CHAPTER 10
CRAIG WATCHED ANXIOUSLY as the nurses wheeled Andi in a stretcher straight to the delivery room.
They were prevented from entering the room.
“Can she handle it? Her belly seemed too big—”
“You should have thought of that before you shot that load inside her, asshole,” Renly told him sourly.
“Me?”
“Yes, you! We’re not done. After this, we’re squaring it off.”
“Now, wait a minute! What the fuck did you mean—“
The delivery room door opened. “Excuse me, gentlemen, who’s Renly?” asked the nurse.
“Me,” Renly answered, raising his hand.
“The patient’s asking for you. Come on, inside.”
After giving him a murderous look, Renly followed the nurse.
Craig started to follow, too, but the nurse stopped him.
“And who are you, mister?”
“I…Craig.”
“How are you related to the patient?”
“I’m her…friend.”
“Only an authorized person is allowed in the delivery room.”
He nodded and stepped back. They disappeared inside the delivery room.
He should leave now. He had no business staying. Andi was safe now with the doctor and nurses attending to her. She had her new lover by her side. She’d be taken care of.
But he didn’t leave. He didn’t know why. He walked towards a bench and sat there.
Not even five minutes and Renly walked out of the delivery room looking like he was going to throw up.
Craig stood up and met him halfway. “Is she alright?”
For once, Renly quit looking at him like he was Bin Laden’s resurrection. He actually rushed towards him, so relieved to see him still there. “Oh fuck, thank fuck, you’re still here, asshole!”
He ignored his language. “How is she? Has the baby come?”
“Not yet. Any second now. You go in there!”
“What? Me? Why…?”
Renly practically dragged him by the front of his shirt and pushed him towards the double doors of the delivery room. “She needs someone with her in there. I can’t last another second. I…I can’t stand watching her in pain…”
Renly was as tall as him and though on the slender side, he looked like he worked out a lot, too. So, this dude had a weak stomach for pain and he was asking him to enter a freaking delivery room. He was not afraid of pain. He’d inflicted it on many people but he had never seen a woman giving birth. “I don’t think—”
“Fuck, will you just go inside!”
Renly opened one door and pushed him inside the delivery room.
——*****——
Andi was lying on the bed, her legs hooked on the stir-ups, the lady doctor looking between her legs, the nurses hovering around her. She was puffing air in and out of her lungs like a fish out of water then making this blood-curdling sounds he’d heard people being tortured make.
Craig went cold all over. He had seen all kinds of scary, gory shit, but THIS!
He literally felt his balls wilting in fear.
Jesus, take me back to Iraq, now!
Andi screamed which galvanized him to run to her side.
“Andi! I’m here.”
Her glassy eyes sought his and his heart turned over at the pain she must be suffering.
“Craig….”
He gently smoothed the wet hair from her forehead and held her hand, fighting the nausea rising to his head.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into?
“Okay, Andi, I can see the baby’s head crowning now. You need to push really hard, alright?”
“Okay…okay…” She puffed. “Here we go…” She gave a mighty push with these horrible sounds gurgling from her throat again, her little nails biting onto his wrist.
Craig felt like pissing in his pants now. He didn’t know if he can stand this all through the end.
“More Andi…another one,” the doctor was muttering like a buzz in his head.
“Never again! Oh God, never again!” Andi was looking at him like she would like to strangle him and gave it another go. “Awwwwwwwrrrr!!!”
“Head’s out! Push, Andi! Push!” urged the doctor.
Craig was seeing it all in slow-motion.
He averted his eyes from the action happening between her legs but he caught some he’d probably never forget.
God, help me! I will never take a pussy for granted again!
He didn’t know how much time had passed. The next thing he knew, he heard a little furious bellow echoing inside the room.
“It’s a boy!” the doctor announced happily.
The doctor placed a slimy, purplish blob on Andi’s chest which could only be the baby. The sight of it totally immobilized him. He stared as the nurse rubbed a towel over the baby and then wrapped it in a clean one. Andy carefully held the baby, cooing, tears rolling down her face.
He was having the strangest feelings. He was moved beyond words witnessing this momentous event in her life and yet overwhelming loss gripped his entire being. He felt like an outsider crashing this sacred moment. He couldn’t look away from the baby even knowing it was someone else’s child.
He turned away as he felt his eyes water. Shit!
Strange. He was surprised he was still capable of such fragile emotion.
“Craig…?”
Her soft voice called out to him.
He looked back at her.
Their eyes communed.
She hadn’t looked more beautiful than this moment, her hair in disarray, her face blotchy and puffy from her recent exertions, cradling her baby in her arms.
Just then the doors swung open and in came Renly and an older Asian-looking woman clad in hospital gowns.
“Hija! Are you alright?!” the woman exclaimed, rushing towards the bed.
They crowded around Andi and the baby.
Craig felt totally out of place now.
He turned away and slowly inched his way to the door.
“Oh, he doesn’t even look like you at all! He must take after his father! Blue eyes!”
He stopped cold in his tracks.
One thing he was sure of, neither Renly nor Andi had blue eyes.
It was HIM who had blue eyes.
He slowly turned back and caught Andi shushing the Asian woman who went pale as a ghost when she spotted him. He had a fairly good idea who this woman was now.
“Frida Alonzo?”
The older woman swallowed. “Yes?”
“I’m pleased to finally meet you, Ma’am. I’m Craig Walker, your client at the Ion Tower. I’m being represented by my sister Isabella Stimson.”
The woman gave out a nervous smile. “Oh yes, of course. I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Walker.”
I just bet you are. Fury unlike anything he’d felt before rose up inside him. But he should not direct it on Frida Alonzo.
His eyes returned to Andi.
Her arms were around the child, as if protecting it from him. As much as she tried to hide it, he saw her fear. That’s right. Fear me, bitch. You’ve got a lot to answer for.
Just then, the doctor spoke to him. “Will you do the honor of cutting the cord, Craig?”
He looked at the doctor, not comprehending. She gazed down at her hand holding the strip of umbilical cord still attached to the baby and then he understood.
He looked at Andi again and asked her only one question. He was not capable of decent speech at the moment, as far as she was concerned. “Is he mine?”
It took her a few seconds to answer. “Yes.”
He inhaled deeply. “Make sure you put that in his papers.”
He accepted the scissors from the nurse and with slightly shaking hand, cut the cord carefully.
Then he turned around and walked out of the room.
——*****——
Craig paced the length of the hallway, his insides rioting with combined fury and….fear.
Yes. Fear. The kind unlike anything he’d felt before. Worse than watching her labor.
That baby was his. He knew it. He hadn’t even looked at the little bundle but as sure as his next breath, he knew it was his. It was easy to do the math. But the eye-color was the dead giveaway. And the look in Andi’s eyes. He knew she couldn’t lie to him the moment he asked her point blank. She was actually trying to hide the baby from him. It was just a fluke he came to see her today. How was he supposed to know she will give birth today?
He just became a father.
God.
This, he didn’t know how to make of. He had never envisioned himself being a parent one day. And not so soon. He was still in the middle of a civil war in Syria.
He must have knocked her up that first time. He remembered coming like all of him dissolved and flowed from his cock into her. Or maybe the second time. Or that third time the morning after. Or in those few times he was so lost in her depths that protection was the farthest thing from his mind.
It was only one week of rare carelessness on his part but apparently that was enough to make a baby with a damn virgin, to boot!
What was he supposed to do now?
A baby.
He had no experience caring for someone on that level.
He had the loneliest childhood. Bella and her family were his only link to humanity. Everything else had been erased by the wars.
He didn’t have a nurturing bone in his body. He detested the sight of flowers for fuck’s sake. How was he supposed to take care of a child?
And the mother of his child, for that matter?
Whether he liked it or not, they were a package deal. The baby had to come with the mother.
——*****——
Craig saw Renly coming towards him.
What was the guy to Andi, he wondered now but he tried to relax on the dude. Renly was not the baby’s father. He understood now why Renly was so pissed at him, too. The guy knew he was the “asshole” who knocked her up. Renly was indirectly telling him from the get go that he was the father of Andi’s baby but he was slow to catch up.
Renly stood beside him. They quietly looked out the window at the passing vehicles on the street below.
“You haven’t held your kid, yet,” Renly finally said.
Hold the baby. Fuck, he might drop it.
“Is everything alright…with the baby?”
“Yes. He’s perfectly healthy.”
“And Andi?”
“She’s fine. She’s been sedated and would be sleeping for a while.”
He nodded.
Seconds ticked by.
“What are you gonna do now?” Renly asked.
“Arrange for their accommodation in this hospital. I’ll pay for everything, of course.”
“Alright. Let’s go to the nurse’s station then.”
He looked at Renly. “Are you—“
“Boning her? No. But I wanted to.”
He frowned. Renly raised his hands. “Can you blame me, man? She was a knock out. Still is even with the baby and all. Guess I can’t think of her that way anymore.”
“No. Not anymore. How did you meet her?”
“We’re neighbors. I’ve known her since she first came here to the States. We were classmates in high school. I live right beside their house. I’m his…how shall I put it…she said I’m her BMBF.”
“What’s that?”
Renly grinned. “Best Male Best Friend.”
“The second B had better remain best.”
Renly chuckled. “Man, how well do you know Andi?”
A week of pure, unadulterated sex, he was tempted to answer. “Not much. Yet anyway.”
Renly shook his head. “You’re in for a handful, then.”
A handful huh. He smiled, remembering Andi’s delicious handfuls. She just gave birth and he was thinking of shooting his seed inside her again.
He was fucked.
Big time.
——*****——
He leaned closer on the glass, his throat constricting painfully. The nurse tilted the baby so he could see his face clearly.
He was enthralled.
The baby was staring right at him with this unblinking infant stare.
Those eyes. His eyes.
He was riveted. Hypnotized.
He’d never thought his eyes were nice-looking but on his little boy, they looked spectacular. Those baby blues dominated his small face like dazzling gems, shining with inner light, mesmerizing anyone who was in his line of sight.
His baby boy.
His flesh and blood.
He felt it. That place inside him, that small space occupied by the last threads of his hopes and dreams. It was expanding now, making room. For beauty. For life.
He was coming alive.
Again.