Shatter (True Believers #4)(21)
Author: Erin McCarthy

I frowned. That was a little personal. “I’m not sure. Not today. I don’t think. What time is it anyway?”

“It’s seven.”

“Oh.” I closed my eyes again, fatigue overcoming me. It was like when I’d been given anesthesia for my wisdom teeth removal. You wanted your eyes to stay open, but they drifted closed anyway.

He shook me a little and I tried to swat at him but I had a hard time lifting my arm. It was like I was underwater.

“Take a sip.”

A straw was shoved into my mouth. I took a sip and swallowed. It felt good in my mouth. Cold and sweet. It soothed my throat going down. But then it hit my stomach and it went horribly wrong. I jerked to move the straw and threw up a dribble of pink smoothie and foul-smelling bile right down the side of my mouth and onto the mattress where it puddled under my elbow. Sexy times. That was me.

“All right, we’re going to the ER. This is not normal.”

“I’m not normal?” I asked.

“You shouldn’t be this sick. And you’re either going to be dehydrated soon or you already are.”

I watched him go into the bathroom then he reappeared with a wet cloth and wiped my mouth and face with it. Ah, that felt good. Then he rifled through my dresser until he found a big sweatshirt. Helping me into a sitting position, he pulled off my sweaty tank top and replaced it with the sweatshirt. He put my Uggs on my feet over my socks and then he lifted me up into his arms.

“Put your hands around my neck,” he told me.

I did, leaning against his chest, too exhausted to protest that he didn’t need to do this. That I didn’t need the ER. “You smell good,” I murmured, his scent the only thing that hadn’t clogged my nostrils and made me want to hurl in the last week. “Clean.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Even in the midst of morning sickness the chemistry of attraction applies. Because I was just thinking that you are absolutely beautiful.”

“You’re just saying that.” I sighed. “I’m a mess.”

“I don’t say anything I don’t mean. Where is your purse?”

“I don’t know.”

He bent over and I held on. He grabbed something off the kitchen counter and then we were out the door and down the stairs. The cold air outside felt good and even though I was shivering when he set me in the front seat of his car and clicked the seat belt over me, I actually felt a little better. More alert and less sick to my stomach. When we got to the ER two blocks away, he carried me into the lobby and answered all the questions as they checked me in. I leaned on his shoulder, and then I stretched across his lap as we waited. His thighs were warm and his knee made a perfect resting spot for my hand. Jonathon stroked my head, his fingers working through my dirty hair gently.

Relaxed, grateful that I didn’t have to think, that he was thinking for me, I fell asleep.

* * *

It wasn’t until the nurse had Kylie hooked up to an IV that the panic started to recede. The way she had looked when I had gone into her room, all clammy and waxy, her hair dull, her eyes dark, skin bruised, had scared the absolute shit out of me. For a minute, I had the horrible thought that she had miscarried and she was depressed, but then I could smell the sour odor on her clothes and see how disoriented and nauseous she was. Thank God I’d been reading up on the first trimester. I knew that sometimes women get an aggressive form of morning sickness and need medical attention, and I was damn glad I had ignored my concerns that maybe I was overstepping by showing up at her place without an invite.

But I had been worried. I couldn’t help it. This shit was all brand-new to me, and it seemed that knowing I had a cell-dividing zygote independent from myself was as capable of fixating my attention as kinetics. The last two weeks had been hell, absolute hell. It had been clear Kylie was feeling rough and I didn’t know what to do about it.

Just knowing they were pumping electrolytes into her made me feel better.

“We’re going to do the ultrasound now,” the nurse told Kylie. “Is it okay if your boyfriend stays?”

I chewed on my fingernail, feeling awkward and very aware of my sperm-donor status. It wasn’t worth correcting the boyfriend assumption, but I still felt like a fraud. Kylie didn’t answer the nurse’s question.

“Is this when you do the wand thing on my stomach?” she asked.

“It’s vaginal,” the nurse told her, already moving a cart with some equipment over to the bed. “It’s too early for the tummy.”

“What?” Kylie looked horrified. “How . . .”

The nurse held up a wand.

I knew that’s what she meant by vaginal ultrasound, but seeing the wand was another thing altogether. I wasn’t sure how appropriate it was for me to be seeing that disappear somewhere I wasn’t all that well acquainted with myself.

“Maybe I should go,” I said, inching backward in my hiking boots.

“No. Don’t go.” Kylie reached out for my hand.

Well, f**k. How was I supposed to say no to that? I would just look at the screen not the nurse. I pushed up my glasses and stepped up next to the bed and took her hand. I massaged her palm with my thumb. “You feeling better?” I asked her. She had more color to her cheeks.

“I’m okay.”

The nurse had helped put Kylie in a gown and now she draped a sheet over her knees. When the nurse’s arm disappeared under there, Kylie winced and shifted on the bed. I winced, too.

“That’s not really all that comfortable,” she said, giving me a nervous look, her hand squeezing mine tightly.

“Just relax,” the nurse reassured her. “Look at the screen.”

I looked at the screen and I had no idea what I was looking at. Presumably Kylie’s uterus, which was a f**king freaky thought.

“See that flickering right there?” The nurse pointed to the screen. “That’s the baby’s heartbeat.”

“No shit, really?” I said, before I could stop myself. “Sorry. But . . . whoa.”

“Whoa is right,” Kylie breathed. “It’s so tiny and fast. It’s amazing.”

It was amazing. More impressive than splitting an atom. That was our baby on TV.

It changed everything. It changed my fear of the future to a quiet awe and excitement. It changed my view of that passionate night in Kylie’s cramped and dark apartment that it had been a mistake to the idea that maybe this could be one of the best things to ever happen to me. I was going to be a father.