I pull right up to the emergency room doors, ignoring the side-eye that the fucker of a security guard is giving me. Jumping out of the Jeep, I run to Ginger’s side.

Carefully, I lift her out of the passenger seat and rush to carry her inside of the hospital. The security guard starts to walk swiftly toward me, but I continue to ignore him.

“Hey, you can’t leave your car there,” he yells from behind me.

He can tow it, he can burn it, for all I care. A car doesn’t mean dick to me, not when there’s something clearly wrong with my Ginger, with my wife. I hurry up to the window of the emergency room, and the nurse behind the desk jumps to her feet with a gasp.

“My wife, she passed out and started to seize,” I practically shout.

My voice doesn’t sound like my own, in fact, I don’t feel like I’m inside of my own body right now. Standing in the emergency room, my arms shaking, as I beg for help.

I’ve never been one to ask anybody for help, and begging? Never in my life have I done that, not really. Except right now I would do anything for my wife, I would do whatever I needed to help her.

A set of doors open to my left and a hospital bed is wheeled toward me. I set Ginger down on the bed, but I don’t let go of her completely. My hand wraps around hers, and I hold on as they take her away.

“I’m sorry,” one of the men wheeling the bed says. My brows knit together with confusion and I look up at him, waiting for him to continue. “You can’t go any farther,” he murmurs.

Everything inside of me screams to demand that I stay at her side, but I don’t. Reluctantly, I let my hand fall away from hers. Standing there, feeling nothing but helpless and worthless, I watch them take her away from me.

Closing my eyes, I lift my hand to my chest and rub the center. I keep waiting for that ache to leave me, but it doesn’t. They’ve taken her, she’s gone, and I don’t know what will happen next.

“Come with me, sir,” a woman in scrubs says.

Her voice causes me to jerk, but my head is still in a fog. I follow her, unsure of where she’s taking me, or what will happen next. When she guides me toward a chair, my tired legs give out and I sit down.

“What happens now?” I rasp, unable to focus on anything in front of me.

Her hand squeezes my shoulder, but she doesn’t speak right away. “You wait, and you pray,” she whispers as her hand falls away from me.

I look up in time to watch her walk away from me. Wait and pray. Two things that I’m not really fucking very good at. I do them though, both of them. I don’t know if God even knows who I am, and if he does, he probably doesn’t like me too much.

I don’t know what else to do, though. I can’t get into a fist fight with anyone, I can’t kill or torture anyone. All I can do is fucking wait and I hate every goddamn minute of it. I wait for what feels like hours. I know that it’s not, but it feels like a fucking lifetime until someone walks into the waiting room.

Standing, I shove my hands in my pockets. It’s the only thing I can do that will keep me from grabbing him, and shoving him against the wall, as I demand answers.

“Mr. Gordon?” he asks, his voice gentle and low. Lifting my chin, I walk a little closer to him. He clears his throat before he continues. “Your wife had preeclampsia due to her high blood pressure. Normally, I would give medication to try and lower it, but it was too late, and it was too high. I had no other choice. It was an emergency to save both her and baby. We delivered your daughter.”

“Give it to me, doc, are they okay?” I ask.

My voice sounds like it’s really far away, and it is taking all of me to focus on him right now, instead of pushing past him to find my wife.

The doctor nods. “Your wife is in recovery, and the baby is in the NICU being checked out there. Would you like to see her?”

“The baby?” I choke.

The doctor smiles. I nod once, quickly following behind him as he begins to walk away from me. He takes me to a room labeled NICU and my stomach knots as I walk through the doors behind him.

There are a few babies in incubators, but I don’t focus on them, not when there is a baby straight ahead that has every ounce of my attention.

She’s small, so small that I’m afraid to even approach her. She looks tiny and fragile as I make my way closer.

“Do we have a name picked out yet, Daddy?” a nurse asks. She’s smiling at me, but I’m frozen in shock. This little creature in front of me, she’s mine.

“Evalyn,” I whisper as I reach out to touch her. I bring my hand back before I make contact and the nurse laughs softly.

“Have a seat, let’s do some skin-on-skin with baby Evalyn.” Looking up at the nurse I blink. If I understand her, she wants me to hold the baby.

Shaking my head, I refuse to sit. “She’s too small for me to touch. She’s not any bigger than my hand,” I announce.

The doctor wraps his hand around my shoulder and gives me a gentle squeeze. “She’s a good size for her age. The skin-on-skin will help bring up her body temperature. It will be good for her and good for you too,” he says.

Sitting down in the chair, I slip my cut off, then pull my shirt off. The doctor tells me he’ll be back when Ginger will be able to have visitors and he quietly disappears. The nurse brings Evalyn over to me and I look up at her, scared shitless to touch her, let alone hold her.

“I’m going to place her on your chest. Just hold her against you,” the nurse says, her tone soothing.

She places Evalyn’s microscopic body against my chest, then covers us with a warm blanket. I glance down at the top of her head, her body so tiny against my own. I hold onto her with both hands, scared to death that I’m going to squish her in some way.

I tip my chin and place my lips on her small head, inhaling her scent as my eyes automatically shut. “Hey Evalyn, I’m your daddy,” I whisper.

We stay like that, she and I, my hands wrapped around her tiny little body. Slowly, I relax as I just feel her breathing against me.

“Are you ready to see Mama?” the doctor asks.

My eyes pop open, and I look up at him. The nurses are no longer hovering around me, and I wonder how long I’ve been here. Looking down at Evalyn first, then back up at the doctor, I frown.

“Who will take care of her when I’m gone?” I ask.

The doctor gives me a small smile. “The nurses here are the best of the best, Mr. Gordon. They’ll feed her, change her, and take care of her. However, I would recommend you come back before you leave to hold her some more.”

I nod, but I don’t want to leave her. Not even for a second. I need to see Ginger though, I need to make sure she’s okay too. I’ve never felt so torn in all of my life.

The same nurse from earlier walks over to me and she gently takes Evalyn from my grasp. I watch as she places her down in an incubator. Then she puts on these little white gauzy looking sunglasses and turns on a blue light.

“What’s that for?” I ask, putting my shirt then my cut back on.

She gives me a smile before she answers. “Baby has some jaundice, which is completely normal given her early arrival. This will help her, and we’re going to give her a bit of oxygen as well,” she murmurs as she fits her with oxygen tubes. I want to take them off of her, but I don’t, she needs them and she’s so fucking small.

“Other than that, the jaundice and the oxygen, she’s okay?” I ask nervously.

“A doctor will give you a complete update, but so far, that seems to be all. She’s a strong girl, and she’s big for her age.”

I nod, turning to follow the doctor toward Ginger. My heart tugs, begging me to stay with Evalyn, but I don’t. Ginger needs me, so I continue following the doctor who takes me to her room.

Once we’re inside, the doctor doesn’t linger, he leaves, and I find myself alone with Ginger. She looks like she’s sleeping peacefully, her eyes closed as the monitors beep softly throughout the otherwise quiet room.

I don’t bother dragging one of the chairs over to her bedside. Instead, I just stomp over there and sit down next to her, careful not to bump her or any of the chords attached to her.

On our way to her room, the doctor explained that she should be awake at any moment, her drugs have completely worn off, and she should be coming to anytime. I squeeze her hand, hoping to see her pretty brown eyes open and look up at me.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it. When she doesn’t wake up right away, I look around her room, my eyes landing on a whiteboard. There’s a message written on it, and I focus on it. Welcome baby Evalyn Gordon, three pounds, two ounces, sixteen inches long.

Closing my eyes for just a moment, I think about Evalyn, and how tiny she was. I didn’t think to ask how much she weighed, or how long she was. I was just so fucking scared to hold her.

I pull out my phone, taking a picture of the dry erase board, and I send it in a group text to all of the brothers. Then I turn it off. They’ll all be down here soon, if they aren’t already waiting downstairs.

“Pres,” Ginger’s voice rasps. Looking up at her, I smile as her eyelids flutter open. “What happened?” she asks, her brows tugging together in confusion.

Sucking in a deep breath I tell her everything that I know. Obviously, I don’t know a whole hell of a lot because I was stuck in the waiting room for most of it, but when I tell her about Evalyn, that she’s here but in the NICU, Ginger starts to cry.

“I want to see her,” she whimpers.

Reaching for her hand, I take it in mine and I give it a squeeze. “She’s so tiny but so beautiful, peaches,” I mutter. “I’m sure that they’ll take you to her as soon as possible.”

Ginger cries so I lean down and hold her, careful not to press her body against mine too tightly. “Peaches, you have to calm down,” I whisper against her ear.

“She was born, I didn’t see her, I didn’t see anything,” she blubbers against me as her body trembles.

A few minutes later, a nurse comes in, and I glance over to her. She gives me a sad look, then plasters on a bright smile.

Ginger leans back, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand. The nurse explains that in just a few short hours, they’re going to hopefully be able to get her in a wheelchair and take her to Evalyn.

Ginger smiles genuinely when she hears that she’ll be able to see Evalyn soon, but when the nurse leaves her face crumples again.

I hold her, my heart breaking that she’s stuck in this bed and can’t see our girl. When she finally passes out from exhaustion, I gently lay her down in the bed. Running my hand through my hair, I let out a heavy sigh.

“You need some rest,” a voice says from the doorway. Turning around, I see Gracie standing, her hip against the jamb and a smile on her face.

“How long has it been?” I ask.

She shakes her head slightly, then steps forward. “If I didn’t have a friend who worked on this floor, I’d have to bribe someone to let me in, because it’s well past visiting hours,” she explains.

“I can’t leave Ginger, or Evalyn,” I grunt.

Gracie presses her lips together, then lifts her chin slightly. “Go to Evalyn, then go home and shower. Come back a new man tomorrow. I’ll stay here with Ginger the rest of the night,” she offers.

My eyes fly back to Ginger, her face is splotchy from crying, but her breathing is slow and even as she sleeps. “Go to your daughter, Ginger would want that,” Gracie whispers. I nod. She would want that, I know that she would.

Leaning over Ginger, I press my lips to her forehead before I stand and walk toward the exit. I take Gracie’s hand in mine, giving her a gentle squeeze as I pass by her. “Thanks,” I mumble.

She smiles up at me. “You and Ginger would do it for us, that’s what family’s for,” she whispers. I lift my chin then walk away, toward my daughter.

My eyelids slowly open and I can tell that it’s lighter outside. The room isn’t bathed in darkness anymore, nor are the lights on. The blinds must be open.

I glance down at my stomach and a sadness washes over me. Evalyn is no longer in my body, and I never thought that I would feel this lonely. I know she’s still alive, but not having her in my arms, or inside of me, it makes me feel cold and sad.

“The nurse said you could see her today,” a voice says.

Turning my head, I’m surprised to see Gracie sitting on the sofa against the wall in the room. I look around for Prescott, but I don’t see him anywhere. I frown, wondering where he could be.

“I told him to visit with Evalyn, then go home, shower and change clothes,” Gracie explains before I can voice my question.

“Oh,” I whisper.

Suddenly, a surge of jealousy rushes through me. He’s seen our daughter at least twice, and I haven’t seen her once. He’s able to walk around, to shower and change. He’s able to sleep in our bed, all the while I’m stuck in here, immobile.

Gracie clears her throat. “When he comes back, I’ll go by the house and pick up some clothes for you and your bathroom things, so you can shower and freshen up,” she explains.

“Okay.”

“It’s okay to be upset, Ginger. You’ve been through a lot the past twenty-four hours,” Gracie whispers.

I shake my head. “I shouldn’t be upset, or jealous, or angry. I should be grateful that Prescott is being so great, and that I have a friend like you to help me. I’m just being irrational and emotional,” I shrug.

Gracie laughs. “All those feelings are valid, Ginger. Your body and your mind have been through hell. Feel however you need to feel, but don’t suppress it or hide your emotions. You’re going to go through even more the next few weeks. It will all even out, eventually, but don’t be afraid to feel right now,” she advises.

I open my mouth to reply when the door flies open, and a man stands on the other side. I almost scream at the stranger before me until my eyes meet his green ones.

It’s Prescott, but he looks so different that I didn’t recognize him at first. His overly long dark hair is cut short and styled back. His beard is cropped so close to his face, it’s just a little more than stubble.

“I told you that I would cut it before Evalyn came, that didn’t happen, so I went early this morning,” he shrugs.

Gracie stands, and I watch as she walks over to him. She murmurs something, and he takes his keys out of his pocket, slipping them into her hand before he continues making his way toward me. He sits down on the edge of the bed, and takes my hand, giving me a squeeze.

“Doctor should be here in a minute to talk to you. Then, he said we’d be able to see our girl, together,” he grins.

Uncontrollably, tears fall from my eyes and I reach for his hand, holding it tightly with mine. Words escape me, and I only nod, unable to say or do anything else. Prescott grins, dipping his chin as he lifts our hands up and his lips brush mine.

“Peaches, I love you so fucking much,” he grunts.