AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Wanting to stay under the steady spray of hot water, but needing to move more, I climbed out of the shower and hastily wrapped a towel around myself, squatting and lunging awkwardly as I tried to ease the pressure in my pelvis.
“Don’t kill me, kid,” I begged, clutching the rim of the sink when another wave of heated pressure began to build. “Be gentle on Mammy.”
This was it.
Dammit, it was happening.
I could feel it in my bones.
I could hear it in the feral noise my mouth continued to make.
“You’ve got this,” I told the girl staring back at me in the bathroom mirror. “You’ve absolutely got this.”
Riding out another contraction, while mentally wondering how the hell I was going to manage to dress myself in order to actually go to the hospital, I half walked, half waddled into my bedroom in search of something to throw on, puffing and panting like an injured animal.
When the words, “Nice legs,” filled my ears, I froze in my bedroom doorway.
Froze and peed myself.
My breath hitched in my throat when I saw him.
There he was.
Covered in scars and drowning in secrets.
The self-inflicted ones, the bruising on his veins, the indents on his flesh from where he’d shot up, were harder to stomach than the ones he’d endured at the hands of his father.
But he was here.
He was back.
He was home.
He was clean.
Broken, bruised, and a little bent out of shape, Joey Lynch sat at the foot of my bed, with the sleeves of his hoodie rolled up to his elbows and a wild-eyed expression etched on his face.
“Holy shit.” Springing into action, Joey jerked to his feet. “Did you just…”
“Just wet myself?” I strangled out, chest heaving as my emotions threatened to consume me. “Yeah, Joe, I think I did.”
“I think that was your waters going, Molloy,” he told me, closing the space between us. “Are you in labor?”
“Depends,” I cried, throwing my arms around him when he reached me. “Are you really here?”
“I’m here, queen.” His arms came around my body, and I felt myself grow limp against him as my ability to be strong suddenly abandoned me.
Months.
I had kept up the act for months.
Holding on, keeping my head up, praying, hoping, willing, and manifesting this moment into existence.
And now it was happening.
He had come back for me.
“Then yeah, Joe,” I sobbed, clutching onto him as another contraction started to build up inside of me. “I’m definitely in labor.”
