The Naz & Roz Chronicles - Chapter Nineteen
Hey, loves!
Believe it or not, but I think I have finally found the natural end to this blog series. No, it isn’t this chapter, but within the next couple … which I will then break for a bit to get an idea of what I want to do for the next blog series before we will resume every Monday with another couple for a blog series. I did a poll in my reader’s group, so it seems like the most popular and requested couple for this is Cece and Juan (SHOCKER).
As a reminder, if you scroll to the top of the screen on this blog, you’ll see the word SUBCRIBE. If you click on that, and enter your email, you will get an email every time I post an outtake, teaser, or blog series chapter. If you never wanna miss out.
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Naz and Roz Blog Series
Okay, onto the chapter.
*
Roz/Naz POV
Roz
“Calm down,” she murmured, trying to keep her tone calm lest she make Naz panic more. Was that possible? She didn’t think so, because from the very second Naz knew she had gone into labor, it was like all those smart cells in his brain just disappeared. “You’re going twenty over the limit, Naz, and I don’t even need to go to the hospital yet.”
“You’re in labor—yes, you need to go to the hospital.”
“How many books did you read on pregnancy and birth?”
“A lot.”
He didn’t even look over at her in the passenger seat as he spoke, simply kept his gaze on the road as he swerved in and out of traffic. That alone was going to give Roz a fucking heart attack.
“And what did the books say about a first birth?”
Fuck.
She could feel the tightening starting in her lower back again. The telltale sign of an oncoming contraction. They were still seven to eight minutes apart, and only two to three minutes long each time. Not that it made a difference, because while it was early … and she undoubtedly had hours of this to go yet, it still hurt like hell.
God.
“That it would take time, but—”
“Hours, it said hours. Days, in some cases.”
“Your water broke.”
Roz nodded, wetting the line of her lips, and hoping she could get her next few words out before she ended up right in the thick of a fucking contraction that would silence her for minutes while she tried to breathe through it. People and her birthing classes lied. Every single one of them. They said it was like a wave—the contraction came in slow, like water climbing up the shore like, and then it became stronger and stronger until it reached its peak, before rushing back out, and giving her relief.
She found it just fucking hurt.
The whole time.
The same intensity.
“They’re going to send me home to labor,” she said, teeth starting to clench, “and you know it.”
“But—”
“And then it’ll be an hour to drive home, and another hour to drive back to the hospital.”
“Roz.”
“Yeah?”
“Babe, you just had three contractions in the span of fifteen minutes.”
She blinked, staring over at him from the side as that pain sharpened and made her vision blurry. Focusing on the breathing technique which was supposed to help with the severity of the pain, it made it difficult to see Naz, and speak to him at the same time.
“I’ve been timing it,” he added quieter.
Right.
She had, too.
Somehow, she must have fucked up.
“So about three minutes apart,” he said, “and two minutes in between … which means yeah, we need to go to the hospital. Now.”
Yeah.
She got that.
Now, it was her who was panicking. It hit all at once that there was no going back at this point. Up until that moment, pregnancy had just been … pregnancy. She didn’t worry too much about birth because she had never experienced it, and she wasn’t sure how she would react once she was in the thick of it.
Well, now she knew.
It hurt.
She didn’t like it.
And it was only going to get worse.
“Where’s my mom?”
“On her way with your dad, babe.”
Roz attempted something akin to a nod, but she wasn’t even sure if she actually did it, or not. Perfect. Just great.
“I’m not ready,” she muttered.
“Little late, Roz.”
Yep.
***
“Hello.”
Naz’s heart?
Too full.
His lungs?
Frozen.
A hazy-eyed baby boy squinted up from his arms, wrapped in a hospital-issue blanket. With a blue cap pulled over the wild mess of black hair, only a few tufts now stuck out around the edges. A tiny hand curled around the edge of the blanket, and Jesus Christ … he was so small.
Not by healthy standards, or anything. He weighed eight pound, seven ounces. He was a big, healthy boy.
And he was small in his father’s arms.
Naz couldn’t stop staring.
“Look at your little nose,” Naz said, letting the tip of his finger trace the slope of his child’s face. He was perfect. Every single inch of him, from the very tips of his ten toes—Naz counted—to the top of his head. “Can you see me, too?”
Probably not.
Babies didn’t have good vision for a period of time after birth. It would take months before his child would be able to see him from across the room. And still … when his boy opened his cloudy dark eyes and stared upward, Naz was sure they were seeing each other.
He felt that.
“Hey, little man.”
Standing in the corner of the hospital room, one might think Naz was just getting to see his son for the first time. That would be the wrong assumption. In fact, Roz had been in labor for another eight hours after they arrived at the hospital with her being just four centimeters dilated. One centimeter too much for them to send her home, even though her contractions suggested she was farther along in the process than she actually was.
This child of his hadn’t come into the world until closer to three in the morning. His family, and hers, slept in a waiting room down the hall, only waking up when Roz’s mom went down to let them know the baby was born, but given the time, and the fact that Roz needed to rest because those last couple of hours had been hard—they still hadn’t taken the baby out to introduce him to anyone.
Now, Roz was just waking up after a few hours of sleep.
Naz walked the floor with the baby.
He couldn’t sleep.
Adrenaline too high.
Love, too fucking much.
“Have you put him down once?” he heard her ask.
Naz shook his head. “He doesn’t know what that feels like—all he knows is what it’s like to be cradled, and warm.”
Her sweet hum of agreement had him turning to face her. Tucked under crisp hospital blankets, she finally looked awake, and good. Not the pain she had been in, or the exhaustion that hit her like a ton of bricks shortly after birth.
Slipping an item out of his pocket when Roz was distracted by the nurse who came in with a cup of water, a straw, and the promise of food as soon as she was feeling up to eating, of course. His son decided to play along with Naz’s trick, although really, the baby seemed willing to grab onto anything that was placed in his palm or on his fingers. A natural reflex of infants, he knew.
“So, have we picked a name for the little guy?” the nurse asked.
Roz looked Naz’s way. “Well?”
“I think we did.”
A long time ago.
“Cross Zeke Donati.”
“Very different,” the nurse said, doing a quick check of Roz’s vitals. “And you’re looking well, so whenever you’re ready to eat, we’ll do that, and get you into a shower. Sound good?”
“Thank you.”
Once the nurse was gone, Roz’s attention turned on Naz, and the baby. “Bring him to me, let me see if he wants to eat.”
“He was rooting.”
“Mmhmm.”
Naz grinned, keeping his hand over the baby’s to hide the item now hanging on little Cross’s index finger. Still blinking and trying to focus, the baby seemed happy to move from his father’s arms, to his mother’s. As though e could just smell her, and he knew who she was, his little eyes fluttered closed, and he turned his face into her chest.
Roz, readying to move her gown aside, and feed the baby, he knew the second her gaze landed on the engagement ring the baby held. Her sweet gasp, and the widening of her eyes had him grinning when her stare lifted to meet his.
Naz shrugged. “I couldn’t find the right time to ask—the last few months were just busy … and I didn’t wanna take your attention away from planning for him, or from Penny, and—”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t even ask yet.”
“You don’t have to, my answer is yes, Naz.”
“You have to let me ask.”
Her laughter colored the room, making the baby startle in her arms, although he didn’t seem to mind. Leaning down over the bed, he pressed a kiss to her lips, feeling her smile curving against his own as he murmured, “Marry me, Roz?”
“Yes.”
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