I'll Be Your Somebody by Savannah J. Frierson Read Free Book Online Page B

until he turned the corner, out of sight, but never out of her mind or heart.

One Midnight
     
    “I’m going to kill him.”
    The fact it was a calm statement and not a frantic exclamation struck fear in those who heard her.  Rosita didn’t care, though.  All she cared about was the fact their child had held up its end of the bargain for as long as it could, but Ulrich still wasn’t here.  Hell, the baby had even held on for a few extra days after the doctor’s projected due date; but still, Daddy Ulrich made no appearance.  Nevertheless, the baby wanted out, and it was taking a battering ram to Rosita’s birth canal to accomplish it.
    “ Aaarrrggghhh!! ”
    “You’re doing great,” Bevin assured her, taking a damp towel to Rosita’s forehead to mop up the perspiration there.
    Rosita rolled her eyes and tried to take deep, relaxing breaths.  But the little terror inside her was making that nigh impossible.
    “Get it out.”
    “Rosa—”
    “I want this fucking thing out me now !  Fuck, Ulrich!  Why the fuck isn’t he here?!”  She heard Bevin murmur excuses for her friend’s potty mouth.
    “Shoot, I doubt she’ll be the worst we have today!” one nurse cracked.
    Rosita smiled with vindication…right before releasing another string of filth as the next contraction attacked.
    She sagged heavily against the bedding once it passed and Bevin tsked behind the mask she wore, feeding her ice chips.  “Seeing you like this makes me wonder why the hell I let myself get pregnant again…”
    Rosita smirked, eyeing her friend’s slightly distended belly beneath the puke-green scrubs she wore.  “Because you’re a horny bitch for that fine-ass hubby of yours.”
    Bevin’s golden eyes shone.  “You right…”
    Rosita laughed a little, then she grasped Bevin’s hand.  “They’ll be back, won’t they?”
    Bevin nodded.  “They better be, or we’ll be very put out.”
    Rosita nodded as well, dropping her friend’s hand in favor of the guardrails as she went through another contraction.  She’d been at this for hours; she’d long stopped counting after the fourth one.  Aunt Bevie and her mother were watching Kerry in the lobby, there just in case Ulrich somehow managed to receive the message his wife was in labor.
    “Damn, just somebody cut the fucker out!” Rosita growled.
    “We’ll give it a few more hours before it comes to that,” her obstetrician said.  Rosita merely glared, grinding on the molars of her teeth.
    She knew her body, however, and her body didn’t have a “few more hours” before it fell apart.  Rosita felt as if she were being split in halves, and where were her gotdamn drugs ?!
    Oh, yeah …they were in that too-damn-big needle, and that thing wasn’t going anywhere near her person.
    She put a hand over her face and sobbed.  She felt miserable.  Her mother had lied; this was not a glorious event in her life.  It hurt like a motherfucker and she didn’t want to ever go through it again.
    “Oh, none of that, Rosita, chica , none of that…”
    She snatched her hand away from her face in shock, and in pain, as another pulse ripped through her.  She got a small bit of satisfaction when, upon her vision clearing, she saw a light-caramel face screwed up in agony before her.
    “ Rosa! ”
    She looked down at what she gripped in her hand, realizing it was, in fact, her husband’s hand and not the guardrail that had been her friend these past umpteen hours.
    “Where the fuck have you been?!”
    Tears leaked out of his eyes, especially since she didn’t let go of his hand.  “ Rosa! ”
    “Ulrich!” she cried, uncaring and unsympathetic of his pain.  It was the least he could feel after what she’d been going through thus far.
    “I’m not at liberty to say…”
    “That gotdamn beeper better be off too!” she warned.
    Though cognizant of his agony and hers, Ulrich managed to steal a kiss from his wife’s stormy lips.  “Not allowed to bring them in