“I wanted to believe. To take it on faith, but—” She winced.
“You needed evidence. It’s okay, baby. Let’s focus on the here and now.”
That contraction lasted longer than before and seemed to ratchet up her pain levels.
“I need to push.”
“I know.”
“But maybe I can hold on?”
I looked at Dr. Sykes. “Should she wait?”
“She should do what comes naturally.”
“Hear that?” I said. “What comes naturally.”
“Oh sure! For eons, women have been doing this. Pushing out a bundle the size of a bowling ball. So natural! So—agh!” That scream could probably have been heard on the ice. While my boys were birthing a victory, my lady was birthing my kid.
During the next respite, I fingered the scarf she wore, tied loosely around her neck, wondering why it looked so familiar.
“Is this?—?”
“Yes,” she gasped. “No harm in a little superstition, right?”
The last time I saw this beauty, it was triple knotted around my wrist, tying me to a hotel room bed while this woman sank down on my cock. I smiled. The doc had finally let a little magical thinking enter her logic-bound world. Praise be.
A noise behind me announced a new arrival.
“Hello, you two!” Dr. Patel had finally joined the party. Though we weren’t out of the woods yet, it was a relief to see the woman who knew the ropes.
I saluted the Rebels team doc. “Thanks for subbing in.”
“Happy to help.” He filled Dr. P. in on the story so far.
Our OB went into full baby-delivering beast mode, while I knelt beside Franky, smoothing her damp hair away from her face, whispering how amazing she was, how she could do anything, how much I loved her and our baby.
Seven minutes later, on one massive push, Super Kid arrived in a slippery swoosh. A few seconds of breath-stealing quiet were interrupted by a wail that told the world the next generation of Rebels or Nobel-prize-winning scientists had burst onto the scene.
Dr. Patel wiped the baby’s head and cleaned up with a bar towel. “Well, Mom and Dad, you have a beautiful, healthy, noisy baby girl.”
A daughter!
Franky sat up on her elbows, her face still red and damp with exertion, and accepted our baby into her arms while I sat behind her and supported her back, defending all that was mine.
“Jason, look at her,” she said, her voice filled with awe. “She’s beautiful.”
“Of course she is. She’s yours.”
She dragged her eyes away from the baby and met my blurry-eyed gaze. “She’s ours. We made her together.”
I swiped at a tear and inclined my head to my daughter’s. “Hi, gorgeous. Welcome to the world.” Checking her over, I noted all the little things that made her perfect. Fingers, toes, eyes, nose, her cupid bow mouth. She even had a mop of dark hair, which tracked because I came from a long line of lustrous locks.
Then everything started happening fast. People came in to gawk at the baby—which was okay, they were her relatives, after all—and the paramedics arrived to take Franky to the hospital. Dr. Patel insisted everything was okay, but that mom and baby should be checked out in more sterile surroundings.
The third period had started, a fuzzy, whip-fast backdrop to the main event. I happily turned my back on that rink-facing glass. I didn’t know the score, had no idea how my boys were doing without me. There would be other games. The birth of my first child would only happen once.
Sean squeezed my shoulder as the gurney carrying Franky left. I was holding my baby girl to my chest, wrapped in a fleecy Rebels blanket that had miraculously appeared, courtesy of Harper (“I get so cold in that box!”).
