The female EMT, her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, wrapped the baby in a newborn blanket and started asking Bailey questions. She answered them as the other EMT took care of Sunny and the placenta. They loaded her and the baby onto the gurney, covering her with blankets.
“I’m not sure the shirt’s salvageable,” the blonde EMT said apologetically, holding out Dom’s shirt and suit coat by the collar with gloved hands. “Do you want me to toss it?”
“Sure.” He took his suit coat back, draping it over his arm. “Got plenty more where that came from.”
“Hey, wait!” Sunny craned her neck to see them from flat on her back, motioning them over with the arm not holding the baby. Sunny took Bailey’s hand as she approached and incorporated Dom’s too, so they stood like three people praying. Dom’s hand was large enough to hold both of theirs.
“I just wanted to thank you again.” Sunny’s eyes were brimming. Mascara rimmed her eyes like shadows. “And I’m sorry I told you to fuck off before… oh my god, I don’t even know your name!”
“Bailey,” she told her, shaking her head. “And I’ve been called worse at births, trust me.”
“I bet.” Sunny laughed, looking at Dom. “And you, I’m so sorry about your shirt. Dom. Is that short for anything?”
“Dominic.” He squeezed both their hands in his.
“That’s what I’m going to call him,” Sunny announced, kissing her baby’s head, now covered with a hat instead of a sock. Bailey wondered for a moment where the sock had gone but she glimpsed on the floor near the trash. “For as long as I have him anyway.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said but when Bailey looked at him, he was absolutely beaming. If she’d thought he was a beautiful man before, she would have fallen in love with him in that instant—if he hadn’t been her teacher, of course.
“I want to.” Sunny beamed back at him.
“Okay, let’s get you checked out at the hospital now, all right?” The blonde EMT at the head of the gurney gave a nod to her partner who reached back to swing open the door.
“Thank you!” Sunny called again as they wheeled her and the baby out the door, expertly negotiating the corner.
They were alone for just moments. Her hand was still in his and he didn’t let go. Their eyes met and she knew it was the birth energy still moving through them. They’d shared a moment so powerful it had moved them both—something so intimate, it usually happened behind closed doors. Birth was a naturally intimate act—like sex—and the same energy that merged at conception emerged again at birth. Even the same hormones were involved. That much she knew from biology.
That’s what she told herself after he kissed her. She was sure he hadn’t planned it and she hadn’t either. One minute they were standing there, eyes shining, grinning like fools, and the next they had their arms around each other, their mouths slanting, tongues clashing, bodies melting together in the humid bathroom that smelled of everything human—blood and sweat and sex.
The kiss happened like an orgasm, startling her with its intensity, and she gasped when they parted. The look in his eyes was just as surprised as her own, she was sure, but she saw a hunger there she wondered if he could see in her too. Because she wanted him. God help her, she wanted him so much that if the bathroom door hadn’t opened, they might have just fucked right there. She could see it happening—him lifting her onto the edge of the sink, shoving up her skirt, unzipping his jeans…
“Well it looks like you two had quite a night!” The white-haired janitor pushed his yellow mop bucket into the bathroom, propping the door open with a “Caution – Wet Floor” sign.
“Sorry about the mess,” Bailey apologized, still breathless, cheeks flushed and stinging from Dom’s five o’clock shadow. She didn’t dare look at him as she picked her backpack and coat up off the floor. “Birth is kind of a messy business.”
“My wife had five, but I wouldn’t know,” the janitor chuckled. “Birthing is women’s business. I just pass out the cigars.”
“I think the most worthwhile things in life are a little messy,” Dom replied. She felt his hand against her lower back, guiding her out of the bathroom.
“You’re probably right about that!” the janitor laughed as they edged their way around him.
Bailey noticed Shelby wasn’t hanging around anymore. In fact, the hallway was deserted. She let him lead her, wondering where they were going, part of her not caring. If he took her back to the classroom, closing the door, and bent her over the desk, she wouldn’t have cared a bit. Well, that wasn’t quite true. A part of her desperately wanted him to do just that.