Page 49 of Together

I look up. “You hear that, God? We’ve got a meeting we need to schedule in the next thirty some-odd weeks, you got it?”

“That’ll work,” he placates me.

We’re quiet for a few minutes, nothing but the soft sounds of the Discovery Channel on the television in the upper right hand corner to drown out my internal panic.

Nik leans back in his chair like the calm and relaxed jerk he is. Seriously. Was he not in that room?

We got to the hospital and he charmed his way into Josie’s room, marching in like it was no big deal and it was normal business to walk into a room and see his sister sweating and swearing, yelling that she changed her mind about not wanting to have pain medication to ease the sting of giving birth.

The.

Sting.

That’s what she called it.

Like it was a little bee sting or a bug bite.

Not a baby ripping her body in half.

I don’t understand why anyone would ever think to themselves,gee, pushing a head out of my crotch can’t be that hard, why would I want medicine to help?

“I’m going to tell you this right now…”

“You’re getting medicated?”

“Damn skippy.”

“Don’t blame you,” he murmurs. “That’s your call. I told Josie she was insane for not wanting it. She was stubborn, as usual, though. She said she could handle it and dared Dean and me to challenge her abilities. So now she’s learning that she’s an idiot.”

A bubble of laughter bursts out of my throat. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”

“Go ahead.”

Something tells me she’ll kick his ass if I let her know he’s walking around calling her an idiot.

I sit quietly, thinking back over what we saw when we walked into the room. At first, I was like wow, she looks amazing for being in active labor right now.

“Hey, you! What took you so long?”

“We’re here now.”

“Oh, right! Ashley is with you?”

I step out from behind Nik and give her a little wave. “Hi.”

Josie stretches out her arms. “Yay! Come here, come here! I’m so excited to meet you!”

“Probably figured it would be under different circumstances, right?”

She shrugs. “Meh. This is fine. I’m not shy.”

“That’s an understatement,” Nik teases and Josie ignores him, leaning up out of her bed to give me a small hug.

“How you feeling, brat?” Nik asks.

“Well, I yelled at the doctor once,” she says and Dean interrupts with a cough and “Three times,” and she continues with, “but otherwise I’m just ready for us to get this show on the road. The contractions are coming harder and quicker and last time they checked I was almost fully dilated so we’re there.”

“That’s a lot of information,” he says, pulling a funny face. “I take it that’s all good?”

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