Under Siege: A Contemporary Mpreg Romance Bundle (Omega's Under Siege)

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Under Siege: A Contemporary Mpreg Romance Bundle (Omega's Under Siege) Page 70

by Aiden Bates


  “Well?” I quickly asked.

  Oliver waited until Mitch relaxed, and I could immediately tell that one was stronger than the last few had been, even if Mitch couldn’t actually feel the full force of them.

  “Ninety seconds.” He checked the chart we’d been making. “And eight minutes after the last one, so getting closer.”

  Mitch grinned and held out his free hand. “What you get me?” he asked.

  “Um, well, I got a balanced meal of protein, carbs and fat.”

  Mitch’s face fell. “Oh, I thought you would have got something nice.”

  It was my turn to grin. I dropped my purchases on the little table next to his bed. Oliver glanced at them and frowned.

  “Really? I don’t think two bags of peanuts, one bag of potato chips, and two peanut butter cups count as a balanced meal,” he said.

  “Technically, they meet all the body’s macronutrients,” I said.

  “But they’re not particularly healthy,” Oliver replied.

  “Don’t care, gimmi,” Mitch said while reaching for the peanut butter cups.

  Oliver shook his head, but handed one of the cups over to Mitch, and then after a few moments popped the other one into his own mouth. “Screw it, I’m stressed.”

  “Hey, that was mine. I’m the one whose having contractions,” Mitch said through a mouthful of peanut butter.

  “Which you can’t feel.”

  “Can too.”

  Oliver rolled his eyes, but just then Mitch gasped. Both Oliver and I each quickly grabbed one of Mitch’s hands.

  “I um…” Mitch drew his knees up and let out a soft moan. “Oh, I can feel that one.”

  “How bad?” I asked as Oliver timed it.

  “I think the epidural is wearing off.”

  “No, it doesn’t wear off, but the contractions are stronger so they’re pushing through the pain blocker.”

  “Well can’t I have some more?”

  “No, sweetheart,” Oliver said. “This is only going to get worse.”

  I wasn’t sure that was the right thing to say to Mitch, but he nodded. “Okay, okay, I can take it.” But then he grimaced and groaned loudly.

  “They’re coming on more quickly, and… Lasting longer,” Oliver said as he stared at his watch.

  Mitch nodded again. “Yep!”

  But it was hours later before the real fun started.

  “Oh my fucking god!”

  I would have laughed at Oliver’s exclamation if the situation weren’t so intense. Mitch grunted, his eyes screwed closed while the nurse stood at the bottom of the bed and told him to push.

  I searched Oliver’s face as he grimaced. “Fuck! My hand, Mitch!”

  Mitch didn’t release his deathlike grip on Oliver’s hand, in fact I think he squeezed it harder.

  “You’re doing good, Mitch,” I said in encouragement as his face turned bright red. I rubbed his thigh as I stood slightly off to his side but still in a great position to see what was going on. The baby’s head had crowned and the nurse nodded as if happy with the way things were progressing.

  “One more,” the omega nurse said.

  Mitch began panting, and from the look on Oliver’s face had loosened his hold a little. Sweat dripped off Mitch’s brow, and Oliver was quick to dab it dry. He brushed Mitch’s damp hair from his eyes, and then bent down to kiss him softly.

  “You can do it, sweetheart,” Oliver whispered. Mitch nodded, and then when his next contraction hit, he began pushing again.

  I watched transfixed as, with a huge effort from Mitch and more encouragement from Oliver, our son was born.

  “He’s here,” I said to Oliver.

  “He is,” Oliver agreed, nodding. “He’s finally here.”

  We both stood looking down at baby Juan, who was wrapped up in a blue Babygro and blanket, laying sound asleep in his hospital crib. We’d all agreed to call him after my papi, and I felt a huge ball of pride rise in my chest as I carefully examined my son’s tiny features.

  “I think I’m here, too,” I said, carefully, glancing at Oliver to judge his reaction. “Seeing him makes it feel real, you know? It makes me think that I’m here. I’m present. He needs me here and now. And it almost makes me feel ready to, you know, move on from…you know…”

  “I do,” Oliver said. He curled his hand around mine and squeezed it gently. “I do know.”

  “I just wish there had been a chance for Pedro and Juan to meet, for Pedro to get to know his nephew. I don’t know, I kind of expected him to be here for this. Silly.”

  “No, it’s not. I always expected Rich to be a part of my son’s life, but at least you, Mitch and I, we have one another, and that’s more than most people get.” Oliver picked up my hand and brought it to his lips to kiss, but he was startled when we heard a familiar voice call from outside the maternity ward room.

  “Mijo!” Mami said, as she quickly strode past several beds to stand in front of me.

  “Mami! You’re here. You made it!” I cried out happily, but she looked worried and upset, so my smile faded until my expression must have matched hers. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  Mami looked around the room anxiously. “Where’s the baby? Is he here? Is he alright? How’s Mitch? Is everything alright?” Mami asked, her voice almost frantic.

  “Yes, Mami, everything’s fine. Mitch and Juan are right here,” Oliver said, pointing down at Juan then at Mitch, who slept soundly in the bed next to us. “They’re both perfectly fine. Is that what’s worrying you?”

  My mother was out of breath and was struggling to catch it again. She let me support her with one arm as she tried to get enough oxygen to form words again.

  “I thought…” She shook her head and placed one hand over her chest. “I thought, surely, something would be wrong with the baby. It’s just silly superstition, but as soon as I’d heard, I was worried because I thought ‘the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’”

  “What?” I drew my brows together in confusion. “Mami, what the hell? Why would you think that? What’s happening?”

  “Mijo.” Mami gripped the front of my shirt. “Pedro’s awake.”

  31

  Oliver

  “Juanito!” I gasped in a breath, and then gently blew into my son’s face as he sucked on the baby bottle I was helping him hold.

  Juanito thought this was hilarious as he took his mouth off the bottle’s nipple and cackled so hard, his little eyes shut. I gasped again and laughed as well. Nobody tells you that, as a parent, you fixate on the weirdest things about your kid. Mitch loved the way Juan smelled, Marcos saw a new family resemblance in him every day, and I loved the way Juan laughed with abandon at little things like a funny face, blowing into his face or ripping paper up in front of him.

  “Oh, Viola thought pulling Daddy’s chest hair was funny,” Teddy said, as he watched me. “I thought her pulling Roman’s chest hair was pretty funny, too, come to think of it, so she wasn’t wrong.”

  Juan wiggled and grunted for his bottle back as Silas walked by and gasped at him, too. Silas reached to see if Juan would let himself be picked up, but it seemed like my son was too interested in his dinner for the time being, so he absolutely ignored Silas, much to Silas’s chagrin.

  “Fine! Be that way!” Silas said with a laugh. “I’ll play with Carter, instead!”

  “No, you won’t,” Bennet said, rocking the baby carrier at his side with his foot. “Carter’s passed right out.”

  “What about me?” Charlie walked back from the kitchen with a drink. He summarily put his drink down on the coffee table and stretched out his arms for Juan. Juan seemed to think about it for a second before agreeing that, yes, this was acceptable, and throwing his little arms back out to Charlie. Immediately, Charlie swooped in, took Juan from my arms, and spun around, which made Juan utterly scream with delight.

  Silas rolled his eyes and continued heading toward the kitchen as Mitch leaned in next to me and whispered, “He’s j
ust itching for another baby. He can’t help himself.”

  Silas, Charlie, Bennet, Teddy, Mitch and I sat in my living room, alternately wrangling toddlers or passing babies around to one another as we waited for Marcos to arrive. This party had been a long time coming, but since it was a surprise—the word “surprise” here used very loosely—for Pedro, it hadn’t made sense to have the party any sooner than Pedro felt ready to be out in public. So, we waited for a month and then planned the party—Marcos, Alverita, and I—and then kept a close eye on Pedro’s physical therapy. Rich had some physical therapy, back when we’d thought the cancer might go into remission and he could start focusing on regaining some of the muscle function the chemotherapy had left him too weak to fight for. But, all in all, the cancer had come back too quickly to give physical therapy too much of a chance to take any effect, so my experience with the concept in general was fairly limited. Watching Pedro go through it, though, and watching Marcos support him through it gave me an appreciation for the amount of hard work it entailed.

  Especially in Pedro’s case, where the majority of both small and large muscles had atrophied while he was asleep, even tiny tasks were difficult at first. Drinking from a cup, sitting up unaided, using his hands to point at things; all of these were genuinely major victories as Pedro accomplished them little by little.

  It occurred to me that, in a strange way, Juan’s life had always run parallel with Pedro. Juan had originally been conceived to save Pedro’s life, so I supposed, in a poetic way, it made sense. Pedro had opened his eyes on the same day Juan had first opened his, and roughly at the same time, both had taken their first gasping breaths as conscious beings. We traded news of both Juan and Pedro’s milestones as they reached new ones, and in a more emotional sense, I silently sent up a prayer every so often for both of them. In a strange way they’d both formed the unexpected, final pieces of the family I thought I was starting when I’d bought this house for Mitch.

  Both Juan and Pedro had brought Marcos back to life, too.

  Every prediction we had made about Pedro’s reaction to learning about our family had been true. Marcos, Mitch, and I had all convened in Pedro’s hospital room to introduce ourselves and to fill him in on how he had given Juan a life, how Juan had saved his life in turn, and how both of them had brought the three of us together as a family. We let Marcos take the lead on telling the story, and he had sat on the edge of Pedro’s bed facing him as Pedro sat up, his bed tilted three-quarters of the way up like a recliner in someone’s living room. When Marcos had finished, Pedro said nothing, absolutely nothing, and I had felt my stomach almost completely drop in fear that, after all of this, Pedro would disapprove of our family arrangement.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, with a painful amount of effort and a grimace on his face, Pedro had raised his arm and had curled his hand into as much of a fist as he could possibly manage at the time. Marcos worried Pedro was having some sort of seizure then and there, but before Marcos could call the nurse, Pedro had reached out far enough to where he could let it limply fall and it could strike Marcos on the thigh.

  “Was that… Were you trying to punch me?” Marcos had asked, always understanding and anticipating what Pedro was trying to do so he could help his brother if he could.

  “Yep,” Pedro rasped before breaking into a lopsided grin. “Two…o…me…gas? Lucky…sonofa…”

  “Mijo!” warned Alverita, who had taken Marcos’s place as the constant watcher by Pedro’s bedside, and who had been rubbing Pedro’s legs as Marcos spoke.

  “Lucky,” Pedro amended as quickly as he could. “Just…lucky.”

  And, we were.

  After four months of grueling physical therapy, Marcos had given me and Alverita the go ahead to plan the “Welcome Home, Pedro!” party in earnest. We’d moved furniture, measured Pedro’s walking distances to make sure he could navigate the house, sent out invitations to anyone and everyone who might have ever known Pedro before the accident, and debated over what to serve at this enormous party that was shaping up to be a sort of Fort Greene family reunion.

  “We’ll say it’s a surprise party, so people are amped,” I had explained as I went over the binder full of party-planning notes I’d compiled. “But, secretly, Marcos will tell Pedro exactly what to expect beforehand. That way we don’t scare him when people yell ‘surprise.’ On account of the IED explosion, I mean.”

  “Why don’t we just tell the people to not yell surprise?” Marcos had asked. He immediately ceased and desisted from the idea of banning surprises when he saw the incredulous looks that Mitch, Alverita, and I all gave him in response to his question.

  Speaking of the devil, as both my mother and Alverita would have said, Mitch shushed the room and pretty soon the entire room was shushing each other. Once everyone was quiet, we could hear the open and close of a car door and knew Marcos was probably helping Pedro out of the car and up the driveway as we all stood there.

  We all waited anxiously and quietly as we heard their slow footsteps come closer and closer until, at last, Marcos gently opened our front door and stepped back to hold it open for Pedro.

  “Surprise!” Everyone shouted in unison.

  “God!” said Pedro as he struggled to lift his cane over our threshold and into the house, even with Marcos’s help. “Oh my god! You guys got me!”

  Everyone in the house laughed sheepishly as Pedro entered and Marcos shut the door behind him. Maybe, in retrospect, it was becoming clear to the partygoers that we’d warned Pedro of the party due to his trauma surrounding loud noises. But whether it was due to a genetic predisposition for the Acostas to be bad liars or whether lying effectively was not yet one of those skills Pedro had regained, it was clear he wasn’t even a little surprised.

  Every single baby was surprised, though, and the room became a flurry of activity as people handed back babies to their parents, parents started digging in bags for pacifiers, bottles, or other distracting items and everyone did their level best to comfort the various little ones in the house.

  This gave Marcos time to help Pedro sit on the couch and to hand his cane to Mitch who neatly tucked it within easy reach for Pedro.

  With Mitch running to the kitchen for a drink for Pedro, Marcos helping Pedro into the house, and my managing the partygoers, Juanito was briefly missing in action. I spotted him at the same time as Pedro must have done.

  “Oh, come here. Come here,” Pedro said, holding out his hand for Juan who was currently sobbing in Charlie’s arms despite all of Charlie’s clever tricks and funny faces. “Come here.”

  Charlie noticed Pedro’s gesture and walked to where Pedro sat, glancing at Mitch once for confirmation. Mitch nodded his assent, and Charlie carefully positioned the baby in Pedro’s lap before sitting down next to them in case Pedro needed help with Juan.

  Those partygoers who hadn’t seen Pedro in a while had been told beforehand to not overwhelm him by immediately leaping to greet him, so folks milled around for a bit as Pedro habituated to being in public again. Pedro, though, was completely focused on Juan who gazed up at him curiously through tears.

  “There, there,” Pedro said gently. “Don’t cry, mijo. Don’t cry. It’s me, your Tio Pedro. Don’t cry.”

  “I’m sorry, Pedro,” Mitch said. “He’s very melodramatic. I’m not sure where he gets it from, either.”

  I snorted loudly enough that Mitch would hear me. He turned around and pulled a sour face at me, which I teasingly returned.

  “He’s no trouble,” said Pedro. “He’s no trouble at all. He’s my nephew, and anyway, everyone says Marcos was a terrible crybaby when he was this age.”

  “Honestly, he’s still a crybaby,” Mitch replied, which earned him an eye roll from Marcos as he stomped away.

  Pedro laughed softly. “I’m very glad Marcos has found what he needed in you,” he said, looking up at Mitch and then looking off to the side at me, indicating he meant both of us. He then gasped. “And, in you, Juanito! Yes, in you!”


  This didn’t seem to comfort Juan as he continued his hiccupping little sobs, despite Charlie rubbing gentle circles into his little back, and despite Pedro’s gentle, calming tone of voice.

  “Thank you, Charlie,” Pedro said as Charlie handed him Juan’s bottle, which seemed to work in calming him. “Thank you.”

  Charlie responded with a sweet smile. I noticed it from across the coffee table as I started picking up cans and empty plates to make room for new drinks and new plates of food.

  “How have you been, Charlie?” Pedro asked, over top of Juan’s head. “I was so sorry to hear about—”

  “No. No. I’m okay. It’s hard but I’m okay. I’ve had three years to process it, though. I was sorry to hear you asked about him shortly after waking up. I realize it must all be fresh to you after you’ve been asleep so long.”

  Cautiously, without being seen, I arched an eyebrow at Alverita and subtly tilted my head at the conversation happening on the couch. In turn, Alverita nodded, and then headed to the kitchen. If I knew my mother-in-law well at all, she’d return soon with a plate for Charlie and Pedro to share. There was another thing I knew well about my mother-in-law; she was a good judge of character, and I could see she liked Charlie a lot. I didn’t doubt she’d be trying to get Pedro and Charlie together, and I honestly thought she had the right idea. If there were two people who needed to connect with each other more, I didn’t know who they were.

  The call for drinks went up as Pedro seemed more and more relaxed, demonstrating little by little he could tolerate, even enjoy the children, the food, the drinks, the music, and all the elements that made a party a party. All the while, he held my son in his arms, until at long last, Juan’s little eyes drifted shut, and all his efforts to stay up to watch the adults party faded into complete oblivion.

  “Out like a light,” Mitch said, as he stooped to gently take the baby from Pedro.

  That was our cue, and so Marcos and I excused ourselves and followed Mitch as he carried Juan to his nursery. I shut the door behind us as Marcos fiddled with the baby monitor to turn it on as Mitch lay Juan down as gently as possible in his crib.

 

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