“Sis, just take the damn test. You need to know, and it’s not going away if you are. The sooner you know, the sooner you and my bigheaded brother can prepare for my niece or nephew. We can run back in there and do it now. That way you don’t have to do it alone,” she suggested, bobbing her head toward the restrooms.
“No. I would rather do it at home with Harlem, and definitely in cleaner facilities. After being in there, all I want right now is a shower and a nap.”
Bobbing her head, Courtney replied, “I can respect that. Make sure that you keep me in the loop. I promise I can keep a secret.”
I laughed and pulled her into a hug. “I know you can.”
We had celebrated with his teammates at a bar, but when I had passed on drinking, I said that I didn’t feel well enough to consume alcohol after being in the sun for so long. Harlem hadn’t made a fuss of it, but he had cut our participation in the celebration short so that I could get home and rest.
I had come home and showered before taking a nap. When I awakened, Harlem and I sat down to watch a movie in our home theater. He was eating chili dogs, chili cheese fries, and cream soda, and I had declined the food, saying that I didn’t have an appetite. It was the smell of the onions that set me off this time. Harlem had made it a quarter through his meal when the overwhelming urge to vomit struck me again. I ran down the short flight of steps from the terrace level to our suite, and I made it into the bathroom just in time.
I spent almost three minutes being sick before it stopped. The chicken salad I ate at the bar returned this time. As I brushed my teeth, I couldn’t help but think about Courtney’s warning and the pregnancy test in my purse. I had been putting off the inevitable.
Harlem and I had created a plan at the beginning of our relationship of how we wanted to move in our lives. We bothknew we wanted a family, but we wanted to make sure that I had accomplished as much as I wanted to before starting one.
I had expressed my desire to stay home with my kids for the first few years of their lives, and he was onboard with that. I also stated that I wanted to have our kids almost back-to-back so that they would have close relationships like we both did with our siblings, and to get it out of the way.
This wasn’t a part of the plan. Not that having a baby now was a bad thing, but it did speed up the process of me stopping work sooner than we planned for. We could financially afford for me to quit, but I wasn’t mentally prepared for it.
When I finished brushing my teeth, I stepped out of the bathroom, and Harlem was sitting on the bed wearing a worried look. I grabbed my purse off the chair and walked to the bed.
“Baby, what’s going on? I’ve been noticing that you have been sick the last couple of weeks. You got something you wanna tell daddy?” he asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulder when I plopped down on the bed beside him.
Harlem rubbed my arm and kissed the top of my head when I rested it on his shoulder.
“I don’t know, Harlem. I’ve been so busy lately that I wasn’t paying attention to my body. When I got sick at the game today?—”
“Is that why you two disappeared after the game?”
“Yeah.”
“I went looking for you and couldn’t find you.”
“I rushed to the restroom. Courtney suggested that I might be pregnant.” I sat up and pulled out the pregnancy test box and showed it to him.
“Did you take it?”
“No. I wanted to do it with you.”
The grin on his face and the excitement glowing in his eyes made me realize that all my fears had been foolish. I couldtell that my husband was happy at the possibility of me being pregnant.
“Sweetness, go ahead and take it. What are you waiting for?” he asked anxiously.
I inhaled and slowly exhaled. “You’re right,” I replied, pushing off the bed.
He grabbed my hand at the last minute and gave a light tug. I turned back to face him. “What’s up?”
“Let me look at you for a sec.”
I looked at him as he smiled at me and slowly let his gaze slide over me. He stood, wrapped me in his arms, and slowly kissed me.
“What was that for?”
“Kissing you one final time before our life changes. Kissing my wife who is simply my wife at this moment.”
“Regrets?”
“Fuck nah. Everything that you are and everything that you will be is perfect to me.”
