Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Sadie
“ W ell, it’s official,” I groan from the middle of the bed. “He’s late.”
“He is your child, after all,” Lucas replies with a smile as he leans over and kisses my temple.
“Very funny,” I mutter. I’m lying in misery on top of the covers because I’m always so fucking hot. My back hurts. My feet hurt. My breasts hurt. Every single part of me is in pain all the time, and at this rate, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be pregnant forever.
“You should be glad he didn’t come early,” Lucas says as he tightens his tie. “You were able to finish the semester and pass every class.”
He’s picked up a teaching job at the community college and his last week of classes is this week. Technically, it’s a big step down for him, but he doesn’t care. He makes enough money to keep us comfortable in the house. The people at that England project were disappointed he passed on the position, but they offered it to him later down the road if he wanted. He passed on that too.
But he’s happy. I can see it in his eyes every day now. He doesn’t seem too restless, like he has one foot out the door. Both are firmly planted here in this house with me.
“Don’t leave,” I groan into the pillow.
“I’ll only be gone for a couple of hours,” he says, kneeling on the bed and brushing the hair from my face. “And Isaac will be here in about thirty minutes.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I reply.
“No, but you do need someone to help you tie your shoes or to pick up things you drop on the floor.”
I pick up a pillow and swing it at him, but he dodges it with a laugh. “Watch it, Miss Green,” he says with a tsk. “One more outburst like that, and you’ll be punished.”
“Promises, promises,” I reply with a shake of my head.
He gently swats my ass and I give him a coy smile as he kisses me again. “I love you,” he mumbles against my lips.
“Love you too,” I reply.
After he’s gone, I manage to roll out of bed and start up the shower. Staring at my naked body in the bathroom mirror, I marvel at how much it has changed in this pregnancy. I feel huge, but I also feel sexy too. Every part of me is so full and round, and even with how uncomfortable I am, I am going to miss this.
Lucas certainly can’t get enough either.
After my shower, I walk out into the living room to find Isaac cracking open an energy drink in the kitchen.
“Hey, mama,” he says, looking at my stomach. “How you feeling?”
I try to stretch, but it feels like I might have slept on my back wrong because it’s more tight than usual today. “Am I glowing?” I ask sarcastically.
“Radiant,” he says with enthusiasm.
Isaac and I share the same sense of dry humor. Half the time, Luke feels left out when the three of us are together. Isaac has been around a lot lately. I’m getting the sense that he wants to be a part of this family, which is making things complicated .
At some point, he’s going to have to take that step if that’s what he really wants.
Since most of the work for his new album has been done and it’s in the hands of the producers, he’s mostly free to hang out here. He’s been here nearly every day.
He kept me busy while Lucas was gone. We went for a walk around the neighborhood, watched Coyote Ugly on cable television, ordered a pizza, and ate it in the living room, of course. We mostly talk about stuff like the music we like, what makes Taylor Swift so amazing, and how stupid Texas can be sometimes. We agree on literally everything, except for the fact that he thinks the new country version of “Fast Car” is better than the original, which is a shame because he’s just dead wrong.
All in all, I love Luke’s secret brother, and he’s exactly the friend I need right now.
“Have you talked to Jax lately?” he asks as he cleans up the evidence of us eating on the couch before his brother comes home.
“No,” I reply. “Honestly, I wonder if I ever will.”
“You really think he doesn’t want the baby?” he asks.
“My fear is that he doesn’t want it now, but someday he’ll come back and want a part in the baby’s life. It would be so confusing for them.”
“So put Lucas on the birth certificate and tell Jax to fuck off,” Isaac says as he drops back down on the couch.
My back stiffens again so I shift my position to find some relief. It doesn’t work.
“It’s not that easy,” I laugh.
“Either way, the baby will be loved,” he says, and I answer with a nod.
He fires up a video game on the TV, and I try to join him, but I’m so uncomfortable that I can hardly focus. I consider lying down for a nap, but standing up and walking around is the only thing that seems to relieve the pain.
Isaac is playing Gran Turismo as he glances sideways at me. I’m leaning against the couch with my forearms as I let my belly hang and sway side to side, moaning from the discomfort in my hips.
“Uhh…” he says as he sets his controller down. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “My back just hurts today.”
“Like a deep throbbing pain that comes and goes, radiating from your lower back to your hips?”
I pick my head up and stare at him, bewildered. “That was oddly specific.”
“I read some baby books. It said early signs of labor include lower back pain that radiates to your hips. Is that what you’re feeling?”
“Okay…first of all, it’s adorable that you’re reading baby books, and second…yeah, sort of.”
Isaac leaps up from the couch. “I’m going to call Lucas.”
I put up a hand to stop him. “Isaac, calm down. It’s not even that bad yet.”
“Still!” he shouts.
“It could be nothing. False labor happens all the time.”
“So does real labor!”
The look of terror on this face is sort of adorable, and it makes me laugh. But my laughter is quickly cut off by another spasm in my back that does, in fact, radiate up to my hips.
Fuck .
Labor is awful. I’ve been stuck at five centimeters for hours. I’m starving. Everything hurts. And the fucking anesthesiologist isn’t here yet.
“Want me to go check again?” Isaac asks from the chair in the corner. I’m hanging on Lucas, but it’s not helping as much as it normally does. Everything just hurts worse and worse and worse .
Luke growls angrily as he holds me. “I’m going to go raise hell in a minute,” he argues.
“Just knock me out,” I whine. “Someone please just put me out of my misery.”
“That’s it,” Lucas growls. “Isaac, come hold her.”
I’m in so much pain, I don’t even care who’s holding me. So when Lucas’s familiar frame is replaced by Isaac’s more gentle, narrow build, I don’t even blink. I just hang on him and let him sway me gently to ease some tension in my back.
Then we both pause as we hear Lucas shouting through the door of my labor room. He sounds erratic and desperate, hollering at some nurse about how I’ve been in pain for hours without any relief.
“Don’t worry,” Isaac says. “If he gets kicked out, I’ll be here with you.”
“Thank you,” I mumble.
A few minutes later, a nurse comes shuffling into the room, followed by an irate-looking Lucas.
She’s grumpy about it, but suddenly stuff starts happening. She checks me, and I’m finally at six, but it’s still not enough to start pushing.
And by some miracle from God himself, the anesthesiologist comes in and gives me the sweet, sweet relief of the epidural. Within minutes, I’m drifting off to sleep, and Lucas stays stationed at my side, holding my hand and rubbing my forehead softly with a wet cloth.
He seems at ease now that my pain is gone.
“What if I can’t do it?” I whisper as I wake up with a bout of nausea.
“Of course you can do it,” he replies. “You can do anything.”
“No, I can’t,” I reply, fighting the urge to throw up all over this hospital blanket. I don’t know if it’s from fear or the medication or both.
“Sadie, you’re the strongest, smartest person I know,” he mumbles against my fingers.
“You used to think I was a mess,” I reply.
“You did show up to the first day of class without any paper to write on.” He laughs.
“And I threw up in the middle of your lecture.”
“And you still made me fall in love with you,” he says softly.
“Okay, maybe I can do anything.”
I smile at him with sleepy eyes as he grins back. There’s worry in his eyes, though. He thinks he’s hiding it, but he can’t hide anything from me. And I know that his worry is mostly from labor in general and the fear that something could go wrong, but I find it sweet that he’s trying to encourage me when he’s so obviously anxious.
The next hour passes so slowly it feels like a dream. I fall asleep and wake up to see the clock has barely moved. The nurse comes in to check me again, and when I’m still at six, I can tell there’s a new level of concern.
Now, I can’t fall back to sleep. And Lucas’s anxiety is more apparent.
Isaac does as much as he can to support us, keeping the conversation light and staying by our side even when I notice how uncomfortable he is.
I don’t even know what time it is when the doctor comes in and checks me, but when the labor hasn’t progressed, he says a lot of things that make me start to cry.
Things like how the baby’s heart rate drops with each contraction. And how his position isn’t ideal for delivery. And how we should consider a C-section.
Lucas’s grip on my hand becomes an anchor. Suddenly, I’m shaking violently, and I don’t understand why. I’ve never felt fear like this before. No matter how much the doctor assures me, I can’t shake this feeling that things are out of control.
And when I look over at the man I love and find his head bent and his eyes closed, that’s when I really start to worry.