My phone rings and I press a button my steering wheel to answer. “Yeah, hello?”
“I’m almost to the doctor’s office, are you there yet?” Xander asks.
“No, I’m on my way, though.”
He breathes out a sigh of relief. “Okay, good. I might beat you there, then. I’m close. Coach was being a pain in my ass and didn’t want to let me leave practice early.”
“Xander,” I sigh. “I don’t want you to get in trouble in work.”
He growls over the phone. “This is one appointment I’m not missing. Don’t even try to argue with me about this.”
I laugh. “Okay, okay. I want you there, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t want to put you in a bad place.”
“It’s fine, Thea. I’ll see you in a few.” His tone softens.
“Bye.” I hang up and exit off the highway.
Ten minutes later I pull into the lot of my doctor’s office and park by Xander. He’s already standing outside his truck, leaning against the door.
I hop out and meet him. He bends and kisses me, smiling.
“How was work?” he asks.
“Fun. It’s only been a week, but so far I like it. Laurel, the owner, is really chill.” I shrug. Xander I haven’t really talked too much about my job. He’s been busy with football season and tired when he’s home, and, frankly, I know he’s not too happy about my working so I think he’s choosing to keep his mouth shut because he doesn’t want to piss me off. He understands why I want to work, but he also wishes I didn’t want to.
He puts his hand on my waist and guides me inside. I sign my name to check in and we sit down.
The sight of all the pregnant women and baby-covered magazines doesn’t send me into a frenzy anymore, so at least I’m making progress.
“Thea Kincaid?” they call, and we hop up.
We follow the nurse back to a room. She takes my blood pressure, checks my weight, and makes me pee in another dang cup. Seriously, what do they do with all the pee they collect?
Once all that’s done, we wait for the doctor.
I touch my hand to my chest. “My heart’s beating so fast,” I tell Xander. “I’m so nervous.”
He grabs my hand and holds it in his. “Don’t be.”
There’s a knock on the door and then Dr. Hawkins steps inside. “Howdy, kids. How are we today?”
“Good,” I answer.
He sits down in his swivel chair and looks over my chart. “How’s the sickness?”
“Still pretty bad,” I answer. “In a way, it’s better, because it’s not as often, but it happens at the most random of times. I notice lately it’s more related to smell than food. Like, the other day I sprayed my perfume and it hit me wrong.”
“Hmm.” He clucks his tongue. “If it gets much worse I can prescribe you something to help with the nausea, but if you think you can do without it, that’s better.”
“I’d rather not take it if I can help it,” I tell him honestly.
He nods. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss before we start?”
“I think I’ve been feeling the baby kick for about two weeks now, but Xander still can’t feel it. Is that normal?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing to worry about. What you’re feeling is probably like little flutters, right?” He waits for me to nod. “So, it’ll probably be another week or two before they’re solid kicks and then he’ll be able to feel it on the outside. Don’t stress about it. Every pregnancy is different.” He claps his hands together. “All right, lie back and roll up your shirt.”
I do as he says, revealing my rounded stomach. It’s still small, but there’s definitely a baby in it. Xander, unable to help himself, reaches over and rubs my stomach. His hand is large and when he spreads his fingers he’s able to cup almost my entire stomach.
His dark eyes flick up to mine and he smiles.
I smile back.
I wasn’t on board with this whole baby thing. Heck, I’m still scared. But seeing my husband look at me like this makes me fall more in love with him and gives me hope that this is going to be okay.
Dr. Hawkins squirts the goo on my belly and pulls out his magic wand.
At least that’s what I call it.
He flips the screen toward us and the baby looks back at us.
“Look at the little legs.” I point, and you can see the baby kicking them around.
The doctor takes some measurements and snaps some photos. He presses another button and the heartbeat thunders through the room. It’s so strong and fast sounding.
I glance over at Xander and he has his left hand pressed to his mouth, looking in awe at the screen.
I thought, maybe by now, it’d get old but it still feels awe-inspiring each time.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Xander asks, looking from the screen to the doctor. “Do you know?”
Dr. Hawkins smiles. “You want to know? I can tell you.”
“Yes!” we both shout simultaneously.
I hold my hand out to Xander and he takes it, squeezing it.
Dr. Hawkins smiles. “It’s a girl.”
“It’s a girl?” I gasp. “Are you sure?” Tears begin to fall, and I’m helpless to stop them.
“I can tell you with one-hundred percent certainty that it’s a girl. Look right there.” He points at the screen between the legs. “That right there means it’s a girl.”
I glance at Xander and find that he’s crying too. “Xander,” I breathe. “We’re going to have a daughter.”
He leans over and cups the back of my neck, drawing my lips to his. He kisses me deeply, our tears mingling together.
“This is real,” I tell him.
He wipes my tears away and smiles. “So real.”
We’re having a little girl.
I would’ve been happy with a boy too, but a girl … I don’t know, it feels right.
Like she was always meant to be a part of our family. This wasn’t how or when I wanted to have a baby, but things don’t happen unless we’re ready for them, and we must’ve needed this little girl.
“Thank you,” Xander murmurs, rubbing his thumb over my forehead.
“For what?” I ask as the doctor finishes.
“For making us a family.”
My throat closes up.
A family.
Our family.
Xander, Baby, and me.
Xander
We head out of the doctors’ office, both of us still kind of in awe.
I’ve known for weeks, two months, actually, that I’m going to be a dad. But it’s one thing knowing that and another actually visualizing your child.
A little girl.
A little girl who can be and do anything she wants to do.
It’s a beautiful and amazing thing.
I walk Thea to her car. “Do you have to go back to work?” I ask her.
She shakes her head and pushes a piece of light brown hair out of her eyes. “No, Laurel gave me the day off. What about you?”
“Coach gave me the rest of the day off.” I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans, looking down at the glossy ultrasound photo Thea holds. It has an arrow pointing between her legs saying IT’S A GIRL. “Should we go around and tell everybody?” I ask. She shakes her head and I raise a brow. “No?”
“Well, I mean, I want to tell them, but let’s make it fun.”
I tilt my head to the side. “What do you have in mind?”
“You’ll see.”
Twenty minutes later, I find myself at a party supply store, strolling the aisles, while Thea calls everyone and begs them to come over to our place for dinner.
She hangs up from her last phone call and looks up at me. “Everyone can be there by seven, so we’ll reveal the gender and have dinner.”
“And what kind of dinner are we having?” I ask, raising a brow. I doubt we have enough food for a meal that feeds all of us.
She waves a hand dismissively. “We’ll order pizza. It’ll be fine.”
I nod along with her idea. “Pizza works.”
It’s easy enough to feed a bunch of people pizza. Everybody loves pizza.
“Okay, so what are we doing?” I ask, leaning against the cart as I push it.
“I think we should get one of those really big black balloons and fill it with pink confetti and pop it.”
I think over her idea. “Yeah, that sounds cool and easy enough.”
“I thought so too. It’s too short notice to do like cupcakes or something, and I don’t want to wait.” She vibrates with excitement so I believe her. She’s smiling from ear to ear. It’s the first time through this whole pregnancy that I’ve actually felt like she’s happy about it.
We head to the counter and order a gender reveal balloon.
The guy working the counter looks like he’s barely in high school. He’s tall and scrawny with acne. He moves in slow motion and it’s obvious he hates his job.
After a ridiculously long amount of time, we finally get our balloon, and I’d be praying it was indeed filled with pink confetti if I hadn’t seen him do it, but it’s a miracle he didn’t mess it up. The kid acts so flustered about everything.
We head out of the store and kiss goodbye, since we’re in separate cars and head home.
We still have hours until dinner, which sucks, because I just want everyone to know.
I’m going to have a daughter.
It’s so fucking crazy and exciting.
I can’t wait to be able to hold her, and tell her I love her, because I do.
It’s so crazy to me that I can already love someone I can’t see. It doesn’t matter, though. She’s half me and half Thea, so she’s already perfect.
We arrive back at the house and Thea immediately grabs her laptop and blanket, getting fixed on the couch.
“I want to look at nursery ideas,” she tells me.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask, Prue jumping up and down in front of me, trying to get my attention.
“Pink, duh.” She rolls her eyes, and I chuckle. I should’ve known.
Thea loves pink the way some people love coffee—like it’s necessary to her existence.
While she daydreams about cribs and who knows what else, I head outside with Prue.
I jog down the deck steps and into the yard, with her bouncing at my heels. I find her ball and start throwing it back and forth so she can run and burn off some energy.
I haven’t been playing with her enough, and I feel bad about that. I’ve been tired after practice—Coach is playing us hard. He’s determined to get a Super Bowl win this year since we didn’t make it last year. I get it, we all want it, but the work to get there is tiresome. And soon, I’ll have to travel for games and I’ll be gone even more. I love what I do, but for the first time in my life, I have a reason to want to stay more. Not that Thea wasn’t enough of a reason before, but it was different. She wasn’t alone then. Now she is, and pregnant. It worries me, which isn’t good. I need to focus on the game, and that’s going to be difficult.
After about thirty minutes of playing, Prue is tired. We head inside, and she jumps straight up on the couch, curling up beside Thea. Thea reaches over and absentmindedly rubs her head. I smile to myself, because that’s two of my three girls. I’m surrounded by girls now, and I couldn’t be happier.
I grab a bottle of water and sit down beside Thea.
“I’ve already ordered ten outfits,” she tells me.
I raise a brow. “Seriously? That many?”
“I can’t help myself, everything is so cute.” She shrugs. “Plus, I got a onesie that says Tutus and Touchdowns for her to wear to your games so she can support her daddy, so I was totally thinking of you while I was shopping,” she reasons.
I clear my throat, a little hung up on the word daddy. Hearing it come out of Thea’s mouth is strange, but I love it.
I’m a dad now. It’s pretty crazy to think about. For years, I only had to think of myself, then Thea, and now this little girl is going to be dependent on us to take care of her.
“Look how cute this is.” She points to a crib on the screen. “I love everything. I don’t know how we’ll ever decide.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually.” No way in hell am I picking out that stuff. She’ll tell me I got the wrong thing. This is all her.
“There’s so much we have to get. It’s insane,” she rambles. “We need a crib, and a changing table, a rocker, stroller, car seat, and oh, my God, the diapers. We’re going to need so many diapers.”
I lean over and kiss the side of her head, closing her laptop as I do.
“One step at a time, just breathe for now.”
She smiles up at me gratefully and leans her head on my shoulder.
“We’re really having a baby,” she whispers. “This is happening.”
“Yeah, it is.” I move my hand to her stomach and I feel a little jolt like a tiny heartbeat.
“Did you feel that?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I nod, my eyes meeting hers.
She grins up at me, tears in her eyes. “That was the baby. She’s kicking.”
My mouth parts in shock. “Are you serious?”
She nods again. I roll off the couch and drop to my knees, cupping her stomach in both hands.
I feel the little bump again and I grin up at Thea. “That’s amazing. Wow.”
Nothing, no experience, compares to this one. This right here is what life’s all about.
“Hi, baby.” I lean forward and press a kiss to Thea’s stomach and look up at her. “Are we going to tell them the name?”
She shakes her head. “No way. They’ll hate it, and then we’ll doubt it, so we’re not telling them until the ink on the birth certificate is dry.”
I laugh, she’s right though, I’m sure they’ll all hate it. The name we picked is … different, but it’s us.
The doorbell rings and I reluctantly pull away from Thea. I just want to stay here all day feeling the baby.
I head to the front door, Prue barking at my heels. I open the door and let Thea’s mom and James in.
“Hey, Lauren. James.” I hug Lauren and shake James’ hand, and then guide them into the house. “Thea’s in the family room.” I point.
Since they’ve arrived I decide to go ahead and order the pizzas, figuring it’ll take at least an hour for them to be delivered.
I make the call and it isn’t long until Rae and Cade show up.
“Hey, man.” I greet Cade with a handshake and fist bump.
Cade and I were inseparable growing up. Always running around, playing football, and getting into trouble. Now we barely see each other. That’s life, though. You grow up and move apart. I married his sister, so it’s not like I can actually get rid of him.
Not that I’d want to.
Soon, everybody’s arrived—Jace and Nova, my parents, and even my sister, Alexis. My brother, Xavier, is already back on the east coast finishing up his last year at Yale. The smarty pants.
“Is the pizza here yet?” Thea calls out. “I’m starving. Growing a human is hard.”
“Should be here any minute,” I call back, opening the refrigerator so I can get everybody drinks.
My mom sneaks up behind me. “Is it a boy or a girl? I promise to act surprised.”
I shake my head. “Nice try, Mom, but you’re going to have to wait.”
“Ugh,” she groans. “I’m your mom. I should have dibs on knowing what my grandbaby is.” She frowns, truly put out.
“Yeah, if I tell you Thea’s going to make me sleep on the couch for the rest of my life.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “That’s a small price to pay.”
“Easy for you to say.”
The doorbell rings again and I go to get the pizzas.
It should be said that ordering enough pizzas to feed this many people is an expensive business. We should’ve just gone out for that amount.
“Food first, and then we’ll pop the
balloon,” Thea tells everybody, pointing to the black balloon I tied around the kitchen chair.
“I think it’s unfair that you guys already know and we’re the ones being surprised. I thought the point of a gender reveal was for the parents to be surprised,” Jace comments, grabbing a box of pizza from the top of the pile I hold.
“I don’t know whether I should be impressed, or horrified, that you know what a gender reveal is.” I chuckle.
Jace shrugs. “I’m full of surprises.”
I set the rest of the boxes on the kitchen island and flip up all the lids.
“Dig in,” I call, and step back to avoid the stampede.
Thea’s the first one to grab a piece, and she’s already stuffing it in her mouth before she walks away.
I finally manage to get a piece. It isn’t long until most of the boxes are empty and we’re all stuffed.
“Can you please pop the balloon now?” my mom asks, vibrating with energy. “I want to know.”
I tilt my head at Thea and she looks back at me, nodding.
I grab a knife from the drawer and hand it to her. “Would you like to do the honors?”
She shakes her head. “No, you do it.”
“All right, all right. Can everybody see?” I ask, grabbing the balloon string and pulling it to me.
“Yeah, we’re all good,” my dad calls out, grabbing my mom’s hand. My sister stands to my mom’s right and everyone else is spread out around them.
It makes me happy that despite how busy everybody is, they dropped everything to be here for this moment. Our daughter is already so loved and she doesn’t even know it.
“Three, two, one,” Thea and I count down.
I puncture the balloon and nothing happens.
I poke it again.
“What is this thing made of? Steel?” I mutter.
I poke it again and it pops with a loud explosion, showering us in pink confetti.
Everyone lets out hoots of joys and my mom bursts into tears, Thea’s mom too, so no surprises there.
“Oh, my God, a little girl.” My mom holds her arms out to me for a hug.
I squeeze her tight, and when we pull away, I tug a piece of confetti from her hair.
When Constellations Form (Light in the Dark Book 4) Page 18