17. Sophie
CHAPTER 17
Sophie
A lthough I wasn't the strongest person, I was determined to take care of my babies. I had a job that I loved and even planned on getting a dog. While there were moments when I felt unsure and vulnerable, it felt comforting to have Alex by my side last night, holding me tight when I needed someone to talk to. His hugs could wash away my sadness, at least for a little while.
"Your five-month baby bump is coming along nicely," Becks said, rubbing her palm over my belly. "It looks like you've swallowed a cantaloupe."
“It feels like I’ve swallowed something much bigger,” I replied, stepping back before Becks forced me to do that stomach trick again—the one where I sucked in my gut and pretended I wasn’t pregnant at all.
“How’s the nausea thing going? I haven’t seen you dash to the bathroom in a while.”
"Mostly gone," I said, bending down to set cones up for one of my recovering hip replacement patients. "I've just got these constant headaches. Although I have a feeling they're more Vicki-related than anything else."
Becks widened her eyes and shook her head, her jaw dropping slightly. “It’s getting worse, Soph. Like way worse. Vicki is literally out to get you.”
“I know.” I sighed, trying to get the dream I had the other night—Vicki, a relentless shark, hunting me, a poor stranded swimmer, down in the deep wide ocean—out of my head.
“I swear it’s been like a pressure cooker here the last few months. Every day I come to work, I think this is the day. This is the day Vicki chops your head off.”
I moaned at the image, not at all in the mood to lose my head. “I think I might have to get another job. She’s making my life hell. I don’t know how much more of it I can take.”
Becks settled into a wooden chair usually reserved for the patient's family and crossed her legs. “What does Alex—”
The end of her sentence was cut off by the gym doors suddenly flying open, followed by what could only be a mighty, havoc-creating storm.
“Sophie,” Vicki barked, her voice like the sharpest knife in the set. She waved a patient file in the air. “I thought I made it clear that the patient notes are to be completed properly after each session. Your notes have been poorly documented all week.”
I dropped another cone to the floor and shook my head. As far as I was concerned, my notes were perfect, pristine, nothing to get into a tiff about—especially since I’d been writing my notes in the exact same way for over three years now.
“They’re not, though,” I defended myself, knowing full well that I was walking a very dangerous line. “I’ve written them out exactly as I should’ve, as I’ve always done.”
Vicki’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits, her anger radiating off her like heat waves off a sweltering pavement. “That’s a joke right?” But she didn’t laugh. No one did. “Your notes are sloppy and incomplete. We’re dealing with patient safety and continuity of care, and you’re jeopardizing both of those.”
I felt my frustration mounting. If Vicki wasn’t so intent on hating me, this conversation would never have happened. “Show me my notes,” I said, stepping forward. I stuck out my hand, hoping she’d give me the file. “I want to see what you think is wrong with them.”
“You want examples?” Vicki spat, her glare unbending.
When she didn’t hand over the file, I dropped my hand to the side and braced for the consequences of my brashness.
“I’ve got plenty,” Vicki continued. “But frankly, I don’t have time to babysit you. I’m too busy running after your mistakes. Mistakes you shouldn’t be making. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re pregnant, Sophie. It doesn’t make you immune to our policies.”
HR would have a field day. Swearing at a colleague, plotting murder—though not yet proved—, Vicki was at risk for a warning.
Alex was the reason I wasn’t fighting back, why I hadn’t yet told Vicki, Get the fuck over it. It’s been like three months since we told you. You’re taking this too far. It’s not like either of us betrayed you, not really. You’re acting childish, and it’s getting embarrassing.
But Alex was sure Vicki’s fuse would soon die out, that she’d reach rock bottom and grovel her way to the top. If only he knew her fuse was more like Grey’s Anatomy —neverending.
But I wasn’t going to go against Alex.
For three painfully long months, I endured Vicki's relentless onslaught of harassment. Her sharp words and piercing glares were like daggers to my back. But amidst it all, Alex had become my saving grace. His presence was a balm to my wounded soul. He would show up at my house unannounced, his car engine humming outside my window like a sweet melody. As he made his way up the walkway, his eyes would scan the towering sycamore tree in my front yard with a sense of longing and nostalgia. And every time he knocked on my door, my heart fluttered with excitement like a butterfly taking flight.
If I had to be honest with myself, like really honest, I'd say I was starting to like him. Not in the casual, fleeting way you liked a good first date, but in a way that felt immense, all consuming. The kind of sensation that made my heart feel like it was going to leap out of my chest whenever he was near, whenever he kissed me hello on the cheek or stared at me when he thought I wasn't looking. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once, as if I was about to jump out of a plane and I had no idea if my chute was even working.
But it wasn’t the right time for a relationship, or anything along those lines, not with all the chaos and my lingering reservations. If I weren’t pregnant, would Alex even care about me?
“I haven’t used my pregnancy as an excuse even once,” I said calmly. I wasn’t fighting tooth and nail, but I was still retaliating—just in a subtler way. I had reached the end of my very long, very patient tether. “You have to stop treating me like this, Vicki, just because you’re angry. We’re professionals.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
Vicki’s expression hardened, her lips pressing into a razor-thin line. “Get out of my face,” she said, her voice cutting. “Go home. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day.”
“What about my patient? I’ve got Michael coming here in an hour.”
“I’ll deal with him,” she said, taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly, as if she were trying to get back some morsel of her sanity. “Just leave.”
I didn’t fight her. How could I? It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make things less hostile, Vicki less resentful, and the whole situation less ridiculous.
As soon as I climbed into my car, I texted Alex and used my now free afternoon to buy groceries, fill up my car with gas, and drop off the gift—a Kings of Leon record—I’d been meaning to get to Danny for his birthday last week. By the time I got home, Alex was standing at my front door.
“It’s getting worse,” I said, climbing out of the car while Alex held the door open. “Vicki hates me. She’s either going to fire me or kill me. There’s no in-between.”
“Is she still at it?” asked Alex, walking around to the back of my car. He popped the trunk and grabbed all four bags of groceries. “I thought she was easing up on you a bit this week.”
“No,” I said, “I just told you that because I didn’t want you to worry.”
He stopped in his tracks, his expression softening. “You don’t have to do that, Sophie. I need you to tell me things, even if you think they’re going to worry me.”
I nodded.
“I’ll talk to her again,” he said, walking through the front door. He carried the groceries into the kitchen while I flopped down on the couch and lifted my feet up on the coffee table.
“It will only make things worse. You know what she did to me the last time you called her: she locked me in the gym, remember? I was there for an hour before Becks came to rescue me.”
“She’s being childish,” said Alex with a disapproving curl of his lips. “It can’t go on like this. I will have to do something.”
We had already gone over this a million times, ran through a million different ways we could keep Vicki off my back without actually reporting her to the committee.
Over the last few months, I had managed to keep face, make jokes about Vicki and all the things she had said, but right now, with my feet swollen, a nagging pain starting in my back, and my emotions running in all directions, it was just getting too much.
These pregnancy hormones were really giving me a beating.
When tears welled in my eyes, I buried my face into my hands, hoping Alex was too busy packing out the groceries to notice.
But who was I kidding? The man noticed everything.
“Sophie, ” Alex said, his voice tinged with alarm. He was beside me in an instant—I hadn’t even heard his footsteps cross the room. I was a mess, and my body shook as the tears kept coming, streaming down my cheeks.
Alex put an arm around my shoulder and shifted closer, gathering me in his arms. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I wish I could make it all better, reason with Vicki somehow.”
He pulled me onto his lap, and I didn’t fight it, didn’t move away from him. His body was hot against mine. Alex held me there, one arm curled around my waist and the other knotting into my hair, pulling me closer to him while my tears kept running.
“It’s fine,” I whispered.
“It’s not,” he replied, his arm loosening around my waist. He then skated his palm up my back, moving in comforting circles.
He was everything I needed him to be. Everything I wanted.
Five months had brought us closer, but not like this, not in this profoundly intimate way.
Especially when our focus had been on getting to know each other better.
The way Alex pressed his lips to my temple, holding them there for a moment, made it feel like our time together so far had merely been a prelude, and this, this moment was the real thing, the real connection that had been growing quietly beneath the surface all along.
I turned to look at Alex, his golden eyes so serious and apologetic, as if he was desperate to ease my pain. He blamed himself for Vicki’s reaction and her ongoing bullying—I knew that.
But the way he looked at me now seemed to convey more than just guilt.
I wondered if Alex felt the same way about me as I felt about him.
Did he experience the same intense, all-consuming emotions? Did he also dream about me at night, only to wake up to an empty bed, wishing I was there with him? Did he miss my voice like I missed his, or his laugh?
Or did he too have doubts? Was there a part of him that regretted sleeping with me in the first place? Or wished he had run away instead of offering his support when I had told him about the pregnancy?
Maybe. Possibly. I hoped not.
I was so close to his face I could smell his minty breath, the spearmint gum he had chewed on his way here, and study the fine lines of age on his handsome features.
Alex pulled me closer to him, moving one hand to the back of my neck, fingers curling in my hair. As if our mouths were magnets, attracted by all the ways we were different, he crushed his lips to mine and kissed me hard.
My entire body buzzed with newfound energy, the tears drying up as if they weren’t significant anymore, just like those reservations.
None of that was important right now, not while Alex pulled me over him until my knees straddled his hips and his palms pressed flat against my lower back, tugging me closer to him.
“I will do something about it tomorrow,” he said softly, his breath warm against my chin.
“No,” I replied, shaking my head, smoothing my hands up his biceps until I rested my arms on his shoulders, encircling his neck, drawing us even closer together. “I will take care of it. There’s going to come a time when she just has to stop, for her own health.” All that anger couldn’t be good for a person.
“We’ll give it another two weeks,” said Alex, his hands sliding toward my spine. “If there’s no change, I’ll talk to her in person.” He then skated his palms up my back to my neck.
Heat flooded my body, drummed through my hips, and settled deep below my navel. I wanted him so badly it physically hurt.
Dipping my head down, I brushed my nose against his, then our cheeks, and then he did what I wanted him to do—he drew my face to his again, and with his grip on my neck, he perfectly aligned our mouths.
He kissed me again. This time slipping his tongue between my lips, exploring, the same way his hand moved across my shoulder, down to my collarbone, and on the side of my chest, his thumb brushing the soft space of my breast.
Nothing was stopping us from taking things further, except it wouldn't just be sex, not like those other times. This would feel different, more intimate, more powerful, like making love instead.
I knew Alex thought so too. I could feel it, not just in the way his hands were sliding down my waist to my thighs, fingers running across my bare skin, or the hardness between his legs. No, I felt it in the way his gaze seemed to search the depths of me.
“If you don’t want this,” he whispered, his breath hot against my chin, “then you need to tell me, Sophie, because I do. I want to take every piece of clothing off your body. You are absolutely gorgeous.” His mouth was on my neck as he spoke, his words vibrating through me, and then he reached his palms to my face and, with his thumbs, dried my tears.
“I do,” I whispered, so softly I wondered if he heard. But then he stood up with me in his arms, and I coiled my legs around his hips, squeezing tighter while he carried me to the bedroom.