“Okay,” I laughed out, and headed upstairs, surprised when no one followed directly behind me. Not that I thought they wanted to watch me pee, but I figured they would be too excited to stay downstairs for the wait. I ended up taking two different brands of tests out, set them on the counter, read the instructions, and then went about the task of sticking each test in my urine. I capped them off and set them back on the counter with the result windows face up. For some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off the damn tests. I was seeing the sticks, but zoned out at the same time. A knock on the bathroom door finally startled me out of my nerve-induced trance.
“Hey babe, you okay?” Instead of answering, I reached over and opened the door. Steel glanced from me to the counter and back again. “Results up?” He asked as he took in my oddly startled appearance. I just shrugged.
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked yet. Not really.” I’d been staring at the end caps of each test, not the results window. Steel pulled me into arms and kissed the top of my head for the bazillionth time today.
“Do you want to look together?” How freaking sweet could this man be? I nodded my head and he turned us back to face the two tests. We both leaned in a bit, and I finally allowed myself to see as he hugged me tighter to him, having already seen the results. One test had a clearly defined pink plus sign while the other had the single word, ‘pregnant’ displayed in the window.
“Holy hell!” The words were a whisper on my lips. “I guess no one can accuse of us of not jumping into this marriage thing with both feet.”
Steel chuckled. “You okay, babe?” I looked up into his gorgeous silvery eyes then, and beyond to the smile that was crinkling up a few faint lines at the corners. He was happy about this. Just seeing that made everything suddenly okay.
“Yeah, are you though?” Okay, maybe not just seeing it. I really did need auditory confirmation.
“Babe, I told you, I love you. When Jenn told me she was pregnant…” he blew out a breath, and I suddenly felt sick just hearing those words, even though I knew it wasn’t his. “I was sweating bullets and felt trapped, because it was the worst possible scenario. It’s different with you. Even if you decide you hate me one, five, or ten years from now, I know you’ll be a damn good mom. I’m not worried in the least. Honestly, I’m excited.” He placed his hands over my belly again, like he had earlier in the day. “I can’t wait to see this grow, and feel the baby we made moving in there.” His voice was low and held nothing but sweet reverence as he spoke. Maybe everything I’d been through that felt so crappy over the past few years had brought me here, to him, to this moment of complete acceptance. I wasn’t normally a fatalist, but it would make all the bad things worth it if they were pushing me here.
“Never, in a million years, did I think my dad’s stupid stipulation was a good thing. Not until this moment.” I didn’t even realize tears were rolling down my cheeks until Steel began to wipe them away.
“Come on babe, your best friend is anxiously awaiting our news.” We left the tests sitting where they were and headed in Keys’ direction.
“Well?” She asked excitedly before be even got down the last couple of stairs. I just nodded my head and then smiled the biggest damn smile I’d ever had grace my face. “Oh my God! I can’t believe it! I’m going to be an auntie!” Keys threw her arms around me tightly and squeezed. “Now, I’ll have to convince Quick to knock me up so our kids can be best friends too, or maybe they’ll get married one day.” She clapped her hands together excitedly about her own plans while Steel doubled over with laughter.
“He’s going to have it out for me when I see him again,” Steel admitted. As soon as Keys stopped hugging me and stepped back, his arms were back in place around me, pulling me up close to his warm, muscular body.
Keys waved off Steel’s comment, and just beamed at me for a minute. Then she looked up at Steel. “Thank you!”
“For what?”
“For doing whatever it is you do to make her look this damn happy. It’s been a long time coming and I’m so glad to finally see it.”
“That is something I never need thanks for,” he told Keys. “I’m going to clean up this mess and give my dad a call.” Steel moved to pick up all of our lunch mess that still littered the living room, while Keys grabbed my hand and dragged me outside.
We sat on the old porch swing, listening to the groaning complaints of the somewhat rusty chain links as we enjoyed the mid-September breeze. “I can’t believe you’re going to have a baby. I bet you never saw this outcome when that dumb lawyer told you about your father’s stipulations in his Will.”
“No, I sure didn’t. I’m damn thankful for my dad’s quirky decree now though. I always understood why he did it, because of the idiots around here. Hell, the business is doing phenomenally right now, and that’s due in part to Steel’s work, as much as having the fact that he’s my husband on my side. People are assholes. My work should have been able to stand for itself.”
“It should have,” she agreed.
“Yeah, but at least everything seems to be working out.” I sighed. “Except for the bullshit with Angel and Sweet, and now Steel’s mom.”
“Don’t you let any of them ruin your happy moment. They can all just kiss my ass, because I’m not letting them close enough to yours until they can act right.” Her fierce protectiveness of me started to make my eyes water again. Damn it. “Aw, don’t cry, sweetie.” Keys pulled me into a side hug as we continued to swing gently back and forth.
“Sorry, stupid hormones keep making me cry like a girl.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, JoJo, but you are a girl.” Keys snickered as she said it, and I couldn’t help joining in.
“Have you seen Angel and the baby lately? I might be mad at her, but I’m still worried too.”
“They’re both doing great. Angel has thrown herself into mommy mode and it’s honestly the sweetest thing to see the three of them together as a family. Granted, the bitches from the RC are jealous as hell of that scene,” Keys joked. “I think when they all first met Sweet they each imagined themselves landing him for their own.”
“I guess it’s easy to look beyond all the shit Angel had to go through to get that though.”
“Well, most of them don’t know everything anyway. Nosey bitches keep speculating though. Hell, I even heard one of the whores at the Aces clubhouse guessing that Angel stole the baby from somewhere.” We both cringed then. “Angel and Legs weren’t there to hear that were they?”
“No, thank God. She wouldn’t have walked away if either of them had heard that.” Rightfully so too, because Legs had her daughter kidnapped by her ex, and she was still searching for her. Kidnapped baby jokes would not go over well with any of our crew. Which begged the question.
“What did you do to her?”
Keys grinned. I just shook my head while I waited for her to answer. “Let’s just say the next time she gets pulled over, she’s going to have a hell of time getting out of all those tickets.”
I giggled. “That’s mean,” I told her.
“Mean would have been if I had placed a warrant for her arrest. Twenty unpaid parking tickets is nothing,” Keys stated waving it off as trivial. I did not ever want to get on my best friend’s bad side.
“How are you feeling about your news?”
I smiled up at her. “Honestly?” I asked knowing she wouldn’t want anything less. “I was worried when it first dawned on me what might be happening.” I rolled my eyes. “After my husband had to throw me some hints. I can’t believe he knew and I missed it,” I laughed. Keys just grinned at me. “Anyway, I panicked at first, because all I could think was that I’d only married a month. We literally met, got married, and got pregnant within days.”
“I can see where that might induce some jitters.” She eyed me carefully. “But?”
“But…” I started to say, and couldn’t help the grin that bloomed on my face. “But then there’s Steel, and his reassurances, an
d him telling me he couldn’t be happier that I was going to be his baby’s mom.”
“He told you he loved you too,” she reminded me of what she’d obviously overheard.
“Yeah, there’s that too,” I whispered dreamily.
Keys patted my leg. “You know your dad would be real proud of himself for how this all turned out.” She laughed.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s gloating to momma right now, and she’s rolling her eyes at him.” That thought made me smile.
Chapter 10
Steel’s mother, Carol, never did come back the next day to offer up an apology, or anything else. She was apparently summoned home to deal with the repercussions of going against direct club orders. Apparently, all of the old ladies, girlfriends, club whores, and of course the club members were given the word that Jenn was banned from the club and that they were to have nothing else to do with her. She wasn’t just banned, she was shunned from Aces High MC. That basically meant she’d done something so unforgivable that they were to treat her as invisible. I understood why, considering the woman had slept with not only Steel’s once best friend and brother, but had also slept with, and been knocked up by, a prospective member of the club too. Well, he was no longer with the club now. At any rate, whatever was going on with Carol up in the Dakotas kept her from putting her nose any further in our business here in Georgia. For that, I was thankful.
It had been eight days since my pregnancy drama-bomb day, and we were getting ready to head to my very first baby-doctor appointment. I’d already calculated that I would be due sometime in mid March, but I guess the doctor would confirm my theory and who knew what else. Times like these, it really sucked not to have my mom around. Surely, she would have told me all about what to expect for a first visit. Then again, times were changing, so maybe she wouldn’t really know. I could always read up on it with Google or a book, but it’s just not the same as having your mom hold your hand and tell you it will all be just fine.
“Hey babe,” Steel started to say something else, but stopped when he saw what I was wearing. “Why are you wearing leathers?”
“I always wear them when I ride.” Duh! I wanted to add that last thought, but left it out as not to seem childish.
“Um, I thought we were taking the truck?”
“It’s a gorgeous day. I thought we’d take the bikes, or you could ride bitch on mine if you really want,” I teased. His face fell into the picture-perfect example of abject horror causing me to laugh. “Just kidding. I was hoping to ride with you though. Do you know my daddy was the only man I ever road on the back of a bike with? He made me learn to ride so I’d never have to trust an idiot to drive me around. That was how I caught the racing bug so young.” I smiled at the memory while Steel just continued to stare at me.
“Babe, I’d feel more comfortable driving the truck until I can ask the doc a few questions.”
“What questions?”
“Like if it’s safe for a pregnant woman to ride on a bike, JoJo.”
Well crap, I hadn’t really given that any thought. I wasn’t even showing yet, so it couldn’t do much harm really, could it? Tears stung my eyes as I thought about how I was already failing at this mom business. “Come here, baby.” Steel pulled me into his arms, tucking me up against him.
“Now I feel guilty for not thinking of that,” I admitted as I sniffled.
“It’s hard to think against habit. I’m pretty sure it would be fine, but just to be sure, we’ll check first, okay?”
We arrived fifteen minutes early to my appointment and I had to sit through the receptionist stammering over herself as she eye-fucked my hot-as-hell husband. I was standing there, holding out my insurance card, while she just stared at him for a solid minute before I slapped my hand down hard on the counter in front of me. Thanks to my short stature the counter was already breast high on me while Steel was visible from damn near the waist up. The woman startled and took the card from me before asking me for my husband’s information so she could process the claim.
“It’s my insurance, under my name, you don’t need his information for that.”
“Well, you’ll have to add it to your file anyway if you want him to have access to test results, and whatnot without you being here or on the phone.”
“He’s here, with me now,” I snipped out as the woman glanced over my shoulder to look in the waiting room beyond. She gave me a knowing smile then.
“Let me guess, he’s nervous and parking the car?”
She was being serious. My jaw went slack as I glanced from her to Steel and back again. “You’ve been eye-fucking my husband for the past ten minutes,” I finally huffed out. Steel drew his lips in tight, clamping down on them from the inside to keep from laughing as the receptionist turned bright red, wide-eyed, and strangely enough, almost O-faced with embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize,” she offered. “Neither of you were wearing wedding bands.”
“Not everyone wears a wedding ring. We’re mechanics. It’s dangerous.” I huffed out yet another sigh. “Besides, your behavior was completely unprofessional. If he wasn’t here with me, chances are, he was here with, or for, someone else since this is a doctor’s office for WOMEN.”
The girl again seemed properly chastised as I snatched my insurance card and went to find a seat in the waiting room.
“Cynthia-Jo? Is that you?” A woman off to my right called out. I glanced over and felt even more annoyed. Bernice Jacobs had been after my father from the moment the dirt began to cover my momma’s coffin, and probably before that. Luckily for me, my father was never interested and she never got to become my step-mare. That was a term coined by my high school friend for her nightmare of a step-mother.
“Bernice,” I acknowledged.
“I thought that was you,” she cooed. “How have you been? Did I hear right that you said this fine young man was your husband? Well, congratulations! And are you two expecting? Of course you are! Why on earth would you bring a man to a lady doctor visit otherwise?” I just stood there, staring as she finally took a breath. She’d pretty much answered all of her own questions, so I didn’t bother addressing anything.
“Romeo Briggs,” Steel offered as he stuck out his hand to Bernice. She accepted as she tittered over his name.
“Romeo, indeed. You found yourself a fine one here, Cynthia-Jo. Don’t you let Lou-Ann over there bother you none. She flirts with every man through that door.” Bernice made a tooting sound. “You’d think she purposely goes after the taken men for some reason. Maybe because she’s not having any luck finding one on her own, so she has to poach.”
“Cynthia-Jo,” the nurse called from a door leading back to the doctor’s actual office and the exam rooms. Thank fuck!
“Well, gotta go,” I said as I moved away from Bernice.
“It was nice meeting you, Bernice. You have a good day now.” Steel called out as he followed behind me.
“Seriously? You’re going to be a perfect southern gentleman to the biggest gossip this side of the state? Hell, probably this side of the country.”
“Hell yeah, JoJo. Let her have an old lady crush on me all she wants, babe. While she’s talking about how nice I was to her, people will clue in to my connection to the garage.” He winked at me then. “Free advertising.”
I laughed, as did our nurse. “Bernice out there looking for the scoop again?” She shook her head and laughed. “I know I shouldn’t say this, but that woman either has more lady troubles than a whore in the big city or she has the hots for Dr. Mac.”
“Oh hell!” I laughed. “She used to try to get my dad to check under her hood after he checked under her car’s hood. I swear, he finally told her to buy a new damn car if that one was giving her so much grief.” The nurse laughed louder then.
“If your dad told her to buy a new car, I wonder what the good Doc is going to have to tell her?” Steel mused.
“You two are awful,” the nurse deadpanned before continuing on.
“I love it!” Our nurse, Stacey, was an older woman. She reminded me a lot of what I remembered my mom to be like, and probably around the same age too. That was a comforting thought for me. “Okay, sweetheart, I’m going to need you to pee in this cup for me after I get your weight. Then you’ll come back in here, undress from the waist down, and we have these little blankets you can use to preserve your modesty while you wait.”
“Somehow, I think modesty probably goes out the window with pregnancy,” I muttered.
“You are not wrong, sweetheart.” I groaned at her response, took the cup, and went to fill it up for her.
When all the preliminaries were finally worked out and Dr. Mac finally showed up, he did so while wheeling in a portable machine with him. It looked like an old fashioned computer on a wheeled desk with some gadgetry attached. “Well, Cynthia-Jo.”
“Call me JoJo, or Jo, please.” The doctor smiled and made a note of that in my chart.
“Can I also get dad’s name for the records?”
“Romeo Briggs,” my husband answered proudly, understanding immediately what the doctor just slipped out. “So, I guess the test confirmed things?”
Dr. Mac grinned at both of us. “Congratulations, you definitely have a baby on board.” I couldn’t even groan at his bumper sticker style delivery. “Now, we’re going to take a quick look at things. This will help us get a better picture of how far along you are.”
“I’m pretty sure I got pregnant on our wedding night,” I mentioned. He smiled, looked at the chart in front of him, and then looked me in the eye.
JoJo (S.H.E Book 2) Page 13