Page 36 of On the Rocks

I perked up, replying so quickly the words were hardly legible at first. Thank god for autocorrect.

Holy shit! What can I do? What do you need?

Rally the guys. We’re already at the hospital. I’m gonna be a freaking dad!

What hospital?

Lenox Hill.

I grinned down at his response and dialed Trent immediately.

He picked up on the third ring. “If you try to sell me on the strippers one more time?—”

“No time for that,” I interrupted. “Baby’s coming.”

“What?”

“Piper’s in labor.”

“Oh!” Trent said. “That’s…Wait, did I miss a message in the group chat?”

“No. I just got a text from Vincent. They’re at Lenox Hill. Told him I’d rally the group. Can you get a hold of Paul and Chloe? I’m gonna go grab Dominic. He’s got Hailey here with him today, but that should be fine. Kids like hospitals, right?”

Trent laughed. “I mean…she’ll probably be bored as hell if this is a long labor. But I’ll see you guys there.”

“Yeah, see you soon.” I hung up, grabbed my things, and hurried out of my office, calling over my shoulder for Connie to push the rest of my meetings today. By the time I’d rounded up Dominicand Hailey and gotten us to the hospital, it was almost an hour later. We walked into the waiting room, Hailey running ahead with a CONGRATULATIONS balloon I doubted she’d want to hand over to the new baby when the time came.

“Uncle Trent!” she cried, running up to him. “Look at my balloon!”

“Wow! That is so cool!”

“Uh-huh,” she said, getting distracted by a TV mounted on the wall. It played some cartoon with dogs, and Hailey ran over, parking herself in a chair in front of it.

“Perfect,” Dominic said, watching her.

“How’s it going?” I asked Trent.

“Well,” he said. “Vincent keeps running out here to update me. So far, Piper’s eaten some ice chips and threatened to chop his balls off. That led to him terrorizing the nurses until they got the anesthesiologist up here to do the epidural.”

Dominic laughed. “This all sounds so familiar.”

It had been over four years since we’d rallied together for Hailey’s birth. I still remembered getting that three-in-the-morning phone call. At least this baby had the decency to wait until regular business hours. “Did they say how far along she is?” I asked.

Trent shrugged. “Like six centimeters?”

I had no idea what that meant in terms of timing. We glanced at Dominic—the only one who’d been paying attention when we’d gone through this before. “Hard to know,” he said. “Hailey camereally quickly, remember? Amanda didn’t even have time for an epidural.”

I winced. Dominic was right.

“And this is Piper’s first,” Dominic continued. “Could be a couple hours. Could be much longer.”

A door flew open at the side of the waiting room. Vincent appeared, looking frazzled. He glanced around, spotting us. “Eight centimeters,” he yelled. “Eight!” He gave us a giddy little smile before disappearing back through the door.

“Okay then,” Dominic said. “I’d say this baby is showing up this afternoon.”

I chuckled. Vincent’s whole life was about to change, and I couldn’t have been happier for him.

“Did we miss it?”

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