When the door shut, and she was alone, Poppy inhaled slowly and deliberately as she looked at the ultrasound printout again. The bean was nothing like she’d imagined, but it was alsoexactly what she’d always wanted. She ran her thumb over the glossy photo until the edges curled.
A huge part of her didn’t want to leave this room, because in this room, in this moment, she was going to be a mom. Once she left this room, left this moment, that wasn’t guaranteed. As Steph pointed out, anything could happen.
Knowing that she couldn’t prolong the inevitable, she folded the ultrasound, placed it in her purse, quickly got dressed, and left the exam room. AJ was, just as Stephanie said, pacing in the hall. She noted that his middle fingers were tapping against his palms. Of course he was panicked. He knew they’d had unprotected sex, and he wasn’t stupid.
“Are you okay? Is everything okay?” he asked.
Poppy nodded, throat tight. She watched for his reaction, but other than looking slightly relieved, he had none, so she began to head to the parking lot. She just wanted to go home.
Her composure was fraying at the edges, a fact she realized he noticed, because instead of pressing her further, he simply started walking beside her, matching her stride, keeping just a half-step behind as if to catch her if she faltered. He did not question when she veered left, away from the main elevator bank and the scattered chaos of the ER intake. AJ offered no commentary as she led them down a quiet corridor, past the vending machines and supply closets, to the service elevator.
The elevator ride was silent, except for the hum of fluorescent lighting and the faint soundtrack of their breathing. Poppy fixed her focus on the brushed steel doors. In the reflection she caught AJ watching her, eyes narrowed with concentration, like a psychic trying to read the future off the crystal ball of her face.
They exited out the service door onto the parking lot. The walk to the SUV was surreal, and Poppy felt as if she was dreaming, she just wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or not. All ofthe risks Steph had just detailed were terrifying, not to mention she’d just quit her job and bought a home, except in the opposite order. She bought a home and then quit her job. The father of her baby was a man who had no interest in having a family but was, as of a few hours ago, legally a part of her family, so she’d be seeing him on holidays and special occasions.
Also, she had just sustained a significant head injury, so she wasn’t entirely convinced she wasn’t imagining all of this. Maybe her concussion was causing her to have hallucinations. That would actually make a lot more sense than this actually being her reality.
Another car had parked beside them since they arrived at the ER, a minivan with a stick-figure family taped on the rear window. Poppy wondered if AJ noticed it like she did. If so, he had no reaction to it, nothing about his expression or demeanor changed. He clicked the fob and helped her in the passenger door without saying a word, then closed the door. She exhaled, grateful for the buffer of him walking around to the driver’s seat. For a full ten seconds, she sat in absolute stillness, the ultrasound printout burning a hole in her bag. When AJ slid behind the wheel, buckled his seatbelt, and started the engine, he didn’t look at her. Instead, he thrummed the steering wheel three times before toggling through several different music playlists ultimately settling on a low, instrumental mix that filled the car with a soft, aimless piano. It was background music for emotional paralysis.
The hospital receded behind them, streetlights painting their faces in intervals of gold and shadow. The silence between them was thick, unprocessed, and loaded. She was grateful for it because she wasn’t ready to talk. Poppy watched the pine trees roll past her window in a blur, just like they had every other time she’d driven that highway. It seemed impossible that the world had not paused to register the seismic shift in her reality.
She was pregnant.
“Less than a one percent chance,” Steph said, but somehow the odds had bent in her favor or against her, depending on how this turned out. Poppy tried to feel... something. Joy, terror, hope, regret. None of it stuck. She was numb.
The drive home was measured in silence and highway markers. AJ didn’t push her, didn’t ask the obvious questions. Instead, he drove cautiously, exactly the speed limit, checking his blind spots twice before every lane change. The only sign of nerves was the way he tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel in staccato bursts of three on a constant loop and glanced at her every five seconds. It was a language she could read, it said, I am thinking about you. I am worried. I am not sure if I should reach over and hold your hand or let you have your space. In the end, he went with space.
At some point, Poppy realized she was clutching the seatbelt so hard she had half-moon impressions in her palms from her nails. She forced herself to let go and exhaled long and shaky breaths. The lights of Hope Falls crept closer, then the familiar turnoff, and they were winding through the quiet streets of Hope Falls Hills.
The car pulled into the empty driveway of the ranch house AJ was staying at, next door to her temporary home, until she got her own house into livable shape.
Fuck. Her house. She had so much work to do on her house. Would she still be able to do that sort of physical labor? Her plans to renovate did not include hiring contractors. She didn’t have hire contractor money. She had watched YouTube videos about DIY renovations for little money.
Her mind was spiraling into a panic as she unbuckled her seatbelt and as she reached for the door, but it was already opening. AJ stood outside with his hand extended to help her out of the vehicle. She hadn’t even realized he’d gotten out of theSUV. Together they walked in silence up the shadowed walkway to the porch.
“Good ni—” she started, half-turning, unsure if she was dismissing him or pleading for him to say something.
“I’m staying,” he spoke over her.
“What?”
“You have a concussion. I told the doctor I wouldn’t leave you alone.” His tone was resolute but not bossy. More like the way a rock sounds when it drops through water, a disturbance, but one that’s ultimately meant to anchor.
Did he?She tried to reassemble the moments from the ER, the way the lights had fractured sunbursts behind her eyelids and the way Dr. West had announced her diagnosis with the same effect as calling a number at the DMV.
Mild concussion. Observation recommended. No driving, no decision-making, and no being alone for at least forty-eight hours.
Poppy’s memory was unreliable—she had, after all, been concussed—but she remembered AJ absorbing the doctor’s words with the intensity of a courtroom stenographer.
But that was before. Before the news. Before the tiny, stubborn miracle of life on the ultrasound. Before she’d realized that the future she’d spent years mourning was now a very real possibility.
She needed space. She needed time to think, to process, to eat her feelings. Instead, she was being shadowed by a man with golden eyes, an iron sense of responsibility, and absolutely no clue how to take a hint.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth with the saccharine sincerity of a Hallmark card. She motioned vaguely toward the house. “You’re right next door. If I need anything, I’ll call you.”
AJ didn’t flinch. His gaze never wavered. He had the kind of stare that could bore through drywall, maybe even cinder block, if you gave him enough time. “If you want someone else to come and stay with you, that’s fine, I’ll wait until they get here. Or, if you don’t feel comfortable with me inside, I can stay on the porch, but you have to keep the door open so I can see you through the screen.”
Some people might threaten to wait on the porch betting on the fact that the other party would never call their bluff, but Poppy knew AJ wasn’t bluffing. If she said that she didn’t want him staying inside, he would spend the next two days sitting camped out, freezing, on her porch. She wasn’t sure what her new boss would think about that, especially since this was his property.
