Page 22 of Break

Brenton Evans:Let’s wait for your bloodwork to get in, I want to know what’s causing the swelling first.

I blow out a slow breath before grabbing my purse and heading down the hall to knock on Dr. Patterson’s door.

“Come in!”

I smile as I walk in and sit down in the chair in front of his desk. He’s happy, smiling widely. Like always. I don’t think anything can piss this man off. “Hey, I had my first appointment today… The doctor wants to wait for my test results from my blood and urine to come back before he approves me to go out on the ice. Turns out there’s more than one cooking in there, too…”

He coughs and shakes his head. “Yeah, forget it, Marie. You’ll come to the rink with me but only I’ll go out on the ice. You can stay back, work on them from the benches or in the locker room. How’s that?”

I nod and stand back up. “Wonderful. Please let me know when Annika needs help at the second location, I would prefer not to be anywhere near James for the time being.”

He narrows his eyes at me and glances down at my stomach. “Are you ever going to tell me why?” He points at my belly with his eyebrows raised. Obviously that wasn’t very subtle.

I narrow my eyes back at him. “Don’t ask questions that you don’t actually want the answers to, old man. See you on Monday. I’m on-call this weekend.” I wave and head out to my car and drive straight home instead of stopping at McDonald’s like I’m craving to.

A massive burger just sounds amazing. With extra American cheese and onions. And fries. A large fry.

I park in the garage, making sure the door closes before heading in. The girls are racing up to me from the living room and peppering me with questions. I hold up my hand and step back.

“Let me fire up the smoker, I’m craving a burger. One of you chop up a salad, the other, make some hummus to have with some carrots and celery.”

They groan and shuffle to the kitchen while I head out to the deck and check the smoker to see if I need to add more wood chips and start to heat it up.

By the time dinner is ready and we’re seated at the table, the girls are wiggling around in their seats.

“Okay, shoot.”

“Can we start coming to your appointments now? Can you make them later in the day? You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

I smile at Caroline and nod. “Fine. But only if you guys swear to not tell James until I’m ready… Like when I go into labor and want to curse him out or something.”

Caroline rolls her eyes and sighs, “You know he’d be there for you, Marie. You’re being stubborn… but you have us. We’ll help you with the babies as much as we can.”

I shake my head. God, no. I am not going to force them to be parents like James and I were at such a young age. “No you won’t. You’re going to focus on school, and I’ll start looking for a nanny in a few months to start the interview process ahead of time. Everything will be fine.”

I force them to talk about school as we finish up our meal, and I wave them off so that I can clean up to clear my mind. The mundane tasks of scrubbing and cleaning dishes, the kitchen, and dancing around to the music pouring from my phone’s speakers is helping me feel better.

I’m going to start showing in the next few months, or weeks. James is going to find out eventually, and I need to come up with a lie in the meantime.

I’ve had some fun with his teammates, Nolan especially. Now that Landon and Logan are both either married or in a serious relationship, I stepped back and stopped dating all together and was focusing on work. Nolan deserves a woman that loves him completely, and I think I’ll always be hung up on James.

Especially when we lived together, we saw each other every day. Talked and texted constantly.

Then the night with James happened and now I’m swearing off men forever. And ever.

Did I mention no more men?

I can ogle Brenton, but I’m his patient and pregnant. And I know his parents. I live in their damn house.

Plus a man that good looking can only be one of three things: unavailable, gay, or a player. I wouldn’t have minded having fun with him if he wasn’t my doctor, or the son of the wonderful couple that owns this house.

Or pregnant.

Damn it. Why am I even thinking about any of this? I need to watch some mind-numbing television and get my mind out of the gutter. There’s no way another man is touching me for a very long time.

I dry off my hands and head down to the living room and sigh as I sit on the couch. My whole body just feels so sore and tired all the time.

“Any plans this weekend?”

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