Chapter 24 Carter
Jamie's hand closes around my wrist in the early hours of the morning.
I'm awake instantly. Three months of sharing a bed with a heavily pregnant omega has trained me to sleep light. The room is dark, just the faint glow of the city through the curtains, and Jamie is very still beside me.
"Carter." His voice is strange. Tight. "I think it's time."
I sit up, reaching for the lamp. The light clicks on, and I see his face—pale, focused, one hand pressed to the underside of his belly.
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure, yeah." He breathes out slowly through his teeth.
"How long have you been—"
"An hour, maybe. I thought it was Braxton Hicks at first. But they're getting closer together." He shifts on the bed, grimacing. "And stronger."
An hour. He's been lying here for an hour, timing contractions, and he didn't wake me.
"Jamie."
"I wanted to be sure." He meets my eyes, and underneath the discomfort, I see fear. "I'm sure now."
I'm already moving, grabbing my phone from the nightstand. We have a plan. We've had a plan for weeks—the private clinic, the route to avoid press, the overnight bag packed and waiting by the door. I just didn't expect to need it at four in the morning.
"I'm calling the clinic," I say. "Can you stand?"
"Give me a minute."
I dial while Jamie works himself upright, one hand braced on the headboard. The clinic answers on the second ring and I give them the details. Contractions five minutes apart, lasting about forty-five seconds. They tell us to come in.
"She says we have time," I tell Jamie, helping him swing his legs over the side of the bed. "But we should leave soon."
"Define 'time.'"
"Enough to get dressed. Not enough to shower."
"Wasn't planning on it." He stands, swaying slightly, and I steady him with a hand on his elbow. "I need to pee first. If that's permitted."
"I'll allow it."
He disappears into the bathroom. I dress quickly. The overnight bag is where we left it, by the bedroom door. I check the contents even though I've checked them a dozen times: change of clothes for Jamie, toiletries, the soft blanket we bought for the baby, paperwork the clinic will need.
The baby. Our daughter. She's coming.
The reality of it hits me all at once, and I have to sit down on the edge of the bed, my legs suddenly unsteady. In a few hours—maybe less—I'm going to be a father. I'm going to hold my daughter for the first time. Everything I've been imagining, planning for, terrified of, is about to become real.
The bathroom door opens. Jamie emerges, still pale but steadier now.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
"You look like you're about to pass out." He crosses to me, cups my face in his hands. His palms are clammy, his fingers trembling slightly, but his voice is steady. "Hey. We can do this."
"I know."
"I need you to actually believe that. Because I'm about to push a human being out of my body, and I need you to be the calm one."
I laugh despite myself. It comes out shaky, but it's real. "I can be calm."
"Good." He kisses me quickly, then pulls back with a wince. "Okay, that one was stronger. We should go."
The penthouse is quiet as we make our way to the door.
It's the middle of the night; the building is sleeping.
That's good—fewer people to see us, fewer questions to answer.
We've managed to keep Jamie's due date private, but the press has been camped outside for days, waiting for any sign of activity.
"Service elevator," I say, grabbing the bag. "Then the parking garage."
"I remember the plan."
"I know. I'm just—"
"Being nervous. I know." Jamie takes my hand as we step into the hallway. "Me too."
The service elevator is around the corner, past the regular elevator banks. It opens the moment I press the button. We step inside, and the doors close on the quiet hallway.
Jamie leans against the wall, breathing slowly. Another contraction, I realize. I can see it in the tension of his shoulders, the way his hand presses against his belly. I want to do something, fix something, but there's nothing to fix. This is just what labor looks like.
"Talk to me," he says through gritted teeth. "Distract me."
"What do you want me to talk about?"
"Anything. Tell me about the first time you came to this building. Why you bought the penthouse."
It's not a story I've told him before. It's not a story I've told anyone. But he needs distraction, and I need something to focus on besides my own spiraling anxiety.
"I was twenty-six," I say. "Fresh out of law school, just starting at the firm my father picked for me.
I was supposed to be looking for a sensible apartment in a sensible neighborhood.
Instead, I walked into this building, took one look at the view from the top floor, and wrote a check for the down payment on the spot.
" I see the look he gives me. “Yes, I know I’m lucky to have that kind of money at twenty-six. I still love the apartment.”
"Rebellious."
"It didn't feel rebellious at the time. It felt like the first decision I'd ever made for myself.
" The elevator dings, and the doors open onto the parking garage.
"My father was furious. Said I was being impractical, that the money could have been better invested.
But I didn't care. I needed something that was mine. "
We cross the garage to the car. It’s a black sedan with tinted windows, deliberately nondescript. I help Jamie into the passenger seat, tuck the bag in the back, and slide behind the wheel.
"And now?" Jamie asks as I start the engine.
"Now it's just a place I sleep." I pull out of the parking spot, navigating toward the exit. "I meant what I said at the cabin. I want somewhere that's ours. This was mine. The next place will be different."
"You're very sentimental for a politician."
"Don't tell anyone. It'll ruin my image."
The garage exit opens onto a side street, away from the main entrance where the photographers wait. I turn left, heading for the route we've planned.
The city is quiet at this hour. Streetlights blur past, yellow smears in the darkness. Jamie is silent beside me, focused inward, his breath coming in careful measured counts.
"How are you doing?" I ask.
"Fantastic. Never better." He shifts in his seat, trying to find a comfortable position. "How far is it?"
"Twenty minutes. Maybe less, with no traffic."
"I can do twenty minutes."
He says it like he's trying to convince himself. I reach over, find his hand in the darkness, and hold on.
The clinic is in a quiet neighborhood, a converted brownstone that looks like a private residence from the outside.
I pull into the small lot behind the building. There's a back entrance, unmarked, with a security camera and a keypad. I punch in the code we were given, and the door clicks open.
Inside, a nurse is waiting. She takes one look at Jamie—hunched over, gripping my arm, clearly in the middle of a contraction—and shifts into motion.
"Mr. Dean? I'm Sarah. Let's get you into a room."
Jamie nods, unable to speak. I keep hold of his arm as we follow Sarah down a quiet hallway, past doors with small nameplates, into a room that looks more like a hotel suite than a hospital.
There's a bed, but also a couch, comfortable chairs, soft lighting.
A window looks out onto a small garden, invisible now in the darkness.
"The doctor is on her way," Sarah says, helping Jamie onto the bed. "She'll be here in about ten minutes. In the meantime, let's see where we are."
What follows is a blur of medical checks and quiet questions. Jamie's blood pressure, his temperature, the baby's heart rate—all stable, all normal. He's dilated to five centimeters, which Sarah says is good progress for early labor.
"Could be a few hours still," she tells us. "First babies like to take their time. Try to rest between contractions if you can."
She leaves us alone. The room is quiet except for the soft beep of the fetal monitor, tracking our daughter's heartbeat.
Jamie lies back against the pillows, exhausted already. I watch him breathe through another contraction, his grip on my hand tightening until I can feel the bones shift. It lasts longer than the others—a full minute, maybe more—and when it finally releases, he's shaking.
"They're getting worse," he says.
"That means it's progressing. That's good."
"Easy for you to say."
The doctor arrives a few minutes later, calm and competent.
She examines Jamie, confirms what Sarah told us.
We settles in to wait. The room takes on a strange timeless quality—contractions coming and going, Jamie dozing between them, the sky outside the window slowly lightening from black to grey to pale pink.
By seven in the morning, Jamie is at six centimeters.
By nine, he's at eight. The contractions are almost constant now, waves of pain crashing over him with barely any break between.
He's stopped talking, stopped doing anything but breathing and gripping my hand and occasionally swearing with impressive creativity.
"You're doing amazing," I tell him, for the hundredth time.
"I think this is where I’m supposed to say I'm going to kill you," he replies. "And complain that is your fault."
"Technically, it's both our faults."
"Shut up." Another contraction hits, and his whole body tenses. "Oh god. Oh god, that's—"
"Breathe. Just breathe."
"I am breathing. I'm breathing and it still fucking hurts."
The doctor checks him again. "Nine centimeters. Almost there, Jamie. You're doing beautifully."
"I don't feel beautiful. I feel like I'm being torn apart."
"That's normal." Her voice is soothing, unflappable. "Your body knows what to do. Trust it."
The next hour is the longest of my life.