21. Poppy
21
POPPY
Nox stares at me like I’ve just told him that Santa isn’t real. Then he bolts from the living room like his ass is on fire, screeching at the top of his lungs.
“Uncle Logan!” he hollers. “Mom just peed herself and your woman’s going crazy!”
Parker hisses out a breath, her eyes wide and pain-filled. “They’re not going to wait,” she groans quietly, trying to keep her son from freaking out.
I have her little girl, Cassie, in my arms when Logan comes barreling in. “Please, please tell me her water didn’t break.”
He isn’t looking at Parker when he says it, either. His eyes are locked on me, like he’s afraid if he looks over, he’ll see something he shouldn’t.
“Call Remy,” I tell him calmly. “Tell him that Parker’s water broke and that he needs to either get here or meet us at the hospital.”
Parker whimpers, gets on her knees, and puts her hand between her legs. “We’re not making it to the hospital,” she whispers hoarsely, another contraction coursing through her body.
Logan goes deathly pale, but his eyes never leave mine. “Nope.” He shakes his head. “I’m not doing it.”
“Lo.” I stay as calm as possible. “I’ve got to put Cassie in her playpen. Not only that, but I’m too pregnant to deliver her baby on the floor. So you either have to do it or you have to help me get her on the table, which is in the kitchen. No matter what you do, you’re about to see her vagina. So it’s time you pull on your big boy pants, get that sick look off your face, and be happy that you’re not about to see my goods on display for your friends while a cantaloupe comes out of it. Got it?”
Logan’s eyes are still locked on mine, and for a second I think he is going to bolt out the door. Either that or pass out. Instead, he nods.
“Good. Get some hot water and clean towels. You know what to do,” I prod him before I walk out of the living room with Cassie still in my arms.
“Do you want me to put on one of her movies in my room?” Nox pops his head out from the top of the stairs. “I’ve already moved her Pack ’n Play in there. That way, you can help Mom, and I don’t have to see anything.”
“Thank you, Nox.” I smile at him. “I would love that. Can you carry her? Getting up and down the stairs is gonna be too long for me.”
Nox dutifully comes and takes his sister, carrying her like she is the most precious thing in the entire world. I watch until he vanishes at the top of the hall, disappearing into his room. The entire time, he talks to Cassie about how they are going to have two new babies to spoil, and they have to learn how to share their toys.
My heart lurches in my chest at how amazing of a little man Nox is. And then I hear Parker’s pained gasp, and I move back into action.
My phone is in my hand, and I’m dialing 9-1-1 before I realize it.
“9-1-1, what is the address of the emergency?” Chloe’s voice fills my ear, but I can’t say anything friendly in that moment.
I spit out Parker’s address and listen to her enter it into the system.
“I’ve got a forty-week pregnant woman, Chloe. Parker’s in labor. Contractions are less than a minute apart, and her water’s broken. Remy’s on duty, but I don’t think she’s gonna make it.”
I walk back into the kitchen in time to see Logan’s face go deathly white, and I see exactly why.
“She’s crowning,” I tell Chloe. “And anything that you said, I completely missed. I’m putting you on speaker, but I don’t know if you’re gonna be able to give us any directions, ’cause it looks like she’s having Baby A right now.”
Thinking fast, I hold up the phone and flip on my camera, starting to snap pictures of everything that is happening.
Not only will I need blackmail for Logan in the future, but Parker will want as many photos of the birth as possible.
Logan’s hands go out, almost automatically, and he catches the first baby in the bright-pink towel that he must have grabbed while I was giving Cassie to her brother. The loud, screaming baby with a healthy set of lungs.
The clock on the wall says it is exactly eight p.m.
“Clock says eight,” I repeat into the phone, snapping a photo of that as well. In the back of my mind, I think maybe the doctors will need to know what time the baby was born. For the birth certificate.
“Holy shit,” he mutters. “Holy fuckin’ shit.” But his eyes aren’t filled with panic anymore. Instead, he is staring at the baby covered in mucus and bodily fluids with awe. I make sure to grab a picture of him, staring at the little baby.
The camera on my phone will be full, no doubt. But I can’t miss getting everything I can possibly get.
“It’s a boy,” Logan tells Parker, bringing him up to her chest still covered in the towel with the umbilical cord connected.
Parker? Well, she cries and clutches at her baby with all her might, like she is afraid that he’ll be gone in another second.
The back door slams open in the distance, and I listen to footsteps hustle through the house, stopping in the kitchen first. As Remy calls out for us, I get a washcloth wet with the hot water and start to clean up Parker’s girly bits as well as I can.
“Baby A is out, Chloe,” I tell the almost silent dispatcher on the other end of the call, ignoring Remy. He’ll see us in just a second. “Is the ambulance on the way? ”
Chloe doesn’t answer, but I can hear her in the background on the radio, so that counts.
“You didn’t poop,” I whisper loudly to Parker as the footsteps get closer.
“Holy shit, Parker.” Remy barrels into the room, panic written all over his face. “You’re having a baby with Logan in the room?” He has a sick smile on his face, and I can tell he is just as worried as we all are about how fast her labor is moving.
Parker has tears streaming down her face as she holds out her hand for her husband. “He saw my vagina ,” she cries out. “But he delivered my baby.”
“I’ll kill him later,” Remy promises, kissing his wife’s forehead and taking her hand in his.
I take another photo, and this one I know I’ll be blowing up. It is too perfect. There is so much love in the way Remy gently cradles her body to his.
“Ambulance is a minute away.” Chloe comes back on the line. “Sorry, Poppy. We don’t have EMD protocols in place for delivering twins on the computer. I had to pull the cards.”
“Why’d you go to the back door anyway?” Parker asks her husband, her chest still heaving as she tries to catch her breath from the quick delivery. “That’s stupid.”
He shakes his head, touching his son’s nose gently. “I thought you’d be in the kitchen. You know, eating some more of that pizza you sent me pictures of. Guess it worked to make you go into labor, huh?”
Parker sighs, resting against his chest. “Yeah, I didn’t expect it to work that fast, though.”
Sirens blare loudly, announcing the arrival of the paramedics, and I run outside to make sure they don’t try to go next door or something.
“She’s in here.” I motion for them to follow me, and as soon as we walk back into the living room, I get out of the way.
Logan still has his hands covered in gunk, and he stands there, staring at Parker like she is a ghost.
“Stop staring at my wife’s vagina,” Remy growls under his breath as the paramedics clean her up and get her ready to transport to the hospital.
“Shut it,” Logan counters loudly. “I just brought a life into the world. I don’t give two shits about her vagina. One second, he wasn’t here. The next, he was. Your boy, man. I had him in my arms.”
Remy’s face changes as he realizes that what is haunting Logan isn’t Parker’s vagina, but the birth of their baby boy.
“You go with your wife,” Logan tells Remy when the paramedics have her and the baby strapped onto the stretcher. “We’ll stay here with Nox and Cassie until you’re ready for them.”
“They’re immediate family,” one of the paramedics offers. “Immediate family, even children, are allowed at the hospital since Birch has family-centered delivery.” He starts pushing the gurney. “Give us enough time to get mom and dad there, and hopefully deliver Baby B, and bring the siblings down.”
Parker looks up from her baby’s face and locks her eyes on mine. “Take care of them, P. You’re the only one I trust not to let them ruin Nox while I’m popping out the last baby. And make sure you tell them to give me the good drugs after it’s all said and done.”
I nod. “I promise. But by the time I get there, your vagina’s gonna be fine.”
Parker is already out the door, so I don’t hear anything she says after that. But whatever it is has both the paramedics laughing and Remy looking back at me with concern.
“What’d she say?”
Logan blinks and then blinks again. Like he can’t quite wrap his head around everything that is happening .
“It was so big ,” he whispers when we are the only ones in the room. “So fuckin’ big.”
“Her vagina?” I take him by the arm. “Or the baby’s head?”
Logan turns to me with the same wide eyes he looked at Parker’s vagina with. “Both.”
“You’re a cop, Lo. You’ve seen other women give birth. You’ve had training on how to help a woman deliver a baby. I don’t see why you’re freaking out.”
“P, that was one of my best friends’ wives. And I had to see… It was like squeezing a really hairy coconut out of the business end of a condom. That’s gonna happen to you, and what if I have to be there to see it? I’m not gonna recover.”
I know he is just shell-shocked, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna mess with him. The opportunity is staring me in the face, and I can’t let it go by.
Working to keep the smile off my face and out of my voice, I cock an eyebrow and stare at him. “Do you mean you’re never going to want to have sex with me again after I have your baby?”
Logan freezes, and it is a good thing I still have my phone in my hand, because I definitely snap a picture of the look on his face when he realizes exactly what he said and how it could be taken .
I get to see him stammer, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly while no words come out.
“That was mean,” Nox interrupts, his voice cutting through the growing tension in the room around us. “Mom does that to Dad a lot. She tricks him into thinking he messed up. But mostly he just has to take out the trash. What’s he supposed to do?” He waves a hand at Logan. “The poor guy just watched my mom poop out a baby. Do you know how big that poop had to be?”
I can’t hold it in anymore. I crack. Loudly. Unable to stop it, I laugh until there are tears streaming down my cheeks and my abdomen clenches so hard that it aches.
“Oh,” I cry out. “Oh, it hurts.”
Logan, who snaps out of the stupor I put him in, is looking at Nox strangely.
“Wait.” Logan holds up a finger. “Do you think that babies come from poop?”
“Yeah.” Nox shrugs, pulling a bag of chips out from behind the couch. “Where else would they come from?”
He stares between me and Logan, waiting for one of us to tell him. I just shake my head when Logan joins him in looking at me.
“Nope,” I tell both of them. “Not touching it. You’ve got parents and grandparents who can tell you about that.”
I walk away without looking back, only for Nox to follow me.
“Come on, Aunt Poppy. Tell me where your baby’s gonna come from. It’s your poop, right? Or do you pee out the baby? Is that why my mom peed herself?”