I laughed. “Kiss me arse, I don’t love you that much.”
“Lies,” he teased as he switched on the CTG machine and hooked the monitoring strap around my stomach.
I shook my head, smiling. “You should have seen Ryder run up here with me. I tried to tell ‘im that this was the labour ward, and I’d need to go to the emergency department downstairs, but he wasn’t havin’ it.”
“He trusts Sally and me to take care of you,” Ash said, his chest swelling with pride. “I’d have just requested that you be brought up here anyway, so Ryder saved us time by doing this favour.”
I smiled. “I figured as much.”
Ash winked then looked at the USG machine that was next to us.
“I’m going to see if I can do this technician gig,” he announced, rubbing his hands together before turning the machine on.
I chortled as he adjusted the CTG monitoring strap.
“Go for it,” I said.
After spurting some more gel onto my skin, Ash swirled the Doppler around on my belly, and I watched him with great amusement. I didn’t think he’d find the baby’s heartbeat, or the baby at all, because while he was decent at reading ultrasounds, he wasn’t very good at using this machine to find the perfect images. We didn’t have the eye that the technicians did. To me, everything was just black and grey splotches until something was pointed out to me.
After a minute or two, I thought Ash was about to give up when he suddenly leaned in so close to the monitor that his nose almost touched the screen. He sat back on the bed after a moment and looked from the screen to me then back at the screen. He blinked and rubbed his eyes a couple of times too. I watched him with bewilderment; the man stared at the monitor like God himself had appeared and randomly began to shuffle back and forth in an Elvis costume.
“What the heck is wrong with you?” I asked with a strained laugh.
In the back of my mind, I was worried he saw something about the baby that wasn’t good, and it began to scare me.
“Nothing,” he replied, still looking at the screen. “I just... it looks like... I’m certain anyway—”
“Ash!” I cut him off, now panicked. “What do you see? Is the baby okay?”
Please be okay.
“Yeah, everything looks great. It’s just...” he mumbled to himself and leaned in closer to the monitor. “Look, I’m no technician, sweetheart, but that’s twins right there. I’m sure of it.”
For a second, all I heard was static noise.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I gathered my bearings. “Can you repeat that?”
“Ryder has mighty sperm,” Ash stated with a shake of his head. “He knocked you up with twins. I’d bet my car on it.”
My heart slammed into my chest because Ash bloody loved his car.
“I don’t find you one bit fu-unny,” I stammered. “You clearly have some other lady’s ultrasound and are pretendin’ it’s mine!”
Laughter burst free from Ash.
“That would have been hilarious, but this is not a joke. With my hand on my heart, I’m not yanking your chain. That’s all you on the screen and your two babies.”
I looked from Ash to the screen and said, “Point it out to me.”
He did as he was asked, and once I saw what he saw, I couldn’t unsee it.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered.
“Yep, start prayin’ to Him because you’re so screwed.” He snickered. “Raising twins is going to be hard as hell.”
Stop talking.
I thought of Ryder, and my heart began to violently pound against my chest.
“Ryder,” I rasped. “Get ‘im in here. Sally too; she can read scans like the newspaper.”
Ash didn’t need to be asked twice; he left the room and went to get Ryder and Sally. It left me alone in the room with the monitor that was now dark because the Doppler wasn’t on my stomach anymore. Blank screen or not, I couldn’t look away from the monitor. My whole life was changing before me, and I was sickly excited about it.
“Twins,” I whispered aloud.
Can I really be that lucky?
Sally entered the room a few seconds before Ryder, and she went straight to the USG machine and repeated what Ash did. She gasped once or twice, and then took a shitload of measurements. The suspense was almost killing me.
“Well?” I said.
Sally looked at me with wide eyes. “Ash is right, Bran.”
“Oh, my God!” I whispered.
“Is there something wrong with the baby?” Ryder asked, the fear in his voice evident. “Ash said something to Sally, and she just took off back in here.”
I looked at my husband and found his eyes locked on mine. I shook my head in response to his question, my eyes misting with water.
“No.” I choked. “In fact, both babies are doin’ excellent.”
Ryder’s shoulders sagged with relief briefly before they tensed almost instantly when my words registered with him.