It was true. Since school was back in session and Sam was busy with several new projects, we'd been running in every odd direction, all the time, and we were savoring this one, glorious weekend of relative calm. Riley was out of town with a college friend's bachelor party weekend, and the firehouse was remarkably quiet.
I loved the never-ending family festivities, but I also loved Sunday morning snuggletimes. I was as shocked as anyone to discover that I liked the chaos, noise, and clinically manic levels of over-involvement in Sam's family, but I'd always assumed big, bossy families made a habit of kicking their own to the curb. That wasn't how the Walshes rolled, and now I understood that.
"You can have me all to yourself at the movies," I said. "Or that new brunch spot, the one that puts a fried egg on a donut."
"Oh, that's right up my alley," Sam groused. "But I'll remind you, we can also stay in bed all day. You've been so freaking busy that you're too tired for anything more than me eating your pussy. I haven't had a proper blow job in three months."
I sat up, suddenly concerned. "Are you mad?"
Sam scowled, shaking his head. "Of course not. You love having a million things going on at once, and I love that every one of those things makes you happy. I have no idea where you are at any point in the day because your schedule is too complicated for me to follow, but blow jobs are a small price to pay for your good spirits."
I rolled my eyes. "Your poor, neglected cock."
He lifted up the blankets, nodding between his legs. "You're welcome to make amends."
Ileanedagainst the bathroom counter while I brushed my teeth, bringing my face close to the mirror, and ran my finger over my upper lip.
The fine, dark hairs always appeared above my lip every month or so. Ellie always said it wasn't particularly noticeable and I shouldn't stress about it, but I noticed. I always envied the women who had only a light dusting of peach fuzz on their arms, and the ones who could go entire weeks without shaving their legs and not look like a gorilla.
The girlstache wasn't bad, but keeping it in check was half the battle. Reaching into a drawer for the crème bleach treatment, my eyes landed on an unopened box of tampons. I remembered exactly when I bought them because I grabbed some chocolate-covered marshmallow pumpkins in anticipation of my premenstrual chocolate requirement, and then commiserated with the cashier about the Halloween festivities starting in early September these days.
It was the middle of November now.
Nope, nope, nope. Not happening. It's just not happening.
I dropped the toothbrush and darted into the bedroom for my phone, ignoring Sam's curious gaze as I snatched it off the side table. He was still tucked into the blankets and sheets, shirtless and scrolling throughThe Boston Globeon his iPad. I didn't need to see the tablet to know; it was his weekend routine.
With the door shut behind me, I pulled up the fertility app on my device. I'd stopped marking my basal body temperature every morning, and I was long past monitoring my cervical fluid, but I still tracked my periods.
My hands were shaking, and I kept tapping the wrong icon.
"It's nothing," I murmured to myself. "Nothing at all. No reason to freak out."
When the calendar finally opened, I scrolled through October, September, and August, and then back over each month as if a string of red dots would magically appear and scold me for daring to think that it'd happened for us.
Even without that damn tea recipe from my great-grandmother.
Pushing away from the door, I returned to the drawer with the bleach and tampons. Nestled far in the back was a package of pregnancy tests, one that I'd picked up last winter when I was a week late. Fate was kind enough to wait until I'd gotten home from the pharmacy for the unmistakable cramps to start low in my belly. I'd shoved the box away, out of sight, allowed myself some pity and chocolate.
I tore the box open, tossing aside the directions and grabbing one of the test sticks with trembling hands. "It's going to be negative," I said, shoving my sleep shorts down. "Totally negative."
When I was finished, I set the test on a shelf and washed my hands while humming Lupe Fiasco's "The Show Goes On," all while pretending I wasn't going a little crazy waiting for three minutes to pass. The hopeful anticipation was the worst. Those milliseconds, when visions of baby blankets and little toes and being someone'smotherstretched on like small eternities, flashed over and over until I started believing it could be real.
I wanted to know, but I didn't.
At the end of the last chorus, I lunged for the linen shelf. I was working so hard at bracing myself for another negative that I didn't trust the double plus signs or the big, bold letters screaming "pregnant."
"False positive," I murmured, dumping the remaining tests on the countertop.
I peed on four more sticks, and watched with a combination of shock, confusion, and terror as every single one registered the same result. Lined up on the countertop, they formed a low roar of "pregnant, pregnant, pregnant, pregnant, pregnant."
It wasn't clear how long I stood there, staring at the tests with my fingers pressed to my lips, but I jumped out of my skin when Sam called, "Everything okay in there?"
I opened the door and leaned against the jamb, my arm banded under my breasts. He was still in bed, still shirtless and sleep-rumpled, and I smiled.
"What?" he asked. He patted the empty space beside him, his eyes a little drowsy, a little heated, a little hungry. "What's the smile about?"
I pulled my lip between my teeth. "I think I'm, uh," I stammered. "I think I'm pregnant. I think we're having a baby."
