I nod again and hold out my left hand, letting the gorgeous custom designed engagement ring speak for itself. This makes Dr. Qi burst into a big grin. "I am so happy for you!" he says, and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted from the room. I know he wasn"t trying to feel sorry for me, but he did anyhow.
I somehow manage to find my voice. "Jace had to work today and he was supposed to be here but I"m thinking he got held up."
"That"s too bad," he says.
After what is a super uncomfortable and totally awkward examination by my doctor, they move me into another room with the ultrasound technician. She"s a woman barely older than I am and she smells like vanilla perfume and Skittles. She introduces herself as Jessica and she doesn"t even mention how I"m alone or how I"m a teenager. For some reason, the simple act of not judging me makes me want to talk to her and explain myself. Yet when people do judge me, all I can do is sit there quietly and wish they"d go away.
"My fiance couldn"t make it today because of work," I say, watching her squirt a bottle of warm clear goo on my stomach. "I"m really annoyed that I have to be here alone."
"Totally," she says. "At least he"s just working. Some guys are way too squeamish and refuse to look at the ultrasounds."
"Seriously? It"s just a grainy photo on a computer screen...it"s not like you"re going to cut me open and poke at my organs."
This makes her laugh. She presses the ultrasound wand thing to my stomach and moves it around. Almost instantly I can hear a fuzzy thumping sound, rapid like a hummingbird"s wings. "There"s your heartbeat," she says. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of another human"s heart beating inside my body. It is a beautiful, crazy, amazing sound.
And then it"s interrupted by the heavy knocking on the door. "What the h.e.l.l?" Jessica hisses. "I"m so sorry," she says to me as she storms to the door of the room and opens it just an inch. She immediately berates the person at the door and I"m grateful for it. Whoever chose to knock during my special moment should be chastised. Then to my horror, she swings the door wide open.
And Jace rushes inside.
"Jace!" In my excitement, I almost jump off the table but then I remember that my pants are pulled down a few inches and my stomach is covered in goo and disposable paper towels. So I throw my arms up instead and he finds his way into them, leaning over me carefully to avoid my stomach. He smells like exhaust fumes and sweat, but he"s here. I hold him tightly to me, kissing his cheek before I let him go. "Sorry I"m late," he says.
"You better be sorry." I narrow my eyes at him but I can"t hold onto an angry expression for very long. I"m so overwhelmed with happiness that he showed up, and there"s no way I could be mad at him.
Jessica takes up the ultrasound wand again and places it on my stomach. I"m just about to tell Jace about the rude woman in the waiting room and how I wish he could have been there to make me look better, when Jessica makes a curious sound. Her eyes squint as she stops moving the thing on my stomach, holding it precisely in place while peers at the computer screen.
"What is it?" I ask, my voice dry and panicky. Oh G.o.d, she"s found something wrong with my baby. I grab Jace"s arm. Jessica looks at me and then at Jace and starts laughing.
"No, no," she says, rolling her eyes. "There"s nothing to worry about. It"s just..." She turns the flat screen monitor toward us and points to the black and white image of our baby. My heart leaps into my throat. There on the screen, is a tiny baby hand. Jessica points to it with the computer mouse. "See there? Your baby looks like it"s making a peace sign. There"s a fist with two fingers open." She clicks something and the computer prints out a still image of the baby"s hand. "I just thought it was cute. Your baby might be a hippie!"
"Nah," Jace says, squeezing my hand. "You know what that is?" He makes the same peace-sign shape with his hand, only he holds it out in front of him with his palm facing down. "That"s a two finger clutch move. He"s clutching an imaginary dirt bike."
Of course Jace would think about dirt bikes instead of peace signs. Motocross is his entire world, besides me. Jessica lifts an eyebrow. "He?"
Jace shrugs sheepishly. "Well, I was just guessing."
"Would you two like to know the s.e.x of the baby?" Jessica asks.
I look at Jace, expecting to see him nodding impatiently. We"ve already talked about this and h.e.l.l yes we want to know the baby"s s.e.x. But when I look away from the ultrasound screen, I don"t see Jace looking excited like I had expected. He"s...he"s crying.
"Babe?" I ask.
He swallows and blinks back his tears. "Yes, Bay?"
"Are you okay?" I ask.
He nods. "Yep. I just...there"s a baby in there." He runs a hand through his hair and looks at me like I"m the only person in the world. And for a moment, I feel like that"s true. "I mean I knew there was a baby in there, but now I see it. It just hit me that I"m going to be a dad and that this is real and..." He sighs and a single tear rolls down his cheek. "I don"t know, I"m just really happy with my life right now."
"Aww," Jessica croons. She fans herself with one hand. "So what will it be, Dad? Do you want to know your baby"s s.e.x?"
Jace glances at me for confirmation. Now I"m the one nodding impatiently. He gives Jessica the go ahead and she points to another place on the monitor. "Okay Mom and Dad... you guys are having a little boy."
Chapter 5.
The next twenty four hours are one of the most amazing times of my life. They"re amazing not because of what we do, but because of what we don"t do. Jace doesn"t go to work, I don"t do any house work or baby planning or wedding planning. We don"t talk about the future and we don"t mention anything stressful for the entire day.
Here"s what we do: Sleep in until noon, cuddle and talk about our favorite memories over the last year, make love, sleep some more, order pizza and watch movies.
It is a glorious day of relaxation. I have never been so in love.
And then, just like that, the sun rises again the next morning and Jace is up at the b.u.t.t-crack of dawn. He tries so hard to be quiet as he tiptoes around our bedroom, trying to get dressed and brush his teeth without waking me up. But it never works. The moment he crawls out of our bed, I wake up instantly. It"s like my body knows when he"s not near me, no matter how long I"ve been sleeping.
Jace slips into the closet and searches for clothes to wear by the light of his cell phone. I yawn and stretch my arms above my head, twisting and sprawling until I"m taking up the entire bed. Jace"s pillow smells like him so I nuzzle against it until the ache of wanting him right next to me becomes overwhelming.
"You"re weird," he teases as he pads across the room in his bare feet. I look up from the pillow just in time to see him pull off the shirt he slept in and toss it at my head. It covers my eyes, blinding me but I don"t mind one bit because the shirt smells like him. Like boy and body wash and home.
"So are you," I tease back as I roll over and squeeze his shirt to my chest. "You"re the weirdest."
He leans over me on the bed, bracing himself against the headboard as he kisses the top of my head. "I love you," he says. "Try to have some fun today."
"How could I possibly have fun when you"re going to be gone all day?" It"s Thursday and Thursdays are Jace"s busiest training day. He"s usually giving lessons at the track until eight or nine at night. I used to go with him but ever since the morning sickness set in, I"ve been staying home more and more, trading in the bleachers for my bed. Today will definitely be one of those days.
"Do I know your schedule better than you do?" Jace says, poking me in the nose. I swat his hand away and think about his question. "What do you mean? I don"t have a schedule...I"m just a fat preggo with no job and no school until after this kid is born."
"You are so not fat," he says, leaning over and kissing me on the forehead and then the lips. "But you"re wrong. Becca is coming over today. It says it on your online calendar. It"s a good thing we started using that thing because now one of us can remember stuff."
"Is it Friday already?" I practically jump out of bed with excitement before I remember how early it is and fall back down into the soft mattress. I rub my eyes and admire Jace"s ridiculously hot backside as he pulls on a Mixon Motocross Park shirt and then buckles his black leather belt.
I let out a squeal of excitement. "Oh my G.o.d, I"m so excited to see her."
I can"t believe it"s finally Friday and my best friend is coming to spend the weekend with us. Becca and I grew up as best friends in my hometown. But now she lives an hour away since I moved to Mixon with Jace, so now our friendship is mostly texts, Facebook posts and the random meet up at a mall that"s halfway between both of our houses.
"I love you," Jace says. Right about now, I realize he"s been talking for the last few seconds but I wasn"t paying attention to any of it. I was trying to remember all the things Becca and I planned to do in the emails we exchanged while planning for this weekend. "I love you, too." I say quickly. I grab his hand and pull him back onto the bed with me and kiss him like I"ll never see him again. He smiles and trails a hand down my cheek. "I gotta go, babe. You get some more sleep and call me when you wake up."
The apartment is so boring when Jace is at work and I"m pacing around like a weirdo, anxious and excited for my best friend to get here. According to my online calendar, which I checked because I was too embarra.s.sed to call Becca and ask because then she"d know I forgot, Becca is supposed to get here around ten in the morning. We planned a big day of wedding planning, gossip, and eating junk food.
I"m getting a start on the day by baking half a dozen apple turnovers, using my mom"s recipe. They"re actually so easy to make that a kid could do it, but Jace and Becca practically worship me when I make them, so I keep the recipe a secret in order to preserve my perceived baking skills.
While they"re in the oven making the kitchen smell amazing, I start making a dish of seven layer dip for us to snack on after lunch. It always tastes better if it"s made in advance and refrigerated for a few hours, but I"m so tempted to eat it now. Stupid pregnancy cravings.
We call it seven layer dip because it started out having seven layers when my mom used to make it for holidays and parties. But she included things like salsa, jalapenos and these weird yellow peppers that Becca and I can"t eat no matter how hard we tried. When we were old enough, we dove into the kitchen unsupervised and created the greatest layered chip dip known to man: a bottom layer of refried beans, a thin layer of grated cheesesharp cheddar, hand grated only, another layer of thinly sliced avocados, then sour cream, then more cheese, then a final top layer of sliced black olives. So it"s technically six layers but sometimes we add extra cheese layers to make a legit seven layer dip.
I sprinkle on the final layer of black olives, swallow back my urge to eat the entire dish at once, then cover it with plastic wrap and toss it in the refrigerator before I change my mind.
My phone buzzes and I wash the cheese and avocado from my hands before checking it. My heart hurts when I read the message. This can"t be good.
Becca: Hey Bay, I have some bad news...
My fingers shake as I type out a reply. Bad news can only mean one thing - she"s cancelling our weekend plans. I bet she got called into work or something. Ugh. Now tears form in my eyes and I try to blink them away and remind myself that I"m an adult and adults don"t cry over broken plans.
Me: What is it?
Her reply takes forever. Like, literally, one entire forever goes by before she replies and in that forever, I open the refrigerator door and contemplate eating the seven layer dip before my apple turnovers come out of the oven. h.e.l.l, I could eat both of them back to back. It still wouldn"t heal over the pain of not getting to plan the wedding with my best friend.
My phone buzzes. I close the refrigerator door, blink back more tears and tell myself to stop being so selfish. Maybe something terrible happened to her and that"s why she can"t come over. With fresh new fears in my mind, I open her text message.
Becca: The bad news is that you"re gonna have to get off your preggo a.s.s in a minute...
My eyebrows draw together. Me: Huh???
Before I can press send, there"s a knock at my front door. My phone buzzes again.
Becca: BECAUSE YOUR BEST FRIEND IS HERE, BEYOTCH.
With a squeal, I sprint through the kitchen, almost tripping on the shiny tile flooring in my fuzzy socks. I yank open the door without even checking to make sure there"s no murderer on the other side. Luckily, it"s just Becca. She"s been keeping up with her hair highlights and now her hair is so long it"s almost down to her b.u.t.t. We both do this little jumping up and down while squealing thing and then I throw my arms around her in a hug.
"I cannot believe you tricked me like that! You"re such a jerk!"
She makes this coy look and then says all innocently, "I don"t know what you"re talking about..."
"I was seriously going to cry when I thought you weren"t coming," I say. She laughs and takes off her backpack, setting it on the floor in the foyer. "I have some more things," she says, popping back outside. When she returns, she"s carrying a large duffel bag and a black sign that"s as big as a poster board for a school project, but it doesn"t look like a homemade display board.
"What"s this?" I ask, taking the sign and turning it around. It"s black foam board with white lettering that has obviously been professionally printed. It only takes a second to recognize it as a type of sign they use for motocross races, only...it"s not a real sign. This one says MAIN EVENT in big letters and then under that is the date of our wedding, August 9th.
Becca bursts into a big smile and scrolls through her phone, looking for something. "It"s your wedding announcement sign! Isn"t it awesome? My boss has a printing machine and he made it for me."
"I"m still confused," I say. But I smile anyway because her excitement is rubbing off on me.
"Well you know how you wanted the wedding to be kind of motocross themed?" she says. I nod and she finally finds what she was looking for on her phone. She turns it toward me and it"s open to an image that she had saved from a screenshot. "I got the idea off of Pinterest. My friend Kristina pinned it to her motocross board and I thought it was so perfectly cute and so perfectly you."
The image shows a girl standing on a dirt bike track, holding up the sign as if she were starting a real race. Behind her is a guy on a dirt bike, looking like he"s ready to start the race. "This is really awesome," I say, immediately picturing all the ways Jace and I could take a photo on the track. "This will make an awesome picture for the wedding announcement and the invitations and, like everything. Did you bring your-?"
Before I can finish my question, Becca pulls a ma.s.sive camera out of her oversized purse. "Camera? Yep."
At the moment, I am super glad that Jace isn"t here because he always rolls his eyes when I start to squee like a crazy girl, because that"s exactly what I do. "This is going to be amazing!" I say, bouncing on my heels. "I know I make fun of you for your Pinterest obsession, but this time it totally paid off."
She bats her eyelashes and waves her hand at me. "I know, I know," she says. "Being a loser who spends all weekend on the computer instead of going on dates has finally come in handy for once."
"Aww," I say, frowning. "Are you doing okay? You"re still totally over Braedon, right?"
She nods. "Yeah, we"re cool. We"re totally better off as just friends, but it"s not him that I miss. I miss having a boyfriend. Someone to text me good morning and someone to hold my hand and all that..." She stares at somewhere off in the distance and sighs. "Oh well," she says, perking up again. "This weekend is about you, my dear. Not me."
I feel a twinge of guilt for being in such a happy relationship when Becca is so single it hurts. She"s such a great person and she deserves someone to care for her. I don"t know why she can"t ever find a good guy. Of course, our hometown totally sucks when it comes to guys. If not for meeting Jace at my grandparent"s house in Salt Gap, Texas, I"d probably still be single as well.
"Actually..." I begin, remembering my conversation with Jace the other day. I know he thinks it"d be a bad idea to try and hook up Becca with his best man, but that doesn"t mean they can"t just flirt with each other until he goes back to California, right? Becca lifts an eyebrow for me to continue. We sit on the couch and I prop the main event sign against the wall. "Okay, so, this isn"t a big deal at all, okay? Like it"s so far from a big deal that it"s not even a deal at all..."
Becca rolls her eyes. "Then why bother telling me?"
"Because Jace"s best man is totally hot and I think you two would look super cute in pictures together."
Her eyes narrow. "Why just pictures?"
"Well...because he lives in California so he"ll only be here for the wedding. But Jace says he"s an awesome guy, so the good news is that you"ll have someone to hang out with for all the planning and festivities."
She laughs. "How hot is this guy?"
"Hot. Like Jace hot."
"Is he into motocross?"
"Yep. He"s semi-pro and races all over the country."
"Bada.s.s." Her eyes drift off into secret Becca daydream land. After a few moments she says, "Well I guess having a hot guy to flirt with for a few days is better than having no guys to flirt with for a few days."
"Your time will come, I promise. One of these days, we"ll be planning your wedding."
"And maybe your baby could be my ring bearer!"
"How"d you know it"s a?" The words are out of my mouth before I can realize what I"m saying. I slap my hand over my mouth and Becca"s eyes go wide. Even though I wanted to know the baby"s s.e.x as soon as possible, Becca wanted to wait. She said it would be more fun that way.
"You"re having a boy!?" She grabs my hands and squeezes them tightly. "Oh my G.o.d, a little boy? I"m so excited I can"t even think straight."
I hang my head, not wanting to admit it but knowing I can"t deny it. "I"m sorry I accidentally ruined it for you."
"No way, are you kidding? I"m so excited! He"s going to be a little Jace!" Becca stands up from the couch and begins pacing the living room, ticking off ideas on her fingers. "I"m going to throw you a dirt bike themed baby shower, and we can get you all checkerboard and motocross patterned baby blankets and...do you have a name picked out yet?"
I shrug, lacing my fingers together in my lap. "Nope. No names, no plans. I"m kind of on the verge of a panic attack about it all." I don"t even realize I"m playing with my engagement ring until Becca"s hand falls over mine. She looks me in the eyes, giving me a rea.s.suring smile. "We"ll focus on the wedding first and then the baby. It"s all going to be fine." She points her finger at me as if she"s my mother. "Absolutely no worrying. I forbid it."
"Yes ma"am," I say sarcastically. She punches me in the arm. "Okay," I say, grabbing my wedding planning notebook off the coffee table. So far, it"s a whole lot more notebook than wedding plans. But I plan on resolving that soon. "Let"s plan this wedding!"
Becca holds up an identical notebook that she bought to match mine. She calls it her Bridesmaid planner. She slaps her notebook to mine as if we"re holding champagne gla.s.ses and making a toast. "Let the planning begin!"