Young Revelations (Young Series) (39 page)

Luckily we don’t have to sit for long before my name is being called and we’re being led into an examination room. The nurse does the routine parts of checking my blood pressure and other vital signs, then hands me a hospital gown to change into while we await the doctor’s arrival. To my surprise, Matthew offers to step out of the room while I change; normally he would be offering to help or settling himself in the chair to watch the show. I know this is a byproduct of our breakup and I haven’t yet told him of my decision to fix things between us. To
his
surprise, I strip down as I would for any other doctor’s visit, perfectly aware of the hungry gaze with which he’s watching me. I almost expect to see him drooling and I certainly can’t deny it feels good to know at least this part of our relationship hasn’t changed—clearly he still finds me attractive, even if I’m getting fatter by the minute. He shakes himself out of his daze as I hop up onto the exam table and we wait for the doctor.

The excitement is building again at the thought that we’ll soon be seeing how our daughter has grown since my last checkup. My only concern at this point is that I haven’t actually felt her moving yet. At least not significantly. I know she’s in there and relatively healthy since my appetite has only grown over the weeks and there have been subtle signs that everything is fine. Still, I can’t shake the anxiety.

“What’s that look on your face for?” Matthew asks softly, reaching for my hand.

I turn my head towards him. “I’m just thinking how much I hope everything is okay,” I admit in a whisper.

With a reassuring smile in place, he puts his free hand over my belly and begins rubbing softly. “Everything is beyond okay,” he tells me firmly. “You’ll see.”

I give him a tight smile and decide not to press the issue.

“Do you have anything planned for today?” he asks, running his thumb across my knuckles in a way he knows will help me relax. “After this, I mean.”

“Well, I was going to help Bonnie out at the bookstore, but she said yesterday if the weather is bad, she won’t even be opening. Aside from that, nothing,” I report.

He nods thoughtfully. “Would you like to have lunch with me? I thought we could grab a pizza or something and if you have to work, I can take you in rather than drive you back to Claire’s just for you to turn around and drive back out here.”

“I would love to have lunch with you,” I tell him, smiling. “Though I have to wonder if this counts as our date.”

Snorting a laugh, he shakes his head. “Hardly,” he responds as though it should have been obvious. “I’ve got much grander plans for tomorrow night.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And what might those be?” I ask suspiciously.

He only has time to smirk before there is a knock on the door and the doctor enters. “Good morning,” she says, smiling at us. “How are we today?”

“Very well,” Matthew answers for both of us. I have a feeling he’s speaking about more than just our current state of being.

“Glad to hear it,” Dr. Miller says, smiling as she sits on a stool opening my chart. “And Samantha, how is everything progressing?”

“Pretty well, I think,” I reply. “Most of the morning sickness has stopped. I still have the occasional queasiness to some foods. Other than that, I don’t seem to be having any problems.”

“Are you sleeping enough?”

I hesitate, my eyes darting over to Matthew briefly. I don’t want him to feel responsible for my honest answer. “Probably not as much as I should be,” I say quietly. “But more than I did at this stage with my son.”

“Excellent,” the doctor says briskly. “And as I’m sure the two of you have realized, Samantha, you are approaching the stage of pregnancy when you gave birth to your son. I had a couple in-depth looks at your charts and from what I’m seeing, there should not be a repeat of what happened during your first pregnancy. I’m not going to give you any guarantees, because babies tend to keep their own schedules. With your last pregnancy, there could have been any number of reasons why your son was born early. The combination of the prenatal vitamins and the blood pressure medicine prescribed to you, I believe, may have been the leading cause. It’s why I’ve been so careful to monitor your medication intake this time around, particularly after your recent hospitalization.”

I feel Matthew’s hand tense in mine and I know he still blames himself for that. “Could the hospitalization cause her to go into labor early?” Matthew asks quietly.

“As long as it doesn’t happen again, she’s going to be just fine,” Dr. Miller assures us. “If anything was going to happen, it would have happened then. Right now, everything looks great and I expect this little girl to make her appearance in March as expected.”

Matthew nods and relaxes significantly at her words, and even manages to give me a smile.

“So shall we have a look and see how this little one is fairing?” Dr. Miller suggests, closing my chart and standing from her stool. Matthew and I grin at her in response, and she chuckles as she pulls the ultrasound machine towards me. Reflexively, I lift the top of my hospital gown and she spreads the cold gel on my slightly protruding belly. With the wand in hand, she flips on the monitor and begins the scan. Matthew pulls his chair closer to me for a better view, sliding his free arm behind my neck so I can sit up a little more.

For a few moments, I’m holding my breath as the doctor searches for our daughter. I start to get really worried when her brow furrows and she moves closer to the screen to better see what she’s looking at, but before I can voice my concerns, I hear a very rapid heartbeat. At first I think it might be my own; one glance at the screen confirms it’s my baby’s. With a little pressure, Dr. Miller has convinced her to roll over and show her features. There is a clear outline of her face—her nose, eyes, chin, and mouth—and her arms are raised towards the ultrasound wand as though she’s protesting the intrusion to her rest and relaxation.

“Already a princess,” Matthew murmurs wryly. I look over at him and find his eyes glazed over and a smile on his face. He darts his eyes towards me very briefly before turning back to the screen. “Princess Olivia.”

I chuckle softly, squeezing his fingers.

“Everything looks good,” Dr. Miller observes, moving the wand around. “She’s developing just like we would hope. Have you felt her moving yet?”

I shake my head. “Not really,” I respond. “If I do, I’m in the middle of doing something and can’t stop and enjoy it.”

The doctor chuckles at my sulking tone. “Before you know it, she’ll be moving so much you won’t get a chance to miss it.”

After a few more minutes of switching angles to get a better view of the baby’s development, Dr. Miller turns off the machine and tells us she’ll have the printed images ready when we leave. She further instructs me to keep my stress levels down and to keep doing everything I’m doing, since it’s clear this baby is perfectly content where she is right now. When she leaves, I wipe the gel off my belly, get dressed again, and turn to find Matthew staring at the blank ultrasound machine screen.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask him softly.

His head snaps up to meet my gaze and for a moment I think he’s going to smile and tell me something inconsequential. “Just realizing how worried I’ve been about how everything going on has affected you and the baby,” he replies. I move to stand in front of him, leaning against the exam table. “All this drama could have had a much different result and you could have lost the baby and it would have been my fault and you never would have forgiven me the way you seem to be forgiving me.”

I sigh. Of course this is what he’s thinking… “But I haven’t lost the baby, everything is perfect, and the doctor told us herself we’re doing everything right,” I remind him.

His brow furrows slightly. “
You’ve
done everything right,” he amends. “I keep fucking everything up.”

“Yes,” I agree, “but last night made up for quite a bit, Matt. All I’ve wanted was to know that you actually want our relationship to work and that you’re willing to fight for us instead of roll over and give up. I want us back. I want us to be like we were before, or at least a fraction of that. Now I’m seeing that you want it just as much. That means everything to me, Matt.”

Slowly, he stands up in front of me and though I can’t read his expression, I know his intent. He places his hands on either side of me on the exam table, his eyes watching me intently as he moves in further. “There is nothing in the world I want more than to fix this between us,” he says quietly. “And if that means driving almost four hours through a blizzard to take you to a doctor’s appointment, I will do that every day for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” I whisper right before he leans in and presses his lips to mine. Automatically my hands rest on his waist and I’ve very vaguely thankful that I’m leaning against the table or I’d probably be a crumbled mess on the floor. He kisses me slowly and thoroughly, and it almost feels like our very first kiss that took place in a coffee shop parking lot at midnight in Iowa.

A knock on the door jolts us both back to reality. Matthew jumps back, his eyes wide and his breathing erratic. I’ve probably got a very startled expression on my face as my heart beats rapidly in my chest. The door opens partway and a nurse pops her head in, her eyes darting between us. “Dr. Miller asked me to let you know your ultrasound images are at reception,” she says, her lips twitching as she probably rightly figures out what we were doing. I manage a nod and a squeaky thank you, and she closes the door with a soft click.

Several moments pass until I hear Matthew snort a laugh. I look at him incredulously, which only causes him to burst out laughing. Glaring at him, I try to maintain an annoyed expression, but the entire situation forces me to join in on his amusement and within a few seconds, I’m laughing along with him.

“Think that’s the first time they’ve caught people like that?” he asks, grinning at me.

I roll my eyes, unable to not grin back. “Matt, it’s not even the first time they’ve caught
us
,” I remind him. “Though if memory serves correctly, last time I hadn’t even gotten dressed fully.”

He smirks at the memory. “True,” he concedes. “I still maintain that was your fault, doing that little shimmying strip tease thing…”

“That wasn’t so much a strip tease as it was trying to get my jeans to fit over the baby bump caused by your son,” I grumble, grabbing my purse and following him out of the exam room.

“Oh, so now he’s
my
son,” Matthew responds teasingly. “I see how it is.”

I ignore him as we approach the reception desk where I’m handed a manila folder containing the ultrasound images. With a hand resting on my lower back, Matthew guides me towards the elevators, a crooked smile still on his face. He looks like Christmas has come early, and I don’t know if that’s because of the kiss in the exam room or something else. Unlike when we arrived and maintained distance from one another, Matthew leans against the elevator wall right beside me and has yet to remove his hand from my back. Not that I’m complaining. We seem to have gotten over several hurdles today, all of which seemed insurmountable just two days ago, and I couldn’t be happier about that. Judging by the content expression on his face, neither can he.

It’s not surprising when I realize I’m not looking forward to the moment he drops me off, whether it be at the bookstore or back at Claire’s. As much as I want to turn to him and tell him I want to come home, I’m determined to at least see things through to our date tomorrow night. And it hasn’t escaped my notice that he hasn’t mentioned me coming home at all; while this might have made me wonder if there was some underlying reason, I realize it’s because he doesn’t want to pressure me into a decision. He knows this has to be my choice, since I’m the one who ended us to begin with, and I’m incredibly impressed by this newfound patience of his. I wonder if it’s got something to do with his therapy sessions…

As promised, Matthew drives us to a little pizza shop not far from the doctor’s office and the employees seem thrilled as we walk through the door. Apparently the storm is hurting their business. The result is that we have eager servers practically tripping over themselves to tend to us. I know how they feel; the only thing that ever closed Chet’s Diner in Iowa was a power outage and even then, Chet would get the generators going and try to go on with business as usual. There were days we were lucky to have a handful of customers all day and the rest of the time was deathly boring.

A hand waves in front of my face and I blink myself back to the moment, finding Matthew grinning in the chair across from me. “I ordered pepperoni and spinach,” he informs me. “I remember you liked that when you were pregnant with Tyler. If you want something else…”

I smile, shaking my head. “Sounds delicious.”

He beams at me, reaching across the table for my hand and starts playing with my fingers. “So Claire mentioned something interesting yesterday,” he begins, his eyes studying my fingers as though they are the most interesting things in the world. I raise an eyebrow in question. “Something about Reilly and Tyler and a puppy…”

Inwardly, I roll my eyes, making a mental note about talking to Claire about saying things just to bait Matthew, which I know was her intention for bringing up that particular subject. “I was thinking about getting Tyler a puppy for Christmas,” I tell him quietly.