How To Ruin Your Ex's Wedding: Fake Date A Hockey Player Chapter 108

Crew's POV,

Harper made it to thirty-seven weeks exactly before her water broke at 3 AM on a Tuesday.

I woke up to her shaking my good shoulder. "Crew. Wake up. My water just broke."

I sat up immediately, still groggy. "You're sure?"

"I'm lying in a puddle. I'm sure." She was already out of bed, changing clothes. "We need to go to the hospital. Now."

I grabbed my phone, texted David out of habit: Harper's water broke. Baby's coming. I'm terrified.

He responded immediately despite the hour: You've got this. One contraction at a time. Call me after she's born.

We drove to the hospital in silence. Harper timing contractions on her phone—six minutes apart, lasting about forty-five seconds. Not terrible yet but getting stronger.

At the hospital, they checked us into the same labor and delivery room we'd been in two weeks ago during the false alarm.

"You're three centimeters dilated," the nurse said after checking Harper. "Contractions are regular. This is the real thing. Dr. Yoon is on her way."

Harper looked at me. "This is happening. Rose is coming today."

"Rose is coming today," I repeated, trying to make it feel real.

The next six hours were a blur. Contractions getting stronger, closer together. Harper breathing through them, squeezing my good hand hard enough to leave marks. Dr. Yoon arriving around 6 AM, checking progress, saying everything looked normal.

"First babies take time," she said. "Could be another few hours. Could be longer. We just wait and see."

By 8 AM, Harper was six centimeters. Contractions two minutes apart. She'd refused the epidural at first, wanting to "feel everything," but changed her mind around seven centimeters when the pain became unbearable.

"I want the epidural," she gasped between contractions. "I changed my mind. I want drugs."

"That's not giving up," I said. "That's being smart about pain management."

"I lasted longer than I thought I would."

"You're doing amazing."

The epidural helped. Harper could still feel pressure but not the excruciating pain. She relaxed slightly, dozed between contractions.

I sat in the chair next to her bed, useless with one arm, watching monitors I didn't understand, trying not to panic.

Maya and Simone arrived around 10 AM with coffee and food neither Harper nor I could eat.

"How's it going?" Maya asked.

"Slowly. She's eight centimeters now. Could be another few hours."

"Can I stay? Or do you want privacy?"

Harper opened her eyes. "Stay. I need distraction."

So Maya stayed, telling work stories, making Harper laugh between contractions, keeping things light.

Around noon, Dr. Yoon checked Harper again.

"Ten centimeters. Fully dilated. Baby's in position. We're ready to push whenever you feel the urge."

Harper looked terrified. "I'm not ready."

"Nobody's ready. But you're doing this anyway." Dr. Yoon positioned herself at the foot of the bed. "Next contraction, I want you to push. Big breath in, hold it, push for ten seconds. We'll do that three times per contraction."

The next contraction came. Harper pushed. Her face turned red from effort. She bore down, held her breath, pushed with everything she had.

"Good," Dr. Yoon said. "Rest until the next one."

This continued for forty-five minutes. Pushing. Resting. Pushing. The monitors showing Rose's heart rate staying strong and steady.

I held Harper's hand—my good hand, the one she was currently crushing—and tried to be useful.

"You're doing great," I said. "So strong. Almost there."

"I can't do this," she gasped between contractions. "It's too hard. I can't."

"You're already doing it. You're halfway there. Just keep going."

Dr. Yoon looked up. "I can see the head. Lots of dark hair. A few more pushes and she'll be here."

Harper pushed harder. Screamed through the effort. Swore at me, at Dr. Yoon, at the universe for making childbirth so difficult.

"One more big push," Dr. Yoon coached. "This is it. Ready? Push!"

Harper pushed with everything she had left.

And suddenly there was a baby.

A tiny, screaming, perfect baby covered in vernix and blood, held up by Dr. Yoon, more real than anything I'd ever seen.

"It's a girl," Dr. Yoon said, even though we already knew. "Born at 12:47 PM. Congratulations."

They put her on Harper's chest immediately. Skin to skin. Still connected by the umbilical cord. Screaming indignantly at being forced out of her warm home.

Harper was crying. I was crying. Rose was screaming. The room smelled like blood and life and something fundamentally changed.

"Hi Rose," Harper whispered. "Hi baby girl. We're your parents. We're so glad you're here."

Rose stopped screaming, turned her head toward Harper's voice. Like she recognized it. Like she'd been listening all along.

"Want to cut the cord?" Dr. Yoon asked me.

With one functional hand, I carefully cut where she indicated. Separating Rose from Harper. Making her a completely separate human.

They took her briefly to clean her up, check vitals, weigh and measure her. Seven pounds, three ounces. Nineteen inches long. APGAR scores of 9 and 9. Perfect.

Then they gave her back, wrapped in a hospital blanket, wearing a tiny pink hat.

I held my daughter for the first time.

She was impossibly small. Impossibly light. Impossibly perfect.

Dark hair like Harper. Tiny nose. Tiny fingers that wrapped around one of mine and held on.

"Hey Rose," I said quietly. "I'm your dad. I'm going to mess this up constantly but I promise I'm trying. Your mom's going to be way better at this than me. But I'm here. I'm always going to be here."

Harper was watching us, exhausted and glowing. "She looks like you."

"She looks like you."

"She looks like both of us. She's ours."

Dr. Yoon finished the post-delivery work—stitches for Harper, placenta delivery, all the medical aftermath I tried not to look at too closely.

"Everything went perfectly," she said. "You did great, Harper. Baby's healthy. You're healthy. I'll check on you in a few hours."

After she left, it was just us. Me holding Rose. Harper recovering. Maya taking approximately five hundred photos.

"She's beautiful," Maya said, crying openly now. "I'm an aunt. I have a niece. This is the best day ever."

"Want to hold her?" I asked.

"Can I?"

I transferred Rose carefully to Maya's arms. Watched her cradle my daughter like she was the most precious thing in the world.

"Hi Rose. I'm your Aunt Maya. I'm going to spoil you rotten and teach you how to be difficult. Your parents are going to hate me. It's going to be great."

Simone took photos of Maya holding Rose. Then Maya passed her to Harper, who'd been waiting patiently but clearly wanted her baby back.

"I can't believe she's real," Harper said, looking down at Rose. "We made this. An actual human person."

"We made this," I agreed.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in that room. Holding Rose. Learning how to change diapers, how to swaddle, how to tell when she was hungry versus tired versus just generally upset about existence.

The lactation consultant came in to help Harper with the first feeding. It was awkward and difficult and Rose was impatient, but eventually they figured it out.

"This gets easier," the consultant promised. "Give it a few weeks."

Our mothers video-called around 4 PM. We showed them Rose through the screen—both of them crying, both saying they'd be on planes tomorrow.

"She's perfect," my mom said. "Crew, you made a perfect human."

"Harper did all the work. I just held her hand and tried not to pass out."

"You were there. That's what matters."

That evening, they moved us to a postpartum room. Private. Quieter. A pull-out bed where I could sleep next to Harper and Rose.

We spent the night learning how to be parents. Rose cried. We changed her. She cried again. Harper fed her. She cried some more. We walked her, rocked her, sang to her, tried everything.

"Is she supposed to cry this much?" Harper asked around 2 AM.

"I think so? The nurse said newborns cry a lot."

"What if something's wrong?"

"Then we call the nurse. But Harper, I think she's just being a baby. This is what babies do."

Around 3 AM, Rose finally fell asleep. We put her in the hospital bassinet next to Harper's bed, both of us terrified to take our eyes off her.

"We're parents," Harper whispered. "We actually did it."

"We actually did it."

"Are we going to be okay? At this?"

"Probably not at first. But we'll figure it out." I grabbed her hand. "Harper, ten months ago I was in rehab. Six months ago we got married. Two months ago I had surgery. And now we have a daughter. Life is insane."

"Life is perfect. Messy and terrifying and perfect."

"Can I tell you something?"

"Always."

"I didn't think I deserved this. A family. A daughter. A life that wasn't just surviving addiction." My voice cracked. "But looking at her—at Rose—I think maybe I do. Maybe we both do."

"You absolutely deserve this. We both do." Harper squeezed my hand. "Ten months sober. Married. A father. Crew, you did all of that. You chose recovery. You chose us. You chose this life."

"Best decisions I ever made."

"Second best. First best was going to rehab."

"Fair point. Rehab, then you, then Rose. That's the ranking."

Rose made a small sound in her sleep. We both froze, waiting to see if she'd wake up. She didn't.

"She's so little," Harper said. "So fragile. How are we supposed to keep her alive?"

"Very carefully and with lots of help. Our moms arrive tomorrow. Maya's going to be here constantly. James and Emily have the clinic covered. We have support. We're not doing this alone."

"I know. But still. It's terrifying."

"Everything worth doing is terrifying."

We fell asleep holding hands, Rose sleeping between us in her bassinet, all three of us beginning to figure out how to be a family.

The next morning, both our mothers descended on the hospital room with bags of supplies, food, and overwhelming grandmotherly energy.

"She's beautiful," my mom said, holding Rose for the first time. "She has your eyes, Crew. And Harper's nose."

"She has her own face," Harper's mom corrected. "She's her own person. Who happens to look like both her parents."

They argued good-naturedly about features and resemblances while Rose slept through it all, unbothered by the chaos.

We were discharged that afternoon. Dr. Yoon checked Harper one final time, declared everything healing well, gave us instructions for home care.

"You'll have a follow-up appointment in six weeks. Before that, call if anything seems wrong. Excessive bleeding, fever, signs of infection. And the baby—call your pediatrician if she won't eat, won't wake up, or if anything feels off."

"So basically call for everything," I said.

"Better to call unnecessarily than miss something important. You'll learn what's normal and what isn't. Give it time."

We loaded Rose into the car seat—it took ten minutes and three people to figure out the straps properly. Drove home at fifteen miles per hour because anything faster felt dangerous with our daughter in the car.

At home, we carried Rose inside. Our apartment. Where we lived. Where we'd raise this tiny human.

"We're home," Harper said, showing Rose the living room, the nursery, all the spaces we'd prepared. "This is where you live now. With us. Your family."

I put my arm around Harper—carefully, because my shoulder still hurt. Looked down at Rose in Harper's arms.

"We made it," I said. "Ten months ago I didn't think I'd make it to next week. Now I'm here. Sober. Married. A father. We actually made it."

"We more than made it. We're thriving."

"We're surviving with style."

"Same thing."

And somehow, looking at Rose, at Harper, at the life we'd built from absolute ruins—it was.

We'd more than survived.

We'd become exactly who we needed to be.