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“I do,” I muttered, still staring at the screen.
“Everything’s checking out fine,” the doctor said, interrupting my trance. “It’s not unusual to experience some bleeding and cramping during the first trimester. Sometimes, of course, it can mean miscarriage. Other times, it’s perfectly normal. But you should take extra care to reduce stress and get good sleep.” She turned to me. “You can breathe now, Daddy. Everything looks okay.”
Daddy.
If only I could truly breathe. But that wouldn’t be happening for a while.
CHAPTER 21
Devyn
“Ta-da!”
My mouth dropped open. Mia stood on the other side of my door with her arms up in the air.
“Oh my God. What are you doing here?”
“I was able to finish everything I needed to do a few days early, so I jumped on the redeye last night.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it would be more fun to surprise you.”
“Well, why are you standing out there? Get over here. I need a hug!”
Mia squeezed me tight, and I felt my shoulders loosen and drift down a few inches. I hadn’t realized how much I needed my best friend here. “God, I missed you.” I sighed.
“I’m glad to hear that. Because I’ve been a little jealous with all the Billie and Lala talk lately. I was starting to feel like I was being replaced.”
“Never!” I smiled and waved her inside. “Come in. Come in.”
Mia wheeled her pink luggage into the apartment. “Are Heath and Hannah here? I can’t believe I’m finally going to get to meet them.”
I shook my head. “They’re already off to school. They left ten minutes ago.”
“Damn. It’s just as well, I guess. Because I have an appointment in less than an hour.”
“You have to work already? I thought you said you’d get a few days off before you had to jump into stuff at the new gallery?”
“I do. My appointment isn’t work related. It’s personal.”
“Oh?”
Mia grinned and clapped her hands. “I’m getting a tattoo!”
“What? Are you joking?”
“Nope. I had the tattoo dream again.”
She didn’t have a single one, but Mia had been having recurring dreams about getting tattoos for longer than I’d known her. They happened once or twice a year, and each time, the dream started with a tattoo and ended with her meeting some random hot guy. In one dream, she got a tattoo of a crescent moon, and later that day she met a neurosurgeon. In another, she had the outline of a butterfly tattooed on her thigh, and when she went back a few weeks later to have it colored in, there was a famous rock star getting inked in the chair next to her. She left the tattoo parlor and went on tour with him. Sometimes she had the same dream more than once.
“What was the dream this time?”
“It was a new one. I was in a foreign country getting a tattoo. I’m not sure which one, but it was really pretty with high cliffs. After the tattoo was finished, I went for a walk along the waterfront, and some gorgeous guy yelled to me from his yacht. He pointed to the bandage covering my wrist and asked if I was okay. We wound up having espresso on his yacht, and when I took off the bandage to show him what I’d gotten, he had the sameexacttattoo. We sailed around the Mediterranean all summer.”
I chuckled. “But I thought you were againstactuallygetting a tattoo? I believe your exact words were, ‘You don’t put a bumper sticker on a Bentley.’”
“I borrowed that quote from Kim Kardashian during my reality-TV phase when I thought she was my guru. Now I’m into motivation and mindset podcasts, and I’ve changed my tune. I need to work on manifestation. If I’m ever going to meet Prince Charming, I need to put it out there to the world that I’m here for it. Getting the tattoo from my dream is my way of doing that.”
