Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,132

things! Or that it might be Braxton Hicks—”

“Laura, you are forty weeks pregnant. Why the hell would you think it was Braxton Hicks?!”

“It still might be!”

“Woman, I swear to God—”

She interrupted his very serious disapproval with a snort of amusement. “Oh, don’t start.” But then her face creased into that grimace again, and she huffed out a breath. “Ah. Another one. Oh dear. That was much faster.”

“Fuck.” He scooped her up into his arms and started wading out of the water. “Fuck. Evan!”

And so it began.

It was fortunate, Laura reflected later, that they’d established a plan for this sort of thing just last week. And even better that they’d executed it so well!

She turned to smile at Samir, who was looking very grim. His eyebrows were so… directional. Like angry, sharp-edged caterpillars. “We did great,” she said, “didn’t we?” But her voice sounded slightly slurred. Ah well.

“Yes, angel,” he murmured. His hand closed around hers, which was nice—but then she realised that he was taking away her special tube, which was not nice. Laura tightened her grip.

“Get off my magic air,” she mumbled.

Finally, his lips quirked into a smile. “It’s gas and air, my love.”

“No! Magic.” To prove it, Laura brought the tube back to her lips and sucked down another breath. Oooh, that was nice. Almost nice enough to distract her from the fact that her hips were cracking right down the middle, her vagina was ripping itself in two, her arsehole might be taking the same path, and there was sweat dripping right into her eyes.

Actually, that last part was difficult to ignore. It really stung.

As if he’d read her mind, Samir brushed a cool, dry thumb over her eyelid, sweeping away the beads of moisture. He was so lovely. Lovely! That’s why she loved him. She was thinking about how very much she loved him when that pesky midwife said, “Laura, I need you to give me a nice big push now, alright?”

Laura took another gulp of magic air. “No.”

“Yes, darling, nice big push. Last one. Come on now.”

She really didn’t want to. She’d been pushing forever, and it hurt like a motherfucker, and every single time, they lied and said it was the last one, and it wasn’t. But she felt the oddest sensation down there, as if something was lodged and needed to be released—and then Samir took her hand again—not her magic air, just her hand—and murmured, “Push for me, Laura. Please.”

So she did. She squeezed his hand so tight that his bones ground together under her grip, and all she could feel was a vicious satisfaction because her own bones were grinding on a much larger scale, and something was definitely ripping her in half, and how dare he sit there comfortably asking her to push? How dare he? How dare—

“Keep going, Laura!” The midwife said, sounding rather excited. “One more! One more!”

Lie again. But even though she didn’t want to push, she kind of felt like she couldn’t stop, now. Wasn’t that strange? This whole childbirth thing was like smoking bad crack. Not that she’d ever smoked crack. But if she had, it would probably…

“There we go!”

Oh my God. Oh my God. She could hear her baby crying.

Nothing had ever sounded so heavenly.

The time between her son’s first cry and the touch of his skin against her own was interminably long. Ridiculously long. Inhumanely long. But finally, finally, after all sorts of murmurs and mumbles, and the painful, exhausted shove with which she released the afterbirth, and the loudest demands she could muster while floating in a haze of aching soreness, she had him.

She had him. Her baby. Her Bump.

The top of his little head smelled like dried pasta shells. It was delightful. Delicious. She hadn’t realised that pasta shells smelled so very lovely until she found the scent nestled in her baby’s thick thatch of auburn hair.

Oh, yes, he had hair. He wouldn’t open his eyes, and they’d probably be blue anyway, but he had plenty of dark, red hair, and the splotchiest cream-and-raspberry skin, and hands too big for his skinny little body, and a head like a toothless old man’s. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. He fit perfectly under her chin, tucked safely away like a Russian doll, folded in her arms.

She heard Samir’s voice, low and assured, as he spoke with a nurse or a midwife or someone. Yes, he said, they were trying to breastfeed, and yes, they had formula ready just in