The night grew longer and longer, and soon Brent was exhausted. I figured he had time between tests and results for a nap, so I went to the nurse’s station and asked for a warmed blanket.
“We don’t really carry those here. They are up in surgery and OB. Your husband is having twins, you said?”
I nodded, not even denying the husband remark.
“Well, I’m about to go on my break, so I can swing by surgery and pick a couple up. I’ll be back in a few.”
“Thank you.”
Husband didn’t sound bad at all.
True to her word, a few minutes later, she returned with two comfy warmed blankets. I carried them to the room and laid them out on Brent who was already half-asleep.
“Oh, where can we get one of those blanket-warmer things?” he lazily asked.
“It’s called a dryer, and if you love this, I can make sure you have them every night. Anything for my omega.”
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, eyes closed.
“Brent, I won’t ever leave you.”
“I haven’t said it because I’m a big scaredy-cat, but I love you and I want you to stay here in Mapleville with me and the babies and I want a house and…I want it all with you.”
His words came out jumbled and strung together like one word, but I got the gist.
I leaned down and kissed his forehead and gave our babies a rub while I did. “You never have to worry about me leaving, love. You’ve got an alpha for life.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Brent
#PreWhatSyia?
Of course, every time the stupid cuff expanded and squeezed my arm, I freaked out, worried it was saying I was dying. That in no way helped out. Not even a little bit. I was my own worst enemy. More than once, my systolic was close to 180 which even I knew was terrifying, especially while pregnant.
After I peed in a jug repeatedly, and they running some tests on both it and my blood, the doctor finally came in without the furrowed brow that had me pretty sure I was never leaving the hospital.
“So good news is, it isn’t HELLP.”
I didn’t even know what that was, but from the relief on Jay’s face, it was awful.
“The not-so-good news is, it is preeclampsia, but we can treat it with medication and change of lifestyle.”
I’d heard of preeclampsia. I didn’t really know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t good. Maria who owned the gas station outside of town had suffered from it, and her baby came way too early. I’d assumed it was a baby issue, but it sounded like more of a parent issue.
They needed to stay in and grow. Being born now was not an option, especially with twins.
“I already cut out salt.” It was all I had to offer.
“Which is a start.” The doctor continued, looking more at Jay than me, which had me more nervous than the diagnosis, “I’m not saying you can’t work, Brent, but, it would be better if you didn’t. And drink lots of water, sleep as much as your body wants, and take walks.”
“So, no bed rest.” Because I had finals to get through and shifts to do.
“Bed rest used to be the norm, but recent studies indicate reducing stress, eating healthy, and some medication lead to the longest pregnancies, and with twins, we want to keep those wee ones in there.”
“So I can go home.” I loved the sound of being anywhere not there. Of course, if he said I was there until the babies came, I’d do so without argument. They came first.
“Not yet.” He tapped on his tablet and I was fairly sure he wasn’t messaging a friend about football stats. “I want to get your blood pressure stabilized first. You’re lucky your alpha is a nurse because it makes me more inclined to let you go home sooner rather than later.”
I nodded. I was lucky, and not just because of all the things he just mentioned.
“Joaquim‘s bringing you in here at first signs of an issue means we have the best chance of controlling this before you see any ill effects on your organs or babies. You have a keeper.”
“This I know.” What I hadn’t known was how bad things could have gone if I had waited until my next appointment like most people did.
“The hospital is always looking for skilled nurses, by the way.” He winked at Jay.
“I’ll take it into consideration.” I was so proud of Jay and how in demand he was.
The doctor had barely walked out of the room when Jay began the conversation I knew was coming.
“I want you to quit your job.” Of course he did. I did, too, but that didn’t make it possible.
“What a lead-in.” I just shook my head, not wanting a fight. “No ‘I’m glad you’re not dying,’ first?”
He sat on the edge of my bed, taking my hands in his. “Fine. I’m glad you’re not dying. Quit your job, please.”
“I can’t.” I couldn’t even meet his eyes. We weren’t that far apart in age, but he had already accomplished so much in his career, and I was a non-trad student after failing in my career.
“One good reason,” he demanded, and it was a demand.
“Bills.” A lot of them.
“Not a good reason. I can take care of them.”
Can and should were two very different terms.
“You don’t even know how big they are,” I countered.
“I don’t need to. I know what TAs and college staff make. If you were covering it, I can, too.”
“But that’s not fair.” He shouldn’t have to cover all things. That wasn’t how relationships built on equality worked. It just wasn’t.
“Riddle me this, what would you do to assure healthy babies?” He squeezed my hand. I knew he was setting me up, and I’d cave as soon as he asked.
“Anything.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m doing.”
Darn him being all practical and right.
“But you don’t have a job.”
I was grasping at straws. He had offers for four with a possible fifth, based on the doctor’s comments.
“But I could have with one call.” He pulled out his phone for a prop. “We should probably talk about that, too. I think I know which I want, but it has to be both our decisions.”
“No, it has to be yours. Your career is important.”
“Not as important as you.”
“Table this?” Because I needed a clear head when we got back to it. That and the nurse loitered at the doorway, holding a dosage cup with some sort of pill in it and a Styrofoam cup with a straw. It was medicine time. I hated medicine, as a rule, but anything that kept my babies safe had me giddy.
“Sure.”
The nurse came in, checked my pressure again, which was still bad, and then gave me my meds. She said she’d be back in an hour and expected things to be much better. I really hoped she was right.
“What should we do? This place kind of sucks.” I was a whiner. But hospitals were such depressing places. It was probably the weird pale-yellow walls.
He was doing something on his phone, so I knew he had a plan.
“It does indeed, which is why I am glad you are going home soon. That medication usually works pretty fast, so I’m optimistic. And I have ideas.”
I knew it.
He tapped me to scooch over and lay beside me, holding out his phone, which was open to a real estate listing.
“Houses? You want me to look at houses five minutes after we decide I need to quit my job?” In what world was that a good idea?
“You decided.” He kissed my cheek. Yeah, I’d decided. I wanted the babies safe above and beyond anything else. “Excellent. And yes, I do to the house bit.”
“But houses cost money.” Lots and lots of money, and no one was going to give a mortgage to two out-of-work unrelated people with a baby coming. No one.
“Ah yes, omega mine, but I have an account that I can only use to buy a house, so let’s spend it. Neither of us will feel it so it is a no-brainer. Actually, it will save us money because no rent.”
I just lay the
re, jaw dropped, trying to figure out if I heard him correctly.
“Who has accounts just for houses?”
“People whose moms left them to them.”
His words slammed into me. I was such an inconsiderate jerk.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be fresh.” Or tear off scabs, or any of the million horrible things I’d just done.
“You weren’t.” He nuzzled into my side, still holding the picture up to me. “And it’s fine. She wanted this for me—for when I found you. So, let me show you my favorite.”
I finally looked at the picture. I’d played a ton of video games in that house. It had belonged to a high school buddy whose family moved away senior year. Last I knew, some city folks bought it as a summer place. Looked like that was no longer a thing.
It was an amazing house with lots of sunlight, a kitchen fit for a king, and four bedrooms. Complete with a wraparound porch and a fenced-in yard, it was perfect.
“The old Grimes place.” I swiped the screen to see what changes they had made, and it looked like weird paint colors but the same hardwood floors and bathrooms. And paint was easy.
“You know it.” He wasn’t even trying to contain his smile. He knew he had me.
“I do. A friend in HS lived there. It is amazing. I had no idea it was on the market.”
“Foreclosure, too, so super cheap.”
You could tell he was a city boy because for Mapleville, that wasn’t cheap. It was the norm, which meant they owed a butt ton on it.
“I want to look at it when we get out of here.”
“We can do that.” I rolled onto my side. “And, Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“For all things. I love you.” I leaned in for a quick kiss just as the auto blood pressure machine went off. I rolled back so as not to kink it and have the nurses thinking I died. They’d come rushing into the room, effectively ruining the moment more than the stupid machine already had.
“Not as much as I love you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jay
#Graduation&HousewarmingParty
Mapleville was in great need of nurses. In the time it took us to get home from the hospital, I already had a message on my voicemail from another doctor in town, asking if I was looking for work.
He had heard I was.
Good grief.
“It’s weird,” Brent grumped as I put his feet up on pillows, determined to love him into wellness.
“Your feet are in the air, that’s all.”
“I hate it.”
Pregnancy grumpies all over the place.
“Those babies need your feet to be up or we might be looking at a set of twin preemies, okay? That’s what’s at stake, love.”
He sighed and reached for the enormous bottle of water I got for him on the way home. “I know. I’m sorry.”
I sat down on the bed beside him. “I’ve got to run to my place and get my stuff. You still want me here all the time, right?”
“Yes, please.” His sweet voice returned. He would probably use the same coo with our babies.
I went to my place and, in thirty minutes flat, was back with all my things, which wasn’t much since I’d lived out of a suitcase most of my adult life. Truth was, I kept my stuff packed, waiting for the day Brent would ask me to move in with him. A little pathetic, but I didn’t care.
“That was quick.” Brent smiled at me, still in bed like a good omega.
“Yep, and I even stopped at the store and got you some things. Did you know this little town has a semi-health food store?”
He turned positively green. “Please don’t make me eat sprouts, they look like pubes.”
I choked on my laughter. “Um, no sprouts. I got you some things to help you relax.”
From the cloth bag, I pulled out a diffuser and some lavender oil, along with some massage oil for his feet and maybe more.
I set up the diffuser on the bedside table before sitting at the end of the bed to massage his feet.
“Graduation is next week,” I said, trying to keep cool but inside jumping up and down, so proud of him.
“I don’t have to walk, you know.”
“Yes, you do. I want to see my mate up there, getting his degree. That’s a big deal, Brent.”
“You really want to see me walk?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Look in the closet.” I got up and looked in the closet and saw what he was talking about. His maroon graduation gown along with cap hung there, waiting to be used.
“Mine was dark green. Yours is much better. I’m glad I’ll be here for this, Brent.”
“Me, too. I’m glad you are here with me for all these things. I’m not sure what I would do if you weren’t.”
, I massaged his feet until a soft snore escaped and then covered him with a blanket.
I spent the rest of the night in bliss, sleeping next to him.
~~
“Pictures,” I demanded when Brent tried to take his cap and gown off too soon on graduation day.
“Please don’t,” he whined, his belly seeming bigger under the huge gown.
“Yes. Joaquim, don’t you let him go without pictures. He ran away before I could get his high school cap and gown pictures.” Vivian pouted.
“Shame on you,” I told him. “Come on, mom and son, here, hold this.”
I’d slipped something special onto his degree while he was in the restroom and hoped he’d notice it.
“Hold your diploma up.” He didn’t see it. I snapped the picture and asked Vivian to take one of the two of us.
“Oh, did you look at your degree?” He looked at it once and then did a double take. Mission accomplished. I’d tied the ring to a ribbon inside of the folder that held his degree while he spoke to one of his professors.
“What is this?” he asked, tears already building in the corners of his eyes.
“Something like, I love you and our babies and there’s nothing else in the world I want other than to marry you and keep you forever.”
No one ever said I was good at proposals, but I hoped this was the only time I would be doing it.
“This is an engagement ring for me?”
“Yes. But you haven’t answered me.”
“Yes. Ten thousand times yes.”
Our tender kiss and embrace was interrupted by a squeal from Vivian. “I got it all on video! I’m gonna get Kayson to put it on the Twitter!”
The Twitter, good grief. Well, I guessed the people who helped us get together deserved to know I found my happily ever after.
“Let’s go home.”
Brent’s house was only temporary. We’d made an offer on the first house we looked it, the one Brent remembered from high school days. It was perfect for a new family.
“There’s one thing we haven’t decided on,” Brent said with some determination. “Where are you going to work?”
“I got an offer I wanted to talk to you about. The hospital plans to open a brand new neonatal unit, and they want me to work there. With preemies. Tiny babies who need a lot of care.”
“The question is, what do you want?”
“This is what I want, Brent. A new unit, and I’d be the head nurse. It’s a dream come true, actually.”
“Then it’s settled.”
“Is it okay with you? I’d have to work some nights and maybe long shifts.”
He took my hand. “As long as you come home to me, that’s all that matters.”
When we got home, twenty or thirty cars lined the streets.
“What’s going on?” he asked. I already knew. Vivian had decided to have a graduation party for Brent but insisted on it being a surprise since he loved surprises.
“Nothing.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
When we walked in, the place was packed not only with people, but with presents for us. Brent’s extended family and friends had bought us everything f
or setting up a new home and even some things for the babies.
“I love you.” He smiled so big, it made me want to shout with joy. “Thanks for keeping the secret.”
“I love you back. I promise to always have surprises for you.”
He laughed. “I’m counting on it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Brent
#nestingtime
Moving was never fun, but at least this time it was for good, and our minimal belongings were put away. That didn’t mean everything was ready, though.
My pots and pans would suffice, but I only had a folding card table, so a kitchen needed to be purchased. The shower gifts were helpful—we had plenty of towels and such. Quite a few of the rooms, however, were completely empty, but that was okay. What wasn’t okay was our lack of baby things. The amazingly cute onesies we got were great and all, but babies needed so much more than that.
I didn’t want to ask my mate, or was it fiancé? Heck, he was both. After all he’d already done, buying a house and such, it felt like I was contributing too little even though he’d argue I was growing two humans, but still. A man needs to feel like he contributes, so I did what any self-respecting omega would do. I went to ask my mommy.
“Hey, Mom.” I gave her a hug and settled at her kitchen table. As I was growing up, the kitchen table was where all the big talks happened. I kind of felt like that kid again, asking Mommy to bail him out. But sometimes being responsible meant asking for help. Or so my mom had told me a thousand times when I was struggling to find decent employment before going back to school. My mom was right. Who knew?
“Let me see my babies.” She rushed to my seat, bending over to watch my belly as she rubbed it, looking for I didn’t even know what. “Look at you guys all growing so big. Stay in there, guys. You need to cook more. Thirty weeks does not a big baby make.” She was so adorable when she talked to them. Not that I would tell her. She’d probably ask me to video it and put it on the Twitter and hashtag her store. She was all about social media after she got her small boon.
“They’re staying in there, Mom,” I reassured and patted her head, knowing it would instantly have her standing. She liked her hair just so ,and patting it wasn’t going to help.
Mardi Gras with His Omega: A Mapleville Mardi Gras Novella: MM Non Shifter Alpha Omega Mpreg (Mapleville Omegas Book 3) Page 9
