Page 64 of Brother to Brother

“Yep! That just happened,” Mandy said and pushed herself to her feet.

“Shelly, don’t panic honey; it’s okay,” I said and was the first one to her.

“Did my water just break?” she asked, a little stunned, and looked down at her soaked sundress.

“It sure did,” Mandy said.

“Oh, god! Somebody call Ghost!”

“On it, Everett declared, her cell pressed to her ear.”

“Oh no, this is bad,” Shelly said and I let Ashton and Hayden take her from either side to walk her to Ashton’s Jeep which she had conveniently parked here out back just in case of this eventuality. Everett had her finger in her other ear as she spoke quickly to someone on the other end of the line. Mandy and I were making beelines for our kids. Dani was already there helping to pick up their toys, tossing them in a plastic bin and marching it to her shop for safe keeping.

“Shelly, I need you to calm down,” Hayden was saying with some authority. I ran the blanket that Noah and Eden had been playing on ahead of them and put it on the passenger seat of Ashton’s Jeep before they could help Shelly into it.

I ran back to Mandy who had Eden on her hip and was holding Noah by the hand, walking him along.

“Why Auntie Shelly scared?” he kept asking, over and over, and was getting increasingly upset when he wasn’t getting an answer from any of the grownups.

“Auntie Shelly is having her baby!” I told him and he just kept craning his neck in the direction of the Jeep as Mandy and I made for our cars and the car seats.

“Why Auntie Shelly Scared? Where the baby? Momma I wanna see!”

“We gotta go to the hospital with Auntie Shelly, I need you to be a good boy and let me get you into your car seat, okay?” I started to buckle Noah in but he kept twisting and fighting to turn around and see.

“Why Auntie Shelly scared? I wanna see Auntie Shelly!”

“Noah Jeramiah Turner, sit down!” I said in my no nonsense mommy voice after a full, almost five minutes of struggling to get him strapped in. His eyes as wide as saucers he complied and I finally got him buckled in.

Mandy was similarly having troubles, Eden crying from her car seat, her mind firmly made up that she didn’t like all of the hullabaloo. Not one bit.

“Thank you,” I told Noah and kissed the top of his head quickly.

“See you at the hospital!” Mandy chirped over the roof of her car and I smiled.

“See you there!”

“I hope she isn’t in labor long,” she said and I shrugged.

“Always hard to tell when it’s the first, it felt like forever when I was in labor with Noah.”

“Tell me about it!” She called getting into her car. I got into mine but our windows were rolled down, she called out, “I was in labor for something like thirty-six hours with Eden.”

I winced, “Okay mine wasn’t quitethatbad, but not going to lie, my birthing experience was just awful.”

Mandy’s face crumbled and we started our cars, “I’m getting that story over margaritas!”

I laughed and waited for Dani who came trotting out the front of the club and got into my passenger seat. Everett climbed in with Mandy.

“Okay, I got it, we’re ready to go.”

Ashton and Hayden were long gone with their precious cargo and we pulled down the drive. When we were through the gate, Dani turned around and clicked the remote. The gate trundling shut smoothly behind us.

She immediately got onto her cellphone, “Yeah Aaron, you might want to head to the hospital. Yeah, her water just broke. Uh-huh. I’m sad you missed it, too! Boo for late practices. Okay, yeah. Do you need to be picked up? No? Great, okay. See you there.”

Dani and I had become good friends in the beginning, secretly commiserating about what an ass Archer could be, bonding over our less than ideal encounters with the private, stubborn man. She grinned and said, “I can’t wait for this.”

“What?” I asked.

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