Page 283 of A Matter of Time

“Listen.” He walked over to me and put his hand heavy around the back of my neck. “You’re mine. I go where you go, and anywhere you go at four in the goddamn morning, I go too.”

He had no idea what he was even saying, but it was very cute, so I wrapped my arms around him, squeezed tight, and told him to button his jeans and find a shirt. I slapped his ass hard when he turned away from me.

He muttered to himself all the way back down the hall.

There were hurried introductions made when we arrived at Dylan and Chris’s apartment, and I called Sam my boyfriend because it was easier than the explanation would have been. His smile over the title was huge.

“It’s only for tonight,” I told him.

“Whatever you say.” He grinned back.

We all took turns trying to extricate Dylan from the bathroom. I tapped on the door and tried to talk my best friend and partner out. She wouldn’t budge. Her husband was so sweet. I thought Dylan’s mother, Akiko, was going to cry, and his own mother, Dana, was giving him a look like he was the Second Coming. The door didn’t even crack. Dylan’s father, Martin, tried, then Chris’s father, James, tried, and then her sister, Roxanne, went with the funny, sarcastic approach. We all laughed, even Sam smiled, but there was nothing from Dylan except her screams as the contractions ripped through her.

“Can I try?” Sam asked me from where he was leaning next to the china cabinet.

Arms crossed, ankles crossed, he looked very calm.

“Sure.” Chris invited him with a sweeping motion of his hand. “Come one, come all.”

Sam levered himself off the wall and moved across the room to the door. He tapped gently, and we all watched him, riveted.

“Hey, Dylan—it’s me, Sam. You know, Detective Kage. The one you fuckin’ hate.” I could have done without the swearing. “Don’t you have something you wanna say to me?”

The reaction was instant. The door slammed open, and she came roaring out of the room. “How dare you even speak to him again, you selfish sonofabitch! I hate you for hurting him, for letting him get shot! I hate you even more for leaving, and I hate you most of all for coming back! You! Don’t! Deserve him! Get the hell out of his life, you poisonous, manipulative asshole!”

The room was silent except for Sam, who stepped close and took her chin in his hand and lifted it so he could look down into her eyes.

“Oh ho, the lady’s a tiger.”

She breathed deeply, utterly fuming as she stared up at him.

“Feel better?”

She shivered once, and there was the patter of liquid on the floor beneath her. Sam didn’t even flinch.

“I think my water broke,” she said in the tiniest voice I had ever heard.

“Yep.” He nodded, giving her the lopsided grin that I loved. “So let’s go to the hospital.”

“I can’t walk,” she said, looking at her husband, then her dad, Chris’s dad, and finally me.

“It’s okay,” Sam announced, then he turned to me. “Get me a towel.”

I darted into the bathroom, emerged with one, and passed it to him, and he wrapped her in it from the waist down before scooping her up in his arms. He did it like she weighed nothing at all.

“You got a sweater or a shawl you wanna take? I don’t want you to be cold.”

Chris knew the one, and bolted from the bedroom and was back in seconds with her favorite chunky cardigan. He helped her slip it on, and all the while, Sam held her like he could have done it all day and night.

Once she was cozy, Sam was at the door seconds later, holding her cradled against his chest, her arms wrapped around his neck, her face lying on his shoulder. Even nine months pregnant, she looked tiny and fragile in comparison to the big and strong man he was. The picture of them together would be forever ingrained in my memory.

“J, get a trash bag for Dyl to sit on in the car, another for the floor board, and grab the bag she packed for the hospital. C’mon, Chris, let’s do this.”

Chris seemed rooted to the spot he was standing in and just stared back at Sam.

“Let’s go, buddy,” Sam coaxed him.

“But I was going to drive her in⁠—”