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“Esmerelda,” I offer, laughter in my tone. “Byron, Starla… oh, I know! McLovin.” I rub a hand over my flat stomach as I walk to the kitchen. “Hey there, McLovin,” I croon.
“You’re impossible,” Nico pouts from behind me.
“Yet you love me,” I tease. “Go figure.”
“Life will certainly never be dull.”
“You were worried about that?”
Nico laughs as he shakes his head. “No. Not even a little bit.”
“Oooh, do we have bacon?” I open the fridge and start digging around. I find a bag of baby carrots and grab one. “Or what about pepper jack cheese?” I ask around a mouthful of the orange veggie. “I could go for a cheese omelet.”
“Sit down and I’ll fix you something,” he commands, pulling me away from the fridge and pushing me down into a dining chair.
“So bossy.”
“I think you secretly like being bossed around.”
“Maybe. But you will take that information to your grave unless you want to be introduced to your final resting place at a young age.”
“Fair enough.”
Nico focuses on fixing us both breakfast while I sit and contemplate what to say. It’s easy to joke with him, and he’s great about playing along, but I know there are things we actually have to discuss.
One of us has to dive in, and I decide it’s going to be me.
“I’m scared.”
Nico turns from the stove to look at me. “About?”
“Everything,” I admit. “But mostly about being a parent.”
“You’ll be an amazing mom.”
“Nico, I haven’t even taken a pregnancy test yet, that’s how stupid I am about all this. I mean, I know I need to, but I started puking yesterday, and Harlow said I was pregnant, and I went along with it because pregnant chicks puke, right?” I suck in a breath.
Nico sets a plate of food in front of me, and I relax when my stomach doesn’t protest the smell.
“We’ll have Nate do a blood test tomorrow, just to be sure.”
“That’s it?” I ask, not giving a shit that my mouth is full of eggs. “You’re not mad?”
“Why would I be mad? You got caught up in the moment, and then there’s the fact that it was Harlow and Malachi’s wedding day.” Nico shrugs as he sits in the chair across from me. “I’m guessing, based on the vomiting, the exhaustion, and the, uh…” He points his fork at my plate. “The appetite, you’re pregnant. And if we’re wrong, then something else is going on and we’ll figure it out.”
“Oh.”
That was easy.
“Ya know,” he begins. “We’ve never talked about your family. Tell me about them.”
“The DHMC is my family.’
“Yeah, but your biological family. You’ve got a mom and dad, right?”
“You mean you haven’t researched the shit out of my life yet?” I snark. I don’t like to talk about my family. I know I need to, especially since that’s causing the majority of my fear, but I don’t want to.
“Nope. I knew what I needed to know. The rest I wanted to learn from you, not the internet.” He takes another bite, swallows. “So, your family?”
