CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MICHAEL

( — george michael; english singer, songwriter, record producer, and philanthropist who rose to fame as a member of the music duo wham! and later embarked on a solo career. )

          HOUSTON, THEY HAVE A MAJOR, MAJOR PROBLEM.

          For starters, Michaela is about as stubborn as a mule, if not more, and Selina greatly fears for her own life and sanity. The only thing Michaela compromised on was to let Selina drive and the latter knows it's just because she's the only person in the building who a) isn't working and b) isn't in the middle of going into labor.

          (Not that there's anyone in the Serotinal Magazine building who has gone into labor besides Michaela Tate, but that's beside the point. The point is that this definitely isn't how Selina ever thought her trip to New York would go.)

          Michaela walks surprisingly quickly considering her current situation, with Selina struggling to keep up by stumbling over her own feet, in spite of her long legs. When Michaela storms out of her office, Jersey immediately stands up from her chair, startled, for the second time in one day, under eerily similar circumstances, but is ultimately ignored by her boss.

          "Michaela?" Jersey calls, twisting her hands in each other. "Are you okay? What's going on?"

          "I'm going to need you to do something for me," Michaela replies, never once stopping or looking back. Selina follows her, with Jersey's footsteps dully echoing behind them. "I need you to call Lincoln, tell him to grab my hospital gym bag, and drive all the way to the hospital."

          "Mich—"

          "I'm going to give birth to his daughter." Michaela presses the DOWN button by the elevator and Selina's heart hammers against her chest bones. She has no idea how Michaela is keeping her cool, seeming absolutely normal except for the occasional wincing, but other people could simply say she really needed to go to the bathroom, or something along those lines. "Watch him write an entire novel about that."

          Someone down the hall gasps. Michaela shoots finger guns towards them. Selina is very, very confused. The woman is in the process of giving birth to another human being, yet she still finds time to crack a joke or two.

          That's kind of the person Selina aspires to be, she's not going to lie.

          Jersey blabbers somewhere behind them, still talking to Lincoln on the phone, and, while Selina believes it's quite an interesting conversation, she's more focused on not letting Michaela fall or pass out. Her face is devoid of color by the time they step inside the elevator and, even though she's trying to shrug it off, pass it off like it's not that big of a deal, she has to lean against a wall to keep her balance.

          "Let me help you," Selina asks—almost begs—when the elevator doors open again to let them out. Michaela throws her a pained look, as though the simple prospect of thinking about accepting someone's help would make her go into spontaneous combustion, but ultimately nods. Selina wraps an arm around her, being thankful for her long limbs, and they carefully head outside.

          The wind outside is brutal.

          After two days in New York—and it's not even her first time here—Selina knows she should have gotten used to the wind, yet she's still taken aback by the sudden blast against her face. Michaela, on the other hand, doesn't seem fazed by the change in temperature, probably because she has more important things to worry about at the moment, and nods towards her car.

          "Nice ride," Selina says, in an attempt of easing the palpable tension, as she unlocks the silver Honda Accord. "Looks brand new."

          "It is," Michaela answers, opening the door on the passenger's side. "My father got it for me not that long ago. I sold my old one, simply because it didn't make sense to own two, but I was perfectly happy with it." She hesitates before entering the vehicle. "He shouldn't have bought it. It feels like the flowers situation all over again."

          Selina opens her mouth to say something about sort of being able to relate to that, as both her parents really tried to make it up to her after the divorce by spoiling her with material items she had no idea what to do with as she was growing up. Michaela sits down before she can say anything, however, and closes the door, briefly breaking any form of contact between them.

          Selina knows it's not the same thing. Michaela's parents seem to have a happy marriage, but they were barely there for her when she was younger and it's way past the right time to try and fix things. Selina had plenty more time to patch things up with her family, whereas Michaela's grudge against hers has reached her adulthood.

          Flowers and fancy cars won't fix years and years of emotional absence and lack of proper support.

          Back to their journey towards the hospital.

          Selina thought the wind was bad, but it turns out that the traffic is even worse. The roads in New York are abysmal, where every other vehicle is a yellow taxi, and some people seem to be huge fans of jaywalking, never bothering to cross the street properly.

          To make matters even worse, Michaela's contractions become closer and closer and her breathing gets shallower, with hissed interjections of pain thrown into the mist. She whispers so many curse words Selina is genuinely taken aback, as it's not something she expected to hear come out of Michaela Tate's mouth, yet here they are.

          Her spine tingles in anticipation and worry, not to mention sheer terror, as she has no idea what to do if Michaela doesn't make it to the hospital. She might have plenty of talents—such as bartending and interviewing people without making a complete fool out of herself—but helping someone give birth to a child certainly isn't one of them.

          After a while—a very, very long while—Michaela groans and taps a few times on the touch screen, opening the call feature.

          "Call Lincoln," she says, and they only have to wait less than three seconds for him to pick up.

          "Mickey," he answers, seemingly out of breath. "The traffic is insane. I'm driving as fast as I can, but—"

          "I'm not there yet," she chimes in, leaning back against her seat, with an arm wrapped around her protruding belly. Selina chews on her bottom lip, eyes darting between Michaela and the road ahead of them as the light finally turns green and she thinks they might have a chance of getting to the hospital in time. "Traffic."

          "I'm so sorry, Mich. I—wait, are you driving?"

          "Uh, hi," Selina greets, thinking it's the perfect time for her to do so. "She's not driving—I am. Selina Locke. I'm a big fan."

          Michaela's hand firmly grips Selina's wrist. She squeezes her so tightly her skin turns even whiter. "Dude. Drive."

          "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she blabbers, nodding to herself, and Michaela returns to her previous position as she's hit by yet another contraction. "Driving. Okay. Hospital." She takes a deep breath, Michaela sharply inhales, and Lincoln lets out a sad exhale. "We'll get there."

          "Don't die," Lincoln asks, fully ignoring Selina, and she can't even say blames him. After all, his fiancée, the mother of his unborn daughter, and the love of his life is currently going through an insane amount of stress and he's so close, yet so far away at the same time. "Mickey."

          "Okay," Michaela whispers. "Okay. No dying."

          "You'd better not." He slams a hand against the steering wheel to honk and both Selina and Michaela jump in their seats (something that hurts Michaela a lot more, unfortunately). "This right here? This is an award-winning plot, Mich. Imagine how many copies I could sell."

          To Selina's surprise, Michaela actually laughs, once again proving these two have the exact same sense of humor, having made pretty much the same joke in such a short amount of time.

          "Duly noted," she replies. "Love you."

          "Love you more."

          He hangs up first and Michaela leans the side of her head against the cold window, letting her eyes flutter closed. She occasionally winces and whimpers in pain, but no other sounds come out of her mouth and they both resort to silence.

          It doesn't make things any easier, though. By the time they get to the hospital, Michaela looks on the verge of collapsing, having to fully depend on Selina to stand upright while crossing the hallways. Some nurses are kind enough to rush towards them as soon as they spot them stumbling from side to side and Selina decides she can finally breathe once Michaela is taken away in a wheelchair, joined by people who can actually take care of her.

          Lincoln arrives around fifteen minutes later, with Selina wandering around the waiting room in search for a coffee machine, as her pounding headache gets stronger by the second, courtesy of her debilitating caffeine addiction. He's joined by several other people, including Michaela's parents and his own, along with Ginny and Roya.

          "I haven't been back in New York for a hot second and this happens," Roya mutters, as she stands on her toes to wrap an arm around Selina's shoulders and presses a quick kiss to her cheek. "What are you doing here?"

          "It's kind of a long story," Selina replies.

          Lincoln dodges everyone and asks—almost demands—to see Michaela, since he's the father of the baby, since he's freaking out, since he needs some goddamn oxygen before he passes out. Much like Michaela's, his hair is shorter than it was during most of the PR stunt, meaning he can no longer wear it in his usual bun. He has also shaved, but there's stubble growing along his jawline.

          "Is she okay?" Ginny questions, in a quiet voice, and twists her hands in each other. "Why are you here?"

          "That's the question we'd all love to see answered, isn't it?" Yvonne Tate remarks. For such a small woman, her attitude easily allows her to tower over everyone else in the waiting room—her attitude and her Louboutins. Her eyes narrow as they dart towards Selina. "What exactly is your business with my daughter?"

          "Yvonne," Michaela's father sighs. "Now's not the time."

          "My name is Selina," Selina quickly explains, before things can escalate any further. "Michaela was interviewing me for her piece on influential people. I, uh . . . she left to go to the bathroom once we were finished and, when she came back, she told me I had to drive because she was going into labor. I drove as fast as I could, but the traffic is insane. I'm sorry, I—"

          "Nonsense," he interrupts. Now that they're standing face to face, Selina realizes just how unbelievably tall the man is—he's even taller than her. "You did everything you could, and we're thankful that you got Michie here just in time."

          Selina shoots him a nervous smile and risks a glance towards Lincoln. It's only then that she deduces something has gone terribly wrong, as his face falls, skin turned ashen, and he looks back at his parents in panic. A nurse tries to get his attention, grabbing his arms, but his hands fly up to his hair and Selina highly doubts he's listening to anything the staff is telling him.

          Lennox Lane arrives moments after, ignoring everyone else and heading straight towards Lincoln, and he's the first of them to hear the bad news. Michaela's parents immediately turn to face the two men, with Yvonne's confidence instantly dropping, and Selina remembers how much of an intruder she is.

          "It's bad," Lincoln reveals, once he joins the rest of the group, and Lennox forces him to sit down. Selina has seen him in interviews, in paparazzi pictures, on the cover of magazines, on Instagram, and can honestly say this is the absolute worst shape she has ever seen him—he's so pale it looks like his body is devoid of blood. "We already knew it was a risky pregnancy, that the baby would probably be smaller than expected, that Michaela would need to be followed closely by a doctor, but we never thought it would come to this." He rubs his cheek with his hand. "She's . . . hemorrhaging, she's asphyxiating, and then the doctors detected an irregular heartbeat."

          "On her?" Ginny asks.

          "On both of them." Lennox's eyes widen, Roya covers her mouth with her hand, and Yvonne gasps, leaning on her husband for support. "They're trying to stop the bleeding and hoping she won't lose too much, but you know she's small. You know how smaller the baby is." He stares down at his hands. "They think—they think things might not work out for one of them if they don't fix it. The baby can't breathe, Michaela is—"

          "Babe," Roya says, in a steady voice. "It's okay. She'll pull through. That's Michaela freaking Tate right there."

          "I can't lose them both. You know . . . you know who Michaela would ask me to choose." Lincoln gulps. "You know it's not that simple. If I chose her, we'd never have another shot at being parents. She would never forgive me."

          Yvonne scoffs, too discreetly for Lincoln to notice it, while Papa Tate shoots his wife a disapproving glance before setting a comforting hand on his son-in-law's shoulder. Selina looks away from them, not wanting to interrupt an extended family moment, and sincerely wonders what she's still doing in the waiting room—or in the whole building, even.

          The silence in the room is deafening. Lincoln often goes from sitting perfectly in his chair to pacing around the waiting room, constantly pressing the nurses for more information, but it never comes. Selina's stomach grumbles with hunger and nervousness, and she turns to observing people to keep herself distracted.

          Even though she and Michaela aren't friends by any means, she'd hate for anything bad to happen to her and/or to her family. After all they've been through, they deserve their happy ending. Besides, she likes to think they've bonded during the past few hours.

          Selina lets her head fall to Roya's shoulder, who is sitting next to her. The chairs are uncomfortable enough to prevent her from falling asleep and, even if they weren't, the constant commotion around them would do it in its place. Her back aches like an old woman's and the analog clock hung on the wall in front of her ticks ever so slowly.

          The wait feels never-ending and Selina's coffee has since grown cold by the time something happens. Ginny looks on the verge of dehydration from crying so much and Lennox is updating Jillian via phone call when a doctor with long, ginger hair waltzes into the room and pulls Lincoln aside. Since he has their back turn to them, Selina can't see his facial expression and tell whether it's good news or not.

          (She truly wants to believe it's something good, as he follows the doctor out of the waiting room in quick steps. If they were bad news, he probably would have burst into tears right then and there.)

          It takes around two more hours for things to look up.

          When it happens, Selina has had so much caffeine she can taste colors, has texted Remus several meaningless emojis (it made him laugh, so she's pretty happy with herself), and has tried to calm down Jersey over six times. It's something she has only seen in movies and TV shows, but it's unfolding right in front of her eyes.

          Lincoln returns with the doctor, with messy hair and crumpled clothes, and carries a bundle of blankets in his arms. Ginny fully melts, Lennox dramatically pretends to faint, Roya elbows him in the ribs, and the parents sigh of relief, rushing to meet up with him. Selina follows them, standing a few feet away to give them some privacy—since, you know, she's not a friend or family—but is close enough to see the newborn baby opening and closing her tiny hand.

          "Hi, demon baby," Lennox coos. "It's your godfather. I love you."

          "Stop it," Lincoln protests, but he lacks the judgmental tone—in fact, his words are actually playful. The baby closes her fingers around Lennox's index one. "She's perfect."

          "And Michaela?" Yvonne asks, not bothering to hide the note of fear in her voice. Her husband keeps a hand on the small of her back, his thumb drawing caring, small circles over the fabric of her designer dress. "Is she—"

          "She's fine." Lincoln smiles down at his baby daughter, gently cradling her. "She was incredible."

          "Congrats on not killing your mother, Lizzie," Lennox congratulates, high-fiving the baby, and Yvonne throws him an incredulous look, while Lincoln's parents chuckle at the exchange. "Little Elizabeth Tate-Calloway. Dude. Even her name sounds pretentious."

          "Can you not?" Roya deadpans.

          "I truly do hope she punches you in the face once she's older," Ginny comments, wiping the tears from her cheeks, and Lennox scoffs. "She's perfect."

          Selina excuses herself a little while later, once everyone is certain Michaela and Elizabeth are both out of danger and perfectly safe. She's exhausted, even though she has barely moved the entire day and has mostly been in a sitting position, but it feels as though the tiredness is mostly emotional.

          Nevertheless, she collapses on her bed as soon as her eyes land on it and pulls her phone out of her purse. Remus answers shortly after.

          "Starry eyes emoji to you, too," he says, half-laughing.

          She sighs, closing her eyes. "You won't even believe the crazy day I've had."

happy belated birthday dummy verdensrommet