Chapter 12
KAREEM
Watching Arielle fight her sleep and run a fever while I drove had me ready to burn the world down. It had been two days since we confessed our love for each other, and instead of her getting better and things playing out like a movie, my baby’s health kept declining.
I glanced over at her again in the passenger seat.
Her head rested on the cool window while her eyes opened and closed as if sleep was winning the battle.
I wanted to tell her to rest, but we were already pulling up into the parking lot of the store.
I’d wanted to take her to the emergency room, but she had a doctor’s appointment with her primary care doctor tomorrow and insisted she could make it until then.
When I called my mama to ask her for advice, her crazy ass asked if Arielle was pregnant.
That caused me to realize I’d been hittin’ that sweet ass pussy nonstop since I met her.
I asked her if she’d had her period during those two weeks we were apart, and she couldn’t remember, so I gathered her up and took her to the car so we could get some tests.
She didn’t know that was what we were doing, but she was definitely about to find out.
After I parked in the parking lot of NellanNem’s Corner Store, I cut the car off and gently rubbed her arm.
“Baby, lean away from the window so I can get you out.”
She followed my instructions, and I got out and rushed to her side of the car. When I opened the door, she reached for me like a little baby, and I made a face halfway between a smile and a frown. The sight of her made my heart swell, but I also felt sad as hell. I just wanted her to feel better.
“Why are we here?” she asked as I helped her out of the car and let her lean into me.
With a sigh, I braced myself for this conversation. I didn’t know how she would feel about possibly being pregnant. I knew she already felt like we were moving too fast. If she carried my baby not even two months in, I didn’t know how that might fuck with her.
“We gotta get a pregnancy test, baby.” I braced myself for her response, ready to talk her off the ledge, but she surprised me.
“Okay.”
I pulled back and looked down at her. “Okay?”
“Okay.” She shrugged.
“You think you’re pregnant?” I asked.
“I think there could be a chance. When you asked me about my period earlier, the thought entered my mind. I can’t even remember the last time I had my period. My brain feels so foggy,” she whined as she rubbed her eyes.
“My poor baby. Let’s go get a test and get you back home.” I guided her toward the entrance of the store.
“Why did you bring me along, anyway? And who goes to NellanNem’s for pregnancy tests?” she asked.
“I brought you here because I ain’t ever bought a pregnancy test before.” I opened the door to the corner store, and my stomach immediately grumbled. Someone had to have just ordered a cheesesteak, because the smell of grilled meat filled the air.
Arielle’s nose scrunched up, and I could tell she felt queasy.
I waved at Habib, who sat behind the counter counting a stack of money with his feet kicked up on the counter in front of him.
He lifted his hand lazily, and I chuckled.
That man knew everyone and treated everyone like family, as long as they were good people.
I’d been coming to this corner store since I was a kid, and Habib had yet to retire, even though he had several sons he could pass the store down to.
“And you think I’ve bought a pregnancy test before?” Arielle asked as she elbowed me in the side. I directed my attention back to her and shrugged.
“Have you?” Just the thought of it had raging jealousy boiling to the surface.
“No. Only nigga that ever nutted in me is you,” she grumbled.
Relief swept over me, and I stopped down the feminine care aisle and hugged her tightly.
“I love the hell out of you.”
She patted my back a couple of times before her muffled voice asked, “Can we please hurry? I feel like I’m about to throw up all over Habib’s floor.”
I laughed. “What you know ’bout Habib?”
“Boy, hush. I been coming here since I was little.”
Of course she had. Every Black or Brown kid who grew up in The Bay knew who Habib was.
I spotted the pregnancy tests, and we stopped. I stared at them, confused. Arielle looked just as lost, so I said, “Let’s just get one of each.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary—”
“We want this shit to be accurate, so one of each. Come on, help me,” I said as I snatched tests off the shelf.
With a sigh, she followed suit, and we walked up to the front of the store. I wanted to go grab a sub from the back, but I didn’t want to keep my baby waiting, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet to pay for all the tests.
Habib looked at all the tests and then at me and then at the tests again before he shook his head and laughed.
“What?” I asked defensively.
Habib shook his head. “Nothin’, young blood.”
Normally, when he spoke with slang, it cracked me up. Right now, I didn’t feel much like smiling. Maybe I went overboard with all the tests, but shit, I was nervous.
After paying two hundred and twenty dollars, we left the store.
Once we were in the car and I pulled out of the parking lot, I glanced at Arielle and said, “Talk to me. How you feelin’?”
She groaned. “Mostly car sick.”
“And what about the possibility of carrying my baby?” My hand slid from her thigh to her flat stomach.
“I mean, that’s the dream, isn’t it?” she asked.
I glanced at her before taking a right turn. “It is, but it doesn’t worry you because it happened so fast?”
She leaned her head against the window again and shook it.
“No. I think I’m too exhausted to worry about anything.
If I’m pregnant, I’ll be happy as hell to carry your big-headed baby, and I’ll pray extra hard that I’ll feel better really soon and that this doesn’t last the entire pregnancy.
If I’m not pregnant, then we’ll see what the doctor says tomorrow.
Either way, things will get figured out. ”
My hand moved to her cheek, and I caressed it. “That’s my baby.”
I let her rest for the rest of the drive. When we got back to my house, where we’d been spending most of our time, I helped her out of the car, and we made a beeline toward the downstairs bathroom.
“We have a problem,” she muttered as she looked up at me from inside the bathroom.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have to pee.”
I blinked at her. “Not even a little?” She shook her head. I let out a breath to release some of the nerves I felt bouncing around my stomach. “Okay . . . Do you want some water?”
“Yeah, that should help.”
And so for the next half an hour, I watched as she guzzled down three water bottles.
“Still don’t have to go?” I asked impatiently.
“I don’t know. I must be a nervous pee-er or something,” she said as she paced the length of the bathroom.
I had already grabbed a plastic cup from the kitchen after reading the instructions on all the pregnancy tests. I snatched it from the counter by the sink and handed it to her. “Try, baby.”
“I can’t with you in here!” she shrieked.
“Well, I’m not missing a moment of this, Mermaid, so we gonna have to figure something out.”
She raked a hand through her curls before she tugged down her sweats and grabbed the cup from my hands. I watched as she squatted. We waited in anticipation for several long seconds before a stream of liquid splashed into the cup.
“Good job, baby! You’re doin’ it!” I encouraged with a triumphant smile.
“Kareem, hush. I’m not potty training,” she whined.
I chuckled. She was right. I sounded like a damn proud parent.
When she finished, she washed her hands while I carefully put each test into the cup. I finished and then gathered her into my arms. “The longest wait time is three minutes. I just want to hold you for three minutes. That okay?”
“Yes.” She squeezed my middle.
I rested my chin on the top of her head and breathed her in.
It was crazy that the past two months had created such a huge shift in my life.
I’d been working less and delegating more.
I had a new person in my life who needed me just as much as I needed her, and now we might be welcoming in a new addition to the family.
An addition that would need us more than they needed anyone in the world.
My heart thumped wildly at the thought, and I realized I wanted it more than anything.
“It has to have been three minutes by now,” she muttered.
I heard the waver in her voice when she spoke. I gave her one last squeeze before I released my embrace. Slowly, I lifted a test from the cup, and my eyes widened.
Negative.
Her brows furrowed, and she pulled one out while I pulled another one out.
Negative.
Negative.
All of them were negative.
“This can’t be right,” I uttered.
Arielle looked close to tears. “They can’t all be wrong. What if something serious is wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, baby,” I said as I gathered her in my arms. My voice was calming, but worry filled my chest. If she wasn’t pregnant, then what was wrong with my baby? “We’ll figure it out at the doctor tomorrow.”
I heard sniffles coming from her, and my heart ached. “I wanted a baby.”
My face frowned up. “Wait, is that why you’re cryin’, Mermaid?”
“Yes.” She sobbed, and I hugged her tighter.
“Aye, man. You gotta stop cryin’. I don’t do well wit’ tears,” I muttered. I rubbed her back, and eventually, like always, she calmed down for me. “Look, baby. Once we go to the doctor and figure out what’s going on and get you better, we can intentionally try for a baby, if that’s what you want.”
“I do,” she whispered as she looked up at me with watery eyes. “I really do. I want everything with you, Kareem. The thought of having your baby really had me excited. I pray it happens soon. Fuck what everyone else thinks. Our timeline is our timeline.”
“Then you’re on, love. A baby is what you want, then a baby is what you’ll get.
” I kissed her forehead and pulled away with a smile.
This woman had no idea how I would move to the ends of the Earth for her.
Everything she wanted would be hers, a baby included.
Now that she’d given me a green light, I had every intention to go out and buy her a fat ass ring too.
Arielle Spivy had a ring to it, after all—pun intended.