Chapter 24
Devyn
Ireally liked Bolo’s family. The MC was only half of it.
I still needed to meet his parents and his other brother, but the MC half?
I knew I was going to get along with them just fine.
They made it so easy to join in with them.
Once they’d started harassing each other, before dinner even began, I’d been put immediately at ease.
Replace the harassment with five women talking at the same time and you had me and my sisters.
“Devyn?” a nurse called. Her expectant eyes settled on me as Bolo and I stood up. Then her eyebrows shot up as she got a look at the giant next to me.
He tended to get that reaction a lot. I was getting used to it.
People were either shocked at his size, or women were checking him out.
He seemed oblivious to it all, though I doubted he was.
Not much escaped his notice. He’d been sitting there, sizing up every person who walked into the OBGYN’s office, for the last ten minutes while we were in the waiting room.
Most of the women got a cursory glance, but the men were studied from head to toe in case they could be a threat.
It came off as such a natural thing for him I wasn’t even sure if he was casing the place for my benefit so much as it was just what he did.
Though the way he kept shifting toward me a little here or there told me he was definitely keeping tabs on me and the baby as well.
Knowing that had chased most of my nerves away, though now they were back in full force.
I wasn’t usually a super anxious person, but today was the day we were meeting with Dr. Natalie again and my blood pressure hadn’t dropped any during the week.
And last night Bolo and I had taken our relationship to a new level.
I considered that as I followed the nurse down the back hallway toward the exam rooms. It wasn’t exactly a new level. A new, previously visited briefly, level. And we’d visited it three times last night alone. Which was probably why I was only slightly nervous today, and not a mess.
Give a girl some orgasms and it was hard to remember why you were supposed to be worried. Not to mention when those orgasms came with your very own six-five, sexy, heavily muscled biker bodyguard? Yeah, what was I supposed to be anxious over again?
The nurse got my weight and sat us in a room where she took my blood pressure. “One thirty-three over eighty-eight,” she said in a soft tone. There was no judgement there.
Though I wasn’t sure why there would be. It wasn’t like I was purposely making my blood pressure high. Still, it was hard not to feel responsible.
Bolo got out of the chair once the nurse left and came to stand by me.
He wrapped his arm around me and tucked me in close to his side.
Sitting on the exam table, my head only reached to his chest, so I leaned it on him.
It was like he had this sixth sense about when I needed comfort.
Let me tell you, that was priceless to have in a partner.
I hoped that continued because he just always knew when and how to soothe me.
We needed to talk, of course, about our relationship and where it was going.
Especially now that we’d had sex again. And again and again.
But that was a problem for later. So was the fact that I still needed to get Camila and Rue alone to chat with them.
And I needed to go talk to my parents since we’d gotten in a fight, albeit a minor one.
My sisters were calling and checking in, too, and I hadn’t called them back yet… and now the anxiety was coming back.
Bolo squeezed me tighter against him and I smiled up at him.
There he went again, just knowing that I was working myself up.
This was all new for me. I was pretty sure the addition of worrying about the baby was making everything else crowd my mind.
Because usually I could compartmentalize and handle problems as they surfaced without everything else piling on.
But that wasn’t possible for me right now.
Any problem seemed to make all the others worse.
It snowballed until everything was a massive issue. I didn’t like feeling this way.
Dr. Natalie came into the room, smiling at us. “Hello again. How did your week go?”
Bolo cupped the back of my neck, squeezing gently before he went and sat down again.
“It was good,” I said, automatically. “I mean, my blood pressure didn’t go down, but everything else was…good.” I gave her a small smile. “How was your week?”
“It was good, thank you,” she said, giving me a reassuring smile. She probably dealt with nervous first time mothers all the time. “Did you bring your numbers?”
I handed over the notebook I’d carried in. Inside, neatly printed in a list was every date, time, and result from when I’d taken my blood pressure over the last week.
“This looks great,” she told me, glancing up at me then back down at the book.
“It does?” I asked.
“I mean, it’s neat and legible,” she replied with a laugh.
“Oh, yeah. That.” I gave her and Bolo a sheepish smile.
Bolo grinned at me but didn’t say anything. He just crossed his arms over his chest. I knew his silence didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. He was watching the doctor like a hawk, probably analyzing every facial expression she made, but he wasn’t interrupting with questions or comments either.
“So, this is definitely going to be a problem,” Dr. Natalie said, handing me back the notebook.
“Oh.” My heart dropped.
“It’s okay. I just want it to be in the one-twenties over seventies and these are all…
higher. They’re not terrible right now, but they are higher than they should be for thirteen weeks pregnant.
It just means we need to get you onto some medication to help lower that blood pressure.
We’ll keep it as low as we can for as long as we can.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to ride out the remainder of your pregnancy on that and have no other issues. ” She gave me a reassuring smile.
“And if we can’t?” I asked.
“Well, this can develop into pre-eclampsia, where we’ll struggle to keep your blood pressure under control. But we’re nowhere near that yet, and it might not happen. We’ll see how the meds do for you.”
“And they’re safe to take?” I asked. “I mean, for the baby?”
She nodded. “There are a few we can prescribe during pregnancy that will be just fine for you to take, so we have options if one isn’t working.”
“Great, thank you.” I blew out a breath, relieved to have a way to help even though I wished I didn’t need it at all. “Is there anything else I can do to help?”
“Yes, try to lower caffeine intake, try to keep your stress levels down, all the usual advice.” Her eyes softened as she handed over a piece of paper that explained what high blood pressure during pregnancy meant and what I could do to help besides taking the medication.
I liked that she gave handouts because I wasn’t sure if I’d remember everything with the way my mind was racing and jumping from question to question.
“But something to be aware of, is that this is very likely being caused by the placenta.”
I frowned at that.
“It’s most often the cause of these issues during pregnancy, when the patient has no prior history of things like hyper tension, high blood sugar, etc. We manage the symptoms for as long as we can.”
“And then?” I asked.
“When the placenta comes out, the symptoms disappear.” She shrugged. “So you won’t have to deal with this forever.”
“That’s good,” I said, looking over at Bolo.
He nodded in agreement.
“I’ve sent your prescription over. Do you need me to refill your prenatals?”
“Oh, sure. That would be great.”
She tapped on her computer for a couple minutes, then turned on her rolling chair and looked between us. “Other questions?”
I shook my head as my mind scrambled to remember anything that I might need to ask. “No. Bolo?”
He shook his head. “Not right now. You pretty much explained it all, Doc.”
“Well, if you think of anything you can message me in the portal, or even call. Dax has my number.” She gave me another reassuring smile.
“Try not to worry. Hopefully the meds will help keep everything nice and low, and this won’t turn into anything more than a bit of extra monitoring for you.
Since we’re getting you started on those, I’m going to put in that referral for the Maternal Fetal Medicine group next door.
They’re great to work with and they’ll take over doing the majority of your ultrasounds, but I’ll see all the results.
They have highly specialized equipment, way better than mine, and they’ll be doing ultrasounds on you about once a month and then every few weeks as we get closer to your due date. ”
“Okay,” I said, heaving out a breath. “That actually makes me feel a little better.”
She nodded. “A lot of women only end up getting two to three ultrasounds during their pregnancy. You’ll have a lot more. We’ll want to keep an eye out that your baby is growing at an appropriate rate.”
“Because of the blood pressure?”
She nodded. “It’s a symptom of your placenta potentially having issues so that’s why we keep track. The placenta is what keeps your baby nourished and growing. It’s probably a bit overkill but I prefer to be safe.”
“Us too,” Bolo replied.
Dr. Natalie nodded again. “Glad we’re all on the same page.” She walked us out, explaining how she wanted me taking the new blood pressure meds as we went. “Feel free to get a hold of me anytime, Devyn,” she said, reaching out and patting my hand.
“I like her a lot,” I told Bolo as we walked out to his SUV.
“I’m glad.”
“She’s direct, but comforting.”
“I hate when they beat around the bush,” he said, opening my door for me, then holding out a hand to help me into the vehicle.
I didn’t need the help yet, but it was nice to be taken care of so I just thanked him and slid inside. Besides, in another few months I would probably need that kind of help.
Glancing over at him as he got in and started driving over to the pharmacy, I broached one of the subjects that had been weighing on me. “Do you think I could have a girls’ night with Camila and Rue?”
He frowned. “What’d ya mean?”
“Invite them over to the apartment for a chat and get to know them better? Without all the guys there?”
“Sure,” he said, a smile playing on his lips.
I fell silent, considering my options. I decided honesty and full disclosure was the best route. He was doing that for me. “I want to ask them about their guys and the club and…” He remained silent while I searched for the words. “And how they feel about and deal with knowing what you guys do.”
Turning my head, I searched his face. He didn’t seem angry.
“That’s a good idea,” he told me. “I’ll let Camila and Rue know. Then from now on you three can set that kind of thing up on your own. Just let me know when I need to be out of the apartment and I’m happy to find something to do.”
“Thank you,” I told him, relieved that he wasn’t angry about me wanting to dig more into things.
“I want you to be comfortable with this, Dev. Because I want you to stay.”
“At the clubhouse?”
“At the clubhouse,” he agreed. Then he turned his head and stared at me. “With me. All of it.”
The way he was looking at me sent a delicious shiver over my skin. I was starting to really believe that he wanted us to be a permanent thing. I was starting to trust him. To look forward to being together. To what this could become.
“I’ll stay with you for now,” I told him. “...at the clubhouse, I mean.”
“Good,” he replied, grinning.
If we were going to keep building things between us, we needed to be close by to each other.
Moving in together was a little crazy, and happening fast, but…
we were having a baby, so really it was just matching pace with that fact.
Now that I’d lived with him for a week, it didn’t seem like such a scary step to just stay longer.
I could always leave and go home if something turned sideways.
I was hoping nothing did. I was really beginning to want this to work out.
He was proving to me every day that he was the kind of man I wanted to build a life with. The kind of man I’d been dreaming of since I was a teenager. The kind I could easily fall in love with.