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“Fuck me.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut and jaw clenched tight, grinding his teeth. He pulls his palm down his face, his fingers curling like talons around his chin. The veins in his neck bulge as a tsunami of emotion crashes over him. “You should have told me. I could have…I could have been there with you.”
“I didn’t want to put you through that. I wanted to be absolutely sure first.”
“When was the doctor here?”
“Today.” I start gnawing on my thumbnail, my stomach turning into a thousand tiny knots that are chafing against my spine.
Nicoli gets up and starts to pace, roughing his hand through his hair, shoulders pulled taut with tension. Abruptly, he whips around to face me, his eyes the color of a perfect storm as he stares at me from across the room. “And there’s a chance… “He sucks in a breath. “Jesus. There’s a chance it could be his?”
“That’s what I thought, yes.”
“You…thought?”
“I’m not pregnant.”
He balks. “But you just said—”
“I needed you to take me seriously.”
“Jesus Christ, Mira,” he blurts. “Are you trying to fucking kill me? Motherfucker.” Both hands are in his hair as he stomps up and down, his chest heaving as he breathes heavily.
“Nicoli—”
“You know, sometimes I think we take the whole marriage banter just a little too far. We need to set some boundaries. We need to tone that shit right the fuck down.” He crouches over and straightens again, throwing his head back as relief floods him.
“There’s more,” I murmur, grimacing as I anticipate his reaction.
“Oh, baby,” he sighs. “Lay it on me because nothing, and I mean nothing, can shock me after that.” Abruptly, he stills, staring at me with suspicion weighing on his brows. “I see what you’re doing here.”
“What am I doing?”
“You dropped that giant-sized dick on my forehead so that whatever you’re about to tell me next doesn’t sound half as bad.”
“That’s not what I’m doing, I swear.” I take a few steps over to him. “Listen, I’m all kinds of serious right now. And I need you to promise you won’t barge out of here until this conversation is over.”
“What?”
“Promise me, Nicoli.”
“Jesus, Mirabella. What the fuck is going on?”
“Promise,” I demand.
“Fine, I promise.” He crosses his arms over his chest, and I want to hug him, to kiss away the tense expression tugging on his face, the one that tells me he’s ready to growl at me. “Now talk.”
I press my lips thinly while his eyes search my face for answers. This entire conversation so far has not been going the way I thought it would, and now I’m wondering if I should continue it at all.
“Mira,” he demands. “Baby, talk to me.”
I walk over to my dresser table, slowly open the drawer, and reach all the way back, pulling out the crumpled piece of paper.
“What’s that?” he asks, eyes narrowed.
“It’s, um—” I hold it out to him. “It’s a note.”
When he takes it from me, I stop breathing, watching as he scans over it. It’s like watching a storm form in the distance, his features clouding over until he finally looks up at me with a thunderous expression.
“He called you birdie.”
