“You’re married,” Eerie said, eyes wide as she looked down at my hand. “I thought the other day was just a fake.”
Yeah, that ring hadn’t been fake.
Not even a little bit.
My lips thinned with anger as I said, “Yes. I am. To Nathan.”
I knew that if I was going to need to stall, I would have to pull out the big guns.
And anything that had to do with Nathan would cause her to pause.
“You’re…what?” she asked, thinking she hadn’t heard me correctly.
I looked down at the ring that I’d put on my finger this morning.
It was an old gold band that I’d gotten from my mom when I was twelve. It wasn’t anything special, and apparently my mom had found it in the parking lot. But I’d thought it was cool and kept it.
This morning as I was walking out of the bathroom, I’d seen it in my jewelry box Nathan had rescued from my trunk along with my laptop.
I was glad that I’d slipped it on now.
“I…I…” She narrowed her eyes in thought. “You’re really?”
I’d made her speechless. Aces.
My smile must’ve pissed her off because she narrowed her eyes and stiffened her spine.
“Where’s your fake ring?” she asked, lip turned into a silent snarl.
I felt real tears fill my eyes.
I didn’t bother answering her.
Instead, I raised a brow in her direction, staring her in the eyes for a few long moments. “Do you honestly think that ring was fake?”
Would Nathan buy me a fake ring?
No.
No, he wouldn’t.
Her eyes narrowed in anger and she crossed her arms over her chest before turning to Sierra.
“I’d like to thank you for the help you’ve been for my little baby Stanley,” she said, sugar sweet. “I know that you’ve been a great help to him over the past couple of days.”
I looked over at Sierra to see her staring blankly at Eerie, almost as if she wasn’t sure if she opened her mouth what would come out.
I had the same damn feelings when it came to Eerie.
I’d never liked her.
And honestly, it wasn’t because she had the man that I’d wanted in high school.
Eerie had been a terrible person, even before she’d started dating Nathan.
It was just that, when she started dating Nathan, she’d aimed that terrible venom at me wholly instead of sharing it equally with anyone that she thought was beneath her.
I still couldn’t see what Nathan had ever seen in her.
“You’re welcome,” Peyton said, startling both Sierra and me at her sudden appearance. “However, we’ve just had a faxed court order not to allow the move. I’m sorry.”
Eerie stiffened. “A court order? What?”
Peyton handed over the document in her hand just as the doors to the NICU whooshed open.
Nathan.
He’d gotten here in time.
Thank. God.
Eerie, upon seeing Nathan, smiled at him, unaware of just why, exactly, he was there.
He ignored her and looked at not me, but Peyton.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m here to visit my son.”
Eerie’s gasp of outrage filled the small space between the NICU and the elevator doors.
Peyton smiled. “I just received the court order.”
Peyton gestured at the papers in Eerie’s hand, and I heard her snap them up to start reading.
“You have no proof that it’s your son!” she cried out after scanning the document.
I had no idea what it said myself, but I hoped that it would give them enough time to get the DNA test back later this morning.
“It’s not your son,” Eerie tried again when no one responded.
“Actually.” Peyton pulled another paper out of her pocket. “This was in the labs this morning when I got here. I was confused as to what it was for, but I assume now that we’re at this stage in our talk that it was for this exact moment.” She opened the papers that were in her pocket and started scanning. “You’re Nathan?” Nathan nodded at her words. “There’s a 99% match.”
She held out the papers to Nathan, but before he could take them, Eerie yanked them out of her hand and started to screech. “This isn’t correct!”
Bullshit. It was correct.
I’d taken both sets of DNA to the lab myself.
They were correct. And untainted.
Nathan was the baby’s father.
“I’ve also filed a court order to have my name added to the birth certificate,” Nathan continued, sounding smooth and confident at the same time as if he wasn’t brooking any room for argument. “They needed the DNA reports first, though, before they could add me.”
Eerie blew out a breath as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears.
“Ladies,” Peyton said. “It’s time for your shift to start. Please go relieve the night nurses.”
Sierra and I jumped as if we’d been reprimanded by our own mothers.
“Yes, ma’am.” I looked guiltily at Nathan as if I was abandoning him to a charging bear.
He winked at me, calming me down with that one signature move that never failed to make my heart pound.
My feelings must’ve shown clearly on my face because his smile grew as I made my way into the NICU.
Chapter 15
Behind every great woman is a pile of fucking shit her man can’t seem to pick up on his own.
-Reggie to Nathan
Reggie
I went to work, content in the knowledge that she would no longer get to take our boy somewhere else without us knowing.
My first stop was to the nurses’ station to get which babies I’d be working with today. After the night nurses gave reports, they signed off and we signed on, collecting who would get what baby today.
We had a new admit while I was away.
I smiled at the name when I read it.
“Ohhh,” I said as I made my way to the tiny little baby.
She was by far one of the plumpest babies in the entire room.
She was a nearly full-term thirty-five-weeker. She was a solid five pounds eleven ounces, but had come out with some breathing issues that they felt needed to be addressed for twenty-four hours before they let her go home.
Smiling wide at the woman hovering beside the baby’s bedside, I said, “Well hello there.”
The woman jerked her head up and smiled hesitantly at me.
“Hello,” came her soft spoken reply.
“My name is Reggie.” I winked. “My name and this little trooper’s name are the same.”
“Regina,” I heard from behind me. “Did you get named after a grandmother?”
I turned to see a man standing behind me also decked out in the NICU gear.
The father, I imagined.
“Actually, no,” I said. “My mother stuck me with that name all on her own.”
The dad huffed out a laugh as he walked up to his girl’s bedside.
“This is Alison,” he said, introducing the mother. “My name is Rod.”
Rod.
Nice.
And he was teasing me about my name?
Slipping on gloves, I checked out the little girl.
“Nice to meet you,” I said as I lowered the side glass and started to do my routine checks. “How’d the delivery go?”
Alison went on to explain her labor, what had gone wrong, and how her birth plan had completely gone out the window.
I couldn’t help but smile at her frustration.
“I think we all come into the hospital wanting everything to go perfectly,” I admitted. “Things rarely go as planned, though. I’ll likely go in myself with a third and fourth option, just in case.”
“Oh, are you pregnant?” Alison looked excited for me.
I was already shaking my head.
“Actu
ally,” I said as I closed up the glass doors on baby Regina. “My husband just had a baby over there.” I pointed to Baby Cox’s area where Sierra was doing her own routine checks.
“Oh.” Her eyes went wide. “We did a lot of listening today.”
I snorted out a laugh. “I’m sure you heard a lot. Let’s just say you don’t even know the half of it.” I paused and glanced at her. “They had frozen embryos from when the mother had cancer when she was seventeen. My husband didn’t know, um… he was having any kids. It’s really complicated, but needless to say, we’re just as surprised as you are.”
I realized rather quickly that these people probably didn’t want to know my life story.
“You should sue her,” Rod suggested. “I’d be pissed if I’d found out I was having a baby and hadn’t actually taken any part in it.”
My sentiments exactly.
“We’re still in the really early stages,” I admitted. “Right now we just got the DNA test back saying that Nathan was the father.”
“Oh, holy shit.”
I looked up, startled to find Nathan walking into the room, Eerie following closely behind looking utterly pissed.
She looked like she was about to start spitting fire any second. All the while, Nathan did his utmost best to ignore her and her scowling, very unhappy self.
His eyes caught mine and he stared at me with so much terror on his face that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for his predicament.
“Is that Nathan Cox?” Rod asked in an awed whisper.
“Yes,” Alison replied, just as awed. “We named our daughter after him.”
I blinked. “You what?”
Had I missed her name somewhere having Nathan in it?
“He once said the name Regina in an interview on SportsNation Talk show. He said that Regina was wholly responsible for his ability to catch every single ball that’s ever been hit to him,” Rod said. “We heard the name on a repeat of SportsNation, and we fell in love with it.”
Holy shit.
I looked at Nathan who was standing back, seeming as if he was waiting for me to get to him.
“I’ll be back,” I said softly, holding one finger up in Nathan’s direction.
I stopped to strip off my gloves and toss them in the trashcan in the middle of the room after I checked on my other three patients.
When I finally got to Nathan I said, “What’s wrong?”
He looked at me steadily and said, “I’m scared fucking shitless.”
I reached for his hand and pulled him toward the bed where his boy was at.
“Everything good?” I asked Sierra.
Sierra looked up at me from where she was speaking quietly to Peyton.
“The night nurse was saying that she heard what she thought was a wheeze on his left lung,” Sierra said. “But I don’t hear anything now. “I’ll check on it throughout the shift to…”
“I don’t want you touching my kid,” Eerie snapped when I went to put some gloves on.
I paused and turned to survey her.
“Sadly for you,” Peyton interrupted. “Regina works here. The touching is inevitable. And if one parent says it’s okay…”
“Perfectly okay,” Nathan interjected, staring hard at me.
He still hadn’t looked at the baby.
“And visiting hours are over,” Peyton continued.
“What?” she asked.
Peyton pointed to the sign on the wall. “Visiting hours. They’re over. Do you see all the other parents leaving?”
Eerie looked at Peyton, then at Nathan.
“Is he leaving?” she asked.
Peyton stepped in front of Nathan, which then gave Nathan a clear view of the incubator that his son was in.
He blanched upon seeing him.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the bed, as close as you could get, and said softly, “The wires are scary, I know. But that one right there?”
I pointed to each wire, lead, sticker, Band-Aid, piece of gauze, and tube that the baby had and explained each and every one.
By the time I was finished, he was breathing a little easier.
“Now,” I said as I looked at the chart. “The baby is twenty-nine weeks. From here on out…”
I then went on to explain complications that the baby may have, not sugarcoating any of it.
By the time I was done, he was looking slightly green.
“That’s not to say that he’ll run into any problems,” I continued. “Just that it’s a likelihood that we’ll prepare for. And, a lot of times, you’ll go home with him having a great day. And the next day you’ll come back and he’s taken a bad turn. But I don’t want you to get discouraged. He’s doing great.”
Sadly, I had so many other things that I had to do that I couldn’t continue to hold his hand.
Luckily, during that time that I’d been explaining everything, Peyton had gotten Eerie to leave.
She was standing out in the hall near the elevators, the phone pressed to her ear, glaring daggers at us through the glass.
After assuring him that he’d be okay, and that he could touch the baby, I went back to work on my other patients.
At one point, Sierra and I met back up at the nurses’ station.
“What happened to your ring?” Sierra asked as she came up to me.
“When we went tubing this past weekend? It’s now at the bottom of the river,” I admitted. “That’s what was in my ‘non-floating floating bag.’”
“Oh, that sucks,” my charge nurse, Peyton, said as she heard my explanation. “How’d that happen?”
I hadn’t even realized that she’d come up to me until now.
I turned so that I could look at her as I explained what had happened.
“The waterproof, floating bag that I bought off of Amazon wasn’t as floaty as it advertised. It sank like a freakin’ stone,” I grumbled darkly. “I would’ve left zero stars if I could have. You can bet your ass I’m writing a terrible review.”
“You should ask for your moneyback at least,” Peyton admitted.
I agreed.
It was on my to-do list.
That was twenty bucks that I’d never get back.
Movement caught my eye, and I once again looked up to find Eerie standing at the glass, practically pressing her nose to it, glaring hard at Nathan.
“She’s going to be trouble,” Sierra grumbled under her breath. “I just know it.”
I agreed wholeheartedly. The sad thing was, she’d been trouble for me since I’d met her.
“I have no clue what Nathan ever saw in her,” I grumbled, glaring at Eerie through the glass of the NICU.
Sierra raised a brow at me. “You really don’t see it?”
I frowned. “See what?”
“Look hard, Reg,” she ordered, jerking her chin at the woman.
I turned my face around and stared at Eerie.
I’d always hated her.
You know that saying ‘anything you can do I can do better?’ Well, Eerie did everything better than me when it came to appearances.
She had short, curly reddish-brown hair the same color as mine. Soft, white skin that seemed to glow thanks to the iridescent light she was standing underneath of out in the lobby next to the bank of elevators. She was skinnier—skinnier than me by far. Where I had curves, Eerie had real curves. The kind that drew a man’s eye and kept it there.
Her eyes were the only thing that I could say were worse than mine. Though, worse is a relative term depending on who you ask.
Where mine were a mix between blue and green—aquamarine if you wanted to be specific—hers were a really light shade of blue.
Honestly, I’d always loved her eyes because they looked almost unreal.
“You see it?” she asked after I’d been staring for a while.
No, no I didn’t.
Peyton picked up the phone, said something under her breath, t
hen hung it up before marching toward the glass doors. “Fucking perfect.”
The hour must be up.
Visiting hours were from seven to ten, eleven to two, and three-thirty to five. During the hours that the NICU was closed, the doors were locked.
Peyton heading toward them meant that visiting hours were now back open.
Yay.
I looked away after I glanced once again at Eerie who was eagerly waiting to get into the room.
“I see that her hair is better styled than mine,” I admitted to Sierra. “I see that her skin looks silkier.” I held up my skinned elbow that I’d gotten from my fall in the parking lot the other day. “I see that her eyes are—”
“Obviously,” she interrupted my words, “you’re not going to come to this conclusion on your own. You and Eerie could pass as twins. You’re both the same height and build. You both have the same hair color. You both have the same smooth, silky skin that just begs you to reach out and touch it. Honey, Nathan chose Eerie because of her similarity to you… and she knows that. If she had that pointed out to her today, I’d highly doubt it would be a surprise to her. It’s probably likely that she realized your similarities in high school, understood why Nathan had chosen her, and decided to be a complete asshole to you from then on because she had to push you away from him.”
I looked at her in surprise. “He didn’t really do that.”
She nodded her head. “He really did.”
I couldn’t…
“That’s insane,” I found myself saying. “That’s utterly, completely, one hundred percent insane.”
I looked down at the patient chart in my hand and flipped to the next page, trying to distract myself as I took a few notes.
“It’s also true.”
I blinked at the male voice that was behind us.
My mouth dropped open when I turned to see Nathan standing there.
“I overlooked her personality,” he said. “Because I could pretend that she was you when I would close my eyes.”
My mouth fell open in obvious shock.
“I don’t want him in there with my child!” I heard the doors swish open and closed, spitting out Peyton who looked harried. She was followed by Eerie who was letting us know how unhappy she was by being kicked out earlier.
Other parents followed her in, all the while looking at Eerie as if she was the nuisance we all knew she was.
Officially Over It (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 10) Page 11
