Page 55 of The Trouble with Flings

She moves the wand slowly, pressing firmly in one spot, then angling it and pressing again. I keep my eyes on the ceiling, counting the panels, focusing on the textured specs. When she moves the wand again, I close my eyes, wanting this to be over.

“Everything looks good,” Dr. Valesco says. “I’m going to take a few measurements.”

I keep my eyes closed, trying not to hear the sounds of the clicks or feel the movement of the wand across my stomach. A fast, rhythmic sound fills the room, and my pulse races.

“Ah, there it is,” Dr. Valesco says. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”

I open my eyes, and they go straight to the screen, where a tiny figure with a head, body, arms, and legs is moving, and that fast rhythmic sound pulsing through the room is coming from its heart. That’s my baby.

Swish, swish, swish.

My baby’s heartbeat.

Tears come before I can stop them, sliding silently down my cheeks and nose. I don’t wipe them away. I can’t. I just lie there listening to that small, insistent sound, and a new reality hits me.

This isn’t a what-if.

There’s a tiny human growing inside me.

It’s damp and gray when I leave the clinic, a typical March afternoon hovering between winter and spring. I stand on the sidewalk, letting the city noise wash over me as I try to get my bearings, the sonogram pictures and pamphlets in my purse. Dr. Valesco had rattled off a lot of information in case I change my mind—appointments, sonograms, bloodwork, prenatal vitamins—and I nodded at all of it, though only bits and pieces had taken hold. Roughly twelve weeks along…High risk after thirty-five…

I start walking.

I’m making the right decision. The words play like a mantra with every step. My apartment, my job, my entire life has no room for this.

He’ll understand.

I walk faster, keeping my head down as if thought bubbles might pop out for others to see as I thread through the crowded sidewalks. I should call Mia, but I can’t. I’ll call her later. I need to wrap my head around all of this and figure out how to tell Fitz.

I’ll deal with this like I do everything. One decision at a time without looking back.

It’s the right decision.

By the time my apartment building comes into view, I’m so deep in my own head, I almost miss Fitz sitting on the front steps of the building, forearms resting on his knees. He looks up, as if he senses my presence, and the air between us charges, the way it did in the hotel lobby in Costa Rica and every time we were together thereafter.

He pushes to his feet, devastatingly handsome in a charcoal bomber jacket and dark jeans, his sandy hair a little windblown. For one unguarded second, my steps slow and my heart aches with a longing I’ve spent three months pretending I don’t feel.

“Fitz…?” comes out surprisingly unsteady, nothing like I want it to.

“Jennifer.” There’s an edge in his voice I haven’t heard before. It’s not cold or mean.

It’s more complicated and alarming than that.

He knows. I stand frozen on the sidewalk, the thought rattling me to my core, before my rational brain steps in. Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no way he can know.

But the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like every secret I’ve ever carried is written all over my face.

Chapter Fifteen

Fitz

Fueled by three months of fraying patience, Jennifer came out harsher than I intended. How is it possible that she’s even more beautiful than she was in Costa Rica? On the heels of that thought comes a troubling one. Something’s off. I look more closely. Her rich brown hair hangs loose around her shoulders, and the guarded wariness she usually wears like armor is still there, but there’s something fearful in her eyes.

Every instinct tells me to go to her. But I stay where I am. Given the reason I’m here, I think we both need it.

“What are you doing here?” she asks a little too carefully for the Jennifer I know.

“You’ve been avoiding my texts.” I keep my voice even, because this is too important to let my frustration drive it. “If that’s your way of blowing me off, that’s your prerogative. But I want you to say it to my face.” Because I can’t believe you don’t feel what I do.