The Own Goal ✔️

Part 56

I'm woken by the noise of someone in the room. I open my eyes and there's a young male nurse checking over Mia, I sit up slightly on Jack's lap and realise at some point someone has put a blanket over us.

"Is she ok?" I croak.

"Yeah, she's going to be sleepy for a while yet, she's quite dehydrated, I think our best bet is to get a feeding tube into her now and I've just increased her fluids......don't change any nappies without letting us know how wet they are"

"Thank you"

He looks past me to Jack. "I did wonder if she was related to him, I didn't realise he had a daughter"

Jack stirs behind me "s'up?" He mumbles pulling his arm out from around me to stretch up.

"Alright?" He asks the nurse, who repeats what he's told me.

"Cheers bud" Jack says as he pushes his legs to bring the recliner down and shifting me so he can stand up.

The nurse looks him up and down. "I'm a blues fan, but I won't hold who her daddy plays for against this little one" he says nodding at Mia.

Jack laughs a deep throaty laugh "maaate ya need a propa team!"

I stand up and follow the nurse out to look for a vending machine and when I return Jack is sitting hunched over Mia, twiddling her curls between his fingers. I stand to the side of the open door and listen to him talking gently to her.

"Sorry I left ya princess, ya seemed ok, daddy wouldn't have left ya if ya'd been ill y'know........but I guess at least daddy was with mommy so got her back to ya as quick as possible, an ya got us both with ya now till ya betta"

I walk in and put the two weak as piss vending machine teas down.
Jack looks so sad. I place my hands on his shoulders and kiss the top of his head.

"She'll be ok" I sit on the plastic chair next to him.

I look at her laying there. "We don't deserve her" I say.

Jack looks at me "I don' think I do"

"We're doing our best, we do ok?"

"Nah, our best ain't good enough"

"Jack you're not blaming yourself are you, for leaving her? Because I didn't realise how ill she was either, I sent her to nursery still!"

"I don't mean that" he gets up and heads to the door.

"Where you going?"

"Me phones been goin' fuckin' mad, I'll call Ben then him and Layla can update everyone, I need some air" I watch him as he walks out, shoulders curved, head down. He looks broken.

I look at my phone. It's dead, I'm assuming it'll be full of messages from Craig.
I don't really feel like talking to him right now anyway.
If Jack talks to Ben it will filter through to Craig via the girls, he is at the same hotel as Sian and Jasmin afterall.

Jack's left his keys on the side. I pick them up, the only keyring he has is a photo of Mia. On one side she's a tiny newborn, on the other she's posing in her nursery photo taken at Christmas. A big cheesy smile and a head full of curls.

Our best ain't good enough

What did he mean by that?

-

Later in the afternoon Karen and Kevin return. Kevin chucks his car keys at Jack, who catches them but looks puzzled.

"You two get home, get cleaned up, have a rest then come back, we'll stay until your back. Chelsea there's a bag on the back seat that Kieras packed for you with some clean clothes"

I look back to Mia, I don't want to leave her, she's still sleeping, she's barely stirred all day and when she does she cries in a horrible high pitched cry feeling so uncomfortable.

Jack gets up, "come on, moms right, we'll both feel better afta a shower"

"I don't want to feel better, I want to stay with my baby!" I wail at him.

"You'll be better to her refreshed" Karen continues.

Reluctantly I allow Jack to take my hand and lead me to his dad's car.

-

At Jack's he sends me up to have a shower first. I go into his room and plug my phone into charge before stripping off and walking into the huge walk in shower.

One of the bonuses of Jack being so vain is his well stocked bathroom. A bonus of his untidiness is that the shower cubicle looks like an aisle in boots.

I'm lathering my hair when I hear a noise behind me "there's a tea in there for ya"

"Thank you" I turn my back to him again. At this point I'm so tired I don't care that he's just brazenly walked in on me in the shower.
But then his arm reaches past me for the shower gel.
I turn.
He's fucking naked in the shower with me.

"Jack?"

"Jus' savin' time by not waitin' for ya"

"There's four other bathrooms up here Jack"

"Yeah, but my stuffs all in this one"

He lathers up and I watch him cup water in his hands before washing it over his face. He lets out the longest sigh.

"Are you ok?" I ask tenderly, which is a stupid question because he clearly isn't.

"That were fuckin' scary wheren't it?"

I nod.

"I hate her being ill"

"Me too....."

We watch each other. His eyes are red rimmed and I feel my bottom lip start to wobble.

He brings his hand up to my face

"Jack....." I start to chastise him, but I don't finish.
Instead I close my eyes, I tilt my face to him. I bring my own hands to his soapy hips and when his lips brush mine I hungrily open mine and run my hand along his spine.

There's no more words. Our bodies just kind of fit together and know what to do.
My hand fitting perfectly at his hip and nape of his neck. His hands fitting perfectly at the small of my back and around my breast....

I gasp into his mouth. Infuriatingly he stops and steps back.
I grab his arm, trying to pull him back.
He turns back to me "condom" he mutters.
"It's fine, I've had a coil fitted"

He's back in a flash and I'm up against the wall, legs wrapped around him and all the upset and fear of the past 24 hours starts to leave us. We move as one, savouring each other, hands in each others hair, laying kisses all over each others faces.
I come moments before him and we continue to stand under the water, wrapped around each other, just holding each other, soothing each other, calming each other. Preparing each other for what we need to go back to.

-

We arrive back at the hospital to hear that nothings changed.

We both look a lot more human, I was touched to discover that the bag Kiera had packed for me had been full of new clothes, two tracksuits and packs of new knickers and socks.

Karen and Kevin are sitting next to each other on one side of Mia, so jack and I take the two chairs the other side.

I notice Karen giving us a curious look and I realise that we walked in holding hands, and when I look down I see that we are still holding hands.