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Ten contractions later, we’d established they were coming every three minutes, each lasting a minute or so when the gate buzzer sounded. Checking out the CCTV monitor, we saw it was Karen’s car, closely followed by Natasha’s. Relief flooded through me and a couple of minutes later they wandered into the kitchen in an unhurried fashion.
Karen smiled. “Hello, Harper, Cole,” addressing my girl, then nodding to me.
“Who’s having a birthday, today?” she gloated. “Tell me what’s been going on, Harper, then we’ll go in the living room and check you out. Meanwhile, Cole, we could use a coffee if there’s one going,” she instructed me, and I knew she was making me feel useful.
I wandered over to the coffee pot, nerves making my hands shake slightly, and I poured them a couple of mugs of coffee. “Milk’s in the fridge behind you,” I said, knowing I couldn’t get anywhere near it for the bags they’d dropped by their feet.
Between contractions, Harper sat on one of the breakfast barstools and conversed with everyone as if nothing was going on. The respect I had for her was immense, and I felt guilty when she caught my eye and mouthed, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, it’s you I’m worried about,” I snapped, aloud.
By the time Stuart took Diane to pick up Layla, Harper had been examined and she was well over halfway to fully dilated.
“Whoa! That was intense. I think it’s time for the tub,” she said when a contraction took her breath.
Shit. I’d forgotten about the tub and prayed Matty had taken care of it.
Assisting Harper down the hall, I was relieved to see it was halfway and the faucet had been turned off. I’d been too focused on what was happening with Harper to care about it.
“Can you give me a hand here, Honey?” Harper asked, taking her sweater off as she went into the throes of a new contraction. We waited for it to ebb as she breathed through the pain, and when she was done, I helped her get naked and she climbed into the tub.
For a few minutes she appeared to cope better for being in there, but soon after she was wriggling around restless and couldn’t get comfortable, even on her hands and knees.
Natasha narrowed her eyes like she was sizing me up. “Do you think you could get in behind Harper and support her in the water?” she enquired.
They’d spoken about this during their visits, and each time, I kind of backed off figuring I’d be more of a hindrance than a help. I knew the deep-rooted fears I had from Grace’s labor still plagued me, but when faced with the real-life scenario, I nodded immediately.
“Sure. What do I do?” I asked, and Harper glanced up at me in surprise, obviously gauging whether I really was okay with Natasha’s suggestion.
“Strip down and get in behind Harper. Let me adjust the water temperature first,” Natasha replied.
“Oh, sounds like an offer I can’t refuse,” I replied, reading the comment both ways.
“Ignore him; he’s such an opportunist,” Harper told them, laughing before another contraction interrupted her scathing comment.
Thankfully, she was too distracted to see how her comment had floored me. It wasn’t something she’d ever said to me before, yet she had mentioned it twice lately, once when I asked her to marry me and at this, another significant turning point in my life. Either I was turning into a pussy or there were signs everywhere.
Natasha emptied a little water out of the tub and added more hot water.
“Are you getting in then?” Harper asked, eyeing me curiously, when her contraction had ebbed and Natasha had turned the faucet back off.
“For you, Sweetheart’, anything,” I confirmed, tugging on the buckle of my belt.
“No, you have to put a swimsuit on,” Harper cried out, her voice high pitched.
“What? Why? You’re naked?” I nodded at her body. “What’s the difference? Best you look away now, ladies, rock stars don’t wear underwear,” I stated as I undid the fly on my jeans and shoved them down my legs to the floor. Gingerly, I stepped out of them and into the bath, with Harper trying to catch my dick and balls in her hands to hide them.
I chuckled. “Jesus, woman, you’re in the middle of giving birth and you can’t keep your hands to yourself,” I teased, as a new contraction came on and the atmosphere tensed again. Nudity had never been a problem for me, and I wasn’t leaving her to go upstairs and find some board shorts.
Positioning myself behind her with my legs open, I slid down against the bath, pulling Harper’s shoulders back to take her weight.
Heat radiated from her to me and her hair was stuck to the back of her neck, so I set to work cooling her down with a washcloth and scooping her hair together again, retying it in her pony holder. I kissed her neck and talked her through breathing for the next half hour.
Suddenly the door burst open and the patter of feet running down the hall was quickly followed by heavier ones.
“No, Layla, you have to wait here until someone comes and gets you,” Diane called out after her.
“It’s okay, she can come in.” Harper called out, sounding relaxed, but my body stiffened. I wasn’t sure how Layla would take to what was happening, and the last thing I wanted was for her to be scared.
