Page 106 of Floored

"Are you ready?" she asked me quietly.

Sucking in a deep breath, I pulled Lia's hand up to my mouth and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "As ready as one can be, I imagine."

And by that, I felt completely unprepared. I felt inadequate. Humbled. Excited.

"I'm scared shitless," she admitted.

Laughing, I kissed her hand again. "Feel free to yell at me if it helps distract you from it. Call me names. Break my hand with your grip. Whatever you need."

As directed, I pulled the car up to the Emergency Room entrance, and she sighed. "I love you, Jude. I'm not going to call you names."

Lia

Five hours later

"Oh, you selfish piece of shit," I groaned. "If you eat one more piece of food in front of me—" My voice broke off when another contraction knocked the breath from my lungs.

Claire laid a washcloth over my forehead, speaking to Jude in a soothing, quiet voice. "Maybe you should set the apple down, Jude. Or eat it out in the hallway."

"Or choke on it," I said through gritted teeth.

Jude tossed the apple into the trash and approached the other side of the bed. He kissed the crown of my head. "Apple's gone, and I know you don't want me to choke, love."

The tension eased from my body, the monitor next to my bed showing the contraction as it eased. "I know. I really don't."

Taking his seat on the stool, he smiled, but I saw the tense lines around his eyes and mouth. "In all fairness, I never should have asked that question, so I can't blame you for feeling ..." He paused, searching for the right word.

"Murderous?" I supplied helpfully.

Claire rolled her lips in to smother her smile.

Jude—who I loved to a scary level, who I trusted with my heart, who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—about got himself castrated when he asked the pregnant girlfriend on the bed, as she was writing in immense pain, what a contraction felt like.

Folks, he almost didn't survive it.

Another contraction rolled over me, and I felt my legs draw up helplessly.

It was impossible at that point to talk through them, so I didn't even try. Jude moved the washcloth and spoke something soft and sweet into the damp hairline of my forehead.

Eventually, it ebbed, and I could suck in another deep breath.

Claire held my hand tightly on one side, Jude on the other, and the doctor entered the room with a smile. "How are we doing?"

"If they don't get that giant ass needle up here and in my back, I'm going to go find them myself," I hissed.

Jude grinned. "Bloody hell, you're marvelous."

As the doctor laughed, I pulled Jude down for a soft kiss.

"I don't feel marvelous," I admitted. "But thank you."

"You've got quite the group out in the waiting room," the doctor said as he pulled his little stool up right between my spread legs.

When people said you lost your modesty in labor, they were not fucking around, because I would've flashed the entire hospital if it would've helped get my child out of my body sooner.

"Are they being obnoxious?" I asked, wincing when he measured me.

Claire sighed. "The last time I went out there, Paige was on her I cannot be called Grandma thing again. She's real worked up about it."

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