Page 26 of Unexpected Delivery

Morris, the massive fucker, paced the floor bare, only to realize we were going to have to wait again for them to get the hot food set up.

That’s when I left him to it and made a quick trip across the street to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy.

Arbor’s phone has been dead since the accident. None of our chargers are compatible, so I bought her a new one and even grabbed a card. It’s not much, under the circumstances, but if she does have anyone she wants to call, she’ll need a charged device to make that happen.

I even remembered to grab her crappy phone from Hayes’s truck on the way up. It’s the kind people use when they don’t want to be traced, and I think that says it all.

“Dammit, she’s already asleep,” Morris whispers. “She hasn’t eaten anything, except half of a sandwich they gave her in the ER the first time she fed the baby.”

“Gracie,” Hayes says just as softly. He’s in the process of tossing two terrible hospital pillows on the fold-down bed.

Morris whips around. “She picked a name?”

“That’s what she’s been calling her,” Hayes says, stripping off his jacket.

“It’s cute.” Morris nods, unloading the rest of the bags on the small table. “I’ll take the couch.”

I guess that leaves me with Hayes on the full-size Murphy bed.

Jesus.

That joke from earlier tonight is coming back to haunt me.

My brain throbs when I try to comprehend that it was only earliertonightwhen we came across her. Okay, technically it was last night, but since I haven’t been to sleep, it feels like one long-ass day.

Striding over to the end table next to the bed, I open the charger and plug in Arbor’s phone. As I step back, I bump into the baby cart and whirl around to make sure the little one isn’t about to wake up.

Gracie is wrapped up like a little baby burrito with a pink beanie that has a big bow.

It’s adorable.

Tugging out my phone, I snap a few pictures before turning to snag a couple more of Arbor.

The bed Hayes is stretched out on seems so far away, and everything in my being rebels at being that far away from the baby. Instead, I head over, take the pillow Hayes isn’t using, and stretch out on the uncomfortable-as-fuck recliner right next to Arbor’s hospital bed.

There is no such thing as a peaceful night of sleep in the hospital.

It feels like the nurse comes in every hour, and the pediatrician wakes us up a little after ten a.m. to introduce herself, then right as we fall back to sleep, a doctor comes to check on Arbor.

I amhorrifiedto hear Arbor had a second-degree tearthat requiredstitches.Apparently that’s normal, and it’s not even the worst kind of tear that can occur during childbirth. The doctor relays that she’ll be back to check on Arbor tomorrow, and that she’ll be released Wednesday, barring any complications.

Morris and Hayes manage to sleep through the conversation with the doctor, and once she leaves, Arbor turns to me.

I’m torn between pretending to be asleep and acknowledging that I probably should have left the room to give her some privacy while the doctor checked her stitches.

I didn’t look.

She was covered by the blanket, anyway.

“Hael.”

“Yeah, beautiful?”

She snorts. “The doctor wheeled my table away, and I’m dying of thirst all of a sudden. Would you mind grabbing my cup and refilling it from the pitcher if it’s empty?”

I’m up to collect her cup before she even finishes her sentence. She grabs it from my hand and takes a long swig from the bendy straw. She’s been drinking like a camel, and I make a mental note to add a giant super chug cup to the online cart I’ve been building.

She sets the cup on the end table next to the bed, and I check on the baby before heading back to my uncomfortable chair. I stretch back, almost wishing I had a blanket, but my eyes pop open at the sound of the bed rail being dropped.

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