Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Val’s sisters were all fucking crazy. Every last one of them.
And they all had their cycles synced. That was why every last one of them was in a bad damn mood.
“‘We’re pregnant’ is a more socially acceptable announcement than ‘we were doing it, she was tied up, my hand was around her throat, and I forgot to pull out,’” I drawled.
Val choked on her water.
I patted her back a little too hard, and she glared.
“Don’t try me, Felix Alexander Kent,” she snarled. “This was absolutely the worst timing ever. I’m going to be having this kid before I’m even a full ass doctor. That’s going to be a pain in the ass!”
Okay, so she was right.
It would be tough.
But not impossible.
“Val,” I said. “Like I said earlier, it’s not like we didn’t do everything right. It just happened. That’s life. We’ll deal. Plus, though you’re not a full-blown doctor right now, I am. And I can take off whenever the fuck I want to.”
She blew out a breath.
“You could just split shifts,” Keene suggested. “You already do that partially anyway since he came back from the stabbing.”
I glared at Keene. “That’s not cool.”
Keene shrugged.
Every time the stabbing got brought up, Val always got this far away look in her eyes that told me she was reliving the experience.
I hated it, and I hated even worse that it was brought up so much.
“Did you know that a baby’s head emits hexadecanal which makes women more aggressive and men less aggressive?” Zip wondered. “The hexadecanal is an evolutionary survival mechanism to induce mothers to defend the baby and fathers to not attack it. Though, they’re not sure that it’s enough to affect other humans besides the immediate parents.”
That was… interesting.
“So when is this bundle of joy arriving?” Hannibal asked curiously.
I looked at Val, who only seemed to deflate more.
“Well, about that…”
• • •
Three days later
It was a good thing that we’d gone into the doctor when we had, because had we not, when she’d woken up in the middle of the night while I was on shift, and she was by herself, she would’ve had the baby on the bathroom floor.
As it was, she drove herself to the hospital.
When she arrived, I took her to labor and delivery myself.
“Well hello there, Dr. Kent, squared,” a labor and delivery nurse said. “What do I owe this pleasure?”
I gestured at Val. “She’s in labor.”
The nurse, Kelly, tilted her head to the side. “What?”
Val sighed. “It’s a surprise to me, too.”
She looked Val up and down then said in an incredulous tone, “You’re not pregnant… are you? Is this a joke?”
“I wish it was,” Val muttered.
I squeezed her hand and said to Kelly, “We found out three days ago that she’s well past full term. And yes, we’re very aware that she doesn’t look pregnant.”
Kelly just shook her head. “At least you didn’t have him or her at home on the toilet.”
Val snorted. “I almost didn’t come in, but when I realized that my contractions were only ninety seconds apart, I decided that Felix might kill me if I didn’t come.”
She would’ve been right.
And sure enough, when we went to the labor and delivery room to get checked out, not only did we hear the baby’s heartbeat for only the second time, but Val was right. She was in active labor and was almost nine centimeters dilated.
“Well I’ll be damned.” Kelly shook her head as she stripped off the gloves. “Who is your doctor?”
Val was already shaking her head. “Whomever is on call. My gyno doesn’t deliver babies.”
Kelly’s eyes sparked. “Well then, you’re in luck. We have the best doctor on the planet here right now. Dr. Tiffany.”
Dr. Tiffany was, indeed, one of the best doctors in the hospital.
I liked her a lot, and I was glad that she was there to help.
She made it into the room in time for Val to suddenly sit bolt upward and say, “The baby is coming.”
And she wasn’t wrong.
All Dr. Tiffany had to do was pull the sheet off and hold out her hands.
I watched in aghast surprise as Dr. Tiffany practically lurched forward and caught the baby that slid free of my wife’s legs.
Just… boom.
She was there.
And screaming her little head off.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, watching Val and then the baby. “What the hell was that?”
“What that was,” Dr. Tiffany said, “is a mother who you’re going to have to watch at the next birth. She’s going to be popping them out with barely any notice. And lookie there, healthy as healthy can be.”
Long minutes later, as the baby lay on Val’s naked chest, I said, “How the hell did you hide that big thing for so long?”
Val looked at me with wide eyes as she said, “Ten pounds?”
“Ten pounds even,” I confirmed. “Wow.”
“Wow is right,” she shook her head. “A whole ass baby, ten pounds at that, inside me and we didn’t notice at all.”