Rachel's Accident (21 page)

"Is he gone?
" I asked in a choked up voice.

My breath was rasping in and out of my lungs in large, shaky gasps.

"Yeah, I believe so."

I started crying all over again. "What if he had harmed my babies?
My precious little babies.
Oh, god Ethan," I sobbed into him.

"It's okay. Everything's going to be okay. Are you hurt anywhere?" he sounded really concerned.

Well, I would be too if my girlfriend was alone out in the dark and I heard shots.

"My leg.
He shot me in the leg," I sniffed.

He looked down and saw the wound still oozing blood. Quickly, he took off his shirt and ripped it into pieces. Then he bunched up some of the fabric and secured it onto the wound with a few strips. He bound it together tightly.

"You're very good at this," I commented.

"I forgot to tell you I wa
s in the army for a few years."

He looked up at me with
an almost innocent expression.
I just shook my head and lay back down. When he was done with my make-shift bandage he gently lifted me off the ground and into his arms. He carried me to the passenger seat and set me down. Before he could move away again I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Could you put our groceries in the trunk before you speed off?"

He looked at me incredulously. "Are you serious? You need to get to the hospital."

"It's not that bad. I can survive a little longer. Besides when those two," I pointed at my belly in emphasis, "are being born I'm going to be in ten times the pain I am now. So, I might as well start practicing
now
."

That hadn't helped. He was still looking at me like I had lost some marbles.

"You're crazy, you know that."

I grinned at him. "Yes, but you love me anyway."

He sighed in response. "Yes, I do."

With that he leaned down and gave me
a
kiss on the lips. Then he hurried to get all the groceries into the trunk and was driving towards the hospital in no time. When we arrived in the ER we went through our usual procedure with the st
a
ff. They greeted us like old friends they hadn't seen in a while.

"Haven't seen you two around here for a while.
What happened?" one of the nurses asked us, curiously eyeing my belly.

"We broke up," Ethan answered her.

"You don't seem to have a lot of good luck when you're together
, huh?
"

"It seems that way," I answered this time. "But that only means we have to be more careful."

I smiled up at Ethan, who had been holding my hand this whole time. I lifted my head for a kiss and he
gladly
obliged.

"So what is it today?" the doctor asked as he came in.

"I got mugged, but didn't have any money, so the bastard shot at me."

The doctor looked at me concerned. "Do we need to call the police?"

I shook my head in response, but had to verify when I only got another round of 'she's crazy' looks. "I couldn't see the attacker. He jumped me from behind and pressed a gun against my back. I only know it was a man because he demanded money from me. He said and I quote 'Of course, you have money. Your man is a billionaire.'" At that I looked at Ethan. "How would he know something like that?"

He just shook his head
and shrugged
, just as lost as me.

"Okay, then," the doctor said. "I'm going to have to examine your leg first."

I nodded for him to proceed. He put on latex gloves and took my leg in his hands. It still stung like a bitch, but it was manageable now. He looked at the entry and exit wounds and nodded in approval

"The bullet went clean through that's good," he said. "We should take an X-
r
ay, though, to make sure there are no fractured bones. Then we're just going to sew this up. And we should make an ultrasound to make sure the babies are fine, too."

He stood up and nodded at the nurse. She guided Ethan, who insisted on carrying me around instead of getting a wheel chair, toward the X-
r
ay room. I was finished
there
pretty quickly and no fractures were found. The bullet had gone clean through the fleshy part of my calf.

The doc sewed me up real fast and then I was sent over to the ultrasound guys. I had gotten to know them over the last few months and they were always friendly to me.

"The infamous baby father.
I was so sure you would be gone again. Damn," they greeted Ethan. The last time he had been here he had been accompanying me to one of my check-ups. It had been the first time ever for him and the guys wouldn't let him live it down.

"Hey, honey, how've you been?" they asked me. "
He been
treating you right? If not, you have our number. You know we'd be more than glad to have you."

"I know, guys, I love you, too." I grinned at them.

Ethan just glowered at them, not saying a word. He didn't know that those two were a happily married gay couple, the sweetest couple ever. And he didn't have to know, I thought to myself. A little jealousy wouldn't kill him. Actually, only one of the two was really working for the hospital. The other was just there to visit his husband and 'provide emotional support' to the patients. His words, not mine.

"So, we all know you
ain't
got
no
regular check-up today. What happened?"

They looked me up and down before they finally spied the white bandage around my lower leg. Then raising each a brow in question they waited for me to elaborate.
I sighed. It was actually really embarrassing to tell this over and over again.

"I got mugged," I mumbled.

"What?" the
y
asked in unison. Then they both shot daggers at Ethan. "And where have you been, Mr. Macho Man? You
shoulda
been there to protect her," they accused him.

Ethan clenched his teeth together and looked to the floor ashamed. If he had known this was going to happen, he would have been there. I knew that.

"Hey, guys," I interrupted them. "It's not his fault. We were shopping and I went ahead to put the stuff into the car while he paid. It was just bad timing, I guess." I smiled at them bravely.

Then I clapped my hands together. "Now, let's get this over with.
I want to know if my babies are okay.
"

As good as I could muster I
climbed up
onto the exam table. They grumbled something under their breaths, but didn't protest any further.

"Okay, then, let's look at our little pork roasts." They both grinned at me. They loved their food analogies.

Logan, the one actually working there, slathered my belly with the cold gel and then glided the machine's ultrasound device over my skin. At first I couldn't see anything. The whole screen was black, but then there was a small leg and a head.

"And?"
I asked frantically. "Are they okay?"

"Give me a second. I don't want to miss anything." All the humor had vanished
from Logan's voice
and
he
was
now
full of seriousness.

I lay there, tense, wanting to know whether my twins would be okay or not. I looked over at Ethan, who stood a few feet away. He looked just as tense as me. His shoulders were drawn up and his hands were fidgeting.

I held my hand out to him and he came over without a word. He took my hand and kissed the back of it. Then he leaned down and kissed me on the mouth. I clung to him desperately, needing his strength. As we looked up the guys were watching us.

"And?"
I asked Logan again.

"They're both perfectly fine," he said with a big smile.

"Oh, thank god."

Before Logan could clean up the gel on my belly I sat up and threw my hands around Ethan. I didn't hear Logan's protest to clean my belly. I was so glad to have my babies be okay. When I pulled back I finally realized that I still had the gel on me and now on Ethan as well. But since he had already ruined his own shirt by bandaging me I didn't have much to work with anymore. All the gel had been transferred from my belly to his. I laughed as I put my hands in it and rubbed it around on his hard washboard stomach.

Ethan groaned at my touch. He leaned down to kiss me again, but we were rudely interrupted by a loud cough.

"Would you like to get a room?" Logan asked sarcastically.

There was a sigh from the other side of the room, where Brian
, Logan’s husband,
had gone to during the examination. "She's living the dream."

I giggled.
"Yes, sir,
t
hat I am.
And he's mine
, mister," I reprimanded him. "So d
irect that lustful look at your own man over there."

"Would you like to exchange them for a day?"

"Hey," Logan protested. "I don't want
no
dang woman. No offense," he said to me.

I smiled.
"None taken."

I think it slowly dawned on Ethan that those two were a couple when they got into it right there in front of us. If I didn't break this up they would go at it for the next week. And I sure as hell wouldn't want to be one of the next patients.

"Peanut butter," I shouted to be heard over them.

They immediately shut up. They had given me this word as a safe word should they get into it during
one of
my exam
s
. Usually, they weren't this unprofessional around patients, but with me they somehow seemed to forget about that. I had somehow become one of them.

There was a story behind that word of course
that involved some very embarrassing details about the two of them and peanut butter
, but it was too much trouble to explain it to Ethan, who just stared at the three of us. I didn't think they would appreciate me telling it anyway.

"Are you finished?" I asked them.

"Now, yes."

"Good, then we need to go and you need to stop fighting so damn much." I glared at them, but still went over to kiss them both on the cheek. "See you at my next check-up."

Ethan and I cleaned up and made our way out of the hospital. He was silent on the ride to his house. He seemed to be deeply in thought. When we arrived he didn't get out of the car immediately, so I waited with him until he finally said something.

“
You always make such strange friends?”

He looked at me with his eyebrows raised. I couldn’t hold back the laughter that spilled over my lips. It had been such a frightening experience to be literally held at gun point, but leave it to Ethan to make me feel better.

He smirked at me, but then his face turned serious again.

“I was so fucking worried you and the babies would be dead,” he choked.

A single tear rolled down his cheek. I had never seen him cry before. I didn’t even know that was something he
was able to
do. I leaned over in the car seat and tried to hug him to me as best as I could. It wasn’t easy.

“If you cry, I’m going to cry with you,” I choked around the lump in my throat.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to cry. You do that enough without my help.”

I laughed through the tears that were now rolling down my cheeks. “That’s so true.”

I pulled back and smiled at him. “Let me cook something good for you. You’ll feel better when you get something into that empty stomach of yours.”

His stomach growled loudly in agreement, which made us both break out in fits of laughter. When we had calmed down we got out of the car and brought the groceries into the house.
Ethan protested that I shouldn’t carry anything at all. He still wanted to carry me around to keep the weight off my injured leg. But I wouldn’t listen to him. The doctor had given me some pain killers that didn’t influence the pregnancy in any way. So, I felt hardly any of the pain.

There on the couch in the living room sat Jess, Trevor and a blonde woman I didn’t know. In complete shock I lost my grip on the shopping bags I was carrying and they clattered to the ground. The three of them looked up at us and smiled. What was going on here?

“What’s going on?” I asked suspiciously.

Jess stood up and walked over to me and gave me a big hug. She seemed so happy she didn’t even realize that we had been gone for over two hours and I had a bandage on my leg.

“Trevor apologized and introduced me to his cousin
, Sandra
. He was just greeting her when I saw them together,” she practically beamed. “He didn’t cheat on me.”

Then what had that guilty look been for before I threw him out of our apartment? Something was very wrong here, but I didn’t want to destroy my best friend’s new found happiness again. So, I just smiled and said nothing.
Over her shoulder, though, I promised Trevor bloody murder with my eyes.

Jess helped me prepare dinner in the kitchen for five adult people while Ethan had Trevor help unload the rest of the groceries. Sandra just sat around the kitchen table staring holes into the air. I didn’t want to talk to her. In fact I had hated her on sight.

She was one of those Barbie doll types. All the makeup and extensions probably made up most of her weight. The rest of her was just skin and bones and a pair of impressively fake breasts that made her look like she would fall over at any second if she didn’t keep her back perfectly straight.