The Rocker That Holds Her (The Rocker...) (7 page)

“
She came in severely dehydrated,” the doctor informed us and went on to explain that he was keeping her overnight for observations, but he had no idea what was wrong with Emmie.

Jesse went off, demanded the idiot doctor get off his ass and do some tests. When Emmie linked her fingers with his and calmed him down almost immediately, jealousy reared its head for the second time that night, and I had to look away.

The doctor suggested that we leave and I was glad that Shane was the one to speak up because I knew I would have taken the doctor’s head off if I had to do it. There was no fucking way we were leaving her now! The doctor was talking under his breath to himself when he left.

Emmie was sandwiched between two huge men as Drake and Jesse hugged her tight. I don’t know why I wasn’t jealous of Drake, or even Shane. Maybe it was because Drake had risked so much—and lost even more—to protect Emmie when we were younger. I knew he and his brother would never, ever touch Emmie.

Jesse on the other hand? Jealousy ate me up. It made me hate the man that had been my best friend for nearly my whole life. Hating Jesse left me feeling almost as empty as loving Emmie did.

“
You should have seen a doctor before now,” Jesse scolded.

“
It was nothing. I’m fine now.” Emmie tried to making it sound like she hadn’t almost died tonight.

Hearing her make light out of something that could have ended differently in a horrible way if Axton hadn’t been around was the last straw. All of my emotions, everything from the nervousness of singing that stupid song, to the jealousy and hurt at seeing her with Axton started to boil over.

I couldn’t hold it all in a second longer. “It isn’t nothing!” I kicked the little round rolling chair across the room, not caring that it bounced against the opposite wall. I found myself raking my fingers through my hair and pulling on the ends. “Axton said you were unconscious when he got you here. Unconscious Emmie! Don’t you understand how fucking serious this is? Has it slipped your attention that people die from dehydration?”

When she just stared up at me with her big green eyes wide with surprise I lost it on a whole new level. She looked so small in that fucking bed, so sick and still so goddamned beautiful. I turned away from her and my band brothers and took all my pain and frustration out on the wall as I punched it.

The wall was cement or some other stone. It broke the skin on my knuckles and the ache that shot through my hand and up my arm did nothing to pull my mind from the turmoil it was in now. Leaning on the wall that I had just tried to destroy, I let my tears fall.

Behind me the room was in almost complete silence, except for the constant pacing of Shane and my deep breathing.

“Nik …” Emmie’s voice was soft, gently commanding me to face her. I could no more deny her than stop breathing. Scrubbing my throbbing hand over my damp face, I turned around. Jesse and Drake were still on either side of her, but she held her arms out to me. My heart jumped. She wanted me to hold her?

My feet took me over to her before I could even comprehend that I was walking. Drake moved aside and I dropped carefully down on the edge of her hospital bed. Her arms and hands were cold as they wrapped around me and she pulled my head to her chest. “I’m okay,” she whispered in my ear, and I couldn’t keep from shuddering. I needed her reassurance and soothing touch. “I’m here.”

A sob escaped me before I could call it back, and I held onto her tight. “I’m sorry, Emmie,” I told her, silently begging her to forgive me. “I’m so sorry.”

What. The. FUCK!

Sleeping in a chair beside of Emmie’s bed in her private room wasn’t the worst place I had ever fallen asleep. Still, it wasn’t anywhere close to being comfortable, and I woke with a stiff neck and a desperate need for coffee.

The night before flashed through my mind like a bad dream, and I opened my eyes to find Emmie holding Jesse’s hand. I refused to let my jealousy get the better of me today, so I offered to get coffee. Standing, I let myself have the small comfort of kissing her on the forehead and asked if she needed anything. When she asked for a lemon-lime soft drink, I promised her I would find her one and gave in to my need for just one more touch of my lips to the soft skin on her forehead.

The nurse that had practically been salivating at the sight of Shane the night before showed me where the vending machines were before her shift ended. Somehow I carried the four cups of coffee and the soft drink back down to Emmie’s room without burning myself. Drake and Shane were up and moving around by the time I got back.

Despite the four bags of fluids that had been pushed into Emmie through the IV in her arm, she was beyond thirsty. No sooner had I handed over her drink she had gulped it down. After years of spending time with nasty rockers she was a pro at belching and didn’t bother to keep one in after swallowing half her drink.

We were still laughing and teasing her when a nurse with short hair walked in. She took charge for about five minutes. Emmie’s vitals were taken and Shane made a run for it before the nurse started on Emmie’s IV. After explaining the doctor’s orders to Emmie, the nurse handed her a prescription for vitamins.

Really? Vitamins? As sick as Em had been, all she needed was vitamins? That really didn’t make sense to me. Apparently I wasn’t the only one confused because Jesse and Drake started to question the woman.

“
Guys …” Emmie tried to intervene and I wasn’t completely blind to the nervous look on her face.

When the nurse laughed I got a bad feeling. “A baby doesn’t qualify as a serious illness, honey.”

I was sure my head had actually exploded. The word
baby
kept bouncing around in my head until I was sure I was going to lose my mind. No. I had misheard. That had to be the answer. A misunderstanding. I was still half asleep and exhausted from work and the emotional night before.

“
What?” I heard Jesse’s strangled question.

“…
the …” Drake was saying something but I couldn’t really focus on it.

Running my fingers through my hair, I didn’t even try to stop the curse from exploding from my mouth. “FUCK!”

Jesse looked wild as he charged over to Emmie’s bed. “What the fuck is she talking about? A baby?”

Emmie’s nervousness seemed to intensify and she seemed to struggle for a moment before she sighed. “I’m pregnant.”

The nurse excused herself. She could no doubt see that a war was about to break out in the room and wanted to be out of the line of fire. Smart woman. Because I was a fucking bomb about to explode.

“
How is that possible?” Drake demanded and Emmie actually laughed.

“
You mean you don’t know the how, Drake?”

“
Don’t try to be cute, Em. You know exactly what the fuck I mean.”

When Shane entered the room and the others filled him in on the reasons for our yelling. I was shaking. Emmie was pregnant. Someone had touched her. Oh fuck. I had been okay when I had only assumed that she was involved with someone. Now that I knew it was a reality, I couldn’t handle it. The woman I loved wanted someone else.

“Who?” I wasn’t sure if I had whispered the question or screamed it at her.

“
What?” Emmie looked confused by my question.

I had kind of gone numb when the nurse had announced that Emmie was pregnant. Now it was wearing off and I was cracking from the inside out. “Who, Emmie? Who is the father?” I couldn’t stop looking at Jesse, or the rage that slowly started to consume me as I realized that he had actually touched her. “Or do I already know?”

“What?” She sounded shocked.

“
What the fuck, Nik!” Jesse yelled at me. “You think I would… have you lost your fucking mind, bro? She might be hot, but I would never touch her! She’s like my sister.”

“
I don’t believe you.” I had seen with my own eyes how close they were. That closeness had only intensified over the last few months. “I see the way you look at her. I see how she is always clinging to you.” And it killed me a little more every time I saw it.

“
Nik…” Emmie’s voice was soft, trying to soothe me. My eyes went to her. In that moment I wanted to feel absolutely nothing for her, but I couldn’t turn off my feelings. A small part of me hated her. “Nik, Jesse isn’t the father.”

The relief I felt at her words was short lived. Not Jesse, not the man that had had my back since we were little kids. But if not Jesse, then who. “Who, Em?” I was in front of her in a matter of seconds. Leaning down with my hands on either side of her body, I forced her to keep eye contact with me. I needed the truth. “Who the fuck touched you?” I yelled at her.

For a moment I saw fear in her eyes. She had no clue why I was so mad, and that only increased my anger. I wanted to scream at her to open her fucking eyes. She was so blind to how much I cared!

Before I could open my mouth to do just that, Drake pulled me away. “Stop it. Can’t you see that she is terrified of you right now?”

“Just tell me who!” I demanded.

“
Why?” There were tears in her voice. “Why do you have to know so badly?”

“
So I can kill him.” I screamed, fighting my own tears.

A tear fell from her eyes. “What is wrong with you, Nik? Why are you acting like this?”

“Axton?” I made a guess, knowing that the fucking douche bag had to be the only other possibility. “He was sniffing around a few months ago. Was it him? I saw him with his hands on you last night.” I tried to get free of Drake’s hold. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if I got loose. Shake the truth from her? She wasn’t going to willingly tell me. “Was it him?”

“
No!” she cried.

“
Who?!”

Jesse put himself between me and Emmie, his back turned away from me as he urged Emmie to tell me. “Tell him, Em.”

“Someone in this room?” If it was Shane, and I hadn’t even suspected he was after her, I would…

“
Yes,” she whispered.

I struggled harder, ready to rip into Shane. No fucking way. I could almost tolerate Jesse touching Em, but Shane? No. No. NO!

I needed her to confirm it. I needed her to say who the father was. “Who, Em? Just tell me who.” I was close to tears now, my voice giving me away as it dared to crack.

“
Nik …”

“
WHO?!” I bellowed.

“
YOU!”

--

I was too stunned to move. In fact, I was sure that I lost all major mobility for a few minutes. One minute Drake was holding onto me, making sure that I didn’t hurt anyone. I knew that I wouldn’t have hurt Emmie. No matter how enraged I had been, I never would have touched her with violence. Jesse, on the other hand, would have been another story.

A mixture of disbelief and euphoria battled inside of me. No way had Emmie just said that the baby was mine. Right?

Right?!

She had just said the words. I had heard them. I wasn’t still asleep in that damned chair beside of her bed and was dreaming this whole thing. All around me the room was quiet, except for the heart wrenching sobs coming from the woman I loved.

Looking up at her from the floor where I had fallen to my knees I whispered, “What?”

“
You, Nik.” Her voice broke on yet another sob. “You are the father.”

I shook my head, still not quite believing that she had just given me something I had only dreamed of. “No. I … No …”

Trembling fingers wiped away rapidly falling tears. “Yes, Nik.”

“
It was a dream. I dreamed that night.” I got to my feet as quickly as my shaking legs would allow and pushed Jesse out of my way before falling to my knees beside her bed. “Right?”

Emmie’s eyes looked down at the blanket still covering her waist and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Nik. I’m sorry I took advantage of you. Please…” her voice broke again and my heart clenched painfully “…please don’t hate me.”

What the fuck was she talking about now? I was pretty sure I knew what night we had made the baby growing inside of Emmie. The next morning I had woken with the scent of sex in the air but had thought that I had just gotten myself off in the middle of the night. It wouldn’t have been the first time that I had jerked off while I dreamed of Emmie.

Fuck! A million questions filled my mind. Had I hurt her that night? Had I been gentle like she had needed and deserved? Did she enjoy it? I suddenly feared that I had ruined sex for her.

The snickering of my band brothers pulled me back from my wondering. Emmie glared at them over my head. “This is not funny. I practically raped him!”

I couldn’t help it. It would have taken a man with a lot more willpower than I would ever claim to have to not have started laughing. But when I saw the look on Emmie’s face—anger, fear, and maybe even a little humiliation—the laughter stopped dead, and I shook my head at her.

“Come on, Em. There is no way that you could have taken advantage of me. It’s not rape when it’s consensual, baby,” I assured her.

The tears started falling all over again. “You didn’t know it was me, Nik. You thought I was one of the groupies.”

“The fuck you say!” I exploded. How could she even think that? “I might have been drunk, but I knew it was you the entire time, Emmie. I’ve been dreaming about it for a lot longer than I should have. That’s why when I woke the next morning I thought nothing of it.”

Behind me the guys made sounds of anger mixed with disgust. “Too much info, dude. Too much info. We don’t need to know that shit.”

I ignored Jess as I continued to watch Emmie. She looked stunned, maybe as stunned as I had been to find out I was her baby’s father. Her eyes widened and I thought I saw something close to elation cross her beautiful face.

Could I have been wrong all this time? Had Emmie been fighting her own feelings for me while I had been doing the same with my feelings for her? I wanted to ask her about it then and there, along with about a million other questions.

“Emmie …”

The suddenness of the hospital door opening stopped me from asking her anything. We were ordered out so the nurse could help Emmie dress. When I tried to protest, to tell the old hag to fuck off because I had more important things to sort out, Emmie took hold of my hand. My entire body felt as if I had been electrocuted by that simple touch.

“It’s okay, Nik. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Jesse helped me to stand. “Let’s go, bro. There is plenty of time to talk later. She isn’t going anywhere.”

That was the only thing I was sure of at the moment. Emmie wasn’t going anywhere I wasn’t. We had plenty of time to sort out our life, our future together.

The door closed behind Jesse just as I leaned back against the opposite wall with Drake. Thankfully Shane had gone ahead to grab us a cab. I didn’t think I could have handled his pacing right then.

Jesse bumped my shoulder as he stepped back beside of me. I grimaced because now I had something else to deal with. The rage in my friend’s ever changing dark eyes told me that I had a beating coming before his words confirmed it.

“
It’s coming, Nik.”

I nodded my head, knowing that I deserved anything that Jesse, Drake, and Shane threw at me. I had done the one thing that we had spent the last six years making sure no other guy could attempt to. I had not only taken Emmie’s virginity while wasted, I had gotten her pregnant too. As happy as I was about both, I was deeply ashamed of myself too.

She deserved better than this.

Minutes later the hospital door opened and the nurse pushed Emmie out in a wheelchair. Of course she had her phone at the ready, no doubt getting ready to work on something for the band. Jesse snatched the phone from her at the same time I saw the shiny piece of paper in Emmie’s other hand.

“What’s that?” I asked, nodding to what looked like a grainy black and white picture.

She handed it over before the nurse started pushing her toward the elevator. “It’s an ultrasound picture of the baby… It’s a girl.”

I couldn’t keep my fingers from trembling as I took the picture from her. It took me a moment to understand what I was looking at. It wasn’t until we were nearly on the ground floor when I figured out what was what on the picture. The outline of a hand, the shape of a foot. The baby came into focus and I couldn’t help smiling even as I felt my throat choked with emotion.

This was our baby. My baby …

Emmie was the mother of my child!