Looking at me softly, she whispered, “And did it work for you both?”
“Absolutely,” I whispered back. “And look what I managed to catch.” I squeezed her waist.
“Well, on a technicality, it was a lot of whisky and your piercings that did it,” she chuckled.
“This is true,” I sighed dramatically. “Maybe I should go out and buy some designer shit.”
Grinning up at me, she pulled my face down to meet hers. “I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
Rolling her onto her back, I kissed her and thought about where I’d been for almost two years. Lost, drifting, fighting to get the torment inside of me out. Then I’d met her, and Sadie had become an anchor for me when I was going through the worst storm I’d ever been hit by. She grounded me and made me into the man I’d always hoped to be, and hopefully a father who’d give my kids what my family gave me.
I hoped I did the same for her because I wanted to give her that security, that feeling that she was loved no matter what.
The strength to fight every battle.
This time when we made love, it was gentle, it was slow, and it was full of whispered promises and plans. Plans I couldn’t wait to see play out in reality.Chapter EighteenSadieOne week later…
I needed to pee. I think it was an excited pee, though, not a pee because my bladder was full type of pee.
“Pixie, they said you didn’t need a full bladder for this appointment, so you can go to the bathroom when we get in,” Elijah told me as he pulled into a space near the OB/GYN’s office.
“What if they need to test my urine? Then I’ll have to pee under duress, and my bladder gets shy.”
“Then, don’t go to the bathroom.” He made it sound so simple, but I swear my bladder had shrunk to the size of a walnut.
Carefully getting out of the truck, I met him at the front and took the hand he was holding out for me. Tipping my head back, I saw the excitement in his eyes. “Are you ready to go and find out?”
Pulling me into him, he leaned down and gave me a lip touch before guiding me toward the entrance. “Doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl, so long as he or she is healthy and takes after their mum, I’m a happy guy.”
That’s something he’d started doing recently—saying mum instead of mom like he was trying to meet me in the middle of our two worlds. It wasn’t necessary, but I loved that he’d do that for me. Did I care that I spoke differently to people here? Not even a little bit. I had British and American passports, so I was from both worlds, but just raised in the other one. Plus, the only person I’d come across who’d been nasty about it had been Shonelle. Everyone else just accepted it.
And just to thumb my nose at her a little more: garden, aubergine, courgette, to-mah-to, bah-sil, route, coriander, ore-gaahno, aluminium.
Okay, so I was still feeling salty after what we’d found out that she’d done to Elijah, so sue me.
Going from the sweltering heat in the car park—take that, Shonelle!—to the building's air-conditioned interior was like going from hell to heaven. I loved the heat and warmth, something we didn’t get a lot of back home, but I also had a new appreciation for the strength and skills of air conditioning.
Yesterday, Elijah had taken photos of me with my top lifted to show the bottom of my stomach, both standing and lying down. We were going to start doing pictures every week and record the baby’s growth for us to look back on for years to come. I was officially sixteen weeks pregnant, and my tummy looked like I’d swallowed a grapefruit whole. It wasn’t a noticeable bump unless you really looked, but to us, it was the most incredible thing ever.
“Miss Dahl?” the nurse called as soon as we checked in, so we bypassed the pregnant ladies club and followed her down to a room at the end of the hall. Opening the door, she stood back and waved me through with a massive grin on her face. “I hope the baby plays ball today so you can find out. Good luck!” And with that, she was off and skipping down the hallway.
Greeting the woman who was sitting next to the machine, I introduced Elijah and myself.
“I’m Pam Goodwin, and obviously, I’m here to do your scan and meet your baby. Do you want to lie down, lift your top up above your stomach, and then tuck the sheet into your bottoms and pull them down so we can get to your lower abdomen?”
It was a rhetorical question, because who didn’t come here to do that?