I nod and pull out a clean tumbler. Normally on a night like tonight I'd pour two and share in the drink, but with this little one riding shotgun on my bladder, my drinking days are on pause. I pour two fingers of whiskey and scoot the glass to Joe, caving on my earlier resolution to cut him off.
"On the house," I say, pouring myself a club soda. I hold my glass up in toast. "To Betty."
Joe's eyes moisten as he raises his to clink against mine. "To Betty."
He throws back his whiskey, draining his glass before I've even brought mine to my lips. It's one of those nights, it seems, which, honestly, is a mood.
One I'm looking forward to giving into once I'm no longer an incubator to this little leech I already love more than is proper or right.
"Are you ready for motherhood?" Joe asks, leaning back as the whiskey relaxes him.
"Nope," I say, wiping down the already clean bar and throwing a glance at the Sexies to make sure they’re still sexy. None of them have touched their drinks, but they are still sexy. I look back to Joe. "But is anyone ever really ready?"
He shrugs. "Betty was. She was born to it."
I don't bother telling him about the times she was in this very bar crying her heart out over a pint while bemoaning her mothering skills. I was a kid then, working the bar with my grandmother. We're a tight-knit community, so everyone turned a blind eye to my underage service. Even the cops who occasionally came by.
Betty is gone and he's all alone. Well, he’s got a son, Alex, but he just reminds Joe of the life that got away so they don’t really talk or see each other much. So I won't disabuse him of the notion that things were effortless for his wife. But dear god in heaven can we please stop acting like this shit isn't hard?
Cuz from what I've seen and heard—and growing up in a family-owned Irish pub, I've seen and heard a lot—this shit is the hardest.
"You know we just want you to be happy," he says, glancing at the three strangers nursing their drinks.
“I know... but guys are too much work, and I'm all full up with work at the moment." I glance at my protruding stomach and the bar that is now my full-time job since my grandfather died and my grandmother was put in a home.
Guys are the very last thing on my mind.
Especially since my grandfather ran this place into the red when my grandmother was no longer around to keep the books. Now I’ve got to salvage my family legacy if I have half a chance of supporting myself and my baby and keeping a roof over our heads.
Joe finishes up everyone's drinks that were left on the bar, and I check the time. 11:14 p.m.
“Okay, guys, wrap it up,” I say as I wipe down all the tables, hobbling through the pub like that girl in Willy Wonka who eats the wrong candy and inflates into a ball. Most of the dishes are already washed, and I'm half tempted to leave the rest for the morning.
Joe stands and wobbles to the door, grabbing his coat from the rack. “I hate leaving ya like this, Bern. Want me to stay? I could sleep in one of the booths.”
I yawn, suddenly feeling the weight of the day bear down on me. “Nah, I’m good. Get home before you can’t.”
“What about your Partner in Crime? Can she come?” he asks.
“Joe, I’m fine. AJ will be helping out with the bar and everything else nonstop once the baby arrives. I don’t want to bother her till then. You know how things are there.”
Joe shakes his head, and I know what he’s thinking. AJ was my best friend growing up, but she never left town like I did. She married her high school boyfriend, a guy none of us like. But...we can’t live her life for her. That’s something she’s got to figure out.
“Go on now. It’s getting worse out there.”
Finally, Joe nods, casting one last glance at the silent strangers, and leaves.
I want to go to bed, to get off my feet and zone out to Netflix, but I know if I leave the bar a mess, my future self won’t be happy with me.
Begrudgingly, I grab a broom and start sweeping, but before I can get even half the job done, another contraction grips my belly, and for the first time tonight real fear worms its way into my heart.
It’s easy to stay out of my head when I’m busy working, but in the silence of the night, I start to question all of my life choices.
Especially the one that landed me knocked up and single just as I was about to live my dream.
Tears burn my eyes as I take a seat on the piano bench, my hands cupping my belly, and I remind myself it wouldn’t have mattered. Pregnant or not, my grandfather would still be dead, and I would still be the only Morgan left to carry on our family business.
There was no choice then, and there’s no choice now. I can do this. I have to do this. It’s no longer just my life on the line anymore.
I smile through my tears as my baby kicks out, already asserting her right to be here in my life.
Through gritted teeth and with steely determination, I stand and keep cleaning, though I have to stop regularly to let the contractions pass.
I’m still telling myself it’s not the real deal when I feel a gush of liquid run down my legs.
Shit.
My water broke.
I’m having this baby. Right here. In the middle of the night. In the middle of a storm.
“Guys, um... I don’t suppose any of you is a doctor?”
Instead of a hospital with an OBGYN, I’m stuck in my bar with three strangers, and I’m definitely going into labor.
I can no longer stand, so I slide to the floor, clutching my stomach, not sure what I’m going to do now. How can I have a baby alone? They don’t teach this in the pregnancy books.
I can no longer keep my pain in, and as my muscles squeeze and my back spasms, I scream.
I fleetingly wonder if I can make it upstairs to my apartment. I could run a bath, get undressed, and give birth in the water. That wouldn't be too hard, would it?
Knowing I absolutely cannot do this on the floor of a bar, I attempt to pull myself up, but lose my grip and slide back down as my contractions quicken.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Terror latches onto me but I grit my teeth and wipe away the tears. I will do this. If not for me, for my child.
When the men all walk over to me, I suddenly feel terror of another sort. I have no idea who these guys are, and I’m completely vulnerable. I curse myself for kicking Joe out, but what would an old drunk do against these guys, who look made of pure muscles?
“In point of fact,” Sexy #2 says. “I’m a healer. A doctor, if you like.”
A doctor if I like. What the blazes does that mean?
“Have you ever delivered a baby?” I ask.
He nods. “Many.”
“Good, cuz you’re about to deliver mine.”
Chapter Two
I can’t describe this kind of pain. Blinding comes to mind, but that might just be because my eyes are slammed shut while I wait for either the pain to pass or my life to end. In any case, the feeling of a baby wedging its way out of my uterus makes it hard to focus on anything else, even the outrageously sexy man propped between my legs barking orders at the other two.
“Get water boiling,” he tells Sexy #1. “And you,” he says to Sexy #3, “get me clean rags and the sharpest knife you can find.”
“No,” I say, trying to sit up. “Take me upstaAAAIIIIRRS... I need to LLLLLIIIIIIEEEEEE down.”
Sexy #2 shakes his head. “No, you’ll stay down here. You’re in no condition to be moved right now.” He locks eyes with me, and the pain ripping through me ceases momentarily as I get lost in his forest green gaze.
“Who are you?” I ask, panting through another contraction.
“My name is Zev, Bernadette. I’ll make sure you deliver the child safely.”
The brutal contractions fade again as my head spins. Zev? A doctor I’ve never met who knows my name and waltzed into my bar moments before I went into labor?
“No one calls me Bernadette unless they’re trying to p
iiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSS… me off. And I don’t think you want to doOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO… that.”
“Anger won’t help, but a charge of adrenaline can’t hurt,” Zev says, as he directs Sexy #1. “Get behind her and support her back.”
I feel strong arms slip around my waist and I lean into his chest. I have no shits left to give. “What’s your name, then?” I ask when I can speak again.
“Darius,” he says, his lips brushing against my ear with his words.
“Zev and Darius,” I repeat, mostly to make sure I heard right the first time. “And how about yoooOOUUUUUUUU?!” I say to Sexy #3 right as another contraction hits. This labor is progressing much more quickly than what the lady in my birthing class described.
Before the third mystery man can answer, Darius chimes in again. “Rune, take her other arm, even out the support.” Okay, I guess Sexy #3 goes by Rune. It also seems as though these guys know each other, even if they like to sit at different tables when they go out.
The pain dulls enough for me to do some quick math. Outside, the storm’s getting worse. Inside, I’m going into labor a week early. Most importantly, three oddly-named, unconscionably sexy men are helping deliver my baby with a calm very few men show in the labor ward. So… WTF?
“I’m surprised we all arrived at the same time,” Rune says to the others. “I was sure I had a head start.”
“We work off the same prophecy, old friend,” Zev responds in his gruff baritone. “There’s only one star to guide us.”
“The only surprise,” Darius says, “is that we never had a discussion as to what we’d do when it came time to take the child.”
My head cranks toward Darius at these words. Is he talking about my child? I’d ask him directly but another contraction wracks my body and I scream, clutching Darius and Rune’s hands with all my strength. Neither even flinches.
Meanwhile, with my eyes clamped shut, I feel a firm tugging at my pants. “You cannot deliver this child while wearing these,” Zev says calmly.
Oh God, I hadn’t thought about this part. Shit.
“Someone get me a blanket at least,” I say through clenched teeth.
Darius and Zev look to Rune, who swiftly pops up and moves to the kitchen.
“He’s good at finding things,” Zev explains.
As advertised, Rune promptly returns with an armful of large towels
“Will this do?” he asks, suggesting he could go back into my kitchen and find more, somehow better towels.
“Those are fine.”
He drapes the cover over my abdomen, as Zev gets me half naked.
“I will be watching you, dog,” Darius says with an unfriendly bite to his voice. “Don’t think for a second you’re quick enough to catch the baby and escape.”
Zev barks out a short laugh. “Oh, Darius, how I’ve missed your playful name calling. And don’t expect me to run, I wouldn’t want to deprive myself of tearing you apart.”
“Now’s not the time to revisit old wounds,” Rune says in a condescending tone, like a bored professor explaining something simple to his students for the tenth time. “You can carry on with your bickering when the prophecy is fulfilled and the fae flourish once again.”
“Cocky as ever,” Darius mutters.
As fascinating as this exchange is, the language terrifies me. If I wasn’t so actively birthing a child, I would absolutely sprint into a deadly storm to get away from these men.
“Who the hell are you people? How did you know my name? Why...aaaAAAAAAHHHHHH!” I can’t even finish the question, which is for the best because I didn’t really know what to ask. Everything about this situation needs answers, but for now I’m just going to hope these men keep helping since I’ve got nowhere else to go.
“Hold my hands, Bernadette,” Darius says from behind me. “Squeeze when you feel a contraction and focus on pushing.”
“You three stop acting like psychopaths and I will.” My face probably shows that I’m terrified, but I don’t let on with my words. Growing up in a Massachusetts bar, I learned to talk tougher than I felt at a very early age.
Rune lowers himself to the floor, pressing gently against my knee, spreading my legs a little further and bringing back a shade of self-consciousness. He catches my eye and clearly sees a discomfort that goes beyond just the physical.
“When you feel a contraction, push your leg against my hand. That will activate the muscles you need to move the baby along.”
I’m about to throw out another verbal lashing when I see Zev nod. “He’s right. I’ll keep my hand on the other knee.”
I’m surrounded by men who might all be murderers, but without any other options I’ve landed on implicitly trusting Zev based on his word that he’s a doctor...if I like. I hope it’s the doctor claim that got Zev in my good graces and not the ruggedly handsome face, which has always been a weakness of mine.
Whatever the case, the new position helps. I scream and push between breaths, barely aware that Darius has put a wet washcloth over my forehead. I trust he grabbed a clean one and not the towel I’d been using to mop up Joe’s beer.
Everything about this birth has gone wrong, and yet I find the situation strangely empowering. I’d planned on a very sterile, clinical, hospital bed delivery, none of that froufrou home or water birth stuff that the neighborhood midwives tried to sell me on. But now, sitting at an incline against a guy named Darius, two dudes named Zev and Rune side by side between my wide open legs, naked butt on the cold floor of an empty bar, I feel a small rush of pride over my natural birth. Who needs an epidural when you’ve got creepy intruders?
“The head is emerging,” Zev says without a trace of happiness in his voice, casually explaining that my labor pains might soon come to an end. “Push harder with the next feeling of contraction.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, have I not been pushing hard enough for you?”
Zev gives me a confused look, clearly not a sarcasm buff. This will make my feisty tone less effective.
As another wave of agony ripples through my torso, my legs start to close as my muscles flex. The pressure from Zev and Rune’s hands gives me a little extra oomph in my push and suddenly the pain, while still incomprehensibly awful, takes on a new burn.
“She’s out,” Rune says, a look of awe on his face, just as the old clock behind the bar strikes midnight. I open my eyes, which have long been soaked with tears but now get a fresh coating. Just a few feet away, after growing inside me for the better part of a year, I see my baby. She’s crying, bloody, and perfect. I’m a broken vessel, torn and sweaty and surrounded by demented intruders, but I don’t care. I’ve never felt love like this.
“Rain…” I murmur, saying my baby’s name out loud for the first time. She was always going to have that name, but I promised myself I wouldn’t speak it until she arrived.
Rune holds the baby with great care, which at first puts me at ease before giving me a funny feeling. He stares at Rain with a kind of reverence that has my hackles up, and he’s not making any move to hand her over my way.
“Give her to me,” I say in a steady voice, my body absolutely giddy about being done with the throws of labor.
He hesitates. His eyes shift from me to Darius to Zev, and there’s a palpable tension between the three. It pisses me off because... because give me my freaking baby.
He’s still cradling my daughter when Zev stands, his impressive stature becoming apparent. Darius rises as well, also a taller-than-average man.
“Give the child to her mother,” Zev says in a voice that’s both calm and terrifying. “I know what you’re doing, I know the impulse you feel, and neither Darius nor myself will let you move an inch from where you stand while you hold that baby.”
Maybe it’s that I’m still in agony and sitting in afterbirth, but these guys strike me as a special kind of crazy. Nevertheless, Rune seems to catch Zev’s drift and he carefully leans over with Rain. I’m about to hold the baby I’ve been waiting so long to meet.
Rune’s question feels like a mix of the right words in the wrong order. Wrap the baby in the placenta?
“Do I what now?”
“Or is that something the elders do while your body mends?”
It’s late and I’ve labored, so I’ve got zero brain space for these weird questions. Fortunately, Zev steps in.
“She doesn’t share your rituals. Here they eat the placenta. Just pass the child, Rune.”
While I have no intention of eating the placenta, Zev’s suggestion is less bonkers than the previous one. Rune does as he’s told, with a mild look of disgust on his beautiful face.
As I take her into my arms, I feel my shirt being lifted. Darius, in the most forward and inappropriate move ever, is taking off my clothes while I’m incapacitated. My bar-owner instinct is to swing the baby at him like the bat I keep behind the counter to scare off the occasional drunk who has one too many. Fortunately, my maternal instinct steps in and stops me.
Darius manages to read the room and explains himself. “She needs to feel your skin.” Of course I know about skin-to-skin time and how important it is, but this delivery and my new company has thrown me off my game. I drop a little of the tension and let Darius resume with the unprompted disrobing.
Finally, naked as a jaybird, I get to hold my baby. As soon as I press her up to my breast, she stops crying and my heart melts all over again. Her little lips inch along my skin, searching for a nipple, and it’s absolutely the cutest thing that’s ever happened in the world.
As she starts to nurse, a hand cups the underside of my breast to make the feeding angle easier. I honestly don’t know which weirdo’s weird hand it is, I’m too absorbed watching my sweet girl. While my eyes stay locked on Rain, I half-listen to more outlandish conversation from these men who should feel free to leave at any time.
“When did you notice the approach of the star?” Darius questions the other two, his calm voice floating over my head.
“We started watching the sky two weeks ago,” Rune answers. “Violence in the realm had escalated, and the Readers announced the nearing of the date.”
A Werewolf, a Vampire, and a Fae Walk Into a Bar Page 2
