“I can’t with you in here!” she shrieked.
“Well, I’m not missing a moment of this, Mermaid, so we gonna have to figure something out.”
She raked a hand through her curls before she tugged down her sweats and grabbed the cup from my hands. I watched as she squatted. We waited in anticipation for several long seconds before a stream of liquid splashed into the cup.
“Good job, baby! You’re doin’ it!” I encouraged with a triumphant smile.
“Kareem, hush. I’m not potty training,” she whined.
I chuckled. She was right. I sounded like a damn proud parent.
When she finished, she washed her hands while I carefully put each test into the cup. I finished and then gathered her into my arms. “The longest wait time is three minutes. I just want to hold you for three minutes. That okay?”
“Yes.” She squeezed my middle.
I rested my chin on the top of her head and breathed her in. It was crazy that the past two months had created such a huge shift in my life. I’d been working less and delegating more. I had a new person in my life who needed me just as much as I needed her, and now we might be welcoming in a new addition to the family. An addition that would need us more than they needed anyone in the world. My heart thumped wildly at the thought, and I realized I wanted it more than anything.
“It has to have been three minutes by now,” she muttered.
I heard the waver in her voice when she spoke. I gave her one last squeeze before I released my embrace. Slowly, I lifted a test from the cup, and my eyes widened.
Negative.
Her brows furrowed, and she pulled one out while I pulled another one out.
Negative.
Negative.
All of them were negative.
“This can’t be right,” I uttered.
Arielle looked close to tears. “They can’t all be wrong. What if something serious is wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, baby,” I said as I gathered her in my arms. My voice was calming, but worry filled my chest. If she wasn’t pregnant, then what was wrong with my baby? “We’ll figure it out at the doctor tomorrow.”
I heard sniffles coming from her, and my heart ached. “I wanted a baby.”
My face frowned up. “Wait, is that why you’re cryin’, Mermaid?”
“Yes.” She sobbed, and I hugged her tighter.
“Aye, man. You gotta stop cryin’. I don’t do well wit’ tears,” I muttered. I rubbed her back, and eventually, like always, she calmed down for me. “Look, baby. Once we go to the doctor and figure out what’s going on and get you better, we can intentionally try for a baby, if that’s what you want.”
“I do,” she whispered as she looked up at me with watery eyes. “I really do. I want everything with you, Kareem. The thought of having your baby really had me excited. I pray it happens soon. Fuck what everyone else thinks. Our timeline isour timeline.”
“Then you’re on, love. A baby is what you want, then a baby is what you’ll get.” I kissed her forehead and pulled away with a smile. This woman had no idea how I would move to the ends of the Earth for her. Everything she wanted would be hers, a baby included. Now that she’d given me a green light, I had every intention to go out and buy her a fat ass ring too.
Arielle Spivy had a ring to it, after all—pun intended.
epilogue
ARIELLE
10 years later . . .
Igiggled as Kareem splashed water on me.
