Page 150 of Manhattan Bossholes

Cora was rambling again, talking logistics, but my mind was running back over some of those memories. High school. The football team. Cora. Especially Cora. As I looked at her now, I couldn’t help remembering what we used to get up to. A very vivid image surfaced—us tangled in the backseat of my pickup—and I swallowed hard, pushing it away.

That was a long time ago.

And we weren’t those kids anymore.

I rubbed my eyes, taking a break from staring at my emails. There were still a million things to do to get Elixir Free off the ground—besides the work Cora and her team were doing—and every time I responded to an email, five more appeared in my inbox. I leaned back in my chair, staring out across the city, wondering if I’d made a mistake agreeing to help with the reunion. I really didn’t have time for it. But it was too late now. I couldn’t back out on Cora. My phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my pocket, finding an all-caps Snug message from Vincent.

@AidenC IT’S HAPPENING!!?!?!!!

@VinForde What’s happening?

@AidenC THE BABY!

I perked up, replying so quickly the words were hardly legible at first. Thank God for autocorrect. @VinForde Holy shit! What can I do? What do you need?

@AidenC Rally the guys. We’re already at the hospital. I’m gonna be a freaking dad!

@VinForde What hospital?

@AidenC Lenox Hill.

I grinned down at his response and sent him a thumbs-up, immediately dialing Trent.

He picked up on the third ring. “If you try to sell me on the strippers one more time⁠—”

“No time for that,” I interrupted. “Baby’s coming.”

“What?”

“Piper’s in labor.”

“Oh!” Trent said. “That’s…Wait, did I miss a message in the group chat?”

“No. I just got a Snug message from Vincent. They’re at Lenox Hill. Told him I’d rally the group. Can you get a hold of Paul and Chloe? I’m gonna go grab Dominic. He’s got Hailey here with him today, but that should be fine. Kids like hospitals, right?”

Trent laughed. “I mean…she’ll probably be bored as hell if this is a long labor. But I’ll see you guys there.”

“Yeah, see you soon.” I hung up, grabbed my things, and hurried out of my office, calling over my shoulder for Connie to push the rest of my meetings today. By the time I’d rounded up Dominic and Hailey and gotten us to the hospital, it was almost an hour later. We walked into the waiting room, Hailey running ahead with a CONGRATULATIONS balloon I doubted she’d want to hand over to the new baby when the time came.

“Uncle Trent!” she cried, running up to him. “Look at my balloon!”

“Wow! That is so cool!”

“Uh-huh,” she said, getting distracted by a TV mounted on the wall. It played some cartoon with dogs, and Hailey ran over, parking herself in a chair in front of it.

“Perfect,” Dominic said, watching her.

“How’s it going?” I asked Trent.

“Well,” he said. “Vincent keeps running out here to update me. So far, Piper’s eaten some ice chips and threatened to chop his balls off. That led to him terrorizing the nurses until they got the anesthesiologist up here to do the epidural.”

Dominic laughed. “This all sounds so familiar.”

It had been over four years since we’d rallied together for Hailey’s birth. I still remembered getting that three-in-the-morning phone call. At least this baby had the decency to wait until regular business hours. “Did they say how far along she is?” I asked.

Trent shrugged. “Like six centimeters?”

I had no idea what that meant in terms of timing. We glanced at Dominic—the only one who’d been paying attention when we’d gone through this before. “Hard to know,” he said. “Hailey came really quickly, remember? Amanda didn’t even have time for an epidural.”