Grid Iron Bad Boy: A Football Romance Read Free Page A

hair and down to the stretcher she’s attached to.
    The driver barely brings the ambulance to a halt when the paramedics fling the back doors open and pull her out, extending the wheels on the stretcher in one swift motion. I hit the asphalt with a graceless thud and quickly saddle up beside her to hold her hand again.
    “Don’t leave me,” Lauren’s voice is weak under her mask, but her message is still strong.
    “I won’t,” I promise her, squeezing her hand tight.
    We burst through the sliding doors of the emergency room in a whirlwind and instantly nurses and doctors descend on us like bees returning to their queen. Hovering around every side of her, medical professionals are barking out jargon I don’t understand.
    “Prolapsed cord…mother in shock…footling breech…emergency caesarean…” I’m not even sure who owns the words swirling around us, just that they’re being rattled off in rapid fire speed.
    Lauren tightens her grip on my hand and I look down into my sister’s panicked eyes. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” My voice creaks as I give her my vow.
    She doesn’t answer, but her chin jerks toward her chest in a quick nod.
    We’re approaching double doors at the end of the hallway, above them the sign reads Operating Room #7.
    “This is the end of the line for you, sis,” a nurse with fiery hair tied back tight orders me.
    “What? I can’t leave her! I need to be with her.” I protest.
    “Nope, sorry. You have to stay here. No family in the operating room.” Her tone is firm but kind.
    Lauren grasps my hand, but the staff isn’t about to let us have a long goodbye. She’s torn from my grip and wheeled through the doors, out of my sight in an instant. My hand feels empty without hers in it. It makes me realize for the first time that this might not end well.
    My sister might not get to experience the right that every mother has to feel when her newborn baby wraps their tiny fingers around her thumb. She might not hear her daughter’s cries. Lauren might lose this baby.
    Tears stream down my face and a sob chokes me as I somehow make my way back to the ER. How can any of this be happening? My mind can’t make sense of it. It’s just swirling with images. My niece’s tiny foot broken free into a world she’s not ready for yet. The crimson soaked sheet testifying to the severity of Lauren’s bleeding. My sister’s hand being pried from mine as she was wheeled away.
    I plop down in one of the shabby waiting room chairs as my tears pour from my soul. I cover my eyes with my hands and my shoulders shudder as I let all my fear, my stress, my confusion flood down my cheeks.
    “Chelsea! There you are! Oh my dear Lord, where is she?” My mother’s voice cuts through the fog. I look up to see her aging face wrinkled deeper with anxiety.
    “They took her to the OR, she’s having an emergency C-section.” I answer.
    My mother sits beside me, folds her head over her laced fingers and prays. I can hear her mumbles as she talks to God.
    “What’s going on?! Where’s Lauren?!” My mother and I both snap our eyes up to Mack, Chris and Cameron bursting into the room like a tornado of panic.
    “Mack, it’s going to be OK,” my mother starts.
    “Where’s Lauren?” He demands, looking straight past mom to me.
    “She’s in the OR. Mack, I saw a foot. I saw the baby’s foot sticking out.”
    “Excuse me?”
    Mack whirls around, almost losing his balance to turn to the nurse interrupting our little scene.
    “Are you Mr. Forrester?”
    Mack swallows hard, his shoulders tense and square off like a board. “Yes.”
    “Sir, I need to talk to you about your wife’s condition,” she looks around at the crowd of eyes staring at her. She skims over Cameron, Chris, my mother and I until her green eyes finally rest back on Mack, “in private, please.”
    My stomach flips. Mom hunches over her folded hands and prays through her clenched teeth. Chris looks from Mack and the nurse