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I sigh. “I mean he fucking reamed me without any trace of lube involved. My brother can be very sweet, but trust me when I say he’s got a brutal streak about two miles wide when he really gets going.”
“I should thank him, then,” she says. “Unless what he said to you isn’t the reason you’re here today.”
“Can we talk?” I look around at the clinical hallway and the door she’s about to open. “I don’t mean here. I mean can we go somewhere after and talk properly? I’ll be happy to tell you all about what Maxim said to me and why I’m here, but it seems better to keep it down once we get in there.”
“Let’s see what the doctor says first. Then we can decide what we’re going to do after.” Before she opens the interior door, she pauses, closes her eyes, and puts her hand to her stomach before dragging in a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go.”
She opens her eyes again as she says it, but despite that, she doesn’t move. Although she made it pretty clear that she didn’t want me to touch her on Saturday, I’m going to go ahead and take her hand now. Not because I don’t respect her wishes but because I don’t think she’s going to go in there otherwise.
Slowly and gently, I reach out and wind my fingers around hers. She stiffens at first but then folds her hand around mine and blows out another breath. “This doesn’t mean anything, okay? I just… I’m just nervous, and I’m accepting a helping hand. That’s all this is about.”
“Okay,” I say because as long as I get to hold her hand again, even if it’s just for a few seconds, I’ll take it.
When we walk into the doctor’s office, Olivia is handed some forms to fill in. When Izzy said she could get us in today, she meant before regular office hours. It’s still really early, and there’s no one else in here.
The receptionist is friendly and efficient, and as soon as Olivia hands the forms back to her, she ushers us into another office. There’s a man in a crisp white coat behind the desk, so I’m assuming he’s the doctor, and when he stands up and welcomes us in, I learn that his name is Kruger.
“You can just call me doc,” he says cheerfully. “Isabella tells me you’ve taken several pregnancy tests and they were all positive.”
Since he’s clearly talking to Olivia, I keep my mouth shut and simply pull out the chair he motions her into. She nods, glancing back at me for a moment before she sits down. “Yes, but, um… We, uh… We used, um, well…”
When she looks at me again as I’m taking the seat beside hers, I step in. I think that’s what she needs from me right now. So that’s what I do. “We used condoms until she went on the pill, so we’re both a little surprised by this.”
“Right,” he says, still smiling and completely cheerful. “Well, it could be that you stopped using condoms before the pill was entirely effective, or it could be that something interfered with its effectiveness. There’s really no way to know for sure, but did you take any antibiotics or antivirals around the time you started taking the oral contraception? Sometimes that can have an effect.”
Olivia pales, and I sit back in my chair. “That could explain it. There was a flu outbreak on tour. I’m not exactly sure about the timing in relation to when Olivia started taking the pill, but it was around the same time.”
“It was,” she confirms on a whisper.
Absently reaching for my hand, she hangs her head and breathes in and out slowly again. I put it in hers, fucking relieved that I decided to come this morning. Maxim and Emma weren’t sure it was a good idea, but they didn’t see the look in her eyes when she told me she needed me to show up. I did, and I had a feeling it was what I needed to do today.
“Okay,” the doctor says as he pushes his chair away from his desk. “Well, as I said, there’s no way to ever know for sure, but it sounds like you might have your answer. Now I’m going to take you through to the exam room. Let’s go take a look at what’s going on. Then we’ll come back here to talk.”
We both nod mutely, following him into the adjoining room where he leaves us for Olivia to change into a hospital gown. She disappears behind a screen, and when she comes back out, I help her onto the bed before taking the seat he showed me to before he left.
“Are you ready for this?” she asks quietly, nervously glancing around like she’s afraid someone might overhear us.
“Do you want the honest answer to that or the one I feel like I should give you?”
She purses her lips. “Always the honest one.”
“Then no. I’m not ready, but I will be. Before the baby comes, I will be ready. In the meantime, I’m going to be here whether I’m ready or not.”
“Maybe you should’ve said that a few weeks ago,” she mumbles, and when I raise my eyebrows at her, she clarifies. “Ready or not, here I come?”
I bite back the surprised laughter at her dry joke, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “Yeah, that might’ve been helpful, but we didn’t know that at the time.”
Doctor Cheerful comes back in and smiles before he motions for Olivia to lie down. “Okay,” he says as he snaps on a pair of gloves. “Let’s take a look, shall we?”
After squeezing a generous amount of gel onto her stomach and firing up his machine, he presses a snub-nosed wand-looking thing to her skin and turns on his stool to look at his screen. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was more than just a bunch of gray, black, and white lines and swirls. The doctor, however, seems to see something because he suddenly smiles again.
“Oh, hello there, little one.” He points at some of the blobs. “We’ll see if we can get a nice picture for you today. Just give me a minute.”
For a long moment, the only sound he makes is a series of hums, but then he blinks and leans forward. “Would you look at that…? Hello to you too, little one.”
Olivia freezes. “Uh, what was that?”
He hums again, eyes on the screen for another second that feels like an eternity before he smiles again. “Congratulations, you two. You’re having twins.”
