“Okay, on the next contraction, you’re going to push as hard as you can,” he heard her say, and he frowned in confusion. Was someone giving birth back there?
“I can’t!” sobbed a second female voice - different from Dani’s, yet still familiar somehow. “Really… I don’t think I can do this.”
“Yes, you can,” said Dani, her voice kind but firm. “You have to.”
Curious, Nick decided to find out what was going on. He sat up slowly, fighting the tangle of tubes and wires still attached to his body, and carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed. He sat there for a few seconds, letting his heart adjust to the change in position before he attempted to stand. He didn’t want to make the same mistake as he had the last time he’d tried to get out of bed.
All of a sudden, the woman behind the curtain cried out in pain. “Push!” Nick heard Dani’s voice encouraging her. “You can do this! Come on, now push!”
Planting his feet firmly on the floor, Nick stood up. He held onto the IV pole beside his bed to steady himself, then wheeled it along with him as he took one tentative step and then another toward the curtain.
On the other side, he could hear the woman panting. “That’s it. Bear down, and keep breathing,” Dani coached her. “You’ve got this, Lauren.”
Lauren? Nick froze for a split second, his heart skipping a beat. Then he began frantically tearing off the electrodes that had been taped to his chest, along with everything else that threatened to hold him back from running to her side - the oxygen tubes in his nostrils, the sensor clipped to his finger, and the blood pressure cuff wrapped around his arm. He left them hanging from their wires as he pushed his IV pole across the room. He tore back the curtain to reveal his wife lying atop the bed, her legs splayed and chest heaving. Dani stood on one side of her, holding her hand, while Dr. Rob was down at the foot of the bed, his hands between her thighs.
Before Nick could react, Lauren threw back her head and unleashed an animalistic howl of pain as she pushed. Over Rob’s shoulder, Nick could see a small patch of hair beginning to emerge from the opening between her legs. His breath caught in his throat. “I’m here, baby,” he whispered, as he went to her other side and took hold of her free hand. “I’m right here.”
“Nick!” Lauren sobbed, tears streaming down the sides of her face. “Where the hell have you been?! How could you leave me like that??”
Nick shook his head, not knowing what to say. Nothing made sense anymore.
"The baby’s head is out. One more big push should do it,” said Dr. Rob. “Ready? Now push!”
Lauren’s hips rose off the bed as she arched her back and let loose another primal scream, squeezing Nick’s hand until his fingers were numb. But as the baby slid out into Rob’s waiting arms, her body suddenly went limp, and she let go of Nick’s hand.
“You did it, Lauren!” he heard Dani exclaim, a second before he watched his wife’s eyes roll back into her head.
“Lauren!” he shouted, shaking her shoulder. She didn’t respond. Nick looked desperately across the bed at Dani. “What happened to her?” he demanded.
Dani’s eyes were glued to the monitor above the bed, which was flashing an alarm. “Her blood pressure dropped,” she said. “She must have passed out. Lauren?” She leaned over her. “Open your eyes, Lauren!”
As Dani lowered the head of Lauren’s bed, Nick looked down toward the foot, where Dr. Rob was holding his newborn baby. “Can I... see her?” he asked hesitantly.
“Of course,” said Rob, coming around the side of the bed so he could have a closer look. Nick’s breath caught in his throat as he gazed down at his daughter. Her face looked like a sleeping angel’s with her eyes closed, her little rosebud lips curved into a pout. He counted her ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. She was perfect in every way, except for the fact that she was dead.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you can do for her?” Nick asked, but he already knew she was beyond help. Her skin was a mottled shade of purple-gray, far different from the healthy, bright pink Odin’s had been when he was born. Rather than flail around, her limbs hung floppy and limp, and her thin chest did not rise or fall. Her body showed no signs of life. From the moment she’d arrived into the world, she was already gone.
Rob shook his head. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Rob, I need your help up here!” Nick heard Dani call out suddenly. “She’s crashing!” He looked back at Lauren, who was still unconscious. “I’ve lost her pulse. Starting CPR…”
“No!” Nick cried, watching, with a sickening feeling of deja vu, as Dani leaned over Lauren, laced her fingers, and began compressing her chest. He felt like he was about to pass out himself. “Come on, baby,” he begged Lauren. “Come back to me!”
Her last words echoed in his head: How could you leave me like that?
“I’m here now,” he told her. “I’m right here. Stay with me.”
“Stand back, please,” said Rob, gently pushing Nick aside. “Give us room to work.” Nick wondered what he had done with the baby, before he noticed Rob wheeling the red crash cart to the side of Lauren’s bed. “She has a shockable rhythm,” he said, and out came the defibrillator paddles once again. “Charging to 120… and clear!”
Nick cried out as the doctor pressed the paddles to Lauren’s chest. Standing behind him, he couldn’t see much except her legs twitch when the shock of electricity was applied. But when Rob backed away, replacing the paddles on top of the red cart, Nick was startled to see that the body on the bed wasn’t his wife at all. Instead, he was staring down at himself.
His mouth dropped open in dismay as he watched Dani’s hands go back to pumping his own bare chest. His belly rippled with waves from the force of her compressions, yet Nick felt no pain. Shaking his head, he closed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing.
“Come on, Nick!” he could hear Dani calling as she continued to work on him. “If you can hear me, come back to us.”
I want to, he thought desperately, but how can I?
“Open your eyes, Nick.”
When Nick opened his eyes, he was back in his own hospital bed. Dani was hovering over him, her stethoscope in her ears. “Hey there,” she said softly, as she slid the end of the stethoscope down the front of his gown. “Sorry to have woken you up.”
“What happened?” he asked, blinking groggily as he squinted into the bright, fluorescent light. His voice sounded muffled, and he realized the oxygen tubes in his nostrils had been replaced with a mask that covered his mouth and nose.
She smiled. “I was just going to ask you the same thing. Your oxygen sats suddenly dropped, which triggered the monitor, and when I came in to check on you, your heart rate and B.P. were through the roof.”
Nick could feel his heart racing and his pulse pounding in his neck. “I had a nightmare,” he admitted. He knew now that was all it had been. All the sensors and electrodes were still attached to his body, and he could hear the heart monitor blipping steadily in the background. He had never left his bed. Turning his head, he looked across the room and saw that the curtain was wide open, the other bed stripped bare. His wife wasn’t there; she never had been. “Has Lauren called?” he asked.
Dani nodded, holding up her finger. “Just let me finish listening, and then I’ll fill you in,” she promised, pressing her stethoscope to the left side of his chest. “Deep breath, please.”
He inhaled the pure oxygen flowing through his mask and felt his heart rate start to slow down as he let his lungs deflate.
“Everything sounds okay,” said Dani, as she finished examining him and took the stethoscope out of her ears. She looked up at the monitor over his bed. “Your sats are back to normal now. I bet you’re ready to get that mask off your face, huh?” She flashed him a knowing smile, and he nodded, holding his head still while she took off the oxygen mask and slid the cannula back into his nostrils. “There you go,” she added, tucking the narrow tubes behind his ears. “That’s much better.”
Nick nodded again. “My heart didn’t stop that time, did it?” he asked uncertainly, still rattled by the bad dream.
“No, definitely not,” replied Dani, her smile fading to a frown. “Why? Is that what happened in your nightmare?”
“Among other things,” he said, sighing.
She offered a sympathetic smile. “Wanna talk about it?”
He shook his head. “Not really.”
“That’s okay; you don’t have to,” said Dani, as she updated his chart. “I do have one question, though. Have you ever been diagnosed with sleep apnea?”
“What? No,” said Nick. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“Oh, it’s a sleep disorder that causes you to stop breathing for a short time while you’re asleep. It’s actually pretty common, especially in people with heart conditions. That’s why I wondered if that could be what caused your oxygen levels to suddenly drop. It’s something we should keep an eye on, just in case.”
“Great,” said Nick sarcastically - as if he wasn’t already being monitored closely enough. “So… Lauren called?”
“Yeah… I guess she called back last night after I left. Your night nurse, Patrick, talked to her. He told her what happened on Halloween and that you’re doing better now, but still have a ways to go before you’re ready to be discharged.”
“Is she coming here?” Nick wanted to know.
“Um… unfortunately, no, I don’t think so,” said Dani. She perched on the side of his bed, turning her body towards him. “I’m so sorry, Nick. It sounds like Patrick may have given her more information than she needed to know.”
Nick frowned. “What does that mean?”
Dani seemed hesitant. With a sigh, she said, “Well… for one thing, she knows you were with another woman that night.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “Another woman… meaning you? We shared a ride - so what? Nothing happened… besides my heart crapping out on me, anyway,” he added, shaking his head. “Why would he even tell her I was with another woman?”
“She probably wondered where you were and who was there to help you when it happened,” Dani said with a shrug. “But Nick… you don’t remember what happened before that, do you?”
He stared at her. “What do you mean? The last thing I remember is closing my eyes in the car… and then I woke up here.” He had always assumed his collapse must have occurred shortly after he’d passed out in the back of their Uber driver’s Corolla. Only now did he stop to consider the possibility that this wasn't the case. “What else happened?”
Dani bit down on her bottom lip. “Well… we got back to your house, and you invited me inside. I went in - because, come on, when Nick Carter invites you in, you don’t say no - and we drank some more. One thing led to another, and we started making out.”
Nick’s jaw dropped. “What?!”
She winced. “I know. I’m not proud of it either. I mean, Rob and I joked at the bar about you being my free pass, but I never really meant to act on that or anything. I was drunk. We both were.”
He shook his head again, not wanting to believe what she was telling him. Nothing about it made sense. At the bar, he had been so ready to head home, take a shower, and go to bed. He hadn’t felt well. There was no way he would have invited some random woman into his home. But then he remembered how hot she had looked in that sexy little zombie nurse number… and how lonely he had been.
He looked up at Dani. With her petite body, short blonde hair, and dark brown eyes, she was physically different from Lauren in almost every way. She reminded him more of his last serious girlfriend before Lauren, who had turned out to be just another fame-seeking gold digger. He had been at the lowest point in his life when he’d hooked up with Julie - and here he was, back in that same place now. The drinking may have pushed him over the edge, but if he really had cheated on his wife, then he’d officially hit rock bottom again. “Is that all we did?” he asked Dani, desperate to hear her say they hadn’t gone any further than first base.
She shook her head. “You couldn’t stand the taste of my zombie makeup and wanted me to wash it off.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper as she went on. “We ended up taking a shower together… and that’s where we had sex.”
His heart sank. “Are you sure?”
She let out a sardonic laugh. “I wish I wasn’t. Believe me, it would be nice to be able to forget all about that night. Not that it wasn’t amazing, or that you weren’t amazing - because you were...” Nick allowed himself a tiny smirk. “...until you went into cardiac arrest right after climaxing.” The smirk quickly faded, as Nick’s mouth fell open in horror.
“Oh my god… That’s how it happened?!” He shook his head, feeling his face flush with humiliation as he pictured himself collapsing in the shower. “So the whole time the paramedics were working on me… I was bare-ass naked?” He thought about the poor woman he’d watched die without dignity in the other bed and realized his own brush with death must have been even more indecent than that. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much, after everything else he’d been told, but it did. Even now, he felt oddly exposed.
Dani shrugged. “Trust me, it happens more often than you’d think. Usually it’s much older men who drop dead during sex, though.” She paused and shook her head. “I’m sorry... that probably sounded really insensitive. My point is, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You were in the middle of a medical emergency; no one was thinking about the fact that you weren’t wearing anything. If it helps, I did cover your bottom half with a towel before the paramedics arrived.” She winked at him, and he blushed even harder, his cheeks burning with shame. “But honestly, Nick, it’s not a big deal - they see this kind of thing all the time,” Dani insisted. “In fact, they usually have to cut people’s clothes off to get the access they need. You made their job easy!”
Nick knew she was trying to make him feel better, but it wasn’t working. To him, it was a big deal - and an extremely embarrassing one, at that. He wished he had never asked Dani about that night. Now he could barely look her in the eye.
“At least you were unconscious,” she added. “I answered the door in a towel, and I only had time to put on my underwear and your t-shirt before I hopped into the back of the ambulance, so I showed up in the ED looking like a half-drowned whore.” In spite of his humiliation, Nick couldn’t help picturing her in a skimpy pair of panties with his plain white t-shirt tied in a knot above her navel, the thin fabric clinging to her wet skin. He had to suppress a smile as she went on. “Patrick was working that night; he’s the one who helped me get cleaned up and changed into some scrubs before Rob saw me. That’s how he knew what happened.”
“So your husband doesn’t know?” Nick asked.
Dani shook her head. “No. And he can never find out. Promise you won’t say anything to him?” She looked at Nick with pleading eyes.
He raised his eyebrows. “You mean, the way your friend Patrick told my wife we hooked up?”
“He didn’t tell her we hooked up, per se,” said Dani. “I think she figured out that part for herself.”
Nick sighed. “Great. Just fucking great. Now Lauren’s got another reason to leave me.”
Dani frowned. “I thought you left her.”
“Why, did that come out in her phone call with Patrick too?” Nick snapped.
Dani’s eyes widened. “No! Not that I know of. I just meant… well, you were here by yourself on Halloween, and she was home with your kid, and you didn’t seem to know what he had dressed up as or anything. I just assumed you were separated.” She shook her head apologetically. “I’m sorry. You know what they say about people who assume…”
He shrugged. “It’s all right. I guess, technically, we are separated,” he admitted. It hurt to hear himself say those words out loud. “But I still love her,” he added quickly. “I didn’t leave her - at least, not this time. She kicked me out.”
Dani looked at him with sympathy. “I know it’s none of my business, but I’m being nosy anyway. Why did she kick you out?”
Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s a long story. You know about the baby, right?”
Dani nodded, still looking at him with those sad eyes. It was the same look he and Lauren had gotten from the sonogram technician who hadn’t been able to find their baby’s heartbeat… the doctor who’d told them their daughter had died in the womb… the midwife who had helped Lauren deliver her… and everyone who had offered their condolences afterward.
“We lost her right after I got back from Europe at the end of June,” said Nick, a lump rising in his throat. He swallowed hard before he went on. “We had two weeks to grieve together before I went back on tour. Lauren and I argued about whether or not I should go. She thought it was too soon, but I felt like I needed life to get back to normal, and I didn’t want to let the guys or our fans down by cancelling dates. I tried to convince Lauren to come with me, but she wasn’t ready. She basically gave me an ultimatum, telling me if I left, I was not to come back. I accused her of being dramatic and trying to make me choose between my career and my family, which wasn’t fair.”
Dani shook her head. “Everyone grieves differently,” she said softly. “She shouldn’t have put that kind of pressure on you.”
“Yeah, that’s what I told myself too - that we each needed time and space to grieve in our own way. But what she really needed was me… and I wasn’t there for her. I went on tour. So in a way, I guess I did leave her.”
“She could have come with you,” Dani pointed out. “It was her decision to stay home just as much as it was your decision to leave.”
Nick smiled sadly. “You don’t have to defend me,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a shitty thing for me to do. I know that now. I shouldn’t have gone, but at the time, it was what I thought I needed to do. I thought it would help me to be on the road, to be busy, but it just made everything worse.”
Once he had started opening up to her, it was hard to stop. The words flowed from his mouth like floodwater, and Dani absorbed every drop.
“Lauren basically stopped speaking to me, unless it was about Odin. I was depressed and lonely, so I slipped back into my old bad habits and started drinking again. It was the only way I could sleep at night,” Nick explained, and Dani nodded, as if she understood. “I’d have a few at each after party so it would look like I was having fun, then go back to my bus and keep drinking by myself until I finally fell asleep or passed out, whichever came first.”
He shook his head with regret as he thought back to how he’d spent the summer. It was like the Unbreakable tour all over again. Been there, done that. Why hadn’t he realized what he was doing to his body? He really should have known better.
“When the tour ended,” he continued, “I called her bluff and flew back home. I went straight from the after party to the airport and took an early morning flight from Newark to Vegas. When I showed up at the house, I was hungover, I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, and I was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. I’m sure I looked like shit.” He let out a sigh. “Anyway, Lauren took one look at me and told me to turn around and leave before Odin saw me like that. She wouldn’t even let me come in. So I spent like a week in a hotel, trying to convince her to take me back... and when that didn’t work, I came to Key West.”
“Wow,” whispered Dani, staring at him with wide eyes. “I don’t even know what else to say, except I’m sorry about everything: the baby… Lauren… us…”
Nick shook his head again. “Thanks, but you don’t have to be sorry. If anything, I’m the one who should be apologizing for putting you in that position.”
“You didn’t do anything except invite me in,” said Dani, shrugging. “I could have said no. I could have said no several different times, but I never did.” She slid off the edge of his bed and stood next to it instead. “I’m a grown woman, Nick. I make my own decisions. What happened between us that night was as much my decision as it was yours.”
He nodded, grateful to hear her say that. The last thing he needed was another sexual assault accusation, on top of everything else he was already dealing with. “I just wish I could remember making that decision,” he replied with a frown. “Was I really that drunk?”
Dani shook her head. “I don’t think it’s from drinking so much as oxygen deprivation. Memory loss is pretty common after a cardiac arrest - I mean, you only lost a million or so brain cells that night.” She gave him a wry smile. “It’s a miracle of modern medicine that you’re even awake and able to talk to me right now.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “I guess it’s a good thing I invited you in, then.”
***
