Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head.
I’m on my knees instantly, pulling her chin toward me. “What’s wrong?” My tone’s demanding, something I rarely have to use and hate using with her.
“Nothing.”
“Clearly, it’s something.” I look around at the tests on the floor. Leaning over, I pick one up. The digital readout says pregnant. Another one shows the right number of lines. “Did you take all of these this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Peyton sighs. “I dreamt last night that yesterday was a dream, that I actually wasn’t pregnant and when I woke, I started to wonder.”
“So, you spent the morning in the bathroom? Peeing on sticks?”
She nods.
I sit down next to her and wrangle Stevie Nicks in the gap I’ve created to keep her corralled. “This is normal,” I tell her. “I read about it in one of the books or magazines. Women take multiple tests, so you don’t have a false positive. Were all of them positive?”
Peyton nods and a smile begins to form. “Yes.”
I can’t help but smile. “Want to know what I said moments ago to our pup?”
“What?”
“I asked her if she wanted Daddy to carry her upstairs. It hit me square in the chest—we are parents to her even though she’s a dog—and in nine months, we’re going to be parents to a baby boy or girl, and then someday within how many ever months it takes, they’re going to call us mama and dada. Babe, we have new names.”
“You’re a goof,” she says as she pushes on my leg with her hand. “But you’re my goof and I love you.”
“Speaking of names . . .”
“We have time,” she says. “Grandpa and I talked when we were all at my parents. He said I shouldn’t feel obligated if we have a boy to name him Mason. I pointed out that Mason might be a name you want for your son though.”
I go quiet, remembering the last time I saw my uncle. I was ten but other than that, my memory’s fuzzy. The night he died, it had been raining all day and I remember asking Mason about my game the next day.
The next day, Mason was gone.
And then I met Liam.
I clear my thoughts and try to disguise my inner musings by clearing my throat.
“You okay?” Peyton asks softly. I nod.
“I’ll be honest, I hadn’t really thought about him in a while.”
“I know. It’s been so long, and I don’t really remember him.”
“You saw him though.”
Peyton nods and I say nothing. She believes she saw him while in a coma, and I believe her. It’s not my place to discount what happened to her.
“When do you get your first ultrasound?”
“I’ll call them on Monday to let them know the test was positive. They’ll probably have me come in to have my blood drawn and then it’ll be at the six-week mark, but we won’t see much.” She holds her fingers up about a quarter inch apart. “The baby will only be this big. I’ll have another one somewhere between the sixteen and twenty-week mark. We can find out the sex then.”
I let out a long sigh. “Twenty weeks?”
She nods.
“Are you worried about multiples?”
Peyton shrugs. “The chances are high. Honestly, I love my twin. Our bond is—”
“Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I’d be okay with having twins.” This time I’m the one pushing my leg into hers.
Stevie Nicks whines, getting our attention. Or Peyton’s. She pulls the pup into her lap and starts petting her. Within seconds, her little doggie eyelids flutter closed.
“Do you want to find out the sex of the baby?”
“What a tricky question.”
“Why?”
“Because if I say yes, then you’ll say yes and vice versa.” Peyton nods toward the sleeping dog in her arms, who’s snoring. “She’s so cute.”
“She is. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Noah. I’m already in love with her.”
“She’s going to be best friends with the little bean in your belly.”
“Bean?”
I shrug. “I want to call him or her something. It seems so callous just to refer to it as ‘it’ or ‘the baby’ and makes me think we don’t already love them. I think someone should invent a pee test that tells you the sex of the baby now and not at twenty weeks.”
“Are you saying you want to know?”
I look at her. Her eyes are hopeful. “Yeah, I want to know, and I want to have one of those gender reveal parties.”
“You just want to have a party.”
Her phone rings, waking the pup. “It’s Elle,” she says and then answers it. “Hey. Yeah, okay. I’ll have to go in anyway. Yep. Bye.” Peyton hangs up and looks at me. “Elle’s going to start her shots on Monday.”
“She doesn’t have to wait for whatever cycle?”
Peyton shakes her head. “I guess not. She just asked me to go with her.”
“If she gets pregnant soon, the babies will be very close in age.”