Sometimes It Lasts(Sea Breeze #5)(58)

I jogged the rest of the way, but I didn’t go to the driver’s side and get in. Instead I went to Eva and picked her up then covered her mouth with mine. She melted into me like she always did, and I enjoyed knowing I had my always back.

She broke the kiss first. “As much as I like your kisses, ’cause I do—they’re really hot—I want to get to the hospital. Your best friend is about to have a baby. We need to be there for that.”

I pressed one more kiss to her mouth before putting her down and then patting her on the bottom. “Let’s hope the new Hardy looks like its momma and not its daddy,” I said, then opened her door and helped her inside.

Chapter Twenty-Four

EVA

The waiting room at the hospital was packed. It also would appear that we had all decided to use this as a party location. There was cake that Trisha and her daughter Daisy had made. Trisha was married to Rock, one of Marcus’s oldest friends. When you looked at him, he was scary, with his bulging muscles and bald head. Then when his little girl, Daisy climbed up in his lap, he morphed into a teddy bear with tattoos.

Amanda had shown up with fried pickles from Live Bay and at some point someone, and I think it was Cage, had ordered pizza. Soda’s littered the tables, and we had all managed to take over the small area.

If anyone else was having a baby today, their relatives weren’t hanging out here with us. But then again, there was no room. Preston had his younger brother in a headlock while his younger sister, Daisy, pulled on his long hair.

“Look, Daddy! I got him! I got him!” Daisy said, smiling over at Rock. To anyone else this would be a normal family activity, but to a pregnant woman who knew the story behind that scene, I was having a hard time keeping my tears back.

Not too long ago those kids had lived in a house with a druggy for a mom, and Preston was doing everything he could to take care of them. After their mother died from a drug overdose, Preston had faced losing all three of them to the system. Rock and Trisha had stepped in and asked to adopt the kids.

I watched Rock’s face as Daisy called him Daddy, and the emotion in his eyes had me blinking back tears.

“The first time she called him Daddy he went into our room and cried for about thirty minutes. I’d honestly never seen him cry, and we’ve been together since we were teenagers,” Trisha said as she took a seat beside me. I hadn’t meant for anyone to notice me getting emotional.

“Y’all look so happy,” I said, wiping the one tear that had threatened to get loose.

Trisha glanced over at the boys as they now both had Preston in some form of a wrestling hold. “We are. I’m beyond blessed. Brent hasn’t called us mom and dad yet, but the other two have. I think he’s coming around though.”

“Manda! Manda! Come see! I’m curling Preston’s hair,” Daisy called out, and Amanda moved from her seat beside her mother, who she had been talking to and over to Daisy.

“She’s learned to say her r’s very well.”

Trisha nodded. “It was cute, but she’s so proud of herself now. I try not to miss it.”

“Oh, snap,” Trisha muttered, looking over at the door.

I turned to see what she was staring at.

“What does she think she’s doing?” Trisha said as she stood up to go intervene. I was glad because someone needed to. Low’s sister had just walked into the waiting room with her daughter on her hip. Normally this would be an expected thing. However, considering that Low’s sister, Tawny, was the woman who had broken up Marcus’s parents marriage, this was bad. Marcus’s mom had been invited. His father hadn’t been. I glanced over at his mother, and Amanda had taken a protective stance in front of their mother.

It still amazed me that Low and Marcus had found a way to get over this.

“Oh, hell,” Preston said loud enough for everyone to hear him. The entire waiting room turned to look at her.

No one had expected to see her today.

“Y’all can stop with your staring at me. She’s my sister. I can come see her kid if I want to,” Tawny said with an annoyed tone.

Cage walked back up behind her. Larissa, Low’s niece, threw her hands up and squealed, “Cay!” Cage had been a big part of Larissa’s life once. He’d been the only man in her life who never went away. Because he was taking care of Low, he was also helping Low take care of her niece while her sister ignored her.

Cage winked at Larissa and reached out to take her in his one free hand. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said to the little girl, then lifted his eyes to meet Low’s sister. “Tawny,” he acknowledged her. But you could tell by the way his jaw tensed that he didn’t like her. “Probably not the best place for you to wait on the baby. If Larissa wants to stay with me, I’ll watch her and I’m sure Manda will too. But you need to go wait elsewhere. Today isn’t about you.”

The redhead looked like she’d been slapped. If I didn’t know how evil she was, I’d think she was breathtakingly beautiful. To a stranger she probably was. “So you’re willing to keep Larissa, but you’re kicking me out, Cage York? You’re just white trash pretending too. With your pretty little”—she paused when she looked at me, and I watched as she took in my stomach—“pregnant girlfriend,” she finished. Then she let out a hard laugh. “You knocked her up. Perfect. I bet her family is real proud of her now.”