Mave grabbed my hand and squeezed. “I’m glad, Delaney.”
Things may not be exactly perfect, but they were better than they were.
It was only up from here.
*
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jay
“Look, it’s Frankie!”
Delaney sat on the edge of the sofa and pointed excitedly at the TV.
“It is, Del. Didn't you watch the race the other weekend?” I asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because you’re acting like you’ve never seen a race before.”
Delaney and I were sitting on the couch at her mom’s watching the finals of the race in Colorado. Susan was at Christy’s but had said she would be bringing dinner home.
“I did watch it before, but now that I have you here to explain things to me, it’s way more exciting.”
Brooks rolled into the staging area, and the crew moved into their places around the car and further down the track.
“What’s Roc doing?” she asked. “Brooks is going to hit him.”
“No, he’s not,” I chuckled. “He’s guiding him into the groove.”
“Well, I think he should be doing that on the side. What happens if Brooks’ foot slipped off the brake? He’ll run right into Roc.”
“I’ll make sure to let Brooks know you have a few concerns about his foot and the pedal.” Brooks would laugh his ass off and probably ask Delaney if she thought she could do it better.
“No, no. Don’t do that. I don’t want to tell Ken Doll how to do his job.”
I slowly turned my head to look at her. “Did you just call Brooks Ken doll?”
She cringed and nodded. “Uh, maybe?”
I busted out laughing and gathered her in my arms. “You have no idea what you just did. I am forever calling Brooks Ken from now on.”
“He’s not gonna know what you’re talking about unless you tell him what I just said,” she whined, “and I really don’t want you to tell him.”
“That’s going to be the best part. I’m not going to tell why I’m calling him that.” I laughed again and couldn’t wait until the crew got back from the race tomorrow. It was nice spending the weekend with Delaney, but I missed working too.
That was something I never thought I would feel.
Delaney leaned against me and sighed.
This was something I never thought I would feel either.
The woman I loved cuddled up next to me while I explained everything about drag racing to her. The explaining part was kind of annoying, but in the end, as long as Delaney was pressed up against me it was all good.
*
Chapter Thirty-Three
Delaney
“That little newborn was the cutest.”
I dropped into the chair in front of Mave’s desk and tried to plaster a smile on my face. “Sure was.”
Mave was sitting at her desk, writing up her reports and updating files. I was trying not to bawl my eyes out over the cutest newborn we had just given his first set of shots to.
Mave kept her eyes on the computer screen but handed me the box of tissues. “You can cry now, honey.”
I promptly burst into tears and blubbered on about how tiny his toes were.
“Is this ever going to get easier?” I asked. I blew my nose and sat back in my chair.
“Yes.” Mave glanced at me. “It’s just not going to be right now.”
“You’re not going to believe the breakdown I had last night. I swear to God, Jay was ten seconds away from calling the psych ward to come take me away.”
“What happened?” she laughed.
What happened was I really was losing my mind.
For two weeks, I had been fine. I thought about the baby, but it wasn’t sadly. It was a fleeting thought here or there, and then it was gone.
But last night and today that all changed.
“We were watching TV and a commercial came on for diapers.”
“Oh, God,” Mave muttered. “I know where this is going.”
“Jay made a one-off comment about changing dirty diapers, and I legit freaked out. I’m talking he couldn’t tell if I was going to cry or punch him in his nuts. I scared myself for a second.”
“So which did you end up going with?” she asked. “Crying or punching him in the nuts?”
“Crying because I do eventually want to have a baby with him and I need his nuts to be intact.”
“There’s always in vitro,” she laughed.
I waved her off and pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I really need to just not see another baby for a year or two.”
“Because that is totally possible working in peds and family medicine.” She shook her head and turned back to the computer. “It’s gonna get easier, honey. Until then, just tell Jay to guard the family jewels and keep the tissues handy.”
I scrolled through my phone, checking to see if Jay had called or texted me. He had checked in with me a couple of hours ago when the race team was on the way to the test track and told me he would call when they were on the way back to the shop.
Mave’s phone beeped, and I looked up. “Is that the pager app for the hospital?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Dr. Clark is back in the ER finally. I wonder what he needs.” She looked at the message and then immediately picked up her phone.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
She nodded. “Miranda, let Dr. Clark know Delaney and I are on the way down,” she barked into the phone.
This wasn’t good. Not at all. The only reason Dr. Clark would need our help was because there were too many patients for the doctors and nurses to take care of.
“There’s been a tractor trailer versus car hauler accident, Delaney. I don’t know any other specifics except for there are six patients coming in, two with life-threatening injuries.”
Mave and I hightailed it to the elevator but opted to take the stairs when we saw the line waiting to get on. “One of the drawbacks being on the fourth floor,” Mave panted. “I gotta haul my cookies down four floors when there is an emergency.”
We made it to the ground floor level and jogged toward the ER.
Mave’s phone went off, and she looked at it as we ran. “The first ambulance is two minutes out. Two patients. One life-threatening, the other stable. Stay close to me, Delaney.”
We made it to the ER just as the ambulance pulled up. The paramedics burst from the ambulance, and the lead started barking at Mave and me about who was on board.
“Twenties male. Head injury and a possible broken nose. Fifty-year-old male. Multiple lacerations, two broken legs, with possible internal injuries. Driver of the car hauler.”
The back doors of the ambulance opened, and for the second time in a month, my world flipped upside down.
Jay was lying on one of the stretchers, his face bloodied and an IV hooked to his arm.
“Stay with me, Delaney,” Mave ordered. “Head injury and a broken nose. He’s all right, honey.”
The paramedics moved to the stretcher next to Jay. Roc laid there unconscious with blood all over his face and a neck brace strapped to him.