Page 134 of Things We Burn

“Someone get my woman a fucking epidural,” he said to the nurses without missing a beat.

“Okay, honey. You stand up, and we’ll get the anesthetist on the phone.” I hated the nurse for sitting there and not being inunbearable pain. I hated everyone. Even Kane. Especially Kane. He did that to me.

Even the simple act of standing seemed unfathomable.Breathingwas an effort.

Yet I found the ability, with Kane’s help.

As soon as I stood, the pressure at my pelvis turned, morphing into something different than pain. Something much bigger.

“Something’s wrong,” I gasped.

Kane’s expression remained calm, but I saw his pupils dilate.

“I feel like I need to push.”

That was an understatement. It felt like my insides were about to all come tumbling out. The pressure... The pressure was unlike anything I’d ever felt.

Once I’d uttered those words, the nurses jumped into action.

Suddenly, I was out of the tub and on the bed, the nurse between my legs.

“Okay, she’s here,” she announced calmly.

“Here?” I shrieked. “But I was only three centimeters dilated. I need the epidural.”

She glanced up at me with kind eyes. “You’re all the way ready now, and we’re past the point of an epidural.”

My eyes bugged out. “Past the point? That’s not real, that only happens in stupid romantic comedies.”

She smiled. “Well, it’s happening here and now. I’m just going to call your doctor.”

She put the phone to her ear as more nurses filtered in, the energy in the room changing from calm support to purposeful preparation.

For labor.

Of a baby.

That I had to push it out.

Without drugs.

“I can’t do this,” I panted.

“Yes, you can, honey.” The nurse looked at me with knowing eyes, with a belief in me that made no sense since she didn’t know me. “You can totally do this.”

“No I can’t.” I had thoughts of closing my legs, insisting on them cutting her out instead. They could do that, right? I could make them do that. I could threaten to sue them or something.

Why I was thinking about threatening to sue these lovely, supportive, hardworking women was a testament to how much agony I was in. I would do it in a heartbeat if it would make it stop.

A dry palm pushed the damp hair from my head before familiar lips pressed into the skin there. “You can do this, Chef,” Kane murmured against my forehead. “You can do this.”

His voice was firm, confident, full of certainty.

“You are powerful,” he whispered in my ear.

I didn’t feel powerful. Not even a little. I felt exhausted. The most exhausted I’d ever been in my life. My body felt as if it were so fragile it was made of cracked glass, ready to shatter at any moment. My hips burned, the bones grinding against each other, the pressure in my pelvis indescribable. My ass seemed like it was going to explode.

The nurses were moving around the room then, practiced, with a calm kind of urgency. One of them was on the phone with my doctor who was, apparently, stuck in traffic. More nurses came in.

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