Page 144 of Adoration: Isn't What It Seems (Love Isn't What It Seems 2)

Is that what I think just happened?

Either that or I peed myself. I wobbled to the family room.

“There is my sister,” Maxim exclaimed, strolling to me with a wide smile then abruptly stopped. “What’s wrong, Livy?”

I searched out my husband’s eyes. He was already approaching me, in his powerful stride.

“Um, I think my water just broke,” I announced nervously. “Either that, or I peed myself.” How embarrassing. “That was too much information, right?”

“Totally, Livy,” Layla replied, rolling her eyes.

“Are you sure?” Alexander was on me, feeling my belly.

“It just gushed out,” I mumbled. “I think so. I don’t know. I never had my water break before.” I glanced behind me to the bottom of the stairs. “Look at that mess. I need to clean it up.”

“No, you don’t,” Alexander ordered. “We are going to the hospital.” Leave it to Alexander to keep a cool head during panic moments while everyone scurried around, grabbing their stuff like we were in the midst of invasion.

We sort of were,I chuckled to myself.We were getting invaded by triplets.

“Um, could Alexander and I go alone to the hospital?” I didn’t want to rain on their parade but I didn’t want to have all the men watching me as I pushed babies out. I still couldn’t believe we were having triplets. I was scared to death. “Brandon can watch you all. Right, buddy?”

Brandon smiled widely. “Yes, Livy. I’ll watch them all. We’ll come and visit later when the babies are here. I will be the best big brother.”

I smiled at my little guy. Alexander, Brandon, and I had talked about this, and Brandon was excited with his job to keep the Caldwell men from the delivery room till we had the babies.

“Ok,” Alexander’s father gave me one of his rare smiles. “We’ll let Brandon watch us. But the moment my grandchildren are born, you let us know.”

“We will,” Alexander promised. They all kissed us, and it felt kind of comical since we weren’t exactly leaving for a trip. We’d see them in a few hours.

Hopefully, I don’t have one of those out of nightmare labors I read about.

* * *

“Are you pushing?”Alexander asked, and I glared at him. We were working on pushing out baby number three and I was at the end of my strength.

“Yes, I’m pushing,” I gritted out.

“We are almost there, dear. Let’s just keep pushing,” the doctor kept encouraging me. I have heard that for the last six hours. I didn’t believe him anymore. And what was it with thewe?Last I checked, nobody was pushing but me.

I couldn’t do it anymore. “Can we leave this one in?” I begged, exhaustion in every bone of my body.

The doctor chuckled like I just said the funniest joke, but I wasn’t joking at all. I was dead serious.

Alexander kissed me on my sweaty forehead. “You can do it, love.” He kept encouraging me, holding my hand in his. “Just squeeze my hand and push. You were amazing so far.”

I started crying. “I don’t want any more babies.”

He murmured against my lips, sweet words and encouragement. I couldn’t follow what he was saying because with another contraction, excruciating pain shot through my spine.

“Push, push, push,” the doctor yelled and I squeezed Alexander’s hand as I did as asked. Then a loud cry sounded off, joining in with my other two babies.

“A boy?” My body shivered but I tried to lift to see my baby. The nurses and doctor moved around with amazing efficiency. We knew we were having triplets but we didn’t want to know the sex.

“It’s a girl.” Alexander beamed as he placed her into my arms. “She is beautiful, my love.”

Tears of happiness pooled in my eyes. A nurse brought all our bundles of joy over and placed them all around me, with Alexander next to me.

“Yes, they are all beautiful,” I murmured as I placed soft kisses on each one of them. “My little Lily, Lena, and Liam.”

---