My lips twitch. “Yeah, I am.”
Quiet falls, and I wrack my brain for something to say that won’t piss her off or send her puking or shatter the fragile peace that’s settled between us.
Before I can, there’s a knock at the door and then the doctor’s pushing into the room, smiling at us and settling in.
They talk about timing…and a due date?—
Which sends my pulse fucking careening through my veins.
“What questions do you have?” she asks Harper.
“Oh, um...” Harp’s eyes come to mine, panic creeping into the edges.
“You need this?” I ask softly, holding up her journal. She’d been flipping through it when I first walked into the waiting room.
“Yes,” she says thankfully, taking it from me and opening it. She asks a lot of good questions—definitely more than I thought of myself—and I listen carefully to the answers, eventually pulling out my phone and jotting down a few important things.
But there’s one item of concern she isn’t asking about.
And maybe I shouldn’t interact, but I can’t stop thinking about how awful she clearly felt the other day.
And about how much of this she’s been shouldering alone.
“What about you being sick all the time?” I interject softly.
She nibbles at her bottom lip. “It’s fine. I’m sure it will pass after the first trimester.”
“Hmm. It looks like you’ve lost five pounds since your yearly appointment a few months back,” Dr. Harlow says, shifting over to the computer and clicking around. “Are you able to keep anything down?”
More nibbling. “Not really. And sometimes it’s waking me up at night.”
Fuck.
She can’t even sleep undisturbed?
No wonder the circles under her eyes are so dark.
Dr. Harlow winces. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Then she recommends the ginger candies I bought in bulk, and I make a mental note to bring them to Harper’s place so she has them on hand. And maybe to stash them in her purse, her car, her kitchen. “But I want you to check in by the end of the week. If they don’t help in the next couple of days or so, we may need to talk about medication. The last thing we need is for you to get dehydrated and end up in the hospital.”
“Okay,” Harper says as I make another mental note.
“Great.” Dr. Harlow turns and heads for the box of gloves, pulling out a pair and tugging them on with an ominous snap.
“So, are you guys ready for the fun stuff?”
Eleven
Harper
“So ready,” I say and Dr. Harlow smiles, sitting on the rolling stool doctors always seem to have and scooting close.
“If you’ll just slide down,” she says, adjusting the stirrups and guiding my feet into them.
Worried, I flick my gaze to the side as she tells me to scoot further—why is it always further down?—but Leo is keeping his eyes deliberately on mine and not on my lady business that’s covered by the ridiculously thin paper drape.
One touch and the thing will tear, and then where will I be?
It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.
