“This is a mistake.” Poppy got down off the bed and grabbed her purse from the cabinet in the corner and pulled out her phone. AJ stood as Poppy repeated, “This has to be a mistake.”
The nurse glanced at AJ and then back at Poppy. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I just need to…I’m not. I can’t be…” Poppy walked out of the exam room without another word.
AJ followed her. Instead of heading back the way they’d come, they were walking towards elevators at the other end of the ER. He wanted to ask where she was going, but he had a guess, and if he was correct, they would definitely be finding out tonight if they were going to be parents.
Never in his life did he think he’d be in this situation, and if he was, he thought he’d be panicking, but that couldn’t be further from what was happening. The only thing he was focused on was Poppy. As long as she was healthy, then everything else didn’t matter. So if she was pregnant, then…all that meant was he was gonna be a dad.
23
“There it is.”Steph pointed to the screen, where a pale gray, kidney-bean-shaped figure hovered in a dark pool of static. “That is your baby.”
There was a squiggle, a rhythmic thump. Steph froze the image and turned the monitor so Poppy could see it better, as if that would help her comprehend the surreal.
The last time Poppy was in that same room, her friend told her that there were other options. Now, Steph was telling her, “That is your baby.” Poppy kept staring at the screen, trying to see more than just a pixelated blur, as if by force of will, she could recognize her own child.
“I don’t understand…” Poppy’s voice felt jagged in her throat. “I thought… you said… everyone said.”
Steph clicked and measured. She didn’t look away from the screen. “I know. The odds were low. Less than one percent.” She spoke in the calm technician’s tone she used for delivering news both good and catastrophically bad. “But you’re here, and it’s there.” She circled the shape with the cursor, labeling it: Crown-Rump Length, 13.4mm. “So this is where we are at, the next few weeks…”
Poppy was listening to her, trying to absorb the information her friend was telling her, but she just kept staring at the screen in disbelief.
Stephanie’s explanation blurred into bullet points after saying the pregnancy was high risk because of her medical history. She listedallthe things that could go wrong, she did not sugarcoat it, but she ended on a high note, “But for now, this looks right on track. Perfect, actually.”
For so many years, this was all that Poppy wanted. From the time she was eighteen, she’d been working to start a family of her own. When she finally gave up, when she finally cried uncle, it was happening…? Well, at least the children part.
How was that possible?
A loud beeping sound went off on Steph’s pager, and she removed the internal wand and then checked it. “I have to go. My patient is at ten centimeters.”
Poppy nodded. “Yeah, go.”
“Are you okay?” Steph removed her gloves and printed out the ultrasound. As she handed it to Poppy she asked, “Do you want me to come back to talk after?”
Poppy looked at the image in her hand. The first official photo of her baby. “No, I’m going home. I have someone waiting.”
Steph’s mouth twitched into a sly smile, the kind she used when she’d just diagnosed someone with a terminal case of love-sickness. “Would that someone happen to be the dark-haired, dimpled man with golden eyes and an air of authority pacing in the hallway that has every nurse on this floor tripping over their tongues?”
Poppy almost laughed, but then she snapped back to reality. She thought of AJ’s face at the prospect of domesticated life. He had the kind of logic that ran on rails, unyielding, but his eyesalways betrayed him, amber and hungry and soft in the rare moments he let his guard down.
He didn’t want kids. He’d made that clear on several occasions. She’d told him that she couldn’t have kids. And she was pregnant. He wasn’t really a gray-area sort of guy. And this was about as gray as you could get.
“That would be him.”
When she’d called her friend as she and AJ left the ER, she was relieved to learn Steph was at the hospital already because she had a patient in active delivery. She’d told Poppy to put on a gown and wait for her in her exam room. Poppy asked AJ to wait in the hall, claiming it was because she was going to be getting undressed for the internal ultrasound.
The truth was she was terrified at his reaction.
“Is he the dad?” Steph whispered, although there was no way AJ could hear her.
Yes. Yes, he was. Not only was he the only man Poppy had slept with in the past year and a half or so, but the date showed she was eight weeks pregnant, meaning the bean growing in her tummy was conceived on the night of AJ’s mom and Liam’s dad’s wedding.
“It’s complicated.” She didn’t want to get into it. Technically, he was a one-night stand who had made it clear he never wanted children.
“It always is.” Steph gave her a quick hug before heading out of the door. She opened it, but before leaving gave her friend one more piece of advice. “If you’re feeling dizzy, make sure there are no cement planter boxes around.”
“Got it.”
