“Everyone is coming?” Spade asks.
“More than likely,” I answer. “And even more will meet us there. I’m sure Emmalyn and Misty are calling everyone as we travel.”
“No pressure,” April mutters.
“The only thing you need to worry about is our son, baby. Everyone coming is tradition.” I catch Apollo’s ecstatic eyes in the rearview mirror.
As if April is a queen or celebrity, the hospital staff is waiting outside of the emergency room when we arrive with smiles on their faces.
April’s cheeks are bright red with embarrassment as she climbs out of the SUV. “Is all of this necessary?”
“Probably not,” I answer just as Apollo says, “Of course, it is.”
Medical staff take them in one direction as Spade and I catch the elevator to the delivery floor waiting room.
Since we were the only ones that had to pull around to emergency, the room is full by the time we enter. It’s standing room only, but there’s an excited buzz all around me as we eagerly wait for news.
“So, you and Sylvie?” I ask Spade as we find an empty piece of wall space to lean against.
“Who?” Or maybe not.
“The woman you were with last night?”
His smile is wide. “She was a lot of fun.”
I leave it at that because I have the sudden urge to pop him in the jaw, but I can also remember a time when I spent a night with a woman and woke up unsure what her name was. I know it’s only bothering me now because if Sylvie gets her feelings hurt, it’s going to compromise what I want to build with Faith. Women are weird about hating all people connected to a man that hurt a friend.
We’re in the waiting room for two hours before we get any news, but it isn’t a doctor that pushes open the double doors into the waiting room.
Apollo walks out with a still pregnant April at his side.
“False labor?” Emmalyn asks.
April nods, her cheeks even redder than when we first pulled up.
“I’m so sorry, everyone,” she says, her voice nearly a whisper.
“Sorry?” Sophia, Dominic’s daughter and Colton Matthew’s wife, steps forward with her infant son asleep in her arms. “That happened to me three times before the real event. Don’t worry about it.”
“Twice for me,” Lana, Harley’s wife says. “It just happens.”
Everyone assures April that it’s fine, but she doesn’t look any more convinced by the time we pile back into the SUV. I don’t know who Spade is riding with, but he clapped me on the shoulder before we walked out and told me he found another ride home.
April is near tears by the time we pull out of the parking lot, and after glancing up once, I notice the wetness on her cheeks. I don’t say a word, letting her husband console her.
Chapter 8
Faith
Time is dragging by. Each tick of the clock since Ethan and Slick left seems to take years. I know it’s probably the aftereffects of the drugs still in my system, and according to information online, I just have to wait it out. I’m guzzling water to help flush it out, but a person can only drink so much.
Thankfully, the nausea is gone, and some of my memories are coming back. I know I spoke with Ethan at least once. I know I was hit on several times. I also know what the guy looked like that drugged me, just like I know he’s probably going to invade my nightmares if I can ever fall asleep again.
I’ve spent the last hour feeling like an out-of-control teenager who got mixed up in the wrong crowd, making the wrong decisions that landed me where I’m at. Reading that some people are drugged even with hypervigilance doesn’t really seem to help.
I jolt out of fear when my doorbell echoes through the house, and for the first time since college, I creep to the door and peek out the side window to see who is on my porch. A wave of relief washes over me when I realize it’s Sylvie. The look of concern on her face makes me want to cry when I pull open the door, but I mastered those emotions before I ever got out of the system. Tears are weakness, and I want no part of it. That man last night already saw me as an easy target, and I’ll be damned if I give him any more power.
“Are you okay?” Sylvie asks as she steps inside.
It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t hurt in my home, I still feel the urge to lock and deadbolt the front door, making me realize what he’s done has compromised my safety and my mental health.
“I’m okay,” I tell her. “Still a little queasy. Are those the same clothes you were wearing last night?”
I ask, not to be confrontational, but because I still don’t have all my memories from last night. Another page I visited online explained those memories may come back in time, or I may have lost them forever.