Searching For His Omega - Harper B. Cole Page 0,44
I beg you. I have a card too. That money can be just for you—a tip.”
“No need, sir. I’m a father too.” He took off, and how we didn’t get caught speeding was a bloody freaking miracle. He pulled right up to the ER entrance, where they had told us to go when he was in labor, and I raced inside, taking the cab driver’s card. He needed a tip—shit, he needed a Mercedes for what he did for me.
A stop at the information desk and an elevator ride later and I was at his room. I stood at the door taking deep breaths. He couldn’t see what a mess I was. He needed me to be strong, as strong as he was.
“Are you the father?” a woman in a white coat, a doctor from my guess, asked.
“I’m Chet, yes.”
“I’m Dr. Lance. Let’s go in and have a chat, shall we?” Chat. What did that fucking mean? But I agreed and stepped inside to find Stan in the bed connected to a million tubes and wires.
“Stan.” He looked up at me, his eyes sunken in, his cheeks so puffy. “Oh love, I’m here.” I stepped tentatively to his side, and the doctor encouraged me.
“Any news?” Stan asked, looking to the doctor hopefully as I stood beside him, wanting nothing more than to hold him, comfort him, tell him I loved him.
“Still waiting on some test results, but you're going to be here for a while...probably until baby comes.”
“But the little one will be okay.” I wasn’t even asking. I was just stating it as fact because I didn’t want to live in a world where it could be anything but.
“We will do everything we can.” She kept talking, but I didn’t hear a word of it. Everything we can was not a yes. it was so far from yes they were in different time zones. It. Wasn’t. Good. Enough.
She eventually left, and Stan patted the bed beside him. There wasn't much room. In fact, there was hardly any room, but I sat on it the best I could. Whatever he wanted I was giving him. Done.
“I love you, Stan, and not because of this.”
“I know. You told me when you left that night.”
“You heard me?”
“I did, and I was too scared to say it then, afraid to break what we were building, afraid it would all topple over like a house of cards, but I love you too. I did that night, and I do now. Kiss me. Please.” His voice cracked. “I need to feel you; to know this is real.”
I leaned down and kissed him gently. “I’m real. What we have is real. I’m not leaving again.” I spoke against his lips between kisses, meaning every word.
Twenty-Nine
Stan
I’d had very little sleep as the nurses were in and out of the room all night checking my blood pressure and temperature. They’d inserted a catheter as they wanted to see how much urine I was producing and also didn’t want me getting in and out of bed.
More blood tests followed, and I resembled a pincushion as it was getting harder to find a vein. There was another ultrasound plus blood pressure medication. I’d never had high blood pressure in my life.
Chet was in the corridor getting a cup of coffee and drinking it out there. I wasn’t a coffee snob, honest, and certainly not now when all my focus was on the baby. But the aroma—or should I say odor—of hospital coffee, that looked more like pig swill, had me wanting to throw up.
Maybe that should be our next project. Hospitals focused on making people well, and the food situation had improved dramatically over the years. But just because people were sick or having babies didn’t mean they shouldn’t be treated to good coffee and cookies.
Thinking about coffee and work was me avoiding the realities of the dinging and beeping machines. The monitor measuring the baby’s heartbeat was the only one I welcomed, though the probe wrapped around my belly was uncomfortable. It reassured me that the little one was okay.
The possibility of delivering the baby today or in the next few days had me counting the days until my due date which was six weeks from now. I did it more than once, thinking I’d made a mistake. And during the night when Chet had dozed off in a big armchair in the corner, I grabbed the phone from under my pillow, though the IV line in my left