Page 2 of Own the Eights Maybe Baby
She’d been in the bathroom, peeing on pregnancy tests, for the better part of the morning. This was not even close to what she thought she’d be doing the day after they’d returned from their honeymoon. She met her husband’s gaze, then glanced down to see their dog, Mr. Tuesday. Concern welled in his doggy eyes with one ear poised and alert, looking at her in much the same way as Jordan.
“Georgie, babe, that was the twelfth positive test,” Jordan said, maintaining his calm demeanor. However, he couldn’t completely hide the hint of trepidation when he and Mr. Tuesday shared a knowing glance.
Even her literary trifecta—Lizzy Bennet, Jane Eyre, and Hermione Granger, the three imaginary characters she’d consulted and confided in since she was a girl, were ready to throw in the testing towel and accept what was right in front of them.
She craned her neck and maintained her perch on the potty, trying to see if any pink and white boxes were left on the bathroom counter.
This was not an easy feat.
“There should be one more, right?” she asked.
Jordan and Mr. Tuesday shared another knowing look.
Men!
Once her husband had made thebaby-in-the-ovenbaggage claim proclamation, she did what any woman in her situation would do.
Shop.
Despite being exhausted from their long flight, she’d insisted they stop at the drugstore on the way home. She’d slid an entire row of pregnancy tests into their basket along with several packs of Winterfresh gum, a carton of pineapple juice, a deck of playing cards, a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, and eight grab-and-go Slim Jims to draw the clerk’s attention away from the more sensitive items—like how she always bought a handful of ChapSticks when purchasing tampons.
Stealthy, huh?
Georgie’s shoulders slumped.
Who did she think she was? A possibly pregnant Houdini?
In her defense, Winterfresh breath was never a bad thing.
Jordan looked over his shoulder. “Yep, there’s one test left.”
One test.
One more shot at putting this pregnancy scare behind them.
It wasn’t like she didn’t want children…someday. She loved children. Well, she loved having them come into her bookshop, enjoyed suggesting picture books to their parents, and adored introducing older kids to the classics.
But she was an only child, and her extent of child-rearing knowledge revolved around fiction.
She didn’t have a clue about the non-fiction nuts and bolts of what to do with a child, let alone a baby.
A baby?
A wave of anxiety, thick with unease, welled in her chest. But she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a thread of excitement woven through the fabric of frayed nerves. As she sat on the toilet seat, it was as if she were strapped into a roller coaster, the cars clicking up the track, then coming to a halt, motionless for barely a breath, dangling inches away from the first terrifying drop.
“I’ll need that test and some pineapple juice STAT!” she blurted—a touch more forcefully than she’d expected.
Why was she talking like a soap opera doctor?
She held out her hand, waiting for Jordan to pass her the test, when the man pulled the travel-sized hand sanitizer she’d purchased from the drugstore from his pocket and squirted a glop into her palm.
“You’ve been handling a lot of pee covered plastic.”
There’s a sentence she’d never expected to fall from her husband’s lips.
She rubbed her hands together. The man wasn’t wrong. Peeing on twelve pregnancy test sticks did take a level of finesse she hadn’t quite mastered.
He shared another look with the dog. “I called your gynecologist’s office. They can get us in for an appointment later this morning.”
