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“A ton!” he puffed, his eyes—the same gray as mine—widening comically, while his jaw grew slack. “What exactly are you saying, Sophia Katarina Manning?”
I giggled. I always did whenever someone said my full name. As a child, I heard it mostly when I was in trouble, and as an adult, I rarely heard it uttered except on graduation days and job interviews. But Danny liked to use my full name whenever he wanted to make a point, or just to add a dramatic flair.
“I’m saying that you’re kind of a man-whore.”
He gasped again, his smooth face crinkling up with hurt, his lips pressing into a pout, and his arms folding over his chest. The Danny pose.
“Ah no, did I hurt your feelings?” I sang teasingly, swinging my body over the armrest, hoping to untangle his arms and lift his spirits like I used to do when we were little, when a sudden ache sliced across my chest. “Ow!” I exclaimed, falling back into my chair and clutching at my boobs.
“It wasn’t me,” he said, an automatic reaction, lifting both hands up like he used to do whenever Mom or Dad came in to find me howling because Danny either stole my Barbie or ate the last chocolate chip cookie. “I promise.”
“I know it wasn’t. It’s my boobs. They’re really sore.”
He cringed, despite growing up with a mother and a sister, and covered his face with his hands, as if I’d mentioned something far more embarrassing than boobs.
Two days ago was the first time I had noticed a change, just a slight twinge around my nipples, but clearly, things had gotten worse. Strange, since my PMS symptoms rarely ever included anything more than an increased appetite and bloating before Aunt Flow arrived— A nervous, worrisome thought suddenly shot into my head, but it vanished as quickly as it came, leaving me no time to grasp it, to make sense of it, before both Gloria and Harriet walked through the door.
“All good here?” asked Gloria, her voice as solid as a tree trunk. She was built equally as strong, with hands that could swallow mine whole. Harriet was the opposite of her, a petite woman but with as much strength. I knew from experience that it wasn’t about the size but the strength and willpower to get the job done.
“Perfect,” I said, leaning into the cushy chair, ready to have my feet scrubbed and my calves massaged. “Thank you.”
I glanced over to Danny. He had his eyes closed as Gloria lifted up his foot and began to work ground coffee into his heel. Harriet was doing the same for me, and the smell of coffee beans lingered strongly in the room.
Everything was perfect. Moments of blissful silence without worrying about Alex, without thinking about work and the patients I had to see. A perfect Sunday morning— But then that same thought came rushing back, except this time I could actually grasp it, process it. And just as it made sense in my head, my heart began to beat faster and faster until it was threatening to burst from my chest cavity. I was two days late for my period. I was never late, just like the sun which rose every morning like clockwork was never late.
“Shit,” I cried.
I sat forward so quickly Harriet’s grip tightened on my ankle, her green eyes wide, her brows knitted tightly together. “Are you alright, Ma’am? Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I shook my head. “Not at all. You’re amazing. Absolutely perfect. I just . . . ” My voice trailed off as if I’d lost the ability to speak.
“What’s wrong?” asked Danny, glancing my way. His eyes were narrowed as he stared at me with aWhat the hell is going on with you?look.
But how on earth could I possibly say that I was dumb enough to have unprotected sex with a stranger—who was an only child and grew up in Colorado but didn’t like the mountains, and was actually not the complete asshole I had thought him to be in those first moments of meeting him—and could possibly, but hopefully not, be pregnant?
CHAPTER 8
Alex
“Good morning, Mr. Edwards.” I smiled, glancing up from the patient chart as I entered one of the private rooms in the surgical ward at Rosa Memorial Hospital. “How are you doing? Making any headway with your puzzle today?”
“These crosswords are damned near harder than recovering from surgery,” he grumbled, dropping the magazine on his lap. “Give me a seven-letter word for ‘equal in status’.”
Mr. Edwards had been in the ward for two days after a total knee replacement, and every time I walked through his door, he’d toss a cryptic clue my way and then tap his finger impatiently against the magazine when it took me longer than a split second to answer.
So far, I’d had five out of six. The only one I hadn’t managed to get, at least not without having to step out and use the Safari app on my phone, was a five-letter word for “chief gods of Norse mythology”. The answer was, of course,Aesir, which I wouldn’t have gotten in a million years, yet Mr. Edwards had called me an embarrassment to the medical profession.
He was a ray of sunshine like that.
I even had to brush up on my general knowledge the last two evenings—not that I minded, it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. In fact, it actually stopped me from staring at the two unanswered text messages I’d sent Sophie for minutes on end.
“Um . . . ” I gave it a thought, glad when the word popped into my head. “Compeer.”
Mr. Edwards studied me through his bushy eyebrows, which were dipped so low his light eyes were hidden and nodded. “Right, you are. I had that word at the tip of my tongue.”
“Of course, you did, Mr. Edwards. How’s the knee doing?”
“Fine,” he mumbled. “Pain’s at a manageable four out of ten.”
