have a field day if he ever met her. It was all I could do not to text him as longing filled my chest. Hell must have frozen over if I actually longed to talk to Jameson Buchanan.
“Morning, sugar. Did you sleep well?” she asked after looking me over.
We both knew I didn’t, but what else was new? “Well enough,” I mumbled as I checked my phone. Rather than spend my weeks here wringing my hands, I spent much of my time online.
Bee’s YouTube channel was my favorite to watch. Her subscriber count had quadrupled after she unknowingly uploaded a makeup tutorial featuring a grainy image of Jamie passing in the background…fully exposed. Her followers started referring to his dick as the Loch Ness monster because of its size and the disbelief that it wasn’t photoshopped as a publicity stunt. It didn’t stop any of them from hanging around, hoping to get a second glance, though. Recently, to appease her new followers, Bee did a live tutorial called “My Boyfriend Does My Makeup.” I spent half an hour watching Jamie flirt with Bee as if they weren’t on camera and then him paint her eyes, cheeks, nose, and lips in the colors red, black, and blue. Bee, of course, had been none the wiser until Jamie turned her face toward the camera. With a scowl, he told her followers that it was how anyone getting off to his girl would look after he found them and kicked their ass. He hasn’t been allowed back on her channel since.
Seeing no messages waiting, I decided to ask Nurse Honey the question foremost in my mind since she had been the night nurse assigned to his care. “Did River have any trouble last night?”
“Not a bit,” she answered as she scrubbed her hands and dried them. “What makes you ask?”
“Just a funny feeling, I guess.” And the fact that his chart indicated Nurse Honey had checked on River not even half an hour before I’d woken up. So who had been in our room last night?
“I got those all the time when I had my first child. It’s perfectly normal to worry, and I’m sorry to tell you, the feeling never really goes away, not even when your children aren’t children anymore. My daughter throws a fit if I try to hold her hand while crossing the street.”
“Really? How old is she?”
“Twenty-five.”
I barked a laugh, my first in months, but then I clapped my hand over my mouth as my gaze darted to the flashing lights activated by the sound. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. In fact, you should do it more often. I’m sure River would love to see his mother smile.”
I didn’t respond as I chewed on my lower lip thoughtfully. A habit I must have picked up from Four. Ignoring that familiar longing, I watched Nurse Honey lift the door on the side of the incubator. Every morning, they weighed River to monitor his weight gain. He needed to be at least four pounds and graduate from incubator to an open crib before he was allowed to go home—wherever that may be.
I waited with bated breath for her to remove him. He was still so tiny and fragile. Instead, Nurse Honey paused, and I wondered if she could read my thoughts when she stared at me thoughtfully. “Would you like to do the honor?”
Without realizing it, I took a hopeful step forward. “Me?”
Her head tilted to the side as she offered a smile that could only be born of pity. “Of course, dear. We usually encourage the parents to do this part to give them time to hold and bond with their baby.”
Panic speared through my chest as I backed up a step. “I-I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Holding him, bonding with him…I couldn’t risk that. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t keep my promise. River deserved more than me.
Nodding once, she carefully lifted River from the incubator. I quickly calculated his steady growth rate of eight to ten grams per day and held my breath as Nurse Honey set him on the scale nearby. Cranky as ever in the mornings and still sensitive to touch, River fussed and flailed his arms. I knew any moment now he’d fill the room with his hungry cries as the lights built into the wall flashed their warning.
“Three pounds exactly,” she noted out loud as she wrote it on her chart. “He’s doing so well.”
My legs inexplicably shook, so I sank onto