“How did you get out of work today?” I ask as we drive to my appointment.
“We wrapped up a job today, so instead of starting another one, we all took off early. I got lucky.” He grins. “I was just going to tell Ridge I had the shits or something.”
“What?” I splutter with laughter.
“Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. You’re not ready to tell them, and I’m fine with that. However, I’m not willing to miss any of your appointments, so if I have to get creative, I will.”
“What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me. Marry me. Have my baby.”
“Sheesh, you don’t want much,” I counter.
“Just you, baby.”
As soon as I sign in, they take us back to an exam room. I stop at the scale first. Then they instruct me to pee in a cup just like the last visit. I find Tyler in the exam room, looking at the image on the wall of a baby in the birth canal.
“I knew women went through a lot carrying the baby and all, but this….” He shakes his head.
“Is why I get nine months of pampering,” I tease.
“How’s a lifetime?” he asks, kissing me sweetly.
“Isn’t this what got us here?” I ask as the kiss turns heated. A knock sounds at the door. Pulling away I look up to see Dawn standing in the doorway.
“H-Hey,” I splutter. “What are you doing here?”
“They were short-staffed today, and we have a doc out, so here I am. Both practices are owned by the hospital,” she goes on to explain. She must take my shocked expression for confusion.
“So…” She looks down at my chart. “What brings—” She stops and looks up at us. “No! Why didn’t anyone tell me? Congratulations,” she says, stepping forward and giving me and then Tyler a hug.
“Well, funny story. We haven’t told anyone yet.”
“Oh,” she says, realization dawning on her. “I won’t tell a soul, promise. But I’m so excited for you.” She steps back at the same time that I push my hair out of my eyes from our hug. I know the minute she spots it.
My ring.
“You’re engaged? When did this happen?”
“Recently,” I tell her. “This you can tell anyone you want.” Tyler snakes his arm around my waist and kisses the top of my head.
“Congratulations, you two. Although, we all saw it coming.” She laughs.
I look over my shoulder at Ty. “They all say that.”
“That’s all right. Just wait until we tell them about this little one.” He rests his hand on my belly. “They’re going to be surprised for sure.”
“Definitely,” Dawn agrees. “Just be glad it was me today and not Kendall. She was going to come over but had a meeting she couldn’t move. So they got me.”
“Wow, today is our lucky day then.”
“All right, just like last month. Undress from the waist down and cover up with this nice, fancy paper blanket. The doctor will be right in.” She’s out the door before we can thank her.
“That was incredible,” Tyler says once we’re in his truck and on our way to the new house. “I never knew it would feel like this. To hear our baby’s heartbeat inside you.”
“Yeah, I’m just sad that Ridge missed all this with Knox.”
“That had to be hard, but he gets to experience it all this time around.”
“Yeah, so why are we going to the new house? I have a ton of packing I need to do.”
“You’ll see.” He grins, bringing our joined hands to his lips for a kiss. “I know you’re not ready, and I respect that. It’s just going to be hard as hell not to shout this from the rooftops.”
“I’ve been thinking. The doctor says that everything looks good. I know it’s still early, but we are over halfway through the first trimester. What do you think in two weeks, after the wedding, we announce it?”
“That day?”
“Yeah, kind of a ‘thanks for coming, oh, by the way, we’re pregnant’ kind of thing.”
“I’m in for however you want to tell them. This is your show, Reags. I’m just the lucky bastard who gets to follow it with you.”
“This is our show,” I correct him. He just smiles over at me and turns his attention back to the road. The rest of the drive is quiet while we both process what we heard today. Our baby. It was incredible, just as Tyler said. You hear people talk about it, but you never really get it until it’s you. Until it’s your baby.
“We’re home,” Ty says as we pull into the driveway of the new house.
“Don’t tease me like that. I was seriously okay with an air mattress last night,” I tell him. I tried to convince him to grab an air mattress so we could spend our first night there, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I think his exact words were “my fiancée and baby are not sleeping on a fucking air mattress.” I could understand if I was really far along and sleeping was uncomfortable, but I’m not even showing. I wouldn’t even believe it’s real if I hadn’t seen the test and then heard the heartbeat today.
“I know you would have,” he says. “Stay put.” He climbs out of his truck and jogs around to my side and opens the door.
“You know, just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I can’t open doors for myself.”
“There she is.” He grins. “My independent woman. Just let me have this, will you? I like taking care of you. Both of you,” he says, and his eyes soften. “Let me do this. Is this what our marriage is going to be like? You not letting me pamper you.”
“I don’t expect it.”
“All the more reason for me to do it, my love. Now, come on.” He places his hands on my hips and helps me from the truck. I half expect him to carry me, but he doesn’t. He sets me on my feet and laces his fingers through mine. “After you,” he says after unlocking and pushing open the front door.
Inside I see a blank canvas, a house that will become our home. A place where we’re going to raise our family. “Are the guys still coming to help us move on Saturday?” I ask.
“Yes, all four of them. Kendall, Dawn, and Knox will be here too. My parents and your parents are coming later in the day as well.”
“I’m so excited.”
“Me too. Come on, let’s go check out our room again.”
I’m happy to oblige him as I follow him through the kitchen and into the small hallway that leads to our bedroom. I gasp when he opens the door and steps back. In the center of the room is a king-size sleigh bed. The one I told him I thought would look good in this very room, the day we viewed the house. Before we even put in an offer. “You didn’t,” I say, stepping next to the bed, and pressing down on the mattress to test its softness.
“I did. Welcome home, Reags.”
“How did you pull this off?”
“As soon as they accepted our offer, I went to the furniture store, and they had what I thought you described. I bought it. Called them yesterday and asked them to deliver it. Seth let them in.”
“I love it,” I say, relaxing back on the bed.
“I love this,” he says.
“What?” Lifting my head to look at him, I see him standing there watching me.
“You, here. This house. That ring on your finger.”
“Are we staying here tonight?”
“I was hoping we would.”
“We don’t have any clothes or anything really.”
I laugh. It’s surreal that this is our new home. That we’re engaged and having a baby. I feel as though I should pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.
“We don’t need clothes, baby.” He grins, pulling me close.
“We both have to work tomorrow,” I remind him.
“Fine,” he concedes. “We can go get some clothes, but I really want to stay here tonight with you.”
I bite down on my bottom lip. I want that too, more than anything, but we’ve done so much of this relationship ass backward. I want to try something slightly traditional for a change. “What would you say if I said I wanted us to wait to sleep here, in this house, in our new bed until the wedding?”
“Really?” he asks, surprise in his voice. “Is that what you want?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I know we’re still going to sleep in the same bed at either my place or yours, and we can start moving our stuff over still. I just feel like we’ve mixed this up. Dating but not admitting it, the baby before the wedding. I just think it would be nice that our first night in our new home is when we’ll be husband and wife.”
“That’s a big change from trying to convince me that we could sleep on an air mattress,” he says with a raised eyebrow. “I can definitely see the appeal to waiting. I get the meaning behind it. However, I have to admit I was looking forward to making love to you in that bed.”