Don't Let Go(30)

“Stop watching,” Ruthie’s voice said to my right as she perched back on her chair.
I jumped, startled, and twisted around to face her, feeling like an errant child. I grabbed a coaster and fanned myself with it.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, emotional laughter bubbling up that threatened to turn to tears. “What is this? I’m forty-three years old, not fourteen. Why am I reacting like an adolescent?”
“Because that’s where you left off,” she said. “You two never got to see each other as adults. Or with other people.”
I blew out a slow breath. “Well, this sucks.”
“We can go, Jules,” she said, chuckling. “We don’t have to stay here so you torture yourself all night.”
I shook my head. “No. You said not to let him run me away, and I’m not.” I held up my chin and smiled at her. “Besides, she’s pregnant, she’ll want to go home soon.”
Ruthie laughed. “Good point.”
“By the way, we have dessert coming.”
Noah being back in town was going to turn me into a hippopotamus.
An hour later when they were still there, my resolve began to wane. And as I left the ladies’ room for the fourth time after fifty glasses of water and three margaritas, another slam to the midsection hit me. Yes, Noah and Shayna were on the dance floor again, but they already had been. I was getting immune to that.
It was the song that started playing.
“Oh, holy hell.”

? ? ?

I was never one to go wiggy over a song with an old flame. Hayden and I had a song, and I quietly recognized it every time I heard it and that was that. I even kind of remembered that Noah and I had an actual song we’d danced to at a high school dance once, but that one never really registered with me.
The day our baby was born was crazy. It was drizzling and cold and confusing. We’d just had an argument at the park and when my water broke we lost our minds. The scrambling we did to get to the car in what then became a downpour was insane. To this day I remember thinking the sky was crying for us. For the decision I hadn’t completely made yet.
“Damn it, Linny’s tank is on fumes,” Noah said, pounding the steering wheel. “I meant to get gas before I picked you up.”
“We have time—I think,” I stuttered, trying to remember what I’d read in the book I’d checked out from the library. “No contractions yet.”
Noah’s right hand went to my belly, my rain-soaked T-shirt stretched across it. “I’ll get you there safe, Little Bit,” he said, his affectionate name for it making my eyes burn for the fortieth time that day. “We just need to get some gas first.”
“I need my bag,” I said. “I prepacked everything like the book said. I can’t go to the hospital without my bag.”
“We’ll call your mom when we get there,” he said, trying to see through the rain. “She can bring it.”
“Or we can swing by my house, Noah, it’s right—”
“No,” he said, taking his hand off my belly and gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “Please, Jules, for once can we do something on our own without your mother? Can we do this on our own?” He darted glances at me between watching the road and pulling out of Copper Falls onto the highway. “She’ll take over and push me aside, you know she will.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling unsure of everything. I’d never felt so unprepared and insecure in my life. The only thing I’d done right was pack that damn bag, and now I didn’t even have that.
“Trust me, baby. Please?” Noah said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it. My hands felt like ice against his warm ones, and the warmth spread like honey through me. “Let me take care of you.”
I squeezed back. “I do trust you, Noah. I’m just scared.” I rubbed my free hand over my belly, where the baby shoved a foot against my palm. “This is all happening—like right now.”
He shoved a cassette tape into the deck in the dash. “Listen to this, Jules. Really listen to it.” He pressed a button to advance it a few tracks, and then grabbed the steering wheel to turn the car off the highway as a gas station came into view.
Tonight’s the night we’ll make history . . . honey, you and I . . .
“It’s Styx,” I said, cringing as a tightness grabbed hold of my midsection like giant hands squeezing. “I know this song—shit, Noah, something really is happening.”
Noah’s face was whiter than normal as he looked my way and swallowed hard. “Okay, baby, just—here, hold my hand. I’m stopping up here for gas and then just a few more minutes up the highway.”
There was a line of cars waiting at the station, making us the third one back, and I closed my eyes and squeezed his hand as we sat in silence listening to Styx sing about how even when you think it’s the worst of times, that taking on life together made it the best of times.
Another contraction pulled everything inward, like my body was trying to wring the baby out of me. I shut my eyes tighter and the music filled all my senses as Noah inched the car closer.
“Ow, damn it,” I said, hearing the tears in my voice. I didn’t want to be scared. I thought I was good with everything. I thought I could handle it. But there with it happening, with it actually happening, I wanted to run. “Noah, hurry.”
“I am,” he whispered. I looked his way and he was breathing as hard as I was, probably just as scared. We made it up to the pump and he slammed the car in Park and jumped out. “Hang in there, Jules, I’ll be right back.”