Officially Over It - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,40

feel sorry for his predicament.

“Is that Nathan Cox?” Rod asked in an awed whisper.

“Yes,” Alison replied, just as awed. “We named our daughter after him.”

I blinked. “You what?”

Had I missed her name somewhere having Nathan in it?

“He once said the name Regina in an interview on SportsNation Talk show. He said that Regina was wholly responsible for his ability to catch every single ball that’s ever been hit to him,” Rod said. “We heard the name on a repeat of SportsNation, and we fell in love with it.”

Holy shit.

I looked at Nathan who was standing back, seeming as if he was waiting for me to get to him.

“I’ll be back,” I said softly, holding one finger up in Nathan’s direction.

I stopped to strip off my gloves and toss them in the trashcan in the middle of the room after I checked on my other three patients.

When I finally got to Nathan I said, “What’s wrong?”

He looked at me steadily and said, “I’m scared fucking shitless.”

I reached for his hand and pulled him toward the bed where his boy was at.

“Everything good?” I asked Sierra.

Sierra looked up at me from where she was speaking quietly to Peyton.

“The night nurse was saying that she heard what she thought was a wheeze on his left lung,” Sierra said. “But I don’t hear anything now. “I’ll check on it throughout the shift to…”

“I don’t want you touching my kid,” Eerie snapped when I went to put some gloves on.

I paused and turned to survey her.

“Sadly for you,” Peyton interrupted. “Regina works here. The touching is inevitable. And if one parent says it’s okay…”

“Perfectly okay,” Nathan interjected, staring hard at me.

He still hadn’t looked at the baby.

“And visiting hours are over,” Peyton continued.

“What?” she asked.

Peyton pointed to the sign on the wall. “Visiting hours. They’re over. Do you see all the other parents leaving?”

Eerie looked at Peyton, then at Nathan.

“Is he leaving?” she asked.

Peyton stepped in front of Nathan, which then gave Nathan a clear view of the incubator that his son was in.

He blanched upon seeing him.

I grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the bed, as close as you could get, and said softly, “The wires are scary, I know. But that one right there?”

I pointed to each wire, lead, sticker, Band-Aid, piece of gauze, and tube that the baby had and explained each and every one.

By the time I was finished, he was breathing a little easier.

“Now,” I said as I looked at the chart. “The baby is twenty-nine weeks. From here on out…”

I then went on to explain complications that the baby may have, not sugarcoating any of it.

By the time I was done, he was looking slightly green.

“That’s not to say that he’ll run into any problems,” I continued. “Just that it’s a likelihood that we’ll prepare for. And, a lot of times, you’ll go home with him having a great day. And the next day you’ll come back and he’s taken a bad turn. But I don’t want you to get discouraged. He’s doing great.”

Sadly, I had so many other things that I had to do that I couldn’t continue to hold his hand.

Luckily, during that time that I’d been explaining everything, Peyton had gotten Eerie to leave.

She was standing out in the hall near the elevators, the phone pressed to her ear, glaring daggers at us through the glass.

After assuring him that he’d be okay, and that he could touch the baby, I went back to work on my other patients.

At one point, Sierra and I met back up at the nurses’ station.

“What happened to your ring?” Sierra asked as she came up to me.

“When we went tubing this past weekend? It’s now at the bottom of the river,” I admitted. “That’s what was in my ‘non-floating floating bag.’”

“Oh, that sucks,” my charge nurse, Peyton, said as she heard my explanation. “How’d that happen?”

I hadn’t even realized that she’d come up to me until now.

I turned so that I could look at her as I explained what had happened.

“The waterproof, floating bag that I bought off of Amazon wasn’t as floaty as it advertised. It sank like a freakin’ stone,” I grumbled darkly. “I would’ve left zero stars if I could have. You can bet your ass I’m writing a terrible review.”

“You should ask for your moneyback at least,” Peyton admitted.

I agreed.

It was on my to-do list.

That was twenty bucks that I’d never get back.

Movement caught my eye, and I once again looked up to find Eerie