Boone slides his hand down her back. “Itisreal, sweetheart.”
She smiles up at him, leaning into his side like she’s taken to doing when she needs reassurance.
We only wait a few minutes before the nurse pops her head out. “Roxanne Hamilton? You can all come on back now.”
Once we’re inside the sterile space that’s much too small for all of us, the nurse dims the lights a little and pulls up the ultrasound machine. Roxie climbs onto the table, tugging her shirt up with trembling fingers.
I step closer and take her hand. She doesn’t say anything, just rests her palm against mine, squeezing lightly. I can feel her pulse racing, but the nurse gives us a friendly smile. “Doc will be right in.”
“Thank you,” I say quietly, stuffing myself into a corner next to the bed to make space for the others, and the doctor, who walks in a minute later with a cheerful smile.
“Good morning,” she says without missing a beat at the sight of three huge men in her exam room. Instead, she just flicks her green eyes to each of us in turn and smiles again. “Are we ready to meet the little one?”
Boone makes a noise that’s somewhere betweenyesandI might throw up. Dillon stands so still he could’ve been carved out of stone. I just nod.
Meanwhile, the doctor gets on with things without gawking at us. The wand touches Roxie’s belly, cool gel glistening on her skin, and the screen flickers to life.
A grainy gray image swirls into view, and the doctor angles her head. “There we are. Hello, tiny human.”
She points at a blotch and smiles as she clicks a few buttons. The view on the screen changes, and suddenly her eyebrows shoot up. “Well, it looks like we’ve got a surprise.”
My heart slams once, so hard it hurts. “What kind of surprise?”
She points at the screen. “Two heartbeats.”
Roxie jolts. “Wait, what?”
“Twins,” the doctor announces, beaming at us. “Congratulations.”
For a second, nobody breathes. Twins. Two babies. Two.
Boone is the first to move, letting out a stunned laugh, breathy and disbelieving at first, then cracking into something softer. He drops his head into his hands.
Dillon whispers, “Holy shit.”
My throat closes up completely. I stare at the screen like I can memorize every pixel and every flutter. Two tiny flickers. Two lives. Two miracles we somehow made in one unexpected, unbelievable afternoon.
Roxie’s eyes fill instantly with tears. “Are they okay?”
“They’re perfect,” the doctor assures her as she clicks more buttons. All sorts of lines and crosses appear on the screen, and she doesn’t seem concerned. “So far, they seem strong and healthy. Everything looks wonderful. Here let’s listen.”
The doctor turns up the dial and the sound of fast, whooshing heartbeats fills the room.
“Nice and strong,” the doctor says.
After a few more minutes, the doctor prints a string of pictures, hands them over, and sends us off to make our next appointment. We walk out of her office together in a communal daze, into snow falling and carols playing, Christmas lights blinking above the street.
Even with the grainy gray images now stuck to our fridge, it still takes a while after the appointment for any of us to fullyrealize the implications of having twins. Those weeks blur into something that doesn’t even feel like real life.
At least, not any version of life I’ve known before Roxie. Everything slows down in this peaceful, domestic kind of way. A protective lull. The calm before… well, twins.
We spend our days running the business and keeping Roxie safe, and our evenings spoiling the hell out of her. If she so much as sighs too loudly, three grown men snap to attention like she’s royalty.
Boone takes over all the heavy lifting around the house. Dillon structures her vitamins and meal schedule like he’s prepping for NASA. I hover shamelessly, my eyes almost constantly on our security monitors while I formulate backup plans for our backup plans.
Every night, one of us ends up massaging her feet while we sit on the couch with some holiday movie playing in the background. Apparently, the entire world has decided it’s Christmas despite the calendar insisting it’s still a month away.
“It’s not Christmas,” I protest for the third night in a row. “It’s barely November. People need to calm the hell down.”
