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“That all makes sense,” Kip said in a calm and reasonable tone. “And it’s on me that I haven’t been here to soak up all the crazy.”
My eyes narrowed. “Calling a pregnant woman crazy is an interesting choice at this juncture.”
He grinned. “Yeah, well, you’re mad at me, and you’re not freaking out about the ultrasound, are you?”
I blinked.
That asshole.
He reached over to grab my hand despite my warning body language. “I can’t promise you nothing bad is gonna happen in there, as much as I want to,” he told me soberly. “But I’m thinking the odds are in our favor. Not just because I believe my sperm is superior to any and all sperm—”
I scowled at him.
“—but because you’re one of the toughest, most infuriating women I know, and that baby is you, and that baby is fucking strong.” His thumb stroked my hand. “And if the worst happens, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not abandoning you.”
Though I really wanted to protect myself, my heart, and my baby, I couldn’t help but believe him.
eighteen
Sex and Baby Books
“Doyou want to know the gender?” the ultrasound tech asked me.
We’d been in the room for half an hour, my heartbeat a dull roar in my ears and Kip’s hand firm in mine.
So far, our baby had an entire brain, a normal, healthy heart, and all the other organs were in the places they were supposed to be in.
That had loosened my tight muscles somewhat.
I was still waiting for an extra limb to pop out of somewhere, or the woman’s face to change from open and casual to closed off and grave.
“Yes,” I said, my response more than a little delayed to the sonographer’s question.
Kip’s hand squeezed mine, and I remembered he was there. I looked over to him, wondering if I should ask him ifhewanted to know the gender.
Then I remembered the months of solitude and cold shoulders.
“Yes,” I said, looking back at the sonographer. “We want to know the gender.”
Kip, to his credit, seemed smart enough to keep his lips shut with my use of the royal ‘we.’ Though he hadn’t said much beyond “holy fuck” with an awed, slack-jawed expression, eyes glued to the large screen that showed a seemingly healthy and active baby.
But I didn’t have a degree in radiology or whatever you needed to decipher the splotches of black-and-white that consisted of her organs.
I’d had the chance to find out the gender much earlier than this. First with genetic blood tests, then with a variety of ultrasounds. I wasn’t one for surprises—I was sure a newborn baby was going to give me plenty of those—but for whatever reason, I couldn’t let them tell me what it was.
Surely it wasn’t because it felt wrong without Kip. I was going to raise the fucking thing without him.
Yet…
I waited until he was sitting beside me before I found out.
“It’s a little girl,” she said with a smile. “Congratulations.”
“A girl?” Kip said, stunned.
I looked over to him. He was pale, wide-eyed, shocked, and awed.
A girl.
