DRAE DIDN’T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT to expect in the waiting room. He was sure Alex would still be there and Stephanie, too. What he hadn’t anticipated was that they’d all be there. Every one of them, even Dylan, had stuck in there with their silent but unwavering love and support through the long night that ended at the dawn of a new day with the birth of his son.
Of course, everyone looked like warmed over shit. Especially him. He hadn’t shaved in days, and at the moment, his normally well-groomed hair looked more like the hair on that dude from the History Channel, who babbled about ancient aliens. Everyone appeared a little worse for the wear.
And then he thought of his Victoria. Despite the fact that she was still recovering from the epidural and the surgery and shaking like a leaf, she looked and sounded amazing. The moment they heard the first cries of their newborn son, all the anxieties and agonies of the last couple of months simply vanished from her look. Her smile brightened. Relief and contentment shone in her eyes. She was the one who had gone to hell and back to give him this moment of glory and yet all of them were the ones who looked like hell.
Alex’s radar pinged first, as it always did, when he came around the corner into their view. Lumbering to his feet and shaking his injured leg out, he looked expectantly toward Drae.
Stephanie rushed toward him. Cam stepped forward with a hopeful expression. Lacey and Meghan roused from the sofa. Calder went and stood near Stephanie, who was now clinging to his arm. When he looked down at the hand clutched around his arm, he realized he still had the blue scrubs on.
“Draegyn?” Stephanie chirped breathlessly. He could feel her excitement as she bounced up and down on her toes waiting. They were all waiting.
Grinning broadly, he covered Stephanie’s hand with his own and proclaimed, “It’s a boy!”
A holy hell meltdown of exuberant, delirious joy broke out in that waiting room. He got thumped soundly on the back so many times he was sure there’d be bruises. The women lost their fucking shit immediately, screaming with delight—kissing and hugging him soundly and playfully mussing his hair even more.
As the excitement started to calm down, he told them, “Look. If you can hang in there another hour or so, you’ll be able to come into the suite and meet the baby. We have to give Victoria a little breathing room.”
“She’s really okay?” Meghan asked.
“Oh, my God. She’s fucking amazing. Really. I can’t even tell you, Irish. Inside that little lady beats the heart of a warrior who is ten times stronger than the three of us battle-scared bullshit heroes ever were. What she went through. All of it. Not just the last few days. I’m talking all along the way. And to keep it together right to the end.”
Everyone had gathered round so he might as well tell them the whole story and prepare them for Victoria’s condition.
“Okay. So it went down like this. Right after dinner last night, she went into labor. It was like the minute they got her stabilized, all hell broke loose. Everything went smoothly for a few hours. She was completely amazing. Even after everything she’d been through. She was in active labor for a couple of hours—we were getting close to the end, when her water broke. Apparently, my son thought he’d have himself a little poop during birth. Protocol for that meant we had no choice but an immediate C-section to prevent the baby from aspirating the fluid. It took a little doing and certainly had its share of ups and downs, but at the end of this crisis, we had the most beautiful baby boy you ever did see.”
He looked at Cam and Lacey, grinned, held up his hands, and said, “Sorry.” Lacey laughed and beamed while he and Cam flipped each other off.
He took Stephanie’s hand again. “Mom, your daughter was a fucking gold star champ, and no, I’m not apologizing for my language. She may be small but let me tell you, that lady is strong as steel when the going gets tough. You should be real proud of her.”
“She do okay with the surgery? I remember when she had her tonsils out; she was quite a handful in recovery.”
“Well, so far, so good. She’ll have to take it real, real easy for a few weeks. You and I are gonna be busy! But the doctor told us she handled the surgery really well. We’re just waiting for the effects of the anesthesia to wear off. That epidural shit is brutal. She’s shaking pretty bad and her lips were kinda blue, but they have all this sophisticated stuff to warm her up and ease the shock.”
He was talking faster and faster as the adrenaline rush of new fatherhood overwhelmed him. He was grateful when Alex took over the conversation and wrapped things up, or he would have stood there and babbled for hours.
“Well, my friend, looks like your son came into the world on a shit. Somehow that sounds exactly as it should be!”
Everyone chuckled. That part of the story would definitely end up being told at his son’s birthday for many years to come.
“You run along now and get back to your new family. Tell Victoria we all love her to fucking death and can’t wait to meet the newest addition to the family. Hey,” Alex barked suddenly, “this kid have a name yet?”
Twelve expectant eyes turned his way. “Yeah. He does. But Victoria gets that pleasure. You’ll have to wait.”
When he finally went to leave, Cam murmured to him, “Dude. Do yourself a fucking favor and the minute you get back to the suite, jump in the bathroom and clean yourself up. They have a basket of shit like a toothbrush and a razor in there. Use ‘em, man, ‘cause the next time you see us a thousand pictures will be taken. And make sure Tori feels presentable, too, okay? Time to step up, bro. She actually needs your moldy ass now more than ever.”
Better advice had never been given before. He hugged his fellow father, did a fist bump then turned and hurried back to his wife and son.
“YOU READY, MOMMY? THE GANG’S all here and ready to kick down the door to get in and meet our little guy.”
Tori was on cloud nine and feeling like she wanted to take up permanent residence there.
As the anesthesia gradually wore off, she freshened up with the help of her amazing support nurse who thought of everything and even helped fix her hair. After a couple of shitty days in a hospital bed, she didn’t look her best, but these nurses were seasoned veterans of the labor and delivery suite and really had it on the ball.
After using a dry shampoo and moisturizing the hell out of her face—she had Draegyn help smooth body lotion along her arms and legs. With the feeling coming back to her limbs, what he was doing felt heavenly.
Luckily, her mom had the foresight to bring her a bag of clothes so she had some options, which was just what she needed instead of an unflattering hospital gown.
And now, it was time for the big unveiling.
“Okay, Daddy,” she cooed happily. “Bring me that handsome guy.”
Draegyn chuckled as he scooped the baby from his bassinette and brought him to her. Slowly. Because she could tell he was so in love with his son that holding him and staring at how beautiful he was required a few extra seconds.
As he lowered their son into her waiting arms, he followed the baby’s descent and kissed him on the forehead once he was safely seated in her arms. On his way back up, he stopped along the way and kissed her on the lips.
“You look beautiful with him in your arms.”
Tori tilted her head against the raised bed at her back and smiled into his soulful blue eyes.
As the family tiptoed gingerly into the suite carrying an abundance of blue balloons and teddy bears, she beamed with love for them all.
Everyone gathered round, her mom closest and angled to get a good look at her grandson.
Tori sat there and took her well-deserved victory lap as the whole crew gushed and wiped away the occasional tear, lavishing praise for how handsome a boy she and Draegyn had created.
Finally, her mother asked breathlessly, “May I hold him?”
Tori looked at her husband who told her, “Hold on,” while he whispered something to Cam, who nodded like he understood.
When he made his way through the crowd gathered round, he stood proudly next to his wife and son as Victoria lifted the precious little boy into her mother’s waiting arms.
“Mom Mom,” she choked out as the emotion of the moment overtook her. “Say hello to your grandson…Daniel Alexander St. John.”
Her mother gasped, looked back and forth between her and Draegyn, who had put his hand on Tori’s shoulder, then burst into tears.
It did not escape Tori’s notice that Calder practically jumped across the room to get to her mother’s side the minute the tears started. What shocked her, though, was when she turned her tear-stained face toward him and while cuddling the baby tight, said, “They named him after my husband.”
Calder ran his hand up and down the new grandmother’s back, smiled broadly at her, and Draegyn then motioned his head toward his nephew.
“Think he’s got a little sumpin'-sumpin' to do with the name, too, huh?”
Tori delighted in watching her husband puff up like he’d invented baby-making.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, dude,” he quipped to a stunned looking Alex. “But we essentially named our son after our fathers. And we had a clever plan in place for a name if we had a girl. Option number two was Danielle Alexandra.”
“Drae,” Alex choked out in a gravely, emotion-filled voice. “I don’t even know what to say.” He looked at her, and she definitely saw tears in his eyes. “Tori. I’m so honored.”
“Major,” her mom drawled now that her sniffles had stopped. “Come on over here and meet your namesake, shugah.”
Tori’s heart almost burst when her mom handed the bundle wrapped in blue to the man who helped change her life and whom her husband practically worshipped.
Handing him the baby, she told him, “It’s so perfect, Alex, that this little boy carries the names of two such honorable men. Daniel would approve.”
Tori and Draegyn held hands as their son was passed around. It was an overabundance of pleasures for the next hour. Everyone was snapping pictures. There were even pictures of Dylan meeting his cousin for the first time. Tori almost exploded with happiness when Cam showed her a video of the moment when she’d handed the baby to her mom and announced his name. He promised to send the MPEG to everyone in the room as a memento of the occasion.
Pretty soon, she’d had enough. The high of bringing this new precious life into the world was being battered by the physical realities of the Cesarean. She was tired as shit and craved some uninterrupted quiet time with Draegyn and Daniel.
Didn’t take long after she visually began to flag for her husband to wrap things up and move people one by one from the room until just her mother was left. He took the baby and placed him gently in the bassinette, then came and kissed her on the forehead with a knowing look.
“How ‘bout I give you two some alone time, hmmmm? I want to talk to the others before they leave anyway.” He looked at Stephanie with a tender smile. “Mom,” he said as he squeezed Tori’s shoulder, “take all the time you need.”
When Drae left the suite, he found Calder hovering near the door. He looked at him approvingly. Stephanie totally deserved an upstanding guy like him. Someone who would know instinctively that she was going to need him after such an emotional morning.
He saw that Alex and the others were gathering their stuff and Calder told him to go on—that he would wait for Stephanie. They shook hands like gentlemen who respected each other did and then Drae hurried off to talk with Alex and Cam.
As Calder stationed himself at the door to Tori’s suite, he watched Drae for a moment then went back to monitoring what was happening with Stephanie. He heard the two women as they spoke, moved by how openly they showed their love for each other. After a bit, he heard Stephanie say something that he was probably going to remember for the rest of his life.
ALONE, JUST THE TWO OF them, mother and daughter hugged and wiped away a few tears as they talked about the new man in their lives.
The minute Stephanie learned what they named the baby, she knew the opportunity had come to share a special moment with Tori that she worried would never happen.
One of the reasons she’d always been so pithy about the way Draegyn and Victoria had gotten married was because for all the long years since her Daniel had passed away, she’d been carrying inside her heart, a message he asked her to share with their daughter when the time was right.
When Daniel knew he didn’t have much time left, he told Stephanie he wanted her to tell Victoria something heart-achingly specific and that she would know the time and occasion for the telling. For so many years, she imagined that moment would take place when their baby girl got married. When that didn’t happen, she’d begun to despair that the time would ever be right.
Hearing the name, Daniel Alexander St. John, she knew the moment had arrived.
She cuddled on the raised bed with her only child and wrapped her in a loving embrace. They were both mothers now and never would there be a better opportunity to do this.
“Darlin’, your daddy would be so proud of you today. And he’d be over the moon that you named that sweet baby boy after him.”
“Aw, thanks, Mom. That means a lot to me.”
“He loved you so much, baby girl. When he knew that his time was short, he gave me a message to pass on to you when the time was right. To be honest with you, shugah, I think that’s why I gave Draegyn such a hard time at first. I thought that we’d have this talk when you got married. Then you put that darling baby in my arms, all I could think at first was…this is Daniel’s grandchild. When you told me his name—it was like you were picking up my thoughts.”
Tori snuggled closer and started crying softly. “What did Daddy say, Mom? What did he want me to know?”
“He said that no matter what happened, even a long time after he was gone, I was to tell you how very much he loved you and that he wanted you to know that though he wasn’t here, he’d be with you always.”
Tears were streaming down her face now, too. “When I heard the baby’s name, I also heard Daniel saying those words and thought, My love, how right you were. Victoria, sweetheart—now you really and truly will have him with you. Always.
Tori broke down sobbing in an avalanche of tears as Stephanie cried, too, and rocked her in her arms. In some weird, karmic way—the circle remained unbroken.
Draegyn found them like that a while later when he returned to the suite, and he didn’t seem in the least surprised to find them crying and clinging to each other.
He scooped Daniel from the bassinette and brought him over to them for some good-bye kisses.
Mom Mom kisses, my boy,” he mock whispered with a chuckle. “Enjoy them. This is the lady who’s going to defy all your parents’ wishes, and who you’ll run to when we drive you crazy as a teenager.”
Stephanie was lighthearted but also very, very emotional when she left the room. When she discovered Calder right there on the other side of the door, she let him sweep her into a comforting embrace. Now that Daniel was safe and sound in his parents’ arms and Tori was out of danger, exhaustion and too much emotion were shredding her composure.
“Take me home,” she murmured, glad for the supportive arm about her waist.
“Happily, m’lady,” he said.
He seemed reserved somehow and she wondered if he’d heard some of her conversation with Tori. Not that it mattered. In her present emotional state, she’d tell him if the subject came up anyway. It wasn’t a secret after all.
They walked to the car, Calder offering support the whole way. By the time they got in the car, left the parking garage and were on the road to home, she was struggling to keep her eyes open.