***
Kevin put on his best happy face—a skill honed by several years of tending bar—just before he turned the corner into Beth’s hospital room. Today he’d be bringing them home and he didn’t want the day before hanging between them.
After sleeping like the dead for hours, he’d called her to check on her rather than driving back to the hospital because he was afraid she’d see how badly she’d hurt him. With some more time gone by, he was pretty sure he could fake being happy well enough to get by. For now.
She looked better—stronger—as she sat in a rocking chair, holding Lily and talking to his mother, who’d pulled one of the visitor’s chairs up close. Her mother was in the other chair on the other side of the rocker.
“Hey, Ma.” He kissed Mary’s cheek, then leaned down to do the same to Lily, keenly aware of how close his face was to Beth’s. So close he felt her breath across his cheek as he pulled away. “How are my two best girls today?”
A flush brightened Beth’s cheeks, but she smiled. “Ready to go home.”
“As soon as they give you the all clear, I’ll get you out of here.” With no place else to sit, he perched on the edge of the hospital bed. “Are you going home with them, Ma?”
“For a while. And we don’t want Shelly overdoing it, either, so the girls and I will be popping in now and then to give a hand.”
“I feel a lot better now,” Beth protested. “I don’t want everybody turning their lives upside down over me.”
“Don’t even start.” Kevin gave her a hard look. “When I called at three this morning they said they’d brought Lily into the nursery because they had to up the dosage on your pain meds before you could sleep.”
She looked down at the baby, probably so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “I really am feeling better this morning.”
“And you’ll keep feeling better because you’ll be resting and letting people help you rather than running yourself ragged.”
He caught their mothers’ gazes bouncing between the two of them, matching small furrows between their eyebrows. Maybe he wasn’t doing quite as well at pretending as he’d hoped. Fortunately, the pink bundle in Beth’s arms wiggled, distracting the women from wherever their thoughts had gone.
“Finally,” Shelly exclaimed. “I thought she’d never wake up.”
Four hours later, they had Lily strapped into her carseat and Beth in a wheelchair, ready to hit the road. It made him nervous, her going home when just the night before she’d had so much pain she couldn’t sleep, but she seemed in good spirits and didn’t hesitate at all when it was time to say farewell to the nurses.
Mary followed them in her car and they parked in the lot behind the bar so they could duck in the back door, unseen. He took the stairs two at a time while his mother, carrying the carseat, Shelly and Beth took the elevator, so he reached the top floor just a few seconds after they did.
As expected, Beth’s apartment was spotless and her fridge fully stocked. The crib was made up and the changing table ready to use. Lily was sound asleep in her carseat, so his mother set it next to the couch and draped the edge of her receiving blanket over the handle to keep out the light. Beth thanked her and went into the bathroom with Shelly supporting her.
Kevin stepped up behind his own mom and wrapped his arms around her shoulders as he kissed the top of her head. “Thanks, Ma.”
She patted his hand. “She’s family, even if it’s taking her a while to get used to it.”
“You think she will?”
“I think when her mind settles enough, she’ll figure it out. She’s been through a lot. Be patient.”
He thought he’d been pretty damn patient for a pretty damn long time now, but what else was he going to do? It’s not like women you loved were interchangeable and he could simply move on to a more agreeable one. One who didn’t throw his feelings back in his face.
“All you can do is wait for her to be ready,” she said, as if she could read his thoughts. He was pretty sure she couldn’t or she’d have kicked his ass frequently during his youth, but it was still unnerving.
“I’ve been waiting. It’s not getting me anywhere.”
“What else can you do?”
The bathroom door opening saved him from answering, and Shelly helped her daughter to the couch before going back in. Beth looked pale and he figured it would only be a few minutes before her exhaustion beat down her relief at being home again.
Sure enough, his mother started shooing him toward the door. “She needs to sleep now.”
“I’d like to feed Lily.”
“In a while. Let them get settled in first.”