“Do you know what I’ve heard is best for growing babies?”
“A test tube?”
“Getting plenty of mild exercise and lots of bed rest.”
“Mm-hm.” I get into the passenger side of the car, feeling a horrible sense of loss as I stare at the empty hall. My mum’s last fling is over, and for the moment I can’t think how to survive the swelling wave of grief.
Then Caylon gets in the driver’s seat and reaches for my hand, his incredible eyes softening as they stare into mine. The wave peaks and retracts, letting the other emotions swirl in to fill up the gap.
Every day we spend together, my love for him grows stronger, grows into something powerful, uniting. With his support, I’m testing out the feeling of hope for the future. It’s a strange sensation, not something I’m used to or can yet trust, but it feels closer to being within my gasp than ever before.
“So, you’re suggesting we exercise in bed. A lot,” I summarise for him, pulling on my seat belt and adjusting the hem of my skirt.
It’s so long compared to the dresses I usually wear that I’m not sure where to put all the fabric. I roll it over a few times, so it rests mid-thigh, something that I think Caylon approves of judging by the fixed stare. “I think I can handle that.”
“Good,” he says, pulling into the stream of traffic, going against the flow of workers heading out of the city after a full day in the office. “Because if we’re trying for the world’s best parents ever, we’ll need to exercise a lot.”
He leans slightly to my side so he can rest a hand on my thigh, and I cover it with my own, butterflies swarming in my stomach at the thought.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
CAYLON
Ten weeks later
The technician puts so much gel on the ultrasound wand that it feels insulting to Em, who’s perfectly capable of producing her own lubrication for any situation, thank you very much.
Wisely, I keep that thought to myself. Em still has some weird shame muscle that activates any time sex is mentioned in public. Luckily, in private it’s always switched off, but as I’ve already learned, even mild teasing is out of bounds. At least for the moment.
We skipped classes at school today to make this appointment. Although I think we should both drop out, Em insists on maintaining her usual schedule. Since she’s the one who finds it harder to walk those corridors, it would be churlish to let her attend while I stay at home, so I escort her to every class.
She’s talking about taking her first few semesters at university via distance learning, then integrating into physical attendance once we’ve all adjusted to the baby’s schedule.
I’m thinking about stepping up my projects with Stefan. We have money saved—dad’s generous allowance always had surfeit to our needs—but I prefer an income under my control.
At first, I’d refused to work with him again, moving aside to service Baxter Balabanov’s silo in the syndicate instead. The sham arrangement soon fell apart, however. It was obvious who was issuing the orders, and it’s easier to get the instructions direct.
He explained his position—the closest the man ever gets to an apology—and I said I understood. Hell will freeze over before he admits anything more and there’s no use me being unemployed until that happens.
“Will we be able to tell the sex?” Em asks even though I’ve been reading snippets aloud from the pamphlet for long enough she should know the answer.
“Probably not,” the woman says, giving a flat smile that wears around the edges when the machine doesn’t give the right sequence of beeps. “Just a second. We’ve had a few issues with this contraption this week.”
“Have you tried turning it on and off again,” I ask with an innocently bland face. Something that doesn’t prevent Em from slapping me on the wrist and sending a warning signal my way.
“It’s usually… Ah. There we go.”
She turns back to Em and adds another dab of gel to the wand just in case it needed another helping. “Now, I know it’s difficult to relax with your legs in stirrups but try not to tense up.”
It’s a weird thing to ask a stranger before you shove a gigantic machine inside them, but Em holds onto the edges of her grin by sheer force of will as the technician manoeuvres the wand inside her.
“It takes a while for a picture to form,” she says with all the expression of someone reading off a teleprompter. “I’ll just try a different angle and we’ll see… no… let’s try… This looks a bit more hopeful.”
The shadows on the screen merge and reform, looking like nothing more than jumbled static. I stare at Em’s face instead, smoothing a few flyaway hairs as an excuse to stroke her head like she’s a kitten. Something I adore but she has to be in the right mood to appreciate.
A situation usually requiring one less person in the room than we currently have.
“Okay. Can you see the screen alright?”
