"I need a favor," I told him.
"Is that your girl?"
He nodded toward Clarke, a shit-eating grin on his face.
"Yes."
"You sound serious about this one."
"Kev," I warned.
He laughed under his breath. "Alright, alright. What do you need, man?"
Twenty minutes later, Clarke and I piled into Kev's minivan. I hadn't even changed out of my uniform.
"Soren, who's van is this?"
"Don't worry about it, blondie." I helped her buckle her seatbelt when her hands faltered. I'd never seen her thisnervous, not even the first night we hooked up. "It's three-and-a-half hours to Asheville. If I drive fast, we can do it in three."
She twisted in her seat, laying her hand on top of mine. "You're not missing tomorrow's game. Absolutely not."
I rolled her hand over in mine, lacing our fingers together. "You let me worry about that." I brought our entwined hands to my lips. "We've got twenty-four hours, plenty of time."
She looked up at me with a sense of reverence or admiration, like I was some prize waiting to be won. Little did she know that her love would be the ultimate prize.
It wasn't an expectation, though. I didn't have any for what Clarke could give to me, only for what I could give to her. What I wanted to give her.
And that was everything.
Clarke
By the time we made it to Asheville, it was almost midnight. Soren had driven like a madman, shaving nearly an hour off our trip from Atlanta. We hadn't even stopped to eat or relieve our bladders.
He dropped me off in front of the hospital, leaving me to race inside while he found a parking spot. Not that there was a lot happening at Asheville General this late on a Wednesday, but still. This was a big moment for my older sister, and I wasn't going to miss it. I'd already missed too much over the years.
A nurse in superhero print scrubs led me to the waiting room in the maternity ward, where I tapped out a quick text to Ellie. After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
I couldn't sit, couldn't relax. Instead, I paced the room, distracting myself by counting floor tiles and admiring the wall full of baby photos.
It was quiet, so I spun toward the end of the hallway the second I heard feet squeaking across the linoleum. But it wasn'ta doctor or nurse or my sister-in-law. It was my knight in shining armor.
Er, make that my knight in dusty pinstripes.
"Any word?"
I threw my hands up. "Not really. A nurse led me here, but nobody's told me anything else. Ellie's not answering her texts." I crouched down until I was almost sitting on the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. "I don't know what else to do."
Next thing I knew, there was a six-foot-something baseball star sitting on the hospital floor beside me, tugging me until my back rested against his front.
"She's gonna be okay," he said against my neck. "They both are."
We sat like that for nearly an hour. He pulled my hair loose from the ponytail, combing his fingers through every strand and massaging my scalp until I relaxed fully into him. I knew he had to be starving—I know I was—but I couldn't even stomach the idea of eating anything until I knew Viv and the baby were okay. Soren didn't complain.
By the time Viv's doctor found us, I was half-asleep, cuddled against his chest.
"Are you Vivian Myers-Lim's family?"
"Yes, that's me," I told the doctor, leaping to my feet. "I'm her sister, Clarke."
