“You should come,” she said, trying to subdue the excitement in her voice.
“Really?” I asked, blinking to keep my eyes open.
“Really.”
I hurried to the hospital lab. The elevator was taking too long, so I ran up the stairs two at a time and pushed open the door.
Avery sat in the waiting room wearing her scrubs, her stethoscope still around her neck.
“Have you gone in yet?” I asked.
She shook her head, too excited to talk.
I scanned her face, taking in how beautiful she looked in that moment. “You are absolutely stunning, you know that?”
Her eyes softened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but a phlebotomist opened the door. He looked at the chart twice before calling her name. “Avery Avery?”
Avery smiled and stood, but when I did the same, the phlebotomist pointed at me with his pen. “This will be super quick, so if you could just wait here, that would be fabulous.”
“Uh … sure,” I said, frowning at the sight of Avery disappearing down a short hallway.
I ran my hands through my hair and bobbed my knees up and down while I waited. I played Angry Birds on my phone, shot out a few sarcastic tweets, and then looked at the clock.
“Fuuuuuck,” I hissed under my breath. My eyelids felt like sandpaper as they raked over my bloodshot eyes.
“We’ll call you with the results, Mrs. Avery.”
My beautiful wife stepped into the waiting room, gorgeous in her purple scrubs and a matching tourniquet wrapped around her elbow. I closed the distance between us, gripping her waist as I planted a kiss on her forehead.
“It will be a few days,” she reminded me with an easy smile.
My face fell. “A few days?”
“You act like you haven’t done this before.”
I frowned, unhappy about the reminder. “Not this part.”
I kept my palm on the small of her back as we walked into the hall toward the elevator. Avery looked so happy, grinning at everyone who passed. A heavily pregnant mother waited with us, pressing on her back with her hand.
I leaned over, whispering in Avery’s ear, “It’s happening this time. I can feel it.” I pressed my palm against her stomach as her hand covered mine.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet,” she said.
“I will. They’re up. This is it. I’ll bet my paycheck on it.”
She leaned against me. “Stop,” she said, sounding like a mother already. She lifted her wrist and frowned at her watch. “I have to get to work.”
I nodded even though I didn’t want to let her go. “I’m already looking forward to your maternity leave so I can see you once in a while.”
“You love your job just as much as I love mine,” she said, stepping inside the elevator.
The doors opened, and she walked toward the ER while I headed for the parking lot.
“Love you,” she said, waving good-bye.
I reluctantly let her go, watching as she made her way down the long white corridor. Her bright purple scrubs abruptly disappeared behind the large double doors at the end.
I gripped my keys in my hand, smiling at the idea of a little Avery running around.
“Please, let this happen,” I whispered. I thought I couldn’t want anything more when I had asked Avery to marry me. Now, all I wanted was for her to be pregnant with my child.
I only turned on the red lever and left the blue one alone, but the water still wasn’t hot enough to soothe my aching muscles.
I turned off the shower and reached outside the stall to grab a towel, allowing heat to escape so I could breathe. The mirror immediately fogged, the tiny bathroom filling with thick steam.
Dax was waiting outside the bathroom door, his tail wagging wildly as I stepped out onto the linoleum floor.
“You’re going to have to wait a minute,” I warned. I wasn’t looking forward to dragging my ass down the two flights of stairs to let him go to the bathroom.
His head cocked to the side, and I laughed. The thick white cotton of my towel collected water droplets from my skin, immediately leaving goose bumps in their place from the slight nip in the early morning air.
Fall was my favorite time of year, and this fall was going to be the best yet. The sweltering heat had let up enough for Avery to once again drown in my oversize hoodie. I loved the look of her bare legs under my sweatshirt when she woke in the morning to make coffee. Unfortunately, our schedules had shifted again, and I was working mostly nights.
Dax yelped as I wrapped the towel around my waist, shaking my head at how short it was. I would have to get some more of those oversize ones Mrs. Cipriani had given us as a wedding present. Avery used the only two we had and left the tiny ones for me.
“Do you see this?” I pointed to the small pile of towels in the corner as Dax’s tail began to whip harder. “I am not married to you. You can’t tell me what to do.” I padded my way to our bedroom, leaving wet footprints in my path. Grabbing a pair of basketball shorts from the clean laundry basket, I tugged them up over my hips, rolling my neck to the side and closing my eyes as it popped loudly.
“Let’s go.” I followed him from the bedroom, grabbing his leash from the counter and clipping it to his collar before leading him downstairs.
Our newest neighbor was shoving her key in the lock to her apartment, a baby car seat in the other hand and the straps of her wristlet purse between her teeth. She’d only moved into the apartment below us a few weeks before, and her colicky son’s room was directly below our bedroom.
“Let me help you with that,” I said, hurrying to her side. I took the seat handle from her hand, smiling down at the chubby baby inside.
“Thank you.” She batted her faded pink hair from her face and let out a loud, exasperated sigh as her key finally found its way into the lock. She shoved the door open with her shoulder and stepped out of the way so I could enter.
Her place was laid out exactly like mine and Avery’s, but with baby furniture and paraphernalia. It looked like a Babies “R” Us had exploded.
Hope called over her shoulder as she put her purse on the kitchen island. “Thank you so much, Josh. You can just set him down next to his playpen, if you don’t mind.”
I set the carrier on the floor and began to unbuckle the little boy. “How you liking this place?” I asked, smiling down at him.
“It’s a quiet neighborhood.” She laughed. “Well, I guess I’m the loudest one around here. Sorry about that. Toby doesn’t sleep through the night yet.”
“No worries.” I pulled the boy from the seat and stood with him in my arms.
Hope watched me.
“Oh,” I said. “I hope this is okay.”
She smiled. “He likes you.”
I bounced him a bit. I had no clue whether that was the right thing to do or not, but it felt right. “It’s good practice. We hope to be adding a baby to our family soon, too.”
“Oh,” she said, surprised.
“What?” I paced the floor with Toby, bouncing slightly.
“Oh, nothing. I just thought you guys were a casual thing. I don’t see her around much and she’s always running out in the morning.” Her cheeks darkened, embarrassed by how much she knew.
“She works days and I have the night shift at the moment. But Avery’s definitely not casual. She’s my wife.”
“Wife? Congrats.”
“I know. She’s way out of my league,” I said.
“Don’t sell yourself short.” Crossing the room, Hope pulled Toby from my arms. “I just meant you look too young to be married.”
“Ah … well, when you know, you know.”
“Yeah … I mean, I guess.” Hope set her son in his swing and turned it on. It swayed and chimed a nursery rhyme tune while Toby became mesmerized by the lights. “Best invention ever.” She turned to me. “You know, Josh … I thought I knew once, too. Believe me, it was never my plan to be raising this little man on my own.”