Page 60 of Aced (Driven 4)
I’m not nervous. Not at all.
Door dings. Enter the elevator. Push the number three button. Smile politely to the man in the car, but keep my head down.
Scratch that. I’m freaking the fuck out now.
A stop on the first floor. The man walks off. Push close door. Push close door. Close the fucking door!
A baby. Holy shit.
Door closes.
I’m coming, Ryles.
Doors open just as my cell rings. I answer as I walk toward the nurses station.
“I don’t have much time, Shane. What’s up?”
“Is she okay?” he asks.
“Not sure yet. I’m almost there. I’ll text—”
“I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”
Come again? “What’s your fault?”
“I told Rylee I’d take care of Zander and then I called her and told her I was going there because the foster douchebag was meeting him and she was there. Zander told her lots of things and said he’d die if he went and that made her go into labor and now I’m worried I caused all of this—”
“Whoa! Slow down,” I say to stop his word vomit. What the fuck is he talking about? His words irritate my temper like an itch. How? Why?
Missing pieces fit together in my mind. Ry was at The House. Sammy was driving her to the hospital. Goddammit! Sammy drove her to The House to begin with. Against. My. Orders.
That itch turns into a full-blown scratch. I’ll be having words with Sammy. No doubt there.
“Colton?” I can hear the fear in his voice that I’m angry.
My mind is scattered as I make a wrong turn and get lost down the wrong hallway in this monster of a hospital. “I’m not mad,” I lie through gritted teeth because, hell yes, I’m pissed but it’s not at him. It’s at my wife.
“She was just trying to help Zander,” he says quietly, and my heart goes out to the kid. Kid? Shit. He’s a man now. When the fuck did that happen? I’m still trying to wrap my head around the notion—around the fact I’m here for her to have our baby—but it’s not lost on me Shane’s trying to protect Rylee from my anger.
Even now, when I’m frazzled and lost in this goddamn hospital trying to get to her, it’s impossible not to recognize the incredible job my wife has done to instill compassion for others in her boys.
Our baby’s going to be one lucky kid to have her as a mom.
“Colton?” Shane’s voice pulls me back from my thoughts just in time to prevent me from going the wrong way down a hallway.
Get a grip, Donavan. Pay attention. Get to Ry.
“Is he okay?” I finally digest his words from a minute ago about what Zander had said. My shoes squeak on the polished floor as I rush down the hallway and look for signs to direct me.
“I’m with him. Yes. But Ry was so upset and—”
“Look. I’ll fix it somehow, okay?” I then pass what feels like the same exact place for a second time. I’m anxious. Worried. Need to get to Rylee and yet couldn’t find my way out of a wet paper bag right now if I had to.
“There is no fixing it,” he says with resignation.
“There is if we adopt him,” I say off the cuff, distracted, overwhelmed, trying to get to Rylee, navigate this place, and carry a conversation that I shouldn’t be having right now.
“Oh.”
