Chapter 19
Exactly one week later Lana’s water broke, and she went into labor shortly thereafter.
Drake was with her when she went into labor, and he had never seen her in such a state of sheer panic.
He could always count on Lana being the calm, cool and collected one in their relationship, but as she was pushing their newborn baby out of her body Lana was an anxiety-riddled mess.
Drake knew it was his job to console her and assure her everything would be okay.
He was her rock, after all. The person she could rely on no matter what to take care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself.
“Shhh, babe. It’s okay. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. This is nothing for you. Like a breeze.”
God, where were her other two mates?
Granted, he hadn’t told them much other than he needed them here as soon as possible. But he’d been distracted.
Lana squeezed and tugged on his palm so hard he half expected his entire arm to fall off.
In reality, Drake was as nervous as she was about the birth, but in a different way—and he didn’t have any words to explain how glad he was when his streak-mates showed up.
“Are you alright?” Jackson asked Lana as he moved closer to get a good look at her.
“Uhh, yeah,” she replied, a nervous tone sneaking into her voice as she continued. “But my water broke.”
“Oh,” Roman exclaimed, his shocked mind going into overdrive. Color drained from his face as he realized what exactly that meant. “Isn’t it early? It’s early, is the baby going to be okay?”
Lana laughed before a contraction took hold of her belly. She breathed coolly through it, leaning on him for support. “Roman, it’s fine, and I’ll be fine to walk to the car, relax.”
The mix of excitement and terror he was feeling was difficult for him to manage, but he got the hospital bag while she continuously reassured him that she was fine, that everything was going to be alright.
“Should we go to the hospital?” Jackson asked, trying to hide his frantic state.
“No, not yet,” Lana replied, wincing through another contraction. “They told me not to go in until the contractions were five minutes apart. Just sit with me and time them.”
Jackson went to sit beside Lana on the couch on one side with a watch so that he could time her contractions for her. Roman sat on the other. And Drake paced.
“How are you so calm right now?” Jackson demanded.
Lana laughed heartily for a moment. “I’m not, Jackson,” she said, then squeezed his hand tightly through another contraction. “I’m freaking out. But I have the three of you, so I know I’ll be okay.”
“How did I get so lucky?” he asked, his voice dropping.
“We all agreed to share,” Roman growled.
Jackson laughed before Lana kissed him softly, then kissed Roman and Drake, too. “We really did get lucky,” she said, looking deeply into each of her mates’ eyes. “Doesn’t matter how.”
Another, bigger contraction took hold of her belly and she squeezed Jackson’s and Roman’s hands hard, trying to breathe her way through it.
“Seven minutes,” Jackson confirmed. “Are you sure you don’t want to go now?”
“Yes. The less time I have to spend at the hospital before giving birth, the better.”
Jackson shrugged and ran his thumb gently over her knuckles. They sat in comfortable silence, looking around at all the baby things they had accumulated over the last several months. She squeezed his hand hard again, and when Jackson looked at his watch, he realized that it had only been five minutes since the last one. “Lana, five minutes.”
“Really?” Roman asked. “They’re getting closer really fast.”
This wasn’t a conversation for Drake anymore. He gathered the last few things they needed for the hospital and put them in the car while the others helped Lana out of the hotel. She had to grit her teeth every few minutes for another contraction to pass, all the while they kept getting more and more intense. By the time they got to the hospital, Lana was in real pain.
With each contraction, her entire body tensed up. Pain wrapped around her back, through her belly and up to her chest, and she struggled to breathe through each one, and as soon as they got through the hospital doors, a nurse ushered them into the delivery room.
Life seemed muted to Jackson, like there was cotton shoved into his ears, as the next couple of hours passed while Lana screamed and pushed, and he prayed every second of it that everything was going smoothly. He was paralyzed in terror beside her head, holding her hand and helping her through this, flashbacks of being ushered out of the deli room played in his head, reminding him of everything that could go wrong, even as his streak-mates reminded him of what could go right.
The only thing that managed to cut through the haze in his mind, the only thing that could cut through the din of doctor’s voices and Lana’s screaming was the small, angry cry of a terrified infant.
And that was it, the baby was born and Lana was still alive.
Jackson kissed her forehead over and over while she struggled to catch her breath. Roman held her hand, gazing at her in adoration, while tears flowed down Drake’s face, and the nurses were weighing and cleaning their child. “You did it,” Roman declared, stuck in a state of disbelief.
Lana didn’t say anything until the nurse walked up with their child.
“Congratulations,” she said, placing the tiny infant in Lana’s arms. “It’s a girl.”
Tears streamed down Lana’s face as she stared into the eyes of her oddly aware daughter. “You were right, Jackson.”
“About what?”
“Every brush stroke is important.”
* * *
Several months later, Jackson had organized a date for the four of them, a small celebration while the other streak members took care of the latest addition to the streak, and they were having a wonderful night. They had been to a lovely Greek restaurant for dinner, and were walking together through a nearby park, keeping to the foot paths and staying in their human forms. Red and purple streaked the twilit sky as the sun began to set on the horizon.
“Would you have ever thought we’d be here when we first met?” Lana asked wistfully, staring off into the trees.
“Honestly?” Jackson pondered aloud. “I can’t say wanted it to go this way, exactly, but it’s perfect. I lucked out, anyway. You’re too pretty for me.”
Lana laughed and shoved Jackson’s shoulder with her own.
“And I wanted no part of it at all,” Drake announced.
“But this is exactly what I wanted,” Roman said.
“Oh, so you meant for y’all to knock me up?”
Roman smiled and shrugged at her, breaking out into laughter as she shoved at him this time. He couldn’t possibly have known that she would get pregnant, but he wasn’t going to complain about it now. It wasn’t conventional, but he loved her with every fiber of his being—and he knew the other men did, too.
“Hey Lana?” Jackson called her attention back to him as he played with a small, velvet box in his pocket, away from where she could see it.
“Hmm?” Lana looked over at Jackson in time to see him sinking to one knee in front of her, offering an open box with a gorgeous emerald engagement ring.
Roman and Drake dropped to their knees on either side of him
Her heart starting to race in her chest, tears welled up in her eyes and fell from her cheeks before he could even get the words out.
“Would you do us the honor of being our bride?”
Lana’s breath caught in her throat as she nodded vigorously, unable to answer in any other way. Jackson stood and slipped the ring onto her finger, and then all three men were taking turns kissing her.
This is exactly how my life was meant to be.