Released (Caged #3)(78)

I moved a little closer, then a little farther away. She wouldn’t let me touch her, so I ended up just kind of wringing my hands like some old lady listening to an inspiring church sermon. Tria flipped over, cringed, and glared at me.

“Stop it!” she snapped.

“I’m not panicking!” I yelled, not sure what else I did wrong by just standing there.

“How about we get some coffee or something?” Michael placed his hand on my arm, but I shook it off.

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“Liam, it’s going to be hours.” My father’s voice was calm, and I wanted to punch him in the mouth.

“Fuck that,” I spat. “She can’t get away from it, so why should I?”

“Because you are driving me insane!” Tria suddenly screamed.

I stopped and stood still as I looked at Tria. With the help of Chelsea and the nurse, she climbed off the bed, and with a little more help, made her way onto a big, red birthing ball. She bounced up and down as she shook her finger at me. Her eyes were blazing, beautiful, and bordering on deadly.

“Now get out for at least fifteen minutes, or I’m going to tell them you can’t stay for the birth!”

“Shit…um…”

“Come on, Liam.” Michael and Douglass each took an arm and hauled me out to the little waiting area just outside the maternity wing. Michael stopped and let my father haul me the rest of the way down the hall to the vending machines as I continued to ask what I had done that was so terrible.

Time had completely stopped, so I wasn’t sure if we had been at the hospital for one hour or ten. I just knew I was going to lose my mind before this baby was ever born. Tria was in a ridiculous amount of pain. I mean, I knew it was supposed to hurt. I knew Tria would be in pain, and everything everyone ever said promised that as soon as it was over, she’d forget all about that part.

Maybe, but I didn’t see how. I didn’t think I ever would.

It was too much. Too much agony. There was no way it was right or normal.

“I can’t do this,” I muttered to myself. I glanced behind me to see Michael heading off down the hallway in the opposite direction, probably looking for food as Dad was trying to hand me a cup of coffee. I was pretty sure my shaking hands would just spill it all over the floor.

“You’re fine, Liam,” my father said. “Just keep yourself together, and it will all be fine.”

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “It’s not. That can’t be right…can’t be normal.”

“She’ll be fine, too, Liam.” Dad placed his hand on my shoulder, and I didn’t shake it off. “They both will. But she needs you now—Chelsea and Julianne can offer support, but she really needs you. She’ll be fine if you’re fine.”

“I know.” If he said the word fine one more time, I was going to lose my mind. I tensed my fingers on my thighs as my chest rose and fell with heavy breaths.

They were all here—Chelsea and Michael, Douglass and Julianne, even Ryan and Amanda had been here earlier but had to leave to deal with business shit since the rest of the company’s major decision makers were all refusing to leave the hospital until there was another Teague family heir in the world.

If I didn’t get it together, Tria was going to end up having the baby without me in the room—either because I passed out before it was time or because she’d thrown me out for being an ass.

“I have to get my shit together.”

I sat down on one of the waiting room chairs. It was robin’s-egg blue, plastic, and immediately stuck to my ass. I couldn’t even remember why I was wearing shorts in October.

“Yeah, you do,” Dad said. “Why don’t you sit down, relax, drink this, and then we’ll go back in.”

I nodded because I figured I was the last person who needed to be making any decisions right now, and Dad was the only other person around to make them for me. Forcing my hands to be still, I took the cup between my palms and sipped the hot liquid.

“This coffee is shit,” I remarked. One more sip was enough before I set it off on a side table.

“Did you expect something better form a hospital vending machine?”

“I guess not.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence while I pretended to calm myself and completely and totally failed. I wasn’t sure what Dad was trying to accomplish. From the look on his face, he was either contemplating or constipated—it was anyone’s guess.

We went back into the room, and I tried to keep my shit together; I really did. After a while, Michael and Douglass were kicked out so Tria could drop most of her clothes and just kind of hang out. You would think she’d be embarrassed or something, but she didn’t seem to give a shit anymore. Chelsea and Julianne stayed at Tria’s request, and I was glad to have them there. I had no f*cking clue what I was doing and mostly fought against any kind of Bill Cosby impersonation, which would definitely have gotten me killed.

It was still very tempting.

For a while, I was fine, but when the contractions started coming closer and closer together, and Tria started really screaming, I could barely keep myself from doing the same. Everywhere I touched her made it worse, but when I tried to get a little distance, she got hysterical. Of course, if I didn’t touch her or didn’t say anything to her, she got mad, too, so I tried to speak and touch softly.