“Preeclampsia?”
I gulped. “Y-Y-Yes.”
“I’m coming,” he said.
“But you can’t. Your job.” His dumping work emphasized how serious it was.
More typing. “There’s a flight in an hour and a half. With one short layover, I can make it by this evening.”
Chet showing how much he cared had my resistance crumbling and admitting things were bad, and I needed him. “Hurry,” I begged.
Twenty-Eight
Chet
I booked the flight, not giving a fuck about the consequences. If they needed to fire me, so be it. If they needed to get money or whatever for breaking the contract, I'd make that happen too. What I wasn’t going to do was wait around for them to decide if it was alright with them that I left and went where I was needed most of all.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” Glenn caught me as I was about to leave.
“I need to go. Fuck it. I need to quit. See if you can salvage enough of this stop to make an episode. I beg you. I gotta go.” I started out the door, and he followed me.
“I’m coming with you until I can’t anymore,” he explained as I climbed in my ride share. “What’s wrong? Is it Stan?”
“He’s in the hospital. Something’s wrong. He didn’t even really explain it before I found and booked a flight. Preeclampsia. He sounded so scared.” So alone. So broken. I’d never heard him like that. He needed me, and where was I? Two time zones away, that was where.
“I’ll tell them you had a family emergency.” He settled his hand on my shoulder as we drove straight to the airport. My luggage could rot for all I cared. “He’ll be okay. He will.”
I wanted to believe him so badly, to take his word as truth, but until I saw him, held him in my arms, and heard the doctors say the same exact words, that’s all they were...words.
“I’m not coming back. Tell them I quit.” I couldn’t leave him again. I just couldn’t. He deserved better than a sometimes alpha.
“I’ll take care of it.” The car turned on the offramp to the airport. “Give me your hotel key. I’ll get your shit for you.”
“Thanks,” I fished it out of my pocket. “And thanks for being my friend over my boss or whatever.” We always joked about which of us was the boss, but the sentiment was real. He was a good friend, and I was lucky to have him by my side.
“Which terminal, sir?” the driver called back to us as the airport came into view.
“A,” I answered back, ready to open the door and run once he pulled up to the curb. I was cutting it close, really close, and I couldn’t afford to lose this flight.
“Keep me updated,” Glenn called to me as I climbed out of the car and started to run for security which was thankfully overstaffed and under-passengered, getting me to the gate a full five minutes before they started boarding.
I wanted to call Stan. To tell him I was on my way and I wouldn’t let him down. Tell him that I loved him and would be there for him through all of this. Tell him silly stories about my day to make him smile. But I couldn’t. He needed to do what the doctors told him and not put on a brave face for me, which was exactly what he’d do. So instead, I did the absolute worst thing I could do.
I did more research on preeclampsia and was scared shitless by what I read.
At first it didn’t sound that bad. There were stories about changing diet and low doses of pregnancy-safe medications saving the day. All of that was doable. And then as I sat in my seat and started to scroll again, the scary bits started showing up. Hospitalization—that was where Stan was at, and the best-case scenarios they laid out there were delivering the baby a little early and all was right in the world.
Only our baby wasn’t full-term yet, and even if they were, the next stories talked about omegas dying and—
“Sir, you need to put that on airplane mode while we take off,” the steward scolded, and I put it away. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have enough to freaking think about.
I couldn’t lose Stan. Not when I just found him. He had to be okay. Our baby had to be okay. There were no other options. I needed them.
My short flights paired with a short layover both felt like eternity as I yearned to be by his side doing anything and everything I could to make things better for him—to fix things. Gah, why couldn’t I fix this?
I climbed into the first taxi I could see, not caring it would cost four bazillion times more than a rideshare. I gave him the address and threw all my cash on the front seat when he started to balk. “My pregnant omega is in the hospital and it’s too early. Please. I beg you. I have a card too. That money can be just for you—a tip.”
“No need, sir. I’m a father too.” He took off, and how we didn’t get caught speeding was a bloody freaking miracle. He pulled right up to the ER entrance, where they had told us to go when he was in labor, and I raced inside, taking the cab driver’s card. He needed a tip—shit, he needed a Mercedes for what he did for me.
A stop at the information desk and an elevator ride later and I was at his room. I stood at the door taking deep breaths. He couldn’t see what a mess I was. He needed me to be strong, as strong as he was.
“Are you the father?” a woman in a white coat, a doctor from my guess, asked.
“I’m Chet, yes.”
“I’m Dr. Lance. Let’s go in and have a chat, shall we?” Chat. What did that fucking mean? But I agreed and stepped inside to find Stan in the bed connected to a million tubes and wires.
“Stan.” He looked up at me, his eyes sunken in, his cheeks so puffy. “Oh love, I’m here.” I stepped tentatively to his side, and the doctor encouraged me.
“Any news?” Stan asked, looking to the doctor hopefully as I stood beside him, wanting nothing more than to hold him, comfort him, tell him I loved him.
“Still waiting on some test results, but you're going to be here for a while...probably until baby comes.”
“But the little one will be okay.” I wasn’t even asking. I was just stating it as fact because I didn’t want to live in a world where it could be anything but.
“We will do everything we can.” She kept talking, but I didn’t hear a word of it. Everything we can was not a yes. it was so far from yes they were in different time zones. It. Wasn’t. Good. Enough.
She eventually left, and Stan patted the bed beside him. There wasn't much room. In fact, there was hardly any room, but I sat on it the best I could. Whatever he wanted I was giving him. Done.
“I love you, Stan, and not because of this.”
“I know. You told me when you left that night.”
“You heard me?”
“I did, and I was too scared to say it then, afraid to break what we were building, afraid it would all topple over like a house of cards, but I love you too. I did that night, and I do now. Kiss me. Please.” His voice cracked. “I need to feel you; to know this is real.”
I leaned down and kissed him gently. “I’m real. What we have is real. I’m not leaving again.” I spoke against his lips between kisses, meaning every word.