Chapter 23 #2
The car pulled into the empty driveway of the ranch house AJ was staying at, next door to her temporary home, until she got her own house into livable shape.
Fuck. Her house. She had so much work to do on her house. Would she still be able to do that sort of physical labor? Her plans to renovate did not include hiring contractors. She didn’t have hire contractor money. She had watched YouTube videos about DIY renovations for little money.
Her mind was spiraling into a panic as she unbuckled her seatbelt and as she reached for the door, but it was already opening.
AJ stood outside with his hand extended to help her out of the vehicle.
She hadn’t even realized he’d gotten out of the SUV.
Together they walked in silence up the shadowed walkway to the porch.
“Good ni—” she started, half-turning, unsure if she was dismissing him or pleading for him to say something.
“I’m staying,” he spoke over her.
“What?”
“You have a concussion. I told the doctor I wouldn’t leave you alone.” His tone was resolute but not bossy. More like the way a rock sounds when it drops through water, a disturbance, but one that’s ultimately meant to anchor.
Did he? She tried to reassemble the moments from the ER, the way the lights had fractured sunbursts behind her eyelids and the way Dr. West had announced her diagnosis with the same effect as calling a number at the DMV.
Mild concussion. Observation recommended. No driving, no decision-making, and no being alone for at least forty-eight hours.
Poppy’s memory was unreliable—she had, after all, been concussed—but she remembered AJ absorbing the doctor’s words with the intensity of a courtroom stenographer.
But that was before. Before the news. Before the tiny, stubborn miracle of life on the ultrasound. Before she’d realized that the future she’d spent years mourning was now a very real possibility.
She needed space. She needed time to think, to process, to eat her feelings. Instead, she was being shadowed by a man with golden eyes, an iron sense of responsibility, and absolutely no clue how to take a hint.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth with the saccharine sincerity of a Hallmark card. She motioned vaguely toward the house. “You’re right next door. If I need anything, I’ll call you.”
AJ didn’t flinch. His gaze never wavered.
He had the kind of stare that could bore through drywall, maybe even cinder block, if you gave him enough time.
“If you want someone else to come and stay with you, that’s fine, I’ll wait until they get here.
Or, if you don’t feel comfortable with me inside, I can stay on the porch, but you have to keep the door open so I can see you through the screen. ”
Some people might threaten to wait on the porch betting on the fact that the other party would never call their bluff, but Poppy knew AJ wasn’t bluffing.
If she said that she didn’t want him staying inside, he would spend the next two days sitting camped out, freezing, on her porch.
She wasn’t sure what her new boss would think about that, especially since this was his property.
The truth was, it was probably best that he stay anyway, they definitely had some talking to do.
When Poppy opened the door, AJ exhaled a sigh of relief. She didn’t look happy about it, but he was glad that he wasn’t going to be spending the next forty-eight hours on her tiny porch.
As soon as he closed the door behind him, she announced, “I need to take a shower, I feel disgusting.”
“You can’t get the sutures wet.”
“I’ll be careful.” Her voice was weak and quiet.
There was no way she was up to taking a shower, but he knew that she was too stubborn to admit that, so he had to find a solution. “I’ll help you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she argued.
“I’ll help you,” he restated.
She sighed with resignation. “Whatever.”
They walked into the bathroom, and he instructed with authority, “Sit,” hoping every single thing he asked her to do would not be met with resistance. If that was the case, it was going to be a very long forty-eight hours.
Thankfully, she lowered down onto the closed toilet lid.
He started the shower water, then went across the hallway into her room and got her a fresh pair of underwear, sweats, and a shirt.
When he came back into the bathroom, he was happy to see she had not moved.
After placing the waterproof bandage she received from the discharge packet on her wound, he checked the water, then helped her stand.
He unzipped her hoodie and then carefully removed her t-shirt.
Once her shirt was off, he helped her with her sweats and underwear.
It was hard for him not to look at her belly, to touch it, to kiss it, now that he knew his child was growing inside of her, but he knew it was not the right time.
He held her arm steady as she stepped into the stall.
She lathered herself up and he stood beside her, there if she needed assistance.
When it got to her hair, without her saying a word, he removed the showerhead and gently wet her hair, careful to avoid the gauze, then he put in the shampoo, massaged it thoroughly, rinsed it, and did the same with her conditioner.
All of his energy was being spent convincing his hormones that this was a clinical interaction, unfortunately his head and hormones didn’t seem to be on speaking terms. As water dripped down her naked body, he felt himself swelling behind his zipper.
Once her hair was rinsed of all product and her body of all suds, he helped Poppy out of the shower. As soon as he did, he watched the color drain from her face, and he knew she needed to lie down and rest. He did his best to dry her off and get her dressed as efficiently and quickly as possible.
On the way out of the bathroom, she grabbed a brush and ponytail holders. He tried to guide her to bed, but she insisted on going to the couch. After she lowered down onto the cushions, she winced as she lifted her arm to brush out her hair.
“Do you want me to do that?” he offered.
Her eyes cut to his. “Do what?”
“Brush your hair.”
She sighed as her lids closed. “I have to braid it. I can’t sleep with loose wet hair.”
“I can braid it.”
Her eyes opened as her brows furrowed. “You can?”
He held out his hand. Her expression screamed suspicion, but she placed the brush in his palm. He carefully slid behind her and began to gently run the brush through her hair.
As he sat with her between his thighs, the damp cotton of his wet clothes from helping her in the shower was sticking to his skin and making him feel very, very uncomfortable, but he was able to put that out of his mind, just focusing on Poppy’s needs.
“One braid or two?” he asked.
“Two.”
Using the edge of one of the bristles, he split her hair down the center into two parts as he asked, “Basic side, fishtail, French, or Dutch?”
“Dutch,” she responded, sounding either shocked or impressed he knew the difference, maybe both.
After getting the perfect line, he began to work, intertwining the sections of her hair.
“Where did you learn to do this?”
“Before my dad died, he used to do Frankie’s hair.”
AJ remembered Frankie trying to do it herself for school those first months after he passed.
It was a mess. She was only five, so he took over.
He did her hair every day until she went to middle school.
After she was older, on days she wanted braids, he’d come out of retirement and pick up the brush again.
“So did you watch YouTube to learn how?”
“No, whenever Dad did Frankie’s hair, I was always sitting next to them reading. I just…remembered.”
“What about your mom? She didn’t do your sister’s hair?”
“She was… She’s better now, but she used to get depressed and she drank, even when my dad was alive. When he died, it got worse.”
AJ never talked about his childhood. Whenever people asked him about it, he gave them surface responses. He never lied, but he never went into detail.
The rest of the braiding session was done in silence.
When he finished, he helped Poppy up, and she looked in the mirror.
The smile that spread across her face made him feel like he’d just won a Nobel Peace Prize.
It was a totally disproportionate response.
When she came back and sat down, he heard her stomach rumble, so he made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
After she ate it, he decided to broach the subject that she was avoiding. “So, the baby—”
“Yes. It’s yours.” She pulled the ultrasound out of her purse and showed it to him. “That is the conception date.”
He wasn’t actually going to ask that. The possibility that he wasn’t the father hadn’t even crossed his mind.
But staring down at the reality, the blob on the screen made it indisputably real.
He waited to feel something—panic, fear, joy, anticipation.
He felt something, something extreme, but he couldn’t find words to describe it. He’d lost his words again.
“Look, I don’t expect anything from you. This wasn’t me tricking you into anything. When I said I couldn’t get pregnant, I didn’t think this was possible.”
“I know that.” There wasn’t any part of him that had any sort of suspicion about Poppy for a second. He never questioned her integrity.
She stared at him, almost as if she had expected him to argue with her, and now she didn’t know what to do.
“I don’t expect anything from you.”
“You said that.”
“I wasn’t finished. The only thing I am asking is that you don’t tell anyone.”
AJ felt like he was back on the playground again in third grade and the kids were making fun of him for not speaking. Was she embarrassed?
“You don’t want anyone to know I’m the father?”
“No!” she shook her head. “I mean, no, I don’t want anyone to know I’m pregnant.”
AJ was confused. Poppy said this was what she’d always wanted, always dreamed of. Why wasn’t she happy? Was it because of him? Was it because he’d contributed half the DNA?
“Getting pregnant was basically a miracle. I had less than a one percent chance of this happening. But Steph explained I am still at high risk. Because of that, I don’t want anyone to know.
Not yet. I just need to be a little further along, give me some time to wrap my head around this.
I mean, I bought a house, I quit my job, and there’s a very big possibility that something could happen and this could.
...I don’t want to talk about it, not yet.
” She put her hands on her belly, then looked back up at him.
“So can you promise me you won’t say anything to anyone? ”
He could see the plea in her eyes. He didn’t agree with her. He felt like now more than ever she should have support around her, but he knew it wasn’t his decision to make. AJ wouldn’t say a word. He wouldn’t have even if she hadn’t asked him not to. It wasn’t his place.
“Yes,” he agreed.
A yawn claimed her.
“You should get some rest.” It was a common misnomer that you shouldn’t sleep when you have a concussion. Dr. West advised her to sleep.
“I’m not tired, I want to watch TV.”
AJ reached over and grabbed the remote control. He handed it to her.
“I hope you like reality TV,” she sing-songed, her eyes twinkling as she wagged her brows.
He’d only ever watched reality TV when women he’d dated had it on, and he’d hated every second of it. But he’d happily sit and watch it with Poppy. Especially if it brought back the light in her eye, which it just had.
The screen filled with a group of women at a dinner table, two of them were screaming at one another, and it kept cutting back to one-on-one interviews, shot in a different location, perhaps on a different day because the women were wearing different clothes, where each of the women in attendance was giving their opinion on who was right and who was wrong in the argument.
“Thank you,” Poppy quietly stated as she stared ahead at the TV.
“For what?”
“For not telling me everything is going to be okay. I hate it when people say that.”
AJ didn’t know if things were going to be okay, so he would never make that promise to her. His eyes dropped to the sonogram of the baby on the coffee table. Their baby. His hand draped over the armrest, and his middle finger tapped his palm. He didn’t want her to see him stimming.
He wasn’t sure if the anxiety flooding through him was from the concept of having a child, the reality of being a father, the possibility of losing the baby before any of that came to fruition, or all of the above.
What he did know was that for the next seven months, if it was up to him, Poppy was not going to be out of his sight.
Whatever happened, they were in this together. He hoped that’s what she wanted too, if not, there might be a lot of camping out in his future.