Page 60 of Not My Finest Hour

“I’m sorry for barging in on you, and if you don’t want me here, I can leave,” he says, pulling up a chair next to the exam table.

“How did you know I was here?” We haven’t talked since that night, and I sure as heck don’t post my whereabouts on social media, so how did he find out? Did he go to my workplace and Kim told him where I was? That doesn’t seem like something she would do since that’s infringing on my privacy.

“I’ve been feeling so shitty since that night, and you didn’t deserve the way I acted. You’re right. My career choiceisan unusual one, and my past relationships shouldn’t have factored into the way I treated you. I’ve been thinking about how to make it up to you, and I went to your house this morning to try and catch you before you went to work. I had a whole speech worked out, and I brought flowers and chocolates, and I was prepared to give you the world if necessary.”

“The world, huh? How were you planning to do that?” I ask with a grin.

“I hadn’t worked that out yet. But your sister was there, although she was on her way out the door, and she told me where you were.”

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” With his dress slacks and button-down shirt, he’s dressed like he was on his way there.

He takes my hand in his. “Some things are more important,” he says, then kisses the top of it. “I really wanted to be here with you throughout this whole appointment, and I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

“Is this part of your speech? If so, I feel like you could’ve done better.”

He smiles, sensing that I’m just messing with him. “The moment your sister told me where you were, that whole speech went out the window. I was more concerned with getting to you in time. You deserve to have someone supportive by your side, and I want to be that person. I hate being apart from you, and I hate that my schedule doesn’t afford us more time to be together. But it’s not going to be forever. In a few months, I’ll have more time on my hands and more time for us. Can you hold out until then?”

“I hate being apart from you too, and I’d love to spend every spare moment you have together. But I also understand that that’s not practical, and it’s not fair of me to ask that of you. You’ve worked so hard to get where you’re at, and the last thing I’d want to do is jeopardize that. So yeah, I can hold out until then,” I say, unloading all the things I’ve been wanting to say since that night.

Justin presses a soft, tender kiss to my lips and when he pulls away, he looks up at the ultrasound screen. “Am I too late? Did I miss seeing our baby?”

I shake my head. “She hadn’t even started yet.”

“Good. I want to go through every step of this together. I love you, and there’s no one else I’d rather embark on this journey with.” He’s gazing so intently at me, it’s like those blue eyes of his are seeing all the way to my soul. “That was part of my speech, by the way,” he says with a playful grin.

My entire body fills with warmth. This marks the first time he’s said he loves me. “You love me?”

“Of course I do. I get that the way we met may not have been conventional, and this pregnancy wasn’t planned, but I don’t care about all that. We would’ve gotten there eventually, so we’re just getting a little bit of a head start.”

I rise up and press my lips to his. He palms the back of my head, keeping my lips against his, making me forget that I’m in a small, dark ultrasound room and my belly is still very much exposed. When we break apart, it’s only so I can tell him the words I’ve been waiting to say. “I love you too.”

The technician knocks on the door, then opens it to stick her head in. “Can we begin the ultrasound?”

“I’m ready if you are,” I say.

She smiles and resumes her position in her chair. Justin stays beside me, holding my hand while she preps the area again. She places the transducer on my pelvic area, moving it around until she finds exactly where the fetus is.

“And there it is,” she says, pointing to an area on the screen. It’s nothing more than a blob at this point, no bigger than a kidney bean. But it’s our kidney bean. “And do you hear that?” She’s quiet for a moment, allowing for a soft, rhythmic thumping to fill the void. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”

“Sounds like he’s got a strong heartbeat,” I say without thinking.

Justin doesn’t miss it. “He?”

I shrug. “I just have a feeling.”

Epilogue

This is the worst possible time to be having a baby.

It’s the first week of December, and the whole city of Seattle is coated in a sheet of ice. No one can get anywhere. Our baby isn’t due for a couple of weeks, but of course, this is the time he decides to show his face.

It turns out I was right about the gender of our baby. We’re having a boy, and while I can’t wait to meet him, I would’ve preferred for him to come on a day when the roads weren’t slick like glass.

I can’t get comfortable, despite the sweatpants and sweatshirt I’m wearing. I’ve been doing laps around this house for hours, and I’ve probably worn a path in the floor by now.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?” Justin asks, looking concerned. He’s been up with me since very early this morning when my labor started. While all I’ve managed to do is laps around the house, he’s taken a shower, gotten dressed, and packed our things for the hospital. “They have the means to get here and get you to the hospital even though we can’t.”

Luckily, the father of this baby is an ob-gyn who now practices on his own along with Dr. Tarlton and his team. So if there’s anyone who’s capable of delivering this baby at home, if it comes to that, it’s him.

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