Chapter 38 Macy
MACY
“She’ll wake when she’s ready. She’s breathing on her own for the first time in two weeks, and we removed all the medical equipment and wires. She’s ready to wake; she might just need more time to trust her body to continue the recovery process on its own.”
Is she talking about me?
If so, why is this the first time I’ve breathed on my own in two weeks?
What happened?
Desperate for answers, I beg my eyes to open. The more I fight, the more I drift between a space that feels like sleep but not the reviving kind I usually seek. It’s hard to explain. Although I inhabit my body, it feels foreign, as if I’ve borrowed it for the day.
A faint whisper accompanies my journey through the dark. “We will continue lowering the sedatives keeping her under throughout the morning. She’ll return to you soon…”
A wave of nausea rushes over me as a faint rock lulls me awake.
The only way to describe what I’m feeling is to imagine stuffing your backside into a semi-deflated tube and going for a prolonged float down the Aare River.
My body feels heavy, and my mind is wandering, caught between sleep and the unpleasantness of waking up after too much sleep.
A dull, persistent thump is causing havoc with my temples, like someone is knocking from the inside, and my mouth is as dry as desert sand. My limbs react slowly when I try to move. I’m lying on my back, which is never suitable for a pregnant woman.
Perhaps that’s the cause of my achy muscles?
Mechanically, I pull a pillow out and then roll onto my side. Pain in my head and stomach stops my roll.
I wince, and that’s when I hear a voice that convinces me I must be dreaming. “Careful, freckles. You’re still in recovery.”
Grayson.
My heart stutters as I force my eyes open too fast for what feels like a hangover. I am eager to see him, but my impatience sends a blinding pain radiating through my skull.
Totally worth it.
Grayson is standing at the foot of my bed, appearing as if he hasn’t slept in a week. His facial hair is thick, but it suits him. It makes him look rugged, and when paired with a designer shirt and ass-hugging jeans, he is even more appealing than a billionaire in a three-piece suit.
Though dark circles rim his eyes, he remains the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.
While blinking against the harsh lights that add to the thumps of my temples, I scan the room. A nurse stands at my bedside, checking my pulse the old-fashioned way, like the heart monitor a second nurse is monitoring could be wrong, and a third nurse smooths a blanket over my legs.
They already point to my location, but the bland walls and the pungent antiseptic smell in the air are surefire signs I’m waking up in a hospital room.
What the?
Everything feels slow, like I’m watching it take place underwater. I see their relieved expressions as they move around me, checking my vitals and making sure I’m comfortable, but they don’t tell me the reason for my hospitalization.
After a few minutes, the nurses finish their checks.
I recognize the voice of the first nurse when she announces that they’ll be right outside if I need anything.
“Just hit the buzzer, and we’ll be right with you.
” She was the voice in my dreams. The one who explained bringing me out of an induced coma, and how each patient’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury is different.
The team slips out, leaving my room quiet except for the steady beep of my heart monitor and the multiple bobs of Grayson’s Adam’s apple. He’s relieved—there’s no doubting that—but he also appears worried.
It’s probably my daftness turning him off. I don’t have the cute, ditzy look some women do.
As my sluggish brain searches for answers, my hand lowers to my stomach, needing the comfort of my son’s kicks to soothe the turmoil thickening my veins.
My eyes widen as fear swamps me. My stomach is flat. Not a little. A lot.
It is completely flat.
Panic colors my tone when words fire from my mouth. “My baby! What happened to my baby?”
Grayson’s hand is warm as he squeezes mine, though his tone remains apprehensive. “What do you remember?”
“Um…” I search through the slosh in my head, coming up mostly blank. There are flashes of pain, fear, and running, then nothing.
“Cameron,” I mumble when the memory hits me like a wayward dart. “You found Cameron.”
Grayson smiles. It isn’t his big, easy smile. It is small and fringed with sadness. “I did.”
“Then why are you here?” Confusion and hurt mingle with the excitement in my stomach. He has dreamed of this day for seventeen years, so why isn’t he relishing it?
Before Grayson can answer me, my earlier panic resurfaces, more violent than ever. “Did something happen to my baby? Is that why you’re here with me instead of with Cameron?”
He moves closer before gathering both my hands in his.
“No, freckles. I am here because I want to be here.” Now his grin is massive, the kind that lights up his entire face, and it is full of unashamed pride.
“Your son is fine. He’s been keeping everyone on their toes the past two weeks with his boisterous demands for hourly feeds. ”
I’ve barely gotten over my shock that I have been out of commission for two weeks when Grayson gives me more reasons to be breathless. I can’t do anything but stare when he wheels a tiny bassinet to my bedside. Inside, swaddled in blue, is the smallest, most perfect baby I’ve ever seen.
Proof that instalove exists floods my heart, threatening to burst from my chest.
“Oh my god. Is that…?” My question stops short of asking if he is my son. He is. I know he is. I can sense it.
I still wait for Grayson to agree, though. I feel like I’m in a dream, but I have no interest in cutting it short to make sure I’m not wasting time I don’t have.
Under Grayson’s watchful eye, I track my index finger down the side of my son’s tiny face. I’m dying to hold him, but I’m afraid I’ll hurt him. Genuine fear of dropping him blasts through me so unforgivingly that my hands shake.
I can’t put him in a dangerous situation. He’s already so fragile and tiny. I’d never forgive myself if I hurt him—accident or not.
Grayson reads me like no one else can. “He’s tougher than he looks, freckles.” Admiration beams from him when he adds, “He inherited all his mommy’s best genes.”
He lifts him out of the bassinet like he’s a pro at taking care of a newborn before he hands him to me. As tears burn my eyes, I cradle my son close to my chest before flaring my nostrils.
“He smells so good,” I croak out before I carefully place him onto my bed and unwrap him. I count all his fingers and toes as a mammoth smile stretches across my face. “He’s perfect. Everything about him is perfect.”
Pride flares in Grayson’s eyes before he agrees with me. “He is. He’s a perfect little gentleman. Aren’t you, Bud?”
“Bud?” I parrot, my disgust not missed.
His hearty laughter should make my headache worse, but oddly, it helps.
“You can blame the nurses for that.” When he drags his finger down my son’s open hand, his tiny fingers wrap around it, and he holds on tight, like he never wants to let Grayson go, matching my sentiments to a tee.
“I was calling him Little Man until one nurse said that’s what they call…
” He coughs before shifting his eyes to the area of my son’s body plumped out by a wet diaper. “It just felt wrong then.”
A girlish giggle rumbles in my chest, and despite my worry that it will increase the aches of my weary body, I don’t hold it back. This feels so surreal and right, as though things were always supposed to be this way.
My son has bonded with the man I love. He’s as comfortable in Grayson’s presence as I’ve always been. He feels safe and protected, aware that nothing bad will ever happen to him when he has a man as strong and protective as Grayson on his team.
If I’m reading Grayson right, my son’s admiration isn’t one-sided. Grayson gives off the vibe of a proud father, and the love he shows with the simplest of actions melts my heart.
I must be dreaming. Surely.
This is better than any dream I’ve had.
Ouch! Nope. Not dreaming.
Grayson smirks like he saw my quick pinch of my thigh before he snags a diaper and a packet of baby wipes from under the bassinet, and he carefully spins my son so his little legs face him.
“You should take notes,” he says while unbuttoning the tiniest baby romper I’ve ever seen. “I took a hundred the first time I changed his diaper under the watchful eye of the night nurse. Still, our second venture required a change of clothes… for both of us.”
I laugh so hard and fast that a snort rips from my nose.
As my hand shoots up to cover my mouth, mortified I squealed like a pig, Grayson whips off the soiled diaper and replaces it with a fresh one.
He works so fast and confidently that he fastens the diaper in place a nanosecond before a fountain of pee adds faint coloring to the line down the front.
I glance up at Grayson when he says, “You need to make sure you tuck. If you don’t tuck, his romper, and possibly your shirt, will wear more pee than his diaper.”
Winking at my stunned expression, he hands me my dressed and freshly changed child before he takes a three-point shot with the bundled-up diaper. It rims the bin before sinking through the imaginary net as a memory smacks into me. It’s hazy and short, but it’s the first I’ve had since waking.
“She said I was your project. That you wanted to fix me.”
I hear Grayson gulp, and then he slowly turns to face me. “You remember?” His expression is more relieved than stressed.