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So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
CHAPTER 31
GOLDIE
Twenty-One Weeks:
Baby is approximately the size of a carrot.
The trip to Costco was supposed to keep me from checking the lab portal every time I touch my phone, but I’m standing beside a pallet of paper towels doing exactly that.
We did the paternity test earlier this week. The lab took my blood, swabbed the inside of Sumner’s cheek, and sent us home to wait while they did whatever science happens between sample collection and telling people whose DNA made a baby. Since then, I’ve checked the portal enough times that I could probably log in with my eyes closed.
Sumner stops the cart beside me. “Anything?”
“Nope.” I turn the screen toward him long enough to show him the same word we’ve been staring at all week. “Pending. I hate that word now, by the way.”
“I figured you’d tell me the second it changed.”
“You mean the second after I stop freaking out.”
His mouth twitches, and I lock my phone before dropping it back into my purse.
The place is packed, as per usual. Somebody has abandoned a giant flatbed in the middle of the aisle, a woman farther up is trying to steer a cart while her kids orbit her, and a guy in front of us has stopped dead to stare at a wall of vitamins.
Sumner hits the brakes before we run into him. “This place is like the Wild West.”
I look up at him because this is where he draws the line. “Says the guy who flies into literal hurricanes.”
“Hurricanes have structure,” he says, completely serious, and I laugh while we wait for vitamin guy to figure his shit out.
We came here for my blackberry sparkling water and paper towels. That was the entire list. Somehow the cart already contains a huge pack of paper towels, a tub of Sumner’s protein powder, chips I don’t remember grabbing, and a blanket I don’t need but touched once and then refused to put back.
Costco does this to people.
The second the aisle clears, I spot a woman in a hairnet handing out tiny paper cups behind a folding table and veer toward her.
“Where are you going?” Sumner asks as he follows with the cart.
“Uh, getting a sample?” I nod toward the warming tray with a duh look on my face. “I can smell sausage.”
That’s all the information I need. The woman hands me a paper cup with a piece of sausage stabbed through with a toothpick, and I pop it into my mouth while Sumner pulls up beside me.
He watches me chew. “I’m guessing we’re buying those now.”
I point the toothpick at him. “See, you’re learning.”
“We have sausage at home.”
“Not this sausage.”
Sumner stares at me, then reaches past me for a sample of his own. “You know what? Fine.” I swear I hear him murmur, “When in Rome,” under his breath.
I grin while he takes a bite, and by the time we leave the sample table, a bulk pack of sausage is wedged into the cart.
I don’t say a word. It’s the Costco effect, and the sooner he accepts it, the better.
I make it through a few more aisles before I realize Sumner isn’t beside me anymore. I turn around and find him standing in front of a pallet stacked with giant boxes of baby wipes, reading the packaging while the cart sits parked against his hip.
