Mr. Big Love (Mr. Big 2)

I laughed.

“Why not next weekend? Do we really need to wait a month? We could do all the planning and just invite my family and our close friends to the beach house.”

“Are you sure about this?” Alexa asked, her voice sounding hesitant.

“Never been more certain of anything in my life.

“You’re not mad at me that I got pregnant before we got married?”

“Those were my boys swimming to your egg, my love. I’m fifty percent responsible for this little predicament.”

She smiled and relaxed in my arms. “I guess you are just as irresponsible as I am.”

“I guess. But let’s not get our hopes up until we see that little blue line in the test stick. You might actually just have the stomach flu.”

“I might,” she said, and we lay in silence for a few moments, both of us thinking about the prospect either way.

“I’ll go get a test as soon as I have a shower and get dressed.”

“Okay.”

I kissed her and then got out of bed. Part of me hoped she was pregnant and that soon, we’d be a family and one of those three bedrooms would be used as a nursery instead of a spare bedroom. Excitement built in my gut that we might be getting married sooner than I had initially imagined.

Chapter Twenty-One

Alexa

I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.

Luke had a shower and dressed quickly, seemingly eager to get a pregnancy test from the drug store down the street from the hotel, so we could find out if we were going to be parents.

It was early September. If I was pregnant, it would mean I had conceived about twenty-one days earlier, when we had sex without protection the night we didn’t use a condom.

I couldn’t lie to myself – I felt stupid. I should have said no, and made Luke get up and go to the drug store to get more condoms, but I’d been lazy and

in the mood. Both of us had been irresponsible.

If I was pregnant, everything would change. I’d stop drinking right away and would console myself with non-alcoholic beer and wine. I’d have to start prenatal vitamins. If I had morning sickness every day, I’d have to rethink my schedule. I had morning classes and my seminar later in the afternoon, so I might have to change that depending on how my morning sickness went or I’d be running to the washroom on campus during class.

We’d get married right away. That would mean my parents would have to fly out as soon as possible. Like next weekend. I’d have to find a dress, but everything would be scaled back due to the short timelines.

It would be a small wedding. Just family and a few friends.

I rubbed my belly, thinking about the tiny embryo that may have implanted there. So many pregnancies ended before they really began due to natural causes, so even if I was pregnant, there was still a high chance that the embryo wouldn’t implant. In fact, most conceptions never made it to the implantation stage. I’d read that fully forty to sixty percent never implanted, disintegrating before implantation, or were flushed out with the woman’s next menstrual period or sometime after. It was much more likely that I was not pregnant, even if Luke’s boys made it to my egg and fertilized it.

I wasn’t sure what I hoped the outcome would be.

Luke said we planned on having a family, but my plans were to finish my PhD first and then have a baby. I couldn’t imagine having to go on campus and do research and be a new mother at the same time.

Since I couldn’t know, I decided to just wait to find out and was determined to accept either outcome with no complaints either way.

In about twenty minutes, Luke returned with a bag from the drug store in hand. He came right into the bedroom where I was still in bed and sat on the side.

“Here you go,” he said. “You should do it now.”

“Okay,” I said and took the bag in hand. “Right now?”

“Right now,” he said, and I thought I could detect excitement in his tone.