeared at my side.

“Very. Don’t put your lips on my girl’s stomach again unless you want to lose them,” Jack said, and if I knew him, he was only half teasing.

“You have issues. You know this, right?” Dean joked back.

Gran and Gramps joined the Carter family party at my bedside and I finally did cry. “Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to sit around for who knows how long.”

“We know we didn’t have to, dear,” Gran said. “But we wanted to.”

“Yeah,” Gramps added. “It’s not like we have anything else going on. It’s boring at the house without you kids there.”

I felt bad that everyone I loved was up at this ungodly hour. They couldn’t do anything but wait, but they all assured me there was nowhere else they’d rather be. Honestly, I felt loved and special. It was a wonderful feeling.

Jane came into the room, glanced at my monitor, then shooed everyone back into the waiting room. And wait they did.

Jack and I sat alone, hand in hand, as we waited for the doctor to arrive. We watched the monitor, which gave us a heads-up that a contraction was beginning before I could even feel it, then he coached me through the breathing to help me relax so the contractions wouldn’t be quite so painful.

Eventually the doctor swept into the room, making a grand entrance with a pudgy nurse in tow, and once he took over, the real fun began. After two hours of pushing and panting and a lot of cursing Jack’s existence, our baby was finally born.

“It’s a boy!” the pudgy nurse announced. “Would you like to cut the umbilical cord?” she asked Jack.

“Of course.” He stood and took the scissors from the nurse, then cautiously snipped where she instructed him to.

I wanted to act surprised by her words, but I knew he was a boy and had the pictures to prove it. I remembered laughing during one of the ultrasounds our doctor had ordered, when the technician took her stylus and drew an arrow to what was obviously the baby’s penis on the screen, then wrote,
I’M A BOY! YAY!!!!!!!
When she handed me the photo of the screen capture, I stuck it in my purse and hid it away from our family and friends so they wouldn’t know the sex of the baby. Later that night when I’d called Jack to tell him, I kept waiting for an “I told you so” since he’d been insisting the baby was a boy all along. But he was smart enough to keep that thought to himself.

Jane took over from there, closing the freshly cut cord with a clip. “This will turn black and fall off on its own. Don’t freak out when it does.” She placed our wailing bundle of joy onto a tiny scale before swaddling him tightly and putting him into my arms.

She then grabbed a pen and started to write on a blue-trimmed bassinet card as she said out loud, “April tenth. Happy birthday to—” She paused and glanced my way, waiting for me to reveal the baby’s name.

“Chance. Chance Thomas Carter.”

“Ooh, I like that,” she cooed. “We haven’t had any Chances yet.”

Turning my head to the left, I noticed that Jack’s eyes were misty. He tried hard to fight off the tears, his gaze pinging between his newborn son’s face and my own.

“I love you. I love you so much. You’re amazing. And he’s incredible,” Jack said as he planted soft kisses against my forehead and gently touched the baby’s tiny hand.

“He’s perfect. Aren’t you, Chance?” I tipped his eight-pound-three-ounce body toward my face and I breathed in his sweet baby scent.

“Chance Fucking Carter,” Jack breathed out. “It has a nice ring to it.”

I smacked Jack’s shoulder with my free hand as I stared at Chance’s perfect little face. The baby yawned widely, then opened his big blue eyes with incredibly long lashes and grabbed hold of my finger, grasping it firmly in his little hand.

Holding our baby in my arms for the first time was the most amazing feeling; the enormity of it almost took my breath away. We were parents. Jack Carter and I were officially someone’s mom and dad.