Page 86 of The Run Home
I yelped. “Hey! I can’t get more pregnant.”
His dimpled smirk was legendary.
I pulled my sundress back down and pushed my hair off my face. Even with the air conditioner fully cranking, I was sweating. I wondered if Gigi would be able to tell what we’d been doing. Probably. That woman had eyes like a hawk.
Experiencing a Blueball summer while fully pregnant had to be the seventh circle of hell. I spent all of June in the backyard under a shade umbrella with my feet in a kiddy pool full of water and ice. Boon kept the electrolytes coming and my friends came by almost every day to sit and sweat with me. Braxton-Hicks contractions made a run for what was most annoying: the heat or the pain. Boon kept smirking like the asshole he was for knocking me up and then acting like he’d done some grand thing. I was doing all the work here!
We stepped outside into the backyard again and Boon got me settled on a padded lawn chair before going inside and getting a bag of ice. Gigi was already coming across our two properties with her lunch in hand. She’d taken her promise to watch over me seriously, visiting me every day and doing things around the house to help me out. Between her and her son, I didn’t lift a finger these days.
“That ought to keep you for the afternoon,” Gigi said as she handed me a battery-operated fan and watched Boon pour more ice in the pool. She sat in the lawn chair next to me, nose streaked with white zinc sunblock. She had a pair of readers on her head and a pair of sunglasses on her face. “I put someice packs in the freezer to tide you over for the fireworks show tonight.”
“Bless you,” I murmured, shivering with delight as the ice swirled around my swollen feet. Today was July Fourth, and I was officially one day past my due date. There wasn’t a word strong enough in the English dictionary to depict how uncomfortable I was. “How did you do this three times?”
Gigi snorted. “It was more accidental than on purpose. Me and Willy couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” She angled a knowing eyebrow at me and my cheeks reddened, which had nothing to do with the heat this afternoon.
“Hey!” Boon looked affronted at being called an accident. Or maybe it was thinking about his parents doing the deed.
He stripped his shirt off and faced the sun, muscles rippling. He’d somehow gotten better-looking the longer he stayed in Blueball. He’d grown out a short beard that was streaked with silver and he kept in shape with daily runs while I got heavier and puffier by the minute. It was patently unfair.
A contraction hit me out of the blue. I bent over and rubbed my belly, grimacing.
“Leonidas being a little asshole again?” Boon asked, always tuned in to how I was feeling. Lately, he’d been hovering. It was both adorable and annoying. Then again, literally everything was annoying.
“His name…is not…Leonidas,” I panted, breathing through the pain like the birthing class taught me.
We’d only gone the one time. After the young female instructor spent most of her time working one-on-one with Boon on his breathing likehewas the one birthing a baby, I’d called it quits. Women had been doing this since the dawn of time. I didn’t need Nurse Flirts-a-lot to tell me how to breathe. Besides, I had every intention of getting that epidural the second we walked through the hospital doors.
“Willy Nelson Junior?” he asked hopefully, his hand covering mine on my belly.
“How about Gerald?” I snapped back, referring to my father’s name. Gigi and Boon grimaced in unison. That made me laugh. “I’m kidding. I love my dad but I’m not naming this baby Gerald.”
Another contraction hit and I bent over again. Boon instantly started rubbing my lower back like he’d learned to do when these fake contractions hit. God bless his strong hands.
“Are you sure these are Braxton-Hicks?” Gigi asked once I’d straightened again. She looked at her cell phone. “I’ve been timing them since this morning and they’re at regular intervals.”
Boon and I both froze. “How far apart?” Boon asked quickly. I could sense his focus honing in. The man was laser-focused when it came to me, Kinsley, or this baby.
“They’re only three minutes apart now.”
My heart rate hammered in my chest. “Help me up!” I waved my hands in the air and Boon stepped in front of me to hoist me out of the lawn chair. The second I got to my feet I felt a pop. And then warmth down my legs.
“Whoa. Babe. You need the bathroom?” Boon asked, grimacing.
Gigi laughed as she also stood. “You better get her in the car, son. I’ll get Shae’s bag. Looks like you’re having a Fourth of July baby.”
I’d seen Boon do a lot of athletic things over the years, but watching him sprint for his truck keys, then back for me, half carrying me to his truck, then having to stop for another contraction, was a thing of beauty. Sadly, I was too busy panting and breathing through the painful contractions to take much notice. Gigi climbed in the back and called Kinsley while Boon drove like a bat out of hell to the hospital.
For some reason, I remained a level of calm that didn’t make sense. I was about to push a human out of my body, and yet I wasn’t scared. I was too darn excited to see this little one to worry about how it would happen. Plus, Boon was by my side and I could pretty much do anything with him there. He raced around the entrance of the emergency room and came back with a wheelchair. His dash through the halls to the labor and delivery floor was comical.
As we planned, Gigi was right there with us in the birthing room, holding my hand, talking me through the epidural while Boon paced, asking the doctors and nurses all kinds of questions before he’d let them touch me. When my feet went up in stirrups and my doctor checked my progress, he informed me that I’d come in right on time. It was time to push.
“You want to see, Dad?” my doctor asked Boon.
He looked to me for permission. I nodded my head. There wasn’t much point trying to shield him from my body. The man knew every inch of me anyway. He stepped closer to the doctor and watched as they had me start to push. Gigi stayed by my head and coached me through the hardest physical workout I’d ever had.
“I see his head, lovebug!” Boon had tears streaming down his cheeks and settling in his dimples but he was all smiles. He came back over to kiss my forehead and whisper, “You’re incredible.”
That gave me the second wind I needed, and on the next push, baby’s head came out. The doctor gave me exactly three seconds to rest up and then I was pushing again. In a whoosh, I pushed him all the way out and suddenly his wet warm body was lying across my chest. The nurse’s hands rubbed his back and his arms went out in the air, clearly startled about being earth side. His adorable face scrunched and he let out a loud cry that had us all laughing.
