“She’s beautiful, Ellie. I can’t wait to snuggle her.” Tibby’s voice was wistful as she watched her best friend cradle the baby up to her face. “I wish I could be there with you now.”
“I know, but just think, you’ll get to see her in a couple of weeks when she’s more fun and alert.” The baby began to fuss and Eloise was surrounded by her pack who all wore expressions of varying panic as they tried to figure out what the baby wanted.
The camera flipped around to reveal Link’s face. “Hey, daddio. How do you feel?” I asked, greeting the beta who was like a little brother to me.
“Very, very, tired.” He said with a little smile, “Uh...I think I should probably give Matteo a heads up about how Vivi came into the world, though, before Reisler calls.”
“What happened?” Matteo asked, shouldering his way to the front of our group so that he was in view of the camera.
“Well, let’s just say you might want to get your elevators checked out. Our daughter decided to make an appearance...right when the elevator broke down with us inside of it.” Link grinned, “She’s dramatic, just like her mama.”
“Excuse me?” Eloise’s voice came from behind Link and he winced.
“Yikes. Gotta go. Just know that we aren’t going to sue, so tell Reisler that he can wait to have a stroke until next year. Love you guys, I’ll send pictures!” With that the screen went dark, leaving us staring at the phone long after the call had ended.
“I can’t believe they had the baby!” Tibby turned to us with a huge smile, “I’m an auntie. I never thought I’d be an auntie.”
Theo looked down at her indulgently as he ran a hand over their bondmark, and the omega shivered with delight, leaning into his touch more heavily.
Tibby’s phone chimed with several pictures of the newborn and Tibby swiped through them to show us. As soon as she reached the final picture, Matteo’s cell phone began to ring. It seemed like we were a popular bunch this afternoon.
“Hi, Reisler.” He answered, rolling his eyes as the panicked voice of his second in command was just loud enough that everyone in the room could hear it.
“How much longer is your vacation? The damn elevator broke down with a patient who was in labor. We have a damn elevator baby on our hands, we are 100% going to be sued.” The man on the other end of the line ranted, and Matteo held the phone away from his ear, wincing at the volume of Riesler’s voice.
“Dr. Riesler,” Matteo tried to cut in but the doctor continued to babble. “Riesler.” Matteo repeated more firmly, effectively shutting the man up.
“Put Paula on the phone.” Matteo waited for a beat, and this time we could only hear Matteo’s side of the conversation since the nurse was probably speaking at a normal volume, unlike her colleague. “Hi, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, no, a baby being born in the elevator is definitely not ideal. We’re lucky, however, that the people in question are not going to sue.”
He listened for another minute before responding, “it just so happens that the baby that was born is my niece. Yep, we just got off the phone with them. Yep, uh-huh. Okay, well, gather up the costs of replacing the elevator entirely...yes I’ll make sure that the board pays for it. Can’t have anymore elevator babies after all. Okay, bye Paula.”
With that he hung up the phone and shook his head, “Riesler’s having a panic attack, but Paula is handling things just fine at the hospital.”
“Do you need to go in?” I asked, concerned that it would look bad for Matteo if he didn’t head into the hospital to fix things. He was the Chief of Medicine after all.
But the other alpha just shook his head and threw his arm around my shoulder. “Nah, it’ll be okay. Paula Lemon is the most capable person at that hospital—probably even more useful than me at this point.”
Ihmmm’dat that, Matteo was constantly underestimating his own importance at the hospital. You could lead a horse to water, but you couldn’t make it appreciate itself...was that the saying? I’m not sure, but the sentiment is there.
I was about to comment on Matteo’s ability to fix the dumpster fire that was his hospital, when Cobb’s phone chimed and our popularity for the day continued. The beta looked at the message, his brow furrowing as he read it.
“What is it, Guppy?” Theo asked and the previously cheerful room changed, suddenly tension surrounded us as we waited for Cobb to reply.
Cobb looked up from the message and held his phone up so that we could read the message. “We’ve got a problem.”
