Life Support (The Breathe Series Book 2) (41 page)

“Hi, baby,” I call out to Olivia as I enter our apartment.

Immediately, I see her seated at the kitchen table. White takeout boxes littering her workspace are interspersed with yellow legal pads and loose-leaf papers. Her hair is gathered at the top of her head in a messy bun and she’s wearing one of my sweatshirts, which she is swimming in. But dammit, she looks sexy. The heel of one foot is planted on her seat while the other is on the floor, and she looks exhausted.

When Olivia sees me, her demeanor changes. Her frown quickly switches to an excited smile and she rises to her feet to greet me. “Hi, sweetheart! Did you have a good time? What—hey! What’s this?” she questions, pointing at the bandage on my forearm before reaching up on her tiptoes to give me a quick kiss.

I bend down to give her another kiss before laying my jacket over the back of a kitchen chair. “Well,” I begin, “I lost a bet to Tanner.”

“Uh oh… This is starting out bad.”

I tell her the story of our bet and what was at stake as she follows me into the kitchen. I pull out an ice pack from the freezer and lay it on the countertop before returning to the fridge to grab a bottle of cold beer. After fishing the bottle opener out of the drawer, I pop the top of the beer and take a long pull. Mid swallow, it dawns on me that I probably shouldn’t be having alcohol after getting a tattoo. I halt drinking for a fraction of a second before shrugging my shoulders and taking another gulp.

“So wait. You
lost
the bet?” Olivia shrieks.

I nod and finish my beer, placing the empty glass bottle down on the countertop.

“Then this… This is a tattoo?!”

“Yep.”

“You got a tattoo. Because you lost a bet,” Olivia clarifies. She almost sounds angry.

“Pretty much. Mmhmm.”

Olivia exhales loudly. “Well, let me see it.”

“I don’t know… You seem kinda upset. I’m an injured man and I need time to heal. I don’t—”

Olivia smiles and rolls her eyes at my ploy for her to take it easy on me. “Just let me see your fucking ink, Owen.”

I grin and slowly start to remove the bandage that covers my arm. “Okay. What do you think? It’s the—”

“I know exactly what this is,” Olivia chokes out, cutting me off. She gazes up at me as a lone tear trails down her cheek. “What did you do, baby?”

I pull back the remainder of the bandage to reveal a three-inch-long heart monitor reading belonging to our baby. I snagged a copy of the printout Olivia showed me after her hospital follow-up visit and have kept it in my wallet. I pull it out and look at it all the time—I guess it helps make this all real for me. I looked at it earlier today after my conversation with Tanner and it all just clicked.

I place my hand on Olivia’s stomach and delicately kiss her forehead. “This baby is going to be a part of our lives forever. I just wanted to get something that was meaningful to me. This baby—
our
baby—means everything to me.
You
mean everything to me. I figure, with this tattoo, that I’ll have the heart of our baby with me all the time.”

Olivia places her palms flat on my chest and stares into my eyes. “Just when I thought I couldn’t love you more, you go and prove me wrong. I love it.” She jumps into my arms and wraps her legs around my waist, hooking her elbows over my shoulder. Using my one arm, I secure it around her middle and hold her tight to me. “And I love you. So. Very. Much,” she says, alternating pecks along the side of my neck.

I tilt my head to catch her mouth and we give each other sweet, loving kisses. Nothing hurried. Nothing wild and abandoned. Just kisses that say how much we love one other.

Olivia unhooks her ankles from behind my back and I put her feet back on the floor. While Olivia machine-guns me with questions about the bet between me and Tanner, I apply some more ointment and cover the open wound again. I grab a packet of ice to help with any swelling and ease the burn before following Olivia back out to the kitchen table. I take a seat as she gathers up her paperwork and dumps her food cartons in the trash while I recount the story of how the big, bad Moose deflowered me by giving me my first tattoo.

HE'S SHAKING HIS LEG. This, in turn, is shaking his chair. Which is, in turn, making a rattling noise that is going to make me and the other people in the waiting room scream in about two seconds. Scowling at him, I put my hand on his knee to still it.

Owen looks over at me and mouths, "Sorry."

He is so nervous. This is the first doctor's appointment he's come to since he found out about the baby. I know he's scared out of his mind. In fact, he is so scared that he brought a written list of questions. While I haven't seen the list, I caught a glimpse. I saw the word 'sex' written several times. Just thinking about it brings a smile to my face.

"Baby, relax. This is supposed to be a joyful thing. What are you worried you're going to find out?" I try to catch his eyes, and his knee starts going again.

"I don't know. I've never done this before, Olivia," he snaps.

I'm going to let this go because I know he's nervous, but I don't need to. He's immediately contrite.

"Fuck, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound so...irritable." He looks me in the eye, his leg picking up pace.

I reach a hand out and cup his cheek, guiding his face to mine. When our lips meet, I give him a soft kiss, letting my tongue just lightly lick at his lips. His leg immediately stops shaking and I feel his body relax against me.

I pull back a little and whisper to him, "This is going to be fine—amazing, even. You're going to hear the baby. You'll see."

Soon, my name is called and we follow the nurse into the room.

"You can take all your clothes off on the bottom, including your panties. There is a changing room just there in the corner. Inside, you'll find a drape to put over your lap when you get back to the exam table."

Owen raises an eyebrow to me. "You're gonna get naked?" he asks.

"Just from the waist down. They don't usually do this early, but since I had the accident, they want to check my cervix to make sure everything is still okay."

As I start to walk toward the changing room, I catch a look like Owen just had an epiphany on his face.

"Wait, what is your doctor's name again?"

"Dr. Evans. Why?" I move into the changing area, removing my jeans, panties, shoes, and socks. I come back out, set the drape around my waist, and sit at the end of the examining table.

"No. What's the doctor's
first
name." His face is contorted, his brow furrowed and one eyebrow reaching for the ceiling. I don't get it.

"Jim. Jim Evans. Why? Do you know him?" I ask, completely confused.

He looks crazed for a moment. "A
guy
doctor is going to look at your pussy?"

I laugh. It starts as a giggle, and then moves to a full-on guffaw. "First, lots of doctors are males in this field, Owen. Second, I don't think he looks at it as looking at my ‘pussy.’" I use air quotes. "This isn't sexual, Owen. He's trying to make sure our baby is safe."

He doesn't look appeased. "I'm staying in the room. Fuck, Olivia. He's going to put his fucking fingers in you? You're going to be fingered by another dude in front of me!" He is yell-whispering, his anger making his volume rise. Yup, he’s lost it.

"He's not fingering me, Owen, and keep your goddamn voice down," I chastise. "For the love of Christ, if you can't handle this, you can leave the room."

He grimaces and squints his eyes at me, but sits down, frowning.

"Thank you," I say, hoping this visit doesn't turn into a shitfest.

I hear a rap at the door, and Dr. Evans pokes his head in. "Everyone decent?" he asks with a little humor in his voice.

Owen grunts, but I throw him a look to shut him up. "Come on in," I call out.

Dr. Evans is very nice—and very old. Well, not
very
old, but in his later sixties, meaning he's not competition for Owen. I hope Owen gets that.

He shakes my hand. "Olivia, so nice to see you again. I was so glad to hear you and the baby were okay after that terrible accident. That was very scary, I presume." Dr. Evans is my regular gynecologist but was unable to see me the first two times I came in—once because it was too short notice and the second time due to his vacation. I’m glad I get to see him today, feeling more comfortable with someone I know.

I sigh. Just thinking about what could have been still scares me a lot. I often have nightmares about the loss of the baby, and while I find them disturbing, I don't share them with Owen. He has his own nightmares, and somehow, it seems cruel to tell him about my insecurities.

"Yes, I'm glad everything was okay too. We both are." I gesture toward my boyfriend, who now is looking at me with fear in his eyes. Owen is still not one hundred percent settled since the accident. He is hyper vigilant with me, scared, anxious.

Dr. Evans reaches a hand out to Owen. Thank God Owen shakes it. "And you must be Dad?" Dr. Evans says with a big grin on his face. "Congratulations are in order!"

“Yeah, I'm the dad... Owen. And thanks. We're really excited." He looks over at me, his face softening further, love evidence in his eyes. I smile back.

"Well, let’s take a look-see then!" Dr. Evans exclaims.

He pulls over a stand that has a screen and what looks like a complicated keyboard attached. Next to it are bottles of gel and an apparatus that I know is the device used in the ultrasound. As it gets closer, he sits himself at level with my abdomen.

"Today, we're going to take some measurements to ensure the baby is growing on target, and then we'll see if we can find the sex of the baby. You want to know the sex or are we keeping it a surprise?"

Owen and I have discussed this at length, and we both want to know. We want to be able to start planning for the birth of the baby and picking out names.

"We want to know the sex," I confirm, and Owen pulls his chair closer to me and squeezes my hand.

There is a soft knock on the door followed by its opening a crack. A women’s voice comes through, “Dr. Evans, are you ready for me?”

“Come on in, Candy.” Dr. Evans says, typing some information on the keyboard.

A young woman, clearly a nurse, enters the room and settles on a stool on the other side of the table.

“This is Candy,” Dr. Evans gestures to his assistant. “Candy, this is Olivia and Owen. They’re here to see their little one for the first time and check out what they’re having!” He sounds as excited as we are, and it makes me smile. Dr. Evans looks over at us. “Owen, Candy is here to observe because I’m going to be checking Olivia’s cervix. We like to have a woman in the room when an internal exam is going to be done. It’s strictly procedure.”

I nod and look over at Owen, who is scowling at the mention of the internal exam. This too makes me smile.
Silly man.

Dr. Evans picks up the bottle of gel. "This is warmed, so it shouldn't be too uncomfortable," he grins as he starts to squirt the bottle of gel over my belly, leaving a large circle and a couple of squiggles behind.

It tickles, and I shimmy.

Dr. Evans places the ultrasound transducer on my abdomen and spreads the gel around. He then stops and presses down on my belly. Suddenly, the room is filled with a loud whooshing noise. It's fast. It's echoing. It's...a heartbeat.

"Uh, what's that noise?" Owen asks, looking terrified. Knowing him, I am sure he probably thinks it's an alien.

One lone tear falls down my cheek on the side Owen is sitting as I listen to the sound of our baby's heartbeat. Panicked, he wipes it away. Owen has seen printouts of the heartbeat, something the doctor doesn’t normally do, but because he couldn’t make it to the appointment, I had to follow up with the doctor from the hospital after the accident. They gave me a printout to show him. But he hasn’t heard it yet, and it is a phenomenal sound.

"That, Owen, is the heartbeat of your little baby." The doctor keeps moving the ultrasound device as I turn to look at Owen. He is staring at my belly, and then I see it. Tears. In his eyes.
Oh God.
Of joy? Of terror? Of fear?

"Owen, baby..." I reach out to cup his face, and his eyes move locking with mine, brimming with tears.