Page 246 of Wait for Him

Before I can shut the door in their faces, Bennet’s door flies open across the hall and James appears looking like he’s seen war. “I’ll call you whatever you want. Unc. BenBen. Uncle Benny. Please don’t leave me alone in here. She broke my fingers. I’m sure of it.”

Bennet and Joe take off across the hall without another word.

I close the door and turn around, but Rose is already running toward the bedroom.

“Holy shit,” she calls over her shoulder. “We’re having babies!”

I follow her, laughing despite the adrenaline ripping through me. “Technically, they’re having babies.”

“They’re our babies too!”

And fuck me if that doesn’t send a completely inappropriate jolt straight to my cock. My eyes drop to her bare legs disappearing beneath my T-shirt. Would we have time to...

No.

Fuck.

We absolutely don’t have time. Damn it.

I follow her into the bedroom and start grabbing clothes off the floor. A few hours ago, all of us were sitting around a table eating pizza, giving Blaire shit and arguing over who could eat the fastest. Now both women are in labor at the same fucking time. Two babies are coming. Our family is about to get bigger, and judging by what Rose told me ten minutes ago, maybe one day it'll get bigger because of us too.

Jesus.

Do not start crying again, Jackson. We don't have time.

“Rose?”

She turns around with one leg half-shoved into her jeans. “What?”

I grin at her. “Move your ass, fiancée.”

Her eyes narrow. “Not the time, Jackson.”

“Definitely the time.”

She snatches my jeans off the floor and throws them directly at my face.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Rose

The waiting room might as well be our own personal lounge with how many people we have crammed in here.

It’s both hilarious and beautiful.

We’ve taken over most of the chairs, there are jackets and bags everywhere, and someone keeps moving the balloons because they’re blocking the television. Nobody is watching the television, but that has somehow failed to resolve the balloon issue. Every fifteen minutes somebody relocates them, somebody else complains, and the balloons begin another leg of their journey around the room.

For Michael and me to go from having mostly just each other to... this? All these fucking people? I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.

We’re all orphans in one way or another. Some of us literally. Some with parents who were technically alive but had no business being called parents. Some lost people too young, and some simply never had the kind of family they needed until they stumbled into one somewhere else. None of us came together the normal way, whatever the hell the normal way even is, but somehow we did.

And now we’re all sitting in a hospital waiting room at an ungodly hour because two of our babies decided to come at the same damn time.

Our babies.

I know they aren't actually our babies, and if I say that around Michael right now he'll probably make me fill out visitation paperwork, but that's what they feel like. This entire room has been waiting for them.

Samson and Lauren are here with the kids and have naturally taken over the parental side of the operation. They’re making sure everyone has eaten, forcing bottles of water into people's hands and periodically asking when someone last slept, which feels a little ambitious considering none of us have any intention of sleeping until Blaire delivers.