Page 92 of Last Hand

I’m never doing this again.

Ever.

They say labor pain is the type of pain you forget; they must have been whacked off their face or perhaps knocked out. I promise you, I will never forget this. If this baby tries to convince me of a sibling one day, I’ll personally walk out of the house and start a new life. Maybe that’s why Mom left, and the rest was just an excuse. Maybe she wanted to spare us the heartache of learning we tore her from ass to navel. She needed to forget the demons that pulverized her birth canal with their giant heads.

“If you ever ask for a sibling for this baby,” I hiss through ragged breaths, “I will pack my bags and move to another continent. Do you hear me? Another continent, Leone.”

He reaches out tentatively, his calloused fingers brushing against mine like he thinks I might bite him.

“Tesoro, just breathe,” he coaxes, his voice soft but trembling slightly at the edges. His Italian accent thickens when he’s nervous. “You’re doing amazing.” Leone crouches beside me like he isn’t white-knuckling the bed frame in horror, while this creature spawned from his family jewels is splitting me in halfwith its big head. It’s definitely his kid, there is no doubt, this kid’s head is as big as Leone’s fucking ego.

“Don’t you dare tell me to breathe!” I snarl, snapping my head toward him so fast it sends a fresh jolt of pain down my spine. “You breathe! You push an entire human out of your body and see how amazing you feel!”

Leone flinches but doesn’t back away, his jaw tightening as he tries to keep his composure. “Okay, okay… no breathing advice,” he murmurs apologetically, holding up his hands like a man surrendering to an armed assailant. “But you’re still doing great.”

“Great?” I bark out a humorless laugh that turns into a grimace as another contraction claws its way through me. “I feel like I’m giving birth to that football-headed kid fromHey Arnold!Or—orE.T.!”

He looks like he’s witnessing an exorcism, and in a way, he is. This kid is exorcising every last bit of my patience and sanity. “Get it out!” I scream, the words ripped from me, raw and desperate. “Or knock me out, I don’t want to do this no more!”

“The doctor said soon, amore,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. He tries to smooth a stray strand of hair from my sweat-slicked forehead, but I jerk my head away.

“Don’t amore me right now, you… you instigator of planetary-sized craniums!” I gasp, panting. “This is all your fault. Your giant-headed genes. I bet your mother had a hell of a time with you!”

He actually cracks a small, pained smile at that. “I’m going to complain about this for the rest of my life. You’ll never hear the end of it. Every birthday, every holiday, I’m going to remind you of the demon with the head of the prize-winning pumpkin you forced out my vagina!”

A nurse, bless her with her seen-it-all heart, bustles in with a doctor slipping on gloves. They start probing and pullingme down the bed, and suddenly my legs are being forced into stirrups. My nails dig into his hand, and I’m pretty sure I hear a bone crunch, but frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck. He deserves it. This is all his fault. His ridiculously potent sperm, and these twisting contractions are going to kill me.

I glance at the doctor, who’s hovering at the business end of things, looking far too calm for someone witnessing an exorcism of my vagina.

Another wave crashes over me, a tsunami of agony that steals my breath and makes my vision swim. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to ride it out.

“Okay, Fallon, on the next one, I need you to push,” the doctor says. Easy for her to say; this is the worst torture I can imagine. The contraction peaks, a searing, tearing sensation that makes me scream, a raw, animalistic sound I barely recognize as my own. I bear down, pushing with everything I have, every ounce of strength, every fiber of my being focused on this one, agonizing task. The room blurs, sounds warp, and the only thing real is the fire ripping through me.

“Again!” the doctor urges.

I take a ragged breath, or try to, and push again, my body arching off the bed. Leone’s hand tightens on mine, his other hand on my forehead, trying to soothe me.

“I can see the head!” someone says. I don’t know who, I don’t care. All I care about is the pressure, the burning, the feeling like I’m being split open from the inside out.

“Just try to focus, Fallon,” a calm, annoyingly serene voice says from somewhere near my knees. That’ll be Dr. Henderson, the woman who’s seen more of my nether regions today than I have in a lifetime.

“Okay, Fallon, here comes another one,” Dr. Henderson says, her tone becoming a little more urgent. “Push. Now, your baby is right there!”

My baby. The thought flickers through the haze of pain. This tiny human, this source of all my current misery, is also… ours. A part of him, a part of me.

With a guttural roar, I give one final push, and then, unbelievably, the pressure eases. The tearing stops. There’s a sudden, slick rush, and then… a cry.

A tiny, furious, surprisingly loud cry.

My head falls back against the pillows, every muscle in my body screaming in protest, but I’m too exhausted to care. I just lie here, gasping, sweat plastering my hair to my face, as the room erupts in a flurry of activity.

Leone is saying something, his voice thick with emotion, but I can’t quite make out the words. Then, a small, bundled form is placed on my chest. Warm. Heavy. Wriggling.

My world stops.

And suddenly, he’s in my arms, squirming.

I gaze down, and through a blur of exhaustion and tears, I see it. Him. A tiny, red-faced creature with a thatch of dark hair already plastered to his head. His eyes are squeezed shut, his mouth open in a continuous wail. He’s… perfect.

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