Patrick

The machine buzzed in my hand, up my arm, to my shoulder. The flesh under my hand vibrated when I pressed the needle to skin.

“Doing okay?” I asked the guy.

We’d been at it over two hours, and he was starting to look peaked.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Think you could … I don’t know … talk or something?”

I frowned a little. “Yeah, sure. What do you want to know?”

“I dunno. Anything. Got a girlfriend?”

My frown relaxed and drew itself up. “Rose.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Years. Feels like my whole life.”

A pause. “Man, you’re shit at this.”

I laughed. “You’re not the first to say so.” For a beat, I considered what to say. “I thought I’d lost her once. I was scared and ran. Brought another girl to the bar where she worked while she was bartending.”

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Fuck, that’s savage.”

“I’d convinced myself she was fine, that we were friends. I think I was trying to prove us both wrong.” He chuckled, and I kept talking, “Getting her back wasn’t easy. She’d sworn me off for good, and once Rosie decides something…” I shrugged. “Well, that’s usually that. That was years ago though. She’s actually pregnant now, due a week ago.”

“Bet she’s a real peach right now.”

I shot him a look that was only eighty percent teasing. “Far as you’re concerned, she’s always a peach.” I dipped the needle in the ink cup and got back to work. “But we’re ready. She’s definitely ready to evict.”

“It’s got to be any day. My wife went late every time. Drove her nuts. But she was never past a week. I’m sure it’ll be any minute.”

“So long as she waits until I’m back on the Upper West, any minute’s fine by me.”

My phone rang from the table behind me, chirping Rose’s ringtone. I rolled over, pulling off my glove on the way.

“Hey,” I answered. “You okay?”

She was panting, and in the background, I heard Lily speaking over a shuffling. “Nope, my water broke.”

A zing shot up my spine and down my arms, lifting every hair on the way. “Just now?”

“All over Lily’s rug. We’re going to the hospital.”

I was already standing, setting my gun down on the tray and ripping my other glove off. “I’m on my way. Lily’s going with you?”

“Uh-huh.” She took a trembling breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was tight with wonder and emotion. “It’s time.”

A smile brushed my lips, my heart expanding in my chest, brushing against my ribs with every painful beat. “It’s time. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Hurry.”

“I will.”

We disconnected, and the guy on my table shifted to sit.

I whirled around my station, packing up my things. “I’m sorry, man. That was—”

“Yeah, I figured. Honestly, I didn’t know how much longer I could have gone without puking.”

I smirked. “I’ll hook you up. Just call Tonic. They’ll know how to get ahold of me.”

“No problem, Tricky.” He extended his hand, and I clasped his with a sweaty palm. “Get ready to get knocked on your ass. There’s no greater job in the whole world. As soon as you hold that baby in your arms, you’ll know.”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully, swiping my bag and trotting out. I jerked a chin at Pauly, the owner. “We’re having a baby!”

“Go get ’em, tiger. I’ve got your station cleanup.”

I gave him a two-fingered salute before running out the door.

It was Friday afternoon, and traffic was already thickening with early travelers looking to get home or get away for the weekend. I was almost an hour away from the hospital with no traffic. I just hoped she could hang on until I got there.

Baby.

My heart skipped a beat, squeezed, and jolted into rhythm again. I thought of all the little clothes we’d washed, all the breast pump parts we’d sanitized, the car seat in the baby’s room. I wondered what she’d look like, if she’d be different somehow from West and Lily’s kids or Maggie and Cooper’s boy. If she would somehow feel less scary. If I’d somehow know instinctively that she was mine.

Holding their babies had made me anxious. I’d turned down every offer. A couple of times, I couldn’t get out of it, and I’d found myself sitting on a couch with a warm little thing in my arms. Their eyes were almost always closed when they were that small, but I remembered holding Hazel once. She had been so tiny, her hands impossibly small with nail beds as delicate as rice paper. But she’d blinked her eyes open and looked up at me, her pink little mouth stretching in an O, and I’d gotten it. For that brief moment, I’d understood something elemental, something I’d never considered, and something I hadn’t grasped since.

My biggest fear, I thought as I trotted down the steps of the High Street station, was that I’d drop our baby. Nightmares had plagued me wherein I dropped her in the tub. On the subway. In the park. In the kitchen. I’d been sure I had her, protectively cradling her to me, and the next thing I knew, she was slipping from my fingers.

West, Cooper, and I had actually gone to the park one afternoon that spring with a five-pound bag of flour to practice. Which meant I’d had to try to walk around with the flour in a football hold while they tried to knock it out of my arms. Cooper had ended up with a busted lip, and I’d given West a black eye, but I had not dropped the flour baby.

Baby, baby, baby.

I hurried through the turnstile and down the tunnel, spotting the train. It was packed so tight, there was no room. But I’d make room.

“Scuse me.” I pushed my way in, garnering a few looks, some murmuring dissent, and a solid shove in the shoulder. “Listen, my girlfriend’s having a baby. I’ve gotta get on this train.”

The air immediately changed as they made way, and those angry faces lit with smiles. Congratulations and pats on the back followed, but I found myself hanging on to the bar inside the doors with ten other people in the stifling train, phone in my hand and mind on her.

Fifteen stops. Is she okay?

Fourteen. Is the baby all right?

I counted them down, willing them to come faster.

I wonder if they made it yet.

We were just outside the Washington Square stop when the train ground to a halt. A tinny voice came over the speaker, cutting in and out. All I caught were the words delay and shut down and further notice.

The crowd issued a collective groan, and my panic rose.

All I needed now was to get off the train.

It was fifteen minutes before the train actually began to move. Fifteen minutes of no cell service, a hundred ripe summer bodies, and a lack of any air circulation.

By the time we pulled into the station, the commuters were a mob, pressing and rushing for fresh air and to be moving. And I led the charge, bolting out of the tunnel and up the stairs until the cool air hit my face.

My phone vibrated in my hand, and when I looked, a stack of messages from Lily piled up on my screen, the topmost setting me running for the curb on Sixth with one hand in the air and the other between my lips.

The whistle from my lips chirped, and I yelled, “Taxi!”

Lily: You’d better hurry.