Reckless (Thoughtless, #3)(137)

Walking over to the nurse’s station, I started to ask for Anna’s room when I spotted Griffin. He was walking down the hall in a daze. A stream of fear washed through me at the look on his face. Walking past me, he slumped into a chair in the waiting room. Torn between talking to him and rushing to my sister’s side, I tentatively sat beside him. “Griffin? You . . . okay?”

His face still blank, he looked over at me. His pale eyes were wider than I’d ever seen. “That . . . was . . . the most . . . disgusting thing . . . I’ve ever seen.”

My fear vanished. She was okay. I patted his knee and his expression changed. Peace filled his face. “And the most incredible.” His eyes filled to the brim and I felt my throat tightening. “You should have seen Anna, Kiera. She was so brave.” I nodded and had the oddest desire to hug him. Before I could he added, “You can see her now. She’s absolutely beautiful . . . perfect, just like her mom.”

It took a minute for what he’d said to register. “She? Anna had a girl?”

Griffin nodded as a tear rolled down his cheek. “Damn tech was wrong. Anna was right . . . She usually is.” My hands flew to my mouth as a sob escaped me. Then I tossed my arms around Griffin and held him tight. He laughed and cried in my arms, and I felt something for Griffin that I had never felt before—a deep, familial love.

Drying my cheeks, I hopped up out of the chair. “What room?”

Standing, Griffin pointed down the hall he’d just come from. “There. I’ll take you.”

My sister looked drained and radiant as we walked into the room. She was holding a tiny bundle wrapped in pink blankets and wearing a pastel striped hat. I started crying again. When Anna looked up at me, her cheeks were wet. “I did it, Kiera.”

I leaned down to hug her, overwhelmed. “I knew you would do great.” She adjusted the tiny person resting on her chest so I could see the baby’s face. She was plump, pink perfection, with pudgy cheeks that begged to be kissed. Like she knew I was watching, she opened her slate blue eyes and gazed at me. Her mouth opened, like she was already trying to smile. Griffin was right, she was absolutely breathtaking, quite possibly the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. No, she definitely was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

One small hand was free of the blankets encasing her, and I gently reached out to touch her. Her fingers instinctively wrapped around my pinky, and I sobbed again. Lifting the blue bear in my other hand, I told Anna, “I guess I need to go exchange this for a pink one.”

Anna nodded. “I told that cow I was having a girl.”

As I stroked the baby’s fingers, I asked them both, “So . . . Myrtle, huh?”

Anna scoffed. “No. There was no way I was naming my baby Myrtle. We picked something better.”

I looked between the two of them. When had they picked out another girl name? They’d been dead set on Maximus for months. Griffin smirked, and I started to worry about just what they’d named my niece.

“Her name’s Gibson.” He gestured in the air like he was playing a guitar, and I understood the reference. Gibson was a brand of guitars. It was kind of a strange name for a baby, especially a baby girl, but it was the perfect name for a rock star’s child. I immediately fell in love with it.

Smiling, I kissed her cheek. “Hello, Gibson, it’s so nice to finally meet you.”

A thought struck me, and I glanced up at my beaming sister. My mom had been calling my sister nonstop for the last two weeks, trying to fly out to Seattle so she wouldn’t miss the birth. Anna had been delaying her, telling her it was too soon to fly out. Honestly, I think she just didn’t want to tell her that she wasn’t in Seattle like Mom and Dad thought. Mom was going to be furious that she’d missed her first grandchild being born.

“Anna,” I piped up. “Mom’s going to kill us.”





Chapter 24


Cuteness and Cruelty





Anna and I both decided that we’d call our parents in the morning. They’d already missed the birth, so what was a few more hours of ignorance? And besides, Anna didn’t want to think about what she was going to do yet, and our parents would want an answer. Anna just wanted peace and quiet with her new baby girl.

I read my book in the corner of the room while Anna slept and Griffin held Gibson. He stared down at her like he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He couldn’t stop smiling either. I’d never seen Griffin so completely happy. Every once and a while, Gibson would do something cute and Griffin would giggle. I’d never heard him laugh like that. It was adorable, and my book-reading quickly faded into Griffin-watching.

Adjusting her cap, Griffin stroked her thin, fine hair. Smiling, he looked up at me. “I think she’s going to be blond, like me.” He looked down at her again, adoration on his face. “I hope she has Anna’s eyes, though.” They were a dark blue-gray now, but the nurse had told us that most babies were born with eyes that color. They settled into the color they were going to have for life within the first year. I’d found that really interesting, but I was a little surprised that Griffin had retained that bit of information.

It was late when Kellan showed up with Evan and Matt, just on the verge of it being too late for them to visit at all. But I’d been coming back from the vending machine in the waiting room, and I’d watched Kellan smile his way through the nurse’s station. Of course they’d let him visit. He probably could have gotten them to find him a cot and give him a sponge bath.