Until Forever (Providence Series Book 3) Read online

  Amy had arrived a couple of days ago, and my sister was due to arrive in the next couple of days too. Not having Lucy around was a bit of a blessing because she tended to explain everything in medical terms and in great detail too, and I was one of those people who held the ‘what I don’t know doesn’t hurt me’ beliefs; ignorance was bliss. My parents were flying back after Baby Townsend arrived because Dad couldn’t take too much time away from his position as head of the Embassy in Canberra. Plus, Mom wanted to spend as much time with us as possible which would be cut into if I carried past my due date, so having Ames here was comforting. Every time someone knocked on the door, though, or the door opened, she’d freeze and stare at it. I knew that she was looking for Coleman, but I wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t want to see him or if she did want to see him. I was going to go with the latter.

  “So, did you get butt cherries?” My bitch of a best friend asked as she bit into the sandwich she’d made herself. I’d just eaten a ton of fruit and could feel it settling where my stomach was now lodged in my right lung. How the hell did Isla carry twins?

  “Nope! I’m grape free.”

  “Are you ready for your vagina to expand to the size of a blue whale?” How the hell did she keep eating with that graphic image in her mind?

  I was just about to call her a list of names when Tony walked through the front door without knocking. We were still surrounded by security, but I couldn’t help the quick panic that passed through me. When you’d been through what we had all been through, and you knew that whoever was responsible hadn’t been caught yet, it made it impossible to relax.

  “Hey bitches,” he greeted in true Tony fashion, before bending down to give me a kiss. “Hey, Moby Dick.”

  “Better watch out dude, she might sit on you,” my soon to be ex-best friend said between mouthfuls of whatever the hell she’d put in her sandwich. Her Mom was the worst cook in the world and had raised Amy to put a bit of everything in sandwiches, which were the most edible meals that she made. I was still waiting for Amy to get a sandwich clue.

  “Speaking of which, how’s Ren’s back?” Tony asked, making himself comfortable and opening up the large tube that he’d brought in with him.

  I wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer, so I gave him the middle finger and watched what he was doing until I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “What’s that?”

  He pulled out some rolled up glossy paper and then started laying them out on the floor, just as Cole and Isla walked in with the twins. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what I was looking at, but I recognized Cole’s car with a long rainbow tail flowing behind it as he drove past. The next one was of a huge white unicorn stuck on the hood of his car with ‘my other ride’s a unicorn’ written under it in bubble writing. The shots showed the car driving by in various angles, but my favorite was the one where it looked like the tail was flying out behind it.

  “You bastard,” I heard Cole hiss at Tony over the laughter coming from the four of us.

  “Wh…whe…” try as hard as she might, Amy just couldn’t get out what she wanted to say through the laughter. “We should put it back on and braid it! Or make a horn and attach it to the front,” she laughed out, holding her side.

  “Oh my God! I’ll get my brush,” I said as I tried to get myself out of the chair. “I’ll check that we’ve got glitter too.” And then it happened, the worst bit of being pregnant. I pee’d a little bit. It happened when I coughed, laughed, sneezed you name it, and it was horrifying. “And I’ll check my panties,” I muttered to myself, thankful that Tony and Amy were still laughing as loudly as they were.

  I finally got up from the couch as gracefully and discreetly as someone the size of a rhino could, and went to walk toward the stairs to get cleaned up and changed, when the big mouthed bitch called Amy spoke up. “Ruh roh, did someone go sissy?”

  I was in too much of a hurry to fix my issue, so I just walked away and up the billion stairs that led to our bedroom. I hated Ren for choosing a house the size of a Disney castle just now. No one would ever understand how difficult it was to get to the bedroom, and it was these fucking stairs that led to Ren needing to go to a chiropractor in the first place. Granted I didn’t make him try and pick me up, but I’m pretty sure it was my Jabba-the-Hut ass that caused his back to pop.

  When I walked back into the living room, Cole was sitting there with a shit-eating grin on his face that didn’t bode well for the new pair of granny pants that I was wearing. Another downside of pregnancy, my panties could be seen from outer space and were about as attractive as… I couldn’t think of a good analogy; fucking pregnancy brain.

  Sitting down with a sigh, I decided to just put the asshole out of his misery. “Yes, I pee every time I laugh.”

  He grinned even wider and rubbed his hands together. “Challenge accepted!”

  I was about to reply when Isla cut in. “Oh don’t worry about it, that soon fixes itself. The second they place the baby in your arms, though, you’ll realize that it was all worth it.” Kali started fussing in her arms, so she held him out to Cole who swapped her for the snoozing Dewi; settling Kali instantly. He was also the baby whisperer. “Birth is beautiful…” she stopped as Tony stood up quickly.

  “You don’t know,” he growled, bending over and pointing at her. “You weren’t there! You didn’t see the horror that I saw. You’ll never know the extent of that horror until you’re face to face with a black hole that could suck the Starship Enterprise and the Death Star through it. At the same time! The stretching…” he gulped and stood up straight, swaying slightly. “The…” another savage gulp sounded from his direction. “Canon…”

  I think it was the expression on his face, or maybe the screams that we’d heard coming from Isla’s hospital room that night that most definitely hadn’t sounded like her, but I was laughing my ass off when all of a sudden a gush of water came out of me and I looked down in horror. I mean, Jesus Christ, I’d pee’d while I was upstairs; what the fuck else did my bladder want from me?

  “Hey,” Cole yelled, standing up and pointing. “No fair! I didn’t get to do it.” He looked so outraged over what had happened that I started laughing again and more and more of it came out of me. “Just an FYI though, My - that’s fucking disgusting.”

  “Just cause you’re baking in the oven Wilbur, doesn’t give you the right to pee…” Tony started, and then stopped as I gasped and held my stomach as someone tried stabbing me from the inside out. “Oh fuck me, no! No, no, no, no,” he backed away with his hands up in the air, shaking his head desperately from side to side. “Not again, I can’t! Canon…” he was backed into the corner now with his arms wrapped around his waist, rocking slightly.

  “What’s he on about?” Cole frowned in Tony’s direction, watching him like he was a science project.

  Amy sighed and got up, putting what was left of her sandwich on the table. “Right, let’s go!”

  Cole looked between us and then at Isla who was picking up the diaper bag that had replaced her designer purses when she had the twins. “Where are we going?”

  Isla turned back to him and, with patience that I wasn’t likely to ever feel in my life but especially not at that moment, explained, “To the hospital.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Canon…” came Tony’s trembling whisper from the corner of the room, cluing Cole into what had just happened.

  “You’re having the baby? Now?” He questioned, going pale. “But Ren isn’t here. I’m not ready to become a dad. I wasn’t expecting this. I haven’t had time to prepare dammit!” His frantic ramble ended on a yell, waking the sleeping baby in his arms.

  After twenty minutes of talking Cole down from his panic and Amy steering Tony out of the house and stroking his back, we were in the car on the way to the hospital. Cole hadn’t been in any fit state to drive. Once he’d realized what was happening, our security guy Graham hadn’t been in a better state, but
he was the safest of the three men to drive so we’d gone with him. Baz was taking Isla and the Babies in the car, as well as the twins.

  By the time we pulled up to the door of the hospital, Ebru was waiting. Apparently, she’d received a panicked phone call from Cole yelling at her to clear the hospital and have someone in a Hazmat suit waiting for me.

  “What brings you here?” she joked, just as another contraction hit and I bent over with a squeal.

  “I’m so sorry for laughing at you,” I said, grabbing onto Isla who’d gotten out of the car to wish me luck. “I laughed when you pushed Dumbo out of the peanut hole, and now it’s Karmaaaaaa…” oh my shit these hurt.

  “Let’s get her to the labor ward,” Ebru said calmly, pulling me into the wheelchair that had appeared beside her. I heard Tony still whispering about vagina juice and whatever else and looked up to see Cole biting his hand and jumping up and down.

  “There was vagina…” Tony was repeating, and I snapped.

  “Will you shut the hell up!” I screamed. “Or I swear to God, I will hose you down with whatever juice I have left in my body after leaving a flash fucking flood on my floor. I mean, do you know what that will do to the wood? Thank shit I put varnish on the fucking stuff, or I’d be left with a lake-sized stain on my flooooo aaaargh! Where’s your fucking dick shit asshole of a brother?” I screamed at Cole.

  Everyone stopped and looked at me with the same shocked expression on their faces.

  “Let’s go see the nice doctor who will give you lots of yummy drugs, Maya,” Isla said, turning the wheelchair in the direction of the elevator. We passed a variety of injured and sick people, their relatives and medical staff who may well have heard my tiny little snap and who were all staring at me.

  As we got to the elevator, a family who had been waiting for it to arrive stood back as the doors opened, the father putting his arm in front of them and pulling them behind him. “Take it,” he said, nodding his head quickly at the elevator. Obviously, he’d been here before.

  Not one word was uttered on the ride up to the labor floor, and I was thankful for that because I was planning Ren’s demise. First, I was going to shove a watermelon up his ass hole so that he could feel what I was feeling. Then I was going to get a nail file and cut his dick and balls off. His balls I’d play ping pong with and his dick I was going to… My plans for revenge were cut off by the next contraction that hit just as the doors opened. I didn’t realize that I’d grabbed Cole’s hand until he screamed and I heard the sound of a baby crying.

  “Oh my God, is that it over? That wasn’t so bad!” I sat back in relief and waited for them to put the crying baby into my arms. “And you made all of that noise for nothing,” I laughed at Isla who was looking at me like I was crazy. “Where is he?” I looked around for my baby.

  “Um, that was one of mine,” Isla said from beside me, and I burst into tears.

  “It’s okay, Maya,” Ebru crooned from behind me as she pushed me forward. “We’ll get the nice drug doctor to come and give you some of the good shit, and then it’ll all be okay.”

  Sobbing harder, I decided to point out why this wasn’t comforting. “It’s not you who’s about to shit out a Buick!”

  I’m not sure if it was Tony or Cole who started crying when the next contraction hit and I squeezed the hand that I was holding onto, but Amy stayed silent thankfully. I’d been waiting for her to open her mouth so that I could take my pain out on her the way that I had a right to do - painfully and fatally.

  “Right, Maya. I need you to put this pillow against your chest and stomach and hunch your back over it.” I followed the instructions that the drug doctor, as he was now known as, gave me. “Now, you’ll feel a sharp scratch as I numb the area. Ready?”

  I had already been warned not to move or talk while he was doing the epidural so why was he asking me questions? Then it happened.

  “Sharp scratch my Orca-sized ass!”

  “That’s it over and done with,” the lying bastard said, and I heard the ‘tink’ of something being put on the table that he’d wheeled behind me and a rustling sound. “I’m just going to put the epidural tube in now and then we’ll give you something to take away the pain. Don’t move now, Maya,” he finished, and Ebru squatted in front of me and held my face to look at hers the whole time. I could feel something moving in my back just as the door to my room opened.

  “Holy shit, Maya, I can’t believe tha…” and then there was the sound of body hitting whatever the shit type of flooring this was.

  Taking a deep breath in so that I didn’t jump up and kick the asshole in the balls, I opened my eyes and asked Ebru the question that I just knew the answer to already. “The bastard passed out didn’t he?”

  She looked nervously at what I assumed was my husband’s body lying prone on the floor, and then looked back at me and nodded.

  “I’m gonna tear his balls off and shove them so far up his ass…”

  “I’m just injecting the anesthetic into the tube now, Maya. Don’t move,” the doctor behind me interrupted, and a cold trickling feeling moved down my back.

  They were just settling me into the bed, and Cole had come in to get his brother off the floor with the help of Tony, when Amy pointed out that my next contraction was hitting, and I realized I couldn’t feel one bit of it.

  “You’re a good man,” I said to the drug doctor created by Heaven’s angels. Then, grabbing the doctor by the tie and yanking him down so that he was face to face with me, I made sure that he knew my position for the rest of the birth. “But if it wears off, I’ll pull your balls off too.”

  “Isn’t she magnificent?” I heard Ren ask from his corner. Finally, the asshole was awake, so I turned to see Cole throwing away the alcohol swab that he’d been waving under Ren’s nose.

  “Don’t make me hurt you!” I growled in his direction, seeing Cole back away towards the door out of the corner of my eye. “And you…”

  I swear he whimpered, but he’d later tell everyone that it was the sole of his sneaker on the floor. Lying shit face!

  The next victim of my anger was Tony, the dramatic prick who was staring at the bed going over what happened with Isla, again! I was surrounded by assholes, and I swore there and then that I was going to cause them huge amounts of pain…once I could feel my legs again. Before I could open my mouth to let rip, though, he ran out of the room, almost knocking Ebru off her feet who was now standing next to the door and gesturing at Cole.

  “What are you doing? Where are you going? Don’t leave me here!” I was desperate by this point. I didn’t want to flash my cooter to the world, but come on!

  “Um, to get coffee?” Cole replied, edging closer and closer to Ebru.

  “Oh, well, that’s okay then,” I lay back on my bed and made myself comfortable. That sounded fantastic right now. “I’ll have a latte.”

  Ebru stopped and looked at me somewhat worriedly. “You’re…you can’t…” she looked over at Ren who was staring back at her, still dazed from his pussy episode. “You’re not allowed coffee.”

  I threw the covers off and went to get out of bed, but unfortunately, all that moved were my boobs and my shoulders. Lying back in bed, I settled for glaring. “Why? Says who? I’m only drinking decaf.”

  “In case you need to go into surgery at any point,” Ebru replied, grabbing Cole’s hand and pulling him out of the door before I could attack her.

  “You’re having a contraction,” Amy spoke up from her position of still staring at the machines beside me.

  “Oh piss off!”

  Three hours later….

  Labor was a breeze; I hadn’t felt anything since the drug God gave me my epidural. Ren had also been conscious for two and half hours now and was currently holding my hand, while Amy sat in the chair next to me reading some pregnancy magazine.

  “How are you feeling, baby?” Ren asked, as he pushed the hair that had come out of my ponytail behind my ear.


  Reaching up to redo my hair, I gave him a grin. “This is easy! I don’t get why pregnant women moan about it?”

  Snorting from beside me, Amy didn’t look up as she said, “Because it hurts when you have to actually push the beast out of the pin hole? Because they don’t take the drugs?”

  Glaring at the top of her head, I turned back to my husband who was looking pale again. “Please tell me you’re not going to faint again. I swear I will hurt you if you so much as…”

  “Hey,” Amy interrupted. “Did you get your goblin garden mowed recently?”

  “What the fuck is she on about?” Ren whispered from beside me. “Jesus, is there something inside you called a goblin garden?” He shot out of his chair and backed away from me shaking his head.

  “No, you twat,” Amy sniggered. “The girl fro down low. Did you get it tamed?”

  “Are you asking me if I have a pretty poonani?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s not like you could reach it, right?” She stood up and threw the magazine on the table beside me and stretched.

  “My bikini line is just fine, but thank you for asking.”

  At that moment, the nurse walked back in and went over to the machine that was monitoring my contractions and the baby’s heartbeat. Checking it all over, she made some notes on her iPad and then checked my IV.

  “So Maya, your water broke some time ago and your contractions seem to be slowing. Because of this, we’re going to give you a medication to speed them up and break your waters a bit more, okay?”

  “How’s it possible that there’s even any water left inside me after the flood on the floor?”

  I remembered hearing about all of this on those damn videos that Isla and I had watched for some stupid reason. I was distracted by the sound of a body hitting the floor, again.