Another horrible contraction hits me and I groan and try to breathe through it. “My mom is such a liar,” I say through gritted teeth. “Labor pains are not like period cramps. It feels like The Hulk is trying to burst out of my body.”
Alex smooths my hair off my face. I’m sure he’s ready to issue another apology, but the doctor arrives, all smiles, looking happy as a pig in shit. He claps his hands enthusiastically. “Looks like it’s time to have a baby!”
I would like to say I’m quiet about my pain, and that I’m a badass when it comes to giving birth, but I’m not. I yell and grunt and tell Alex he’s never allowed near me with Super MC again. “I hope you enjoy the feel of your hand for the rest of your goddamn life,” I growl at him between pushes.
And like the sweet, patient Canadian he is, he tells me how sorry he is. He also puts on his team captain hat and tells me I’m doing a great job and that he’s so proud of me. I appreciate it as much as I’m able, considering how freaking much giving birth hurts.
Finally, I’m given the “one big push” order by the doctor, who also asks Alex if he’d like to see the baby’s head come out.
I squeeze his hand. “Do not look at my beaver right now, Alex. I don’t want you to end up with vag destruction PTSD. I just want you to remember how pretty it was before I pushed something abnormally large out of it.”
Thankfully, he listens to me and not the doctor. I push one last time and finally the head appears, and then everything is a hell of a lot easier, but still really damn painful as baby Robbie finally bursts out.
I flop back on the bed, really damn tired because pushing a baby out is hard work. Alex kisses me on the forehead. “You did so good, Vi. I’m so proud of you.”
The nurses are gathered around the doctor. My legs are still open, demoed lady bits on display. A tiny cry fills the room as baby Robbie (they better not have made a mistake about it being a boy) takes his first breath.
“Wow, that’s just . . .” one of the nurses mutters.
“Good God!” the other one says, then lowers her voice to whisper something to the doctor.
“It’s like a kick stand,” the second nurse chimes in.
What the hell are they talking about?
“Is everything okay? Is our baby okay?” I struggle to sit up, wanting to see whatever it is they’re seeing.
One of the nurses glances over at us and smiles. Her cheeks are bright pink. “Oh yes! Everything is just fine. You have a perfectly healthy baby boy. Some woman is going to be very lucky one day.”
Alex and I exchange a look, because neither of us knows what the hell the nurse is talking about. And honestly, he’s just been born. I don’t want to start thinking about the day he starts dating and we have to have the sex talk. My mom gave me a vibrator and told me I should learn how to give myself an orgasm before I let anyone else try it. Not bad advice, really, but still so awkward.
The nurse who’s busy cleaning off our baby holds him up so we can see what’s causing all the commotion at the end of the birthing bed.
“Oh, thank God.” I squeeze Alex’s hand, and he grimaces, probably because I’ve been using it like a stress ball for my entire delivery. “He’s got your peen.” I address the nurse who’s now swaddling our baby in a blue blanket. “I was so worried he wasn’t going to take after his dad since my biological father apparently had a smaller than average peen. So this is great news. Here’s hoping the Waters’ genetics win out in all the other important areas.”
Interestingly enough, no one comments on that.
I notice a bunch of things I probably shouldn’t as she passes me our son. I cradle him in my arms and stroke the short dark hair on his tiny cone-shaped head. “Is his head going to stay like this? He looks kind of like a gnome, or maybe an alien. Look at how puffy his eyes are. It’s like he’s been smoking the green demon while he was waiting to be born.”
The nurse assures me that his head will round out, which is a relief, and that his eyes won’t be so puffy in a couple of days and he’ll look more human and a lot less like he’s been smoking reefer.
“He’s perfect,” Alex says. “We made something beautiful, didn’t we?”
I think he has daddy blinders on, but I have to agree, that despite the cone head and the reefer eyes, he’s pretty damn adorable.
“Do you have a name picked out?” one of the nurses asks.
Alex leans over and kisses his tiny little forehead, and then he kisses my sweaty one. “Robert Sidney Waters, but we’ll call him Robbie.”
NOTE: A LOT of readers have asked for Violet giving birth, because it’s Violet and everything she does is insane, so I felt this year everyone deserved to see what it would be like for her to shoot a baby out of her beaver. It’s not pretty and she’s not graceful about it. This is Violet and Alex. And honestly, labor is not a walk in a meadow on a sunny day. It’s a lot of work and your vagina is angry for a while afterwards.
Lance and Poppy
Valentine’s Day Love Letter
WHY DID I write this? Every year I write love letters on Valentine’s Day, so the year after I released Pucked Off, I felt like everyone needed to see that these two were doing okay, because let’s face it, Lance was a mess and he’s lucky as hell that he found Poppy.
PRETTY POPPY,
I should’ve felt bad when I stole your first kiss all those years ago, but I didn’t then, not the way I should have, and I definitely don’t feel bad about it now. Not when you’re my brightest star and my warmest sun. You’re everything good and right in this world and I’m constantly amazed that you’re mine.
You did some stealing of your own that night, without either of us knowing it. You took my heart with you and I didn’t know it was missing until I found you again. You can keep it forever, though. I don’t mind since you take such good care of it. You put my soul back together with your sweetness and your kindness and your strength.
You’ll always be my first and only love.
XO Lance
Poppy & Lance
(the deleted scenes)
WHY DID I write/inculde this? I debated whether or not to include this. It’s more than 5000 words of deleted scenes from Pucked Off. I’ve said this many times in conversation and I believe in written response, but when I wrote Pucked Off, it was very much a compulsion. Sometimes I would have scenes in my head that I just needed to get down, and they wouldn’t always come in order.
This outtake is one of those scenes in which I had an idea for what would be a confrontation with Tash and Lance’s implosion, but when I was tying the story together, it didn’t fit and Tash was her own drama. We didn’t necessarily need more of her, so this scene hit the cutting room floor.
I think had I included this scene you may have seen a very different side of Lance, one that would have been a lot harder to manage, because he is a very damaged man, and a lot of Poppy’s fears are real and honest. Lance is a victim who doesn’t know how to escape the cycle of abuse, and while I feel like the way I told his story and Poppy’s stayed true to my vision, writing this scene helped me see him for exactly who he was, and exactly how strong a heroine Poppy had to be to love him as much as she did, with such conviction.