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FIVE
“I’m here!”Del crowed from the front door, panting a bit. “Shit, shit, ow!” she screeched, nearly toppling right the hell over.
“Dammit, Mads,” Rocco growled at her, his arms weaving under her pits to catch her and hold her up. “You’re having a damned baby, you need to get to the hospital!”
“It’s just—” she inhaled sharply, and remained silent for a minute, her face strained. “Braxton Hicks. I told you.”
“Like hell it is,” he snarled.
Something inside me started to writhe and fight. My eyes went wide, and panic flooded me. It had to be the wolf—she was trying to rip her way out again, and—
“Calm down or get out,” Elliot warned them, sitting down in front of me with an utterly-zen expression on his face. “Everything’s fine, June. Del is in denial, and Rocco is overprotective. Everyone is alright. Now, I need you to drink this.”
My eyes flicked to the label on the protein shake.
I’d tried every kind on the damned market; I already knew I’d puke if I tried to drink that one.
I shook my head violently.
“She has a sensitive stomach,” Del panted, though she looked like she was relaxing a bit after that last contraction, whether real or fake. “She can only eat and drink certain things, or she’ll vomit. Doctors think it’s anxiety-related, but she hasn’t found a way around it.”
In any other situation, I would’ve been pissed that she was spilling my secrets. In this one, I was damned grateful.
“I bought the ones she can drink. Stocked up on them when she came into town, just in—ow, dammit, quit kicking my ribs, little dude!” She pushed on her belly a bit, trying to move the baby, I guess. “They’re in a bag outside.”
Rocco handed a bag over to the guy I didn’t know—not Ab-guy, but the one whose name I was pretty sure was Dax. Dax took the bag, and tossed one to Elliot. He caught it and had a straw in it in half a second, then held it up to my lips.
I tried not to glare at him. He was being nice, after all.
But… I was really damn prideful.
“I’ve got it,” Del said, surging forward. Rocco helped her fall to her ass next to Elliot in a controlled manner, and she held the drink to my lips instead. “Sorry, Jay. I should’ve checked on you sooner,” she apologized, as I wrapped my lips around the straw.
I hoped she could tell that I didn’t hold it against her—or anyone else.
I was the only one at fault for the whole mess of a situation.
And Zed, though personally I put most of the blame on his wolf.
I slowly drank the liquid. It took a long time to get it down, and Del kept having to pause and breathe through contractions. Rocco was watching the clock and didn’t drag her off to the hospital, so I assumed she was fine.
When one bottle was gone, I started to feel a bit better.
“You’ll need way more food than you used to now,” Del warned me, grabbing another bottle and opening it up. Rocco snagged it from her, and stuck the straw in it before handing it back.
“I can hold it,” I told her, only shaking a little bit.
She didn’t look convinced, but handed it over anyway. “You’re already looking a little less shitty.”
A gravelly laugh escaped me. “Thanks.”
She grinned. Her grin contorted to a pained grimace as she grabbed Rocco’s arm and her belly, breathing through the pain.
“Dammit, woman,” Rocco growled at her.
“They’re irregular. I told you, they’re not real,” she panted out, leaning her head against his arm.
His hand smoothed her hair up off her forehead, tucking it up into her bun, and something within me ached.
