Chapter 23
AVA REYNOLDS
Ihad been in pain all damn day. My back hurt like somebody was slowly twisting something at the bottom of my stomach.
My stomach kept getting hard and tight, then easing up just enough to let me think maybe it was passing, only for the pressure to come back worse.
My pelvis felt like Cairo was down there with a battering ram, and every time I stood up, I had this deep ache and pressure between my legs that made me pause and breathe through it.
It felt like all the stuff women always talked about right before labor.
A few days earlier, I had dragged myself to the hospital convinced I was in labor, only for them to tell me it was Braxton Hicks contractions and to take my dramatic ass back home. So now I was determined not to go running back too soon just to get sent home again feeling stupid and swollen.
That was easier said than done when every cramp had me second-guessing willing to go through with this, as if I had a choice.
I was in the living room in one of Reek’s T-shirts and some soft shorts that barely fit over my belly now.
I had the waistband folded down under my stomach because anything pressing into it made me irritated.
One of my hands stayed on the small of my back, and the other kept rubbing over the front of my stomach like that was going to make Cairo show some mercy.
Reek had been at my place since that morning.
He had canceled whatever he had going on and barely left my side except to get me things; water, snacks I didn’t want after two bites, the heating pad, my fuzzy socks that I ended up throwing off because I got hot again.
He had been patient, kind, and so locked in on me that it almost made me emotional all over again.
Actually, everything made me emotional those days.
Part of that was hormones. The other part was fear.
Even though Reek had committed to me and had really been my partner the last two weeks, even though he had been acting like commitment had never scared him a day in his life, even though he had been sweet, attentive, and all over me in the best ways, a little fear still sat in the back of my mind.
I was scared that once the baby was really here, once Cairo was no longer a belly for Reek to kiss and rub and talk to, once he was a real live little person crying and taking up space, Reek would panic and run.
I hated that I still feared that. But I did. And that made every contraction and every kind thing he did make my heart melt and ache with fear at the same time.
He was in the kitchen when another wave of pain hit. I bent over the arm of the couch and gritted my teeth through it.
“Reeeeek!” I called out.
He was right there before I could say anything else with a glass of water still in his hand.
“What you need, BB?”
“My back,” I hissed.
He sat the glass down, came behind me, and placed both hands on my lower back right away. “This spot?”
“No. Lower. More to the left.”
He adjusted and started pressing into the ache with those strong hands of his. I let out a shaky breath and dropped my forehead to my folded arms on the couch.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“Yes,” I sighed. “That’s it. Don’t stop.”
He kept rubbing and pressing while I tried not to cry over something as simple as relief.
After a minute, the pain eased enough for me to straighten back up.
Reek handed me the water, and I drank while eyeing him over the rim of the glass.
He looked more stressed than I felt. His eyes had been on me all day in that quiet, panicked way he got when something about me or the baby felt out of his control.
He was trying hard not to show it, but I saw it.
“You look nervous,” I told him with a weak chuckle.
He crossed his arms. “I’m not nervous.”
I smiled through my discomfort. “Yes, you are.”
He ignored that. “How far apart are they now?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my stomach and frowned. “I stopped timing them because the last time I thought I was in labor, they sent me home.”
He came over and crouched in front of me with his hand on my knee. “That was a few days ago. This could be different.”
“I know.” I let out a breath and looked away. “I just don’t want to go up there too soon again.”
He nodded. “A’ight.”
That was what he had been doing these last two weeks that kept throwing me.
He listened. He still had his controlling little moments, but mostly he listened.
He stayed. He adjusted. He acted like being my man and standing in partnership with me was the most normal thing in the world now.
He had been damn near perfect, and that was hard for me to even say because Reek being perfect was not a sentence I ever thought I’d think.
He was still too controlling sometimes, still too quick to decide what was best and then tell me after. But with the war going on and the danger that came with his life, I understood.
Either way, he had been good to me. So good that it made this fear feel even worse.
Another pain hit then, sharp enough to interrupt my thoughts. I sucked air through my teeth and grabbed the edge of the couch.
Reek stood up fast. “That one stronger?”
I nodded.
“Wanna walk?”
“No.”
He held his hand out anyway. “Come on. Just around the living room.”
I glared at him, and he just stared right back, as if I didn’t have a choice.
Then I took his hand and let him pull me up. I shuffled slowly around the living room while he stayed right there at my side with one hand ready at my elbow and the other hovering by my back like I might drop to my knees at any second.
At one point, I stopped and looked at him. “What if seeing him for real changes things for you?”
His brows pulled together. “What?”
“What if when he actually gets here…” I swallowed and forced myself to say it. “What if the real baby scares you more than the belly did?”
That seemed to offend him a little. He stepped closer, with his brows knitted together.
He softly held me around my waist, bringing me and Cairo flesh against him.
“Ava, I’m not going nowhere. I need you to stop saying that like it’s still on the table.
I’m here. I’m with you. I’m with our son.
I’m not about to look at him and get scared off.
I’m not about to finally get everything I said I wanted and then run because it got real.
It’s already real.” He rubbed his hand over my stomach, then back up to my side.
“You keep waiting on me to switch up, and I get why. I do. But I’m telling you now, you don’t have to keep bracing for that.
Not anymore. I love you. I love him. And I’m not leaving either one of y’all. ”
I wanted to believe that all the way.
Before I could say anything else, a warmth rushed down my legs so sudden and heavy that I froze.
For half a second, I thought I had lost control of my bladder. Then more came. Me and Reek looked down hearing the splatter on the floor.
Then my wide eyes darted up at him. “Reek,” I breathed. “My water just broke.”
By the time active labor really hit, I understood why women screamed at men in delivery rooms and told them they’d never touch them again.
Pain came in waves that built and built until it felt like my whole body was being taken over from the inside.
My back was on fire. My stomach kept tightening so hard it felt like Cairo was trying to split me open with his little head.
Deep, punishing pressure sat low between my legs, and every time I thought I had caught my breath, another contraction came rolling in stronger than the last one.
I was in the hospital bed with my hair stuck to my face and neck and sweat all over me in spite of how cold the room was.
Reek was right there by the bed with one hand in mine and the other on my thigh, back, stomach, wherever he thought it might help.
He looked just as stressed as I felt, but he was trying hard not to let me see too much of it.
That alone made me love him harder in the middle of wanting to cuss everybody out.
Another contraction hit, and I cried out.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, gripping his hand so hard I knew I was hurting him. “I can’t do this.”
Reek came closer instantly. “Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t,” I cried, tears spilling out while the pain climbed higher. “This hurts so bad.”
He wiped my face with the little cold cloth the nurse had given him. “Yes, you can. Who are you?”
I was breathing too hard to answer.
He kissed my cheek. “Tell me who you are, baby.”
Another wave tore through me, and I cried harder.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed, “I’m a bad bitch.”
That made one of the nurses giggle under her breath. The other nurse smiled a little before looking back between my legs.
“That’s right.” Reek kissed my forehead, then the side of my face. “So, act like it. Breathe.”
I tried to breathe because he was right there in my face making me feel like I could survive something that felt impossible five seconds earlier.
Dr. Harrison checked me again and smiled. “You’re there. It’s time.”
The staff started to move with more purpose now.
Dr. Harrison came in, ready to deliver since it was time.
More instructions came. My knees were positioned.
The pressure got worse. I couldn’t even call it pain the way I had before because it was bigger than that now.
It was pain, pressure, stretching, and fear all mixed together into something so primal it took over my whole body.
“Push with the contraction,” Dr. Harrison told me.
I bore down and screamed.
Reek was right there by my ear. “That’s it, baby. Come on.”
The nurse counted. Dr. Harrison coached Ava. Somebody told me to breathe. Somebody else told me not to waste my energy screaming. I wanted all of them to shut the hell up, but Reek’s voice cut through all of it. “You got this. Come on, Ava. That’s my BB.”
“I can’t,” I sobbed again.
“Yes, you can.” He brushed the sweaty hair off my forehead and made me look at him. “Who are you?”
I let out a broken laugh in the middle of tears because he was really doing this to me right now.
“Tell me,” he urged.
“I’m a bad bitch,” I cried again.
“Louder.”
“I’m a bad bitch!”
“That’s right,” he said. “Now push like one.”
That actually made me dig down and do it.
Another contraction came, and I pushed with everything in me. My whole body shook with the effort. I screamed, cried, and thought I was going to split apart for real. But the pressure changed in that way women talk about after and never fully explain.
Dr. Harrison looked up and said, “I see his head.”
Reek sucked in a breath so hard I heard it over my own crying. Then he called out, wrecked and full of wonder, “Ava.”
I pushed again.
And again.
And then suddenly the pressure shifted in a way that made me feel like something real was happening outside of pain.
One more push.
One more scream.
Then Cairo was out. For half a second, everything in the room felt suspended.
Then my son cried. That sound tore my heart fully open.
I started sobbing immediately, too overwhelmed to even catch the tears as they rolled into my ears and down my cheeks.
Dr. Harrison lifted him just enough for me to see him before the nurse started wiping him off and checking him.
“Oh my God,” I whispered through tears. “Oh my God.”
But as overwhelming as it was to meet my baby, what took me out even more was looking at Reek.
I turned my head toward him, and the sight of him nearly made me cry harder.
He had tears in his eyes. His mouth was parted slightly like he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Awe and disbelief sat all over him. He looked like the world had stopped and started over right there in front of him, and maybe for him it had.
“That’s my son,” he said, voice cracking so bad it almost didn’t sound like him. “That’s my son.”
Hearing that from Reek, from this man who had spent so much time terrified of fatherhood, love, and family, made my tears flow even more. I was watching him fully surrender to something beautiful he had previously been running from.
The nurse brought Cairo closer, and I reached for him with shaking hands. The second they laid him on my chest, I started sobbing
He was beautiful, tiny, red, despite the back of his ears, loud, and perfect.
Reek put one hand on the baby and one hand on my head, and I could feel his fingers trembling.
“He’s here,” I whispered, still staring at Cairo like he might disappear if I blinked too long.
I looked up at Reek then, and he bent down and kissed me with tears still in his eyes.
When he pulled back, he touched Cairo’s little head like he was scared to do it too rough.
“I love y’all,” he said.
Standing over both of us, Reek looked like meeting Cairo had just changed every definition he ever had for his own life.