“Would you like anything for it? Your doctor has a few things that you can take for any pain level, but it’s your choice.”
“Maybe later.” Maybe never. I wanted her gone.
When the door opened again Jesse flew into the room at the speed of sound. All the pain I was feeling was pushed to the back of my mind as his arms wrapped around me. His face buried in my neck. “Fuck, woman.” He groaned. “I thought I was never going to see those chocolate eyes again.”
I lifted my arms to wrap around him but found an IV in my left arm. “Are you okay? Are the babies okay? Where’s Lucy?”
“Shh.” He pulled back to look down at me and covered my mouth with his hand. “Just shut up and let me look at you, okay?” I nodded and he dropped his hand. Those ever-changing eyes were a kaleidoscope of browns as I met his wet gaze. ‘Gods, you are so fucking beautiful.” He brushed a kiss over my lips. “I love you.”
Some of my anxiety was fading away and I leaned my head against his chest. “What have I missed?” I finally asked.
“Can you give us a minute?” he asked the nurse over my head and a moment later the door closed behind her. I looked up at him, worry wrinkling my brow. “The boys are doing great. They’re still on the oxygen for now, but the doctor says that today they will be moved down to the nursery.”
A small sob escaped as relief washed over me. The babies were okay. Despite the fact that they were so early… “Lucy?” I couldn’t forget that we were on the verge of losing our daughter.
Jesse grimaced. “The test results came back this morning. Lucy is Grady’s.” My heart turned to lead. “But… Emmie is still working on it. She’s been working her ass off since you were brought in, baby.” He lifted a hand and pushed my hair back from my face. I probably looked like a hot mess but he didn’t seem to care so I wasn’t going to worry about it right now. “Gods, it’s so good to hold you.”
“Have I really been out for two days?”
“Fifty-two hours, actually. But who’s counting?” His lips lifted in a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Something about electrolyte levels was the reason for the reaction, but you’ll have to ask the doctor to be sure. Good thing it was twins because we are never doing this shit again, baby.”
I was suddenly very exhausted. Now that I knew that my kids were okay and that Jesse was sane, I could relax. At least for the moment. I rested my head against my pillows. The pain level that’d had my eyes unfocused fifteen minutes ago was back times a million. “I love you,” I mumbled.
“Are you hurting?”
“A little,” I lied. A lot. A lot, a lot. So this was what Emmie felt after her C-section with Mia? Fuck!
“I’ll get your nurse.”
“Wait!” I called after him when he turned for the door. “Don’t go away, okay? I want you with me.”
“Baby, I’m not going anywhere. Except to see the boys when it’s visiting hours… Okay?”
The nurse appeared a moment later with a syringe in her hand. I ignored her and focused all my attention on Jesse. “You get to visit them in the NICU?”
“Yeah. I got to feed them yesterday. They were stubborn at first and the nurse had to help me a crap load, but I finally got the hang of it. They wanted to teach me how to change their diapers… And they want to know if we want to circumcise them.”
“Oh…” I yawned as the nurse tossed the syringe in the red box on the wall and quietly left the room. “What are your thoughts?”
“I’m not against it. I’m circumcised. But it’s your call.” He leaned over me, brushing a sweet kiss over my forehead. “Since you’ve known all along what we were having I figured you had already done research on it and decided one way or another.”
I had, but I wanted his opinion on it too. Something I hadn’t been able to get until now because he hadn’t wanted to know what we were having. I however, hadn’t been able to wait to find out if we were expecting girls or boys. “Can I see them?”
“I’ll talk to their nurse. But it might have to wait until they are moved down to this floor.” Another kiss over my forehead. “How are you feeling now, baby?”
“No pain.” I yawned again. “You’ve done a good job taking care of our family, Big Daddy.”
“It wasn’t the same without you. Don’t scare me like that again. Okay?”
I wished he could have lain down beside me and held me. “Okay…” That was the last thing I remembered until someone tickled my toes sometime later.
My eyes snapped open and I found Lana and Emmie standing over my bed. “Hi,” I greeted sleepily.
“Do you hear that, Em?” Lana glanced at Emmie standing beside her with her arms folded in front of her. “She scares the shit out of us for days on end and can only say Hi.”
“Sounds like a Daniels’ female to me,” Emmie said, reminding us all that Lana had once done the same to us a few years before. “The nauseating thing about it all is that you tend to wake up still looking beautiful as ever.”
I couldn’t help the grin that teased at my lips. “Am not.”
“I’m sure you will get tired of hearing people ask you this, but how are you feeling?” Emmie asked, moving around the right side of the bed and reaching for my hand. Her fingers felt ice cold in mine. “Do you need anything for pain?”
I shook my head. “I’m good for now.”
“I have pictures.” Lana handed over her iPhone as Emmie pushed a button on the bed to help me sit up a little better. “Jesse said that you were dying to see the boys so I thought I would show you these. They won’t be moved down until morning because Baby 2 is still needing more oxygen and they don’t want them to be separated.”
“Baby 2?” I frowned. “Jesse hasn’t given them their names yet?”
“He wasn’t sure which was which for you so he was waiting on you to wake up,” Emmie informed me. “It can wait another day, Layla. Wait until they are in your arms before you start handing out names.”
My fingers were shaking as I took the phone Lana handed over. The first picture was of two of the smallest babies I had ever seen in my life. They were only in diapers with oxygen sticking from their little noses while they lay in incubators beside each other. Tears leaked from my eyes as I traced a finger over their bodies on the screen. Was it me, or were they trying to get closer to each other even through the incubators?