The Rockers' Babies (The Rocker... Series) (18 page)

finally asked.

“Can you give us a minute?” he asked the nurse over my head and a moment later the door closed

behind her. I looked up at him, worry wrinkling my brow. “The boys are doing great. They’re still on the

oxygen for now, but the doctor says that today they will be moved down to the nursery.”

A small sob escaped as relief washed over me. The babies were okay. Despite the fact that they were so

early… “Lucy?” I couldn’t forget that we were on the verge of losing our daughter.

Jesse grimaced. “The test results came back this morning. Lucy is Grady’s.” My heart turned to lead.

“But… Emmie is still working on it. She’s been working her ass off since you were brought in, baby.” He

lifted a hand and pushed my hair back from my face. I probably looked like a hot mess but he didn’t seem

to care so I wasn’t going to worry about it right now. “Gods, it’s so good to hold you.”

“Have I really been out for two days?”

“Fifty-two hours, actually. But who’s counting?” His lips lifted in a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Something about electrolyte levels was the reason for the reaction, but you’ll have to ask the doctor to be sure. Good thing it was twins because we are never doing this shit again, baby.”

I was suddenly very exhausted. Now that I knew that my kids were okay and that Jesse was sane, I

could relax. At least for the moment. I rested my head against my pillows. The pain level that’d had my eyes unfocused fifteen minutes ago was back times a million. “I love you,” I mumbled.

“Are you hurting?”

“A little,” I lied. A lot. A lot, a lot. So this was what Emmie felt after her C-section with Mia? Fuck!

“I’ll get your nurse.”

“Wait!” I called after him when he turned for the door. “Don’t go away, okay? I want you with me.”

“Baby, I’m not going anywhere. Except to see the boys when it’s visiting hours… Okay?”

The nurse appeared a moment later with a syringe in her hand. I ignored her and focused all my

attention on Jesse. “You get to visit them in the NICU?”

“Yeah. I got to feed them yesterday. They were stubborn at first and the nurse had to help me a crap

load, but I finally got the hang of it. They wanted to teach me how to change their diapers… And they want

to know if we want to circumcise them.”

“Oh…” I yawned as the nurse tossed the syringe in the red box on the wall and quietly left the room.

“What are your thoughts?”

“I’m not against it. I’m circumcised. But it’s your call.” He leaned over me, brushing a sweet kiss over my forehead. “Since you’ve known all along what we were having I figured you had already done research

on it and decided one way or another.”

I had, but I wanted his opinion on it too. Something I hadn’t been able to get until now because he

hadn’t wanted to know what we were having. I however, hadn’t been able to wait to find out if we were

expecting girls or boys. “Can I see them?”

“I’ll talk to their nurse. But it might have to wait until they are moved down to this floor.” Another kiss over my forehead. “How are you feeling now, baby?”

“No pain.” I yawned again. “You’ve done a good job taking care of our family, Big Daddy.”

“It wasn’t the same without you. Don’t scare me like that again. Okay?”

I wished he could have lain down beside me and held me. “Okay…” That was the last thing I

remembered until someone tickled my toes sometime later.

My eyes snapped open and I found Lana and Emmie standing over my bed. “Hi,” I greeted sleepily.

“Do you hear that, Em?” Lana glanced at Emmie standing beside her with her arms folded in front of

her. “She scares the shit out of us for days on end and can only say
Hi
.”

“Sounds like a Daniels’ female to me,” Emmie said, reminding us all that Lana had once done the same

to us a few years before. “The nauseating thing about it all is that you tend to wake up still looking beautiful as ever.”

I couldn’t help the grin that teased at my lips. “Am not.”

“I’m sure you will get tired of hearing people ask you this, but how are you feeling?” Emmie asked,

moving around the right side of the bed and reaching for my hand. Her fingers felt ice cold in mine. “Do

you need anything for pain?”

I shook my head. “I’m good for now.”

“I have pictures.” Lana handed over her iPhone as Emmie pushed a button on the bed to help me sit up

a little better. “Jesse said that you were dying to see the boys so I thought I would show you these. They

won’t be moved down until morning because Baby 2 is still needing more oxygen and they don’t want them

to be separated.”

“Baby 2?” I frowned. “Jesse hasn’t given them their names yet?”

“He wasn’t sure which was which for you so he was waiting on you to wake up,” Emmie informed me.

“It can wait another day, Layla. Wait until they are in your arms before you start handing out names.”

My fingers were shaking as I took the phone Lana handed over. The first picture was of two of the

smallest babies I had ever seen in my life. They were only in diapers with oxygen sticking from their little noses while they lay in incubators beside each other. Tears leaked from my eyes as I traced a finger over

their bodies on the screen. Was it me, or were they trying to get closer to each other even through the

incubators?

The next picture was of Jesse sitting in a rocking chair with one of the twins in his lap. From the way he

was holding his son I could tell he was nervous, probably afraid that he was going to hurt the tiny little guy.

But the smile on Jesse’s face and the tears in his ever-changing eyes tore at my heart and a small sob

escaped me. The next picture was almost the same thing, except I realized it was the other baby in this one.

A dozen other pictures of the babies and I was shaking with the force of my crying.

“They’re so beautiful,” I breathed, holding the phone’s screen to my chest. The last picture was Jesse

holding both of his sons,
our
sons. My guys, all three of them. “Are they really okay?” I asked Emmie. She would tell me the truth no matter how hard it was to hear.

Emmie nodded. “The doctors said it was a miracle that they didn’t have more wrong with them. The

breathing thing will work itself out, but other than that there isn’t anything we should be worried about.

They are eating great and their diapers are filling up the way they should. They might have to go under the fluorescent light because of their bilirubin levels, but we both know that isn’t unusual. Mia was under there forever.”

The door opened without so much as a knock and the perky blonde stuck her head around the corner.

“Everything okay in here, hun?”

My eyes narrowed on the nurse. I had no reason to hate her. I didn’t even know her, for Pete’s sake.

But I hated her to my very core. “I’m fine,” I gritted out, dislike shooting out of me at her from every pore in my body.

“Okay, then.” The door shut with a slight snap behind her.

“What was that about?” Emmie asked, her brows raised in surprise. It was usually her snapping at

people, not me.

“I can’t stand that chick,” I told them honestly. “I don’t even know why.” Lana’s snort followed by a

giggle had us both looking at her. “What?”

“Maybe you could hear me after all…” Lana snickered again. “I might have attempted to wake you up

with a few fibs. Like a blonde nurse pawing your man and a few other things.” She shrugged. “Looks like I

brainwashed you to hate her. Sorry.”

“Lana!” Emmie scolded, before grinning. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Chapter 15

Nik

I wasn’t able to stay at the hospital around the clock like Emmie was doing. Mia didn’t need to be

around all the sickness that was in the hospital and it wasn’t like she could see her Aunt Layla or her

cousins anyway. So other than visiting Em and Jesse for a few hours at a time, I kept her home.

Lucy didn’t want to, but Jesse insisted that she go to school today. So I took her to school when I

dropped Mia off at her preschool and then picked her up instead of letting her take her usual carpool home

again. She had been sleeping in the guest room for the last two nights.

The poor baby was terrified. Not only because of Layla and her brothers, but because of what Jesse and

Emmie had had to explain to her about her real dad. I had heard her crying herself to sleep last night, but when I had gone in to check on her she had pretended to be asleep. It ate me alive that she was hurting so

much. I couldn’t help but be reminded of a scared little Emmie unsure of what tomorrow would bring.

Mia slept cuddled beside me last night because I hadn’t been able to sleep until I knew she was safely

tucked in with me.

As soon as I picked up both of the girls I drove us to the hospital. Shane and Harper were sitting in the

ICU waiting room, but their grins told me that something was going right for a change. “How is she?” I

asked, placing Mia in a plastic chair beside Harper.

“She’s awake and cranky, from what we’ve heard the nurses muttering,” Shane informed me with a

chuckle. “And Jesse is upstairs with the boys, but he should be down soon. They still want to keep them up

in the NICU for another night.”

“Can I see my brothers today?” Lucy asked me as she placed her backpack in an empty chair. “Dad said

maybe yesterday.”

“I don’t know, Lucy. They are still upstairs and the nurses said yesterday that kids under the age of

twelve aren’t allowed in there.” I hated letting her down, but it was for the safety of all the babies in the NICU, not just her brothers that we had to think about. “I’m sure as soon as the twins are moved down to

this floor you can see them all you want.”

“Okay.” She sighed and flopped down in the chair beside Mia. “Can I call Harris? I promised him and

his dad I would let them know if Mom woke up.”

“Go ahead, sweetheart.” She pulled her smartphone out and her face instantly brightened when she

started talking to her friend. I wondered if she had a crush on Devlin’s son, but didn’t want to put that kind of name on it. I was sure that if Jesse thought the same thing he would be going all kinds of overbearing

father on her and the boy. Maybe even put a stop to their friendship.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked as I finally sat beside Shane. I’d been fielding calls from Emmie’s

home office all day to help her out, and my head was splitting. I seriously couldn’t understand how Em did

all that she did without losing her sanity.

“Drake is downstairs getting us coffee. Lana and Emmie are visiting with Layla. Natalie and Linc

stopped by before they left for the airport. Natalie wanted to stay and help Emmie, but Em told her to go

and take care of the
America’s Rocker
shitheads. They were raising hell this morning because Drake told them he wasn’t going to make it next week either.” Shane scowled, shaking his head. “They can’t find a big

enough name to fill in for him for the next two weeks. Emmie told Natalie to suggest the first season’s

winner.”

“I’ll have to ask my dad,” Lucy was saying in a more animated tone than I had heard in several days.

“But I really want to, so I’m sure he won’t say no.”

“Dad won’t say no to what?” Jesse asked as he walked through the door, looking pale and exhausted.

He needed a shave badly and probably a week’s worth of sleep, but there was a small smile teasing at his

lips.

“Tomorrow is Halloween, Dad,” Lucy reminded him. “And Mr. Cutter is letting Harris go trick-or-

treating in their neighborhood by himself. Harris wants to know if I could go with him.”

“With just Harris?”

“Yes…”

I could see the dad-brain working in Jesse’s eyes. Devlin’s neighborhood was a gated community just

like ours, possibly even more secure than ours was. There wasn’t anyone in that neighborhood who was on

the sex offender’s list—yeah, we’d become obsessed with that thing since the girls were getting older.

Harris was also a pretty responsible kid for fourteen. Devlin was raising him right, and the boy always

spoke to Lucy with respect.

“Let’s talk to Layla about it first, okay?” Jesse compromised.

Lucy’s face fell at not getting an immediate ‘yes’ but she nodded. “Okay,” she gave in. “Can I see her

now?”

“I think we can get back there.” Jesse nodded at me and Lucy rushed to say goodbye to her friend

before following Jesse out of the waiting room.

Moments later Lana and Emmie entered the room, looking marginally less stressed than they had been

when I had seen them last night. My body instantly reacted to being so close to Emmie. I grasped her by the waist and pulled her down onto my lap, burying my face in her neck.

“Hey,” she breathed, running her fingers through my messy hair. “I missed you.”

“Me too.” I kissed her neck, glorying in the fact that she couldn’t hide her reaction to me any more than

I could mine to her. “Are you coming home tonight?”

“As soon as I get security set up outside of Layla’s private room when she’s finally moved, I’ll be

home. Promise.”

I rubbed my hand over her flat stomach. “Have you eaten today? How’s the morning sickness?”

“I was able to keep down some cheese crackers and ginger ale. But my appetite still isn’t that great. No

vomiting though.” I let out a relieved sigh and she rolled her big green eyes at me. “I’m fine, Nik. So is

Jagger.”

“Jagger?” Harper and Shane asked almost at the same time. “What?”

“That’s what Em is calling the baby,” I told them with a grin. “She’s convinced that this one is a boy

and has already named him.”

“But what if it’s a girl?” Harper asked with a frown. “Won’t you be too used to calling her Jagger by