Chapter Twenty-Four
April 28
th
, 2021
"Can you
not
kill us on the way to the hospital?" Andy asked with a little bit of a nervous laugh. He trusted Alexis with his life, but she was putting that to the test. "I'd like to be
alive
to meet my son."
Alexis was driving like if Andy wasn't there in time to witness his son's birth, the world would stop. She laughed, shaking her head with glee. "Are you fucking kidding me, boss? I've always wanted an excuse to drive like a bat out of hell on American streets, and now that we've got one, you're gonna try and take that away from me? No fucking way. Come and get me mister lawman!"
"You ready for this, boss?" Melody asked him. "Ready to become a father?"
"Not in the fucking least," Andy said, glancing out the window again. "But it's not like that's up to me anymore. The kid's coming. I think it's a little too late to put him back in the box. Besides, haven't you heard? 'America Needs Children!'" The slogan had been gaining traction across television, print and film, and Andy had grown a little sick of hearing it. In fact, the studio had asked if there was any way they could incorporate it into the "Neon Stonehenge" movie they were making, and Maya had told him the
other
studio had made a similar request about the "Fatal Alliances" script. "Shit... I should... I should call the house, I should call Phil, I should--"
"I'm
certain
the house already knows, boss," Lexi said with a grin. "They probably had to figure out who could go with Niko to the hospital without her feeling like she was being smothered to death, and you know how everyone in the house is going to want to hold the first new addition."
"Calling Phil's not a bad idea though," Melody said to him. "It'll clear your head while we're driving. You can't do anything until we get to the hospital anyway."
"Which hospital are we going to anyway?" Lexi asked.
"The text Ash sent says San Ramon Regional Medical Center," Melody said, as she watched Lexi type it into the Tesla's navigation system. "Looks like we're about an hour out, and we're going to come in from the north."
"Just get us there, Lexi," Andy said. "If I'm not there for his birth, Niko's never going to stop giving me shit about it."
Lexi grinned, rolling her eyes. "She's gonna be in labor for at least a few hours, boss. You're not missing anything except a lot of grunting and her growling 'You did this to me!' every now and again. Call Phil. Tell him what we saw over at Valhalla Shores."
"You're right, you're right..." He pulled out his phone and tapped Phil's number off his speed dial, hearing it ring only a couple of times before Linda answered the phone.
"Hey Andy, what's up?" she asked him.
"I was calling to give you both a status report on the thing."
"The thing we agreed not to talk about over the phone? That thing?" Her voice sounded at least a little bit amused.
"Oh. Shit. Yeah, you're right. Sorry, I'm a bit scrambled at the moment. Well, I did get in to see LP at least, so I guess I'll save the rest for the next time I see you guys."
"You could probably come over now," Linda told him. "Phil's in the lab here at the house right now, but I bet he could carve out a chunk of time to talk to you."
"Yeah, that's a thing I
can't
do," Andy said with a chuckle. "Niko went into labor a few minutes ago and they're taking her to the hospital, so we're on our way there now."
"Oh. Ha. Yeah, I imagine that's not the kind of thing you'd want to wait on," Linda said on the other end of the line. "Wait,
who
took her to the hospital?"
"Aisling and some of the others, I imagine," Andy said, hearing a shift in tones in Linda's voice. "Why, Linda, what's up?"
"What hospital?"
"San Ramon Regional Medical Center," Andy told her. "You're closer than we are. I imagine you're only fifteen or twenty minutes away from it, while we're almost an hour out. Why, Linda?"
"Well, a couple of things, Andy, that Phil, uh, may have conveniently 'forgotten' to tell you, for his own amusement," Linda said with a bit of a laugh. "So you can't take Lexi and Melody with you into the hospital, not while Niko's in labor. Do you know
which
others are with Niko right now?"
"I'm texting Ash to ask her as we speak, Linda," Melody said.
"Good. Ash is fine to be there, but you need to tell all the other girls to get out, at least until after the kid's born. None of your partners have ever given birth before, have they?"
"No," Andy said, "I'm pretty sure that would've come up."
"Damn. That would've really helped out some right now. Oh well. Alright, I'm going to send Violet over to be your bodyguard until your kid's actually out of the oven, at which point Melody and Lexi can come into the building, but they need to stay a hundred feet from you until that happens once you're at the hospital and approaching Niko."
"Linda, what the hell is going on?"
"You've got a team over twenty, Andy, so Phil was
supposed
to tell you the extra rules about childbirth at lunch, but he got so concerned with... the other thing... that he forgot to go over them with you. I think he assumed Niko's boy wouldn't dare show up early."
"Sounds like Piper, Fiona and Ash are the three who went in with Niko," Melody said.
"Okay, you need to send a message suggesting that Piper and Fiona excuse themselves from Niko's presence until the baby's born."
"Not Ash?" Andy asked.