and revealed the tiniest, sweetest face I’d ever seen. Her skin was shades lighter than Rory’s, but her eyes, her hair, her nose…everything was her mother. “She couldn’t wait to meet you.”
My heart monitor beeped too quick. It set off an alarm. “G—Genie?”
“Well…I was thinking of calling her Dawn.”
I struggled to get up. Rory didn’t let me move. “I missed the birth?”
“You were unconscious.”
“For how long?”
“We put you under for a day and a half. But your scans are clearer now. No swelling, no major damage. Only a little bleeding we have to monitor.”
“I missed the birth...” The disappointment and guilt shredded me. “I’m not missing anything else. I swear to you, Doc.”
Rory squeezed my hand, but she leaned away to allow a doctor and nurse to examine me.
This was familiar. I’d been poked, prodded, tested, sampled, and monitored before.
It always ended the same. I was fine, but a little piece of me was lost to the fog.
A nurse took my temperature. The activity hurt my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Darkness consumed me for a moment.
Silence.
Fog.
“Jude?”
Her voice. Pure music. I shifted and woke.
Rory sat at my bedside. Beautiful. Exhausted. The only face I ever wanted to see.
“Where am I?” I asked.
Rory frowned. She glanced across the room. A doctor filled out paperwork and nodded.
“He might be a little groggy for a while,” he said.
“Retrograde amnesia?” Rory whispered.
“Perhaps.”
“His short-term memory?”
“We’ll have to find out.”
Me? Amnesia? What the hell was going on? My heart monitor chirped.
Why did I have a heart monitor?
Rory took my hand. “You’re in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
She hesitated. “You were playing in the championship game. You got hurt.”
Fuck me. I knew it was going to happen.
“Did we win?”
“You scored the winning touchdown, but you were injured on the play. You’ve been in the hospital for almost two days. You have a concussion, but you’re going to be okay.”
I’d stopped listening.
Rory held a bundle of blankets in her arms. Pink. Wiggling.
Oh Christ. What did I miss?
I stared at the swaddle of impossible tininess. Little dark fingers poked from the blankets.
“The baby…” She was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen. “You…you…”
“I went into labor at the game.” Rory presented her daughter. Our daughter. “Jude, this is Dawn.”
Dawn.
“God, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” My words sounded hollow. The damned injury. What kind of man missed his baby’s birth? “I promise you, Rory. I wasn’t there for this, but I won’t miss anything again. I’m going to be there for everything.”
“I know, Jude. Just rest now.”
Rest sounded good, but I felt like I had been sleeping for hours. Days.
Years.
I laid my head down. The fatigue overwhelmed me.
Then the fog.
I slept.
I woke with a blink.
Nothing made sense. An IV stuck in my arm, and the sterile coldness surrounded me. I tried to get up. A hand pushed rubbed my arm.
“It’s okay, you don’t need to move.”
Her voice.
Music.
I focused on Rory’s face. She smiled.
I think I’d always loved her smile.
“Where am I?” I whispered.
A tear fell across Rory’s cheek. Had I caused that?
“You’re in the hospital with a concussion.” Her voice trembled. “You’ve been here for two days.”
“Two?”
“We put you to sleep to help your brain rest and heal.”
“From what?”
She didn’t look at me now. “You were hurt at the game.”
Game. The thought swirled. A memory stuck for a moment before getting lost in the haze. “What game?”
“The championship. You scored the winning touchdown.”
And yet she was crying.
Why was she crying? What the hell had happened?
How badly was I hurt…?
I pulled myself upright. My head didn’t like that. Neither did the tubes inserted into parts of me that never needed to be tubed before. I flinched, but the pain faded. I stared at the bassinet beside the bed.
A little bundle of pink blankets swaddled a sleeping baby.
Oh fuck.
“You had the baby,” I said.
Rory rubbed her cheek. The tears wouldn’t stop. “Yes. I had the baby while you were under.”
The fog in my head burned away, seared through by the quiver in her voice, the streaks of tears on her cheeks.
Nothing should have upset this woman.
I refused to let her cry, to be in pain, to feel anything but absolute joy.
Her baby was born.
Our baby.
And, in an instant, the haze cleared.
“Dawn,” I said.
Rory turned. “What did you say?”
“Her name is Dawn.”
Either I was wrong and Rory sobbed with disgust, or the fuzzy memories of the conversation meant my head hadn’t been right for a while. Her relief cracked in wavering sobs. I gestured for her to come closer.
“You’re okay?” Her voice