Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 67982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
She gives me an admonishing look. “I could have taken an Uber home.”
I push up from the chair as I grin at her. “Look at you, all worldly now and using Uber.”
Her hand flies out and she pops me in my stomach with the back of it. I make an exaggerated ooph and she laughs.
“Ready to get out of here?” I ask her.
With a tired nod, she drawls. “Am I ever. That was intense.”
So fucking intense. After I called for an ambulance, I sat outside the closed doors to Alex and Sutton’s bedroom in case something else was needed. Garrett went out to advise people what had happened and to wind the party down, as well as direct the ambulance attendants where to go. He managed to get most everyone dispersed before the ambulance got there about five minutes after my call.
After they arrived, they went into the room without closing the doors behind them. I kept my back turned and guarded the door from a few feet away, but I could hear everything that transpired.
It appeared that Sutton was having what was called a precipitous birth and things were moving very fast. Luckily her labor wasn’t so far along, so Josie and Kathy felt she could make the short trip to Raleigh Memorial Hospital and be well settled in before the baby crowned. I winced, though, when I heard Josie tell her it was too late to get an epidural.
Josie rode in the ambulance with Kathy. I brought Alex to the hospital and Garrett and Olivia followed in their car.
I knew the baby arrived safely and in excellent health because Josie texted me that she did about forty-five minutes after they arrived. She had stayed in there for the birth after Sutton’s OB-GYN arrived. Sutton was doing well and the night would be considered a rousing success.
Glancing down at my watch, I say, “It’s only 11 P.M. Still plenty of night left. Want to go do something?”
It’s not that I want to go out and do something in particular, I just don’t want the evening with Josie to end. But Josie yawns and says, “I’m whipped.”
I tamp down the disappointment and refuse to give up. “Come on…how about at least a beer and we’ll work on the Grand Canyon puzzle.”
Josie tilts her head at me, her brown eyes shining at me speculatively. “Reed, why would you want to spend a Friday night doing that? You’re turning into a lame ass like me.”
“Shut up,” I say as I hook an arm around her neck and turn her toward the elevators. It’s a brotherly sort of move, but it also puts her closer to me than she’s ever been for an extended period and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it. “I’ve found that you’re actually kind of fun to hang out with. I mean, where else can I go and watch a hot, sexy doctor perform the miracle of childbirth?”
“Technically you didn’t watch me do that,” she points out with a laugh.
I slap the button to the elevator and refuse to move my arm as we wait for it. “Yeah…but you have the hot, sexy doctor part down.”
Josie laughs again and it’s adorable that I can hear some embarrassment within it. Josie is a fun woman to tease, even more so when you push her way out of her comfort zone. I don’t know what her past romantic life has been like, but I don’t think it was filled with someone telling her those things.
That makes me sad for her, because she is the type of woman who deserves to hear it.
“Are you hungry?” I ask as the doors slide open. I reluctantly let her go so she can precede me into the elevator.
“I could eat something,” she says as she taps the lobby button.
I step back and lean against the wall. “Let’s stop at Five Guys and grab some burgers. I’ve got beer at my house. We’ll work on the puzzle until you’re too tired to see straight, and then we’ll call it a night.”
Josie turns to face me, leaning her shoulder against the wall. She shoves a hand down into her pocket. “This is sort of weird and also not weird, you know?”
“Granted, it’s a little weird someone goes into labor—”
“Not that,” she says with an eye roll. “You and me. Our friendship. It’s really sort of weird, and not weird.”
“Why would it be weird?” I ask her.
I don’t get an eye roll, but a spectacularly cocked eyebrow that’s fully loaded with skepticism. “Name one other good friend that you’ve hung out with that is a female.”
My mind whirs and flits, mentally flipping through all the women I’ve been with in the last few years. Every fucking one of them has been a loose, casual sexual relationship. I even push back further in time, all the way to high school. I’ve never been one to have platonic female friends. I was always the jock who hung with my buddies, much as I do now with Marek and Holt. Women were, I’m ashamed to say, not worth much of my time.