At My Daughter's Baby Shower, My Husband Gave My Place to My Best Friend novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: First Night

My granddaughter was born at ten past four on Monday morning, red-faced, furious and perfect.

Sophie pushed for forty minutes, and Evan cried the whole time, and I stood at her shoulder and counted.

When the nurse laid the baby on Sophie's chest, Sophie looked up at me.

"Mom," she said. "Hold her."

I held her.

She weighed almost nothing and she smelled like warm bread, and her fist closed around my little finger and stayed there.

I did not say anything for a long time, because I couldn't.

Mark and Diane had gone sometime after midnight.

The night nurse told me they had stood in the lobby for four hours, and that Mark had asked the front desk three times whether he could see "his wife's medical file."

By noon Sophie was asleep and Evan was asleep in the chair with his glasses crooked.

I walked out into the corridor and found Tom sitting on a bench by the elevators with a thermos and his cap on his knee.

He stood up.

"Girl?" he said.

"A girl."

"Both well?"

"Both perfect."

His shoulders dropped, and he looked younger than I had ever seen him.

"I brought the cradle," he said.

"You went into my barn?"

"You gave me the key on Thursday. I took the cradle out in a moving blanket, and I strapped it down in my truck bed myself."

I laughed, and it turned into something else halfway, and he put his arm around me in the hospital corridor.

← Chapter 13 · All chapters · Chapter 15 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend