Chapter 22
Joss
My kitchen distresses me. I don’t know. All my favorite foods are in here, but none of them look right. My stomach’s been off all morning.
I bypass my usuals of yogurt, eggs, and cheese. Even the orange juice isn’t appealing to me today. I shuffle over to my pantry, poking around the sealed bags of flour and out-of-date spices, finally stumbling upon a dusty can of black olives.
Yes, this is what I want.
I wipe it down, pop it open, drain it, and toss the olives into a bowl before I make my way downstairs to the barn. I let out a sigh of relief when I see no vandalism has happened. My mums, my siding, my windows. Everything’s intact. Jerry ate the half burger I set out for him after my appetite turned last night.
Rose and Iris haven’t gotten in for the day yet, which surprises me until I realize it’s Thursday. They don’t come on Thursdays. Never have. Weird that I would have even thought that.
I’m just being absent-minded, I guess, because when I enter my studio, I realize I have no idea what I said I was going to work on today. I don’t usually forget things like that, but I’ve been distracted lately. I stand there at my desk, scanning the partial projects, the pile of half square triangles and the beginner’s foundation paper piecing flowers and the bargello on my longarm. Nothing clicks.
Silly. This is silly.
A flutter of irritation shakes my olive-filled belly. I’ve been a mess for weeks. Forgetting my schedule, misplacing my phone, walking into a room just to look around and realize I have no idea what I’ve gone in there for. It’s like telling Gabe what happened has sent me right back to how I was when it was actually happening.
I should have expected this. This is why my love life has always been disastrous, after all. They ultimately break under the weight of the reality of what all truly happened. I should have expected nothing else from Gabe.
But I did.
And bless his heart because he’s trying. But suddenly he’s too busy to see me most nights, or he makes sure we’re only in public places with limited time. He doesn’t hold me anymore, not like he used to, not in the middle of the night like he’s claiming every mote of me.
The bargello, I decide after sitting for too long contemplating. I’m scheduled to start in five minutes. Most days, that means I’m already logged in and going, but I can’t seem to get myself moving. If I’m working on that bargello, the camera doesn’t need to be on my face so much.
I fire up my computer, get all my monitors going, and check my progress on the quilt. It’s one of my favorite bargellos, a blend of tans and blues and greens, gender-neutral and giant, wide enough for a king-sized bed. It’s also an ancient one, a quilt that I started long before I ever had a show, when I was trying to make something more appealing for a masculine aesthetic because Brian complained about how the quilt I’d put on our bed was girly.
Six years, this quilt was jammed in a drawer, unfinished, a top I’d spent months on, and I finally thought I had it in me to finish it. Now, it’s what’s easiest for me.
The stream goes live. I have a camera on my face to open the show, but that’s fine. I can get my introduction out and then move on. It’s easy. No problem. Just have that game face on to say hello and then hyperfocus on the quilt. I can do this.
“Good morning, everyone!” I sing-song, selling my energy as best as I can. “And good afternoon, Sandy and Ingmar,” I tack on with a wink when I catch their names among the list of thirty-seven people who have logged on already. I have quite a few international subscribers, which I love. Not just because it’s super cool that I’m overseas but because they both pose an extra challenge and provide additional insight. They don’t have access to a lot of products I use, so I’ve had to get innovative in our one-on-one and small group sessions, but they’ve also clued me into some hacks that they’ve done because of it. I love this part of my job.
I see Cora and Gabe in the roster, but they don’t say anything in chat. They’ll both tune in if they’re working — or working out — but can let my show run in the background. I tell myself not to be bothered by Gabe’s silence, not when Cora’s also silent, but I can’t help lumping it into our recent distance.
“So unless there are any protests, I thought we’d have a casual day of free motion quilting. Just that good Zen vibe. How’s that sound to everyone?”
Several thumbs-ups, enthusiastic yesses, and a cheers emoji. One viewer asks if I can demonstrate how to use one of my free motion templates, which is perfect. I haven’t done that in a while, and the way I’ve got this quilt laid out, I have plenty of panel space to switch to different methods. I can go wild on one corner, and it won’t be anything strange for the quilt.
“Yes, absolutely! I got this new one in stock. It’s a different brand I haven’t tried before, so we can all see if it’s worth the price tag—”
I stop speaking there as my stomach does something weird. Just a twinge, a hiccup, but it’s like a red flag. I take a deep breath to push through it, lifting a hand up so everyone knows I’m fine, just having a moment.
I exhale through rounded lips, and my brain goes a little fuzzy, light-headed, but it’s okay.
“Ha! Weird,” I laugh. “I swear I’m fine, just a blurp. Let me grab that ruler so you can all see it before I put it on the machine.”
I lean down to open the bottom drawer where the ruler is stashed. The fact that I’m leaning over is the only reason no one sees my face suddenly go green and my cheeks puff out, giving me a three-second warning for me to dump the contents of a Ziploc bag before I barf in it.
I take a couple of ragged breaths. I don’t even feel sick. Not the sort of sick that would result in my holding a bag of vomit. And once my throat does the thing so I can breathe properly again, I feel like I could eat an entire steak.
I wipe my face off, sit back up, and stare stupidly at the camera, not sure how to respond to the rapidly scrolling inquiries on my screen.
I don’t know if I’m okay.
But I feel okay, so I say, “Wow, lesson learned about having canned olives for breakfast!” and continue.
It’s all of twenty minutes before Cora comes bustling through my door, waving furiously at me to turn the longarm off and end the stream. I roll my eyes and shoo her off, having insisted no less than a dozen times that I’m fine, I had a stupid craving for olives, and they were probably bad. I felt fine thirty seconds later and even ate a protein bar to prove my point.
You did not need to come here, I mouth back at Cora, gesturing at the door she just walked through.
Come here, she mouths back, pointing at the floor next to her.
I respond by pointing with one hand at the camera that’s facing her while dangling the pointer finger of my other hand threateningly over the keyboard where I’m one button away from turning that camera on and outing Cora to the Quilted Flower fandom. She got famous through a televised sewing competition. My viewers will recognize her and will make it impossible for her to continue to participate in my streams. Gabe gets enough good-natured harassment for Cora to know she’ll suffer a far worse fate if everyone finds out CP2468 is world-famous fashion designer Cora Prasad.
She lifts a grocery bag up in front of her face. It would be a good way to block herself from the camera, but that’s not her intention. She reaches right into that bag and pulls out a far greater threat to my stream.
A selection of pregnancy tests.
My stomach goes wobbly at that, the remnants of the protein bar churning within.
I’m not pregnant, I mouth, but damn, that feels like a lie.
Cora holds up one finger and mouths oversleeping. A second finger is olives. A third is barfing. For the fourth, she points at her brain, which I don’t understand until she marches over to my workbench and moves the half-square triangles out of the way, revealing a kit for a felt applique nativity calendar.
What I absolutely said I was going to work on today because they got over-ordered but are easy enough for people to finish it for December if they order it today.
I totally forgot.
“Hey everyone, I’m starting to feel sick again, so I’m going to sign out for the day, but I promise I’m going to make it up to you tomorrow with an advent calendar project. Have a great day!”
“What am I going to do?” I moan as the second line appears on yet another test.
Cora squats down in front of me on the bathroom rug and takes hold of my knees. “You’re going to have a baby. You’re going to have the baby you’ve wanted and deserved for so long.”
She says it gently, more gently than she’s said anything to me in a long time because I usually have thicker skin than this and I don’t like being coddled. Life is hard. I have a soft life, but I got this through years of shoveling the worst sort of muck.
Cora thinks she gets it, and I love her for thinking that what I need right now is a gentle reality check with enough firmness in it to make me think I can do this despite the nightmare that happened last time.
I shake my head. “It’s not that. It’s — well, it should be that, but . . .” I scrunch my nose in hopes I can get my emotions under control now that I know why I’ve been a wreck lately. I was a leaky faucet last time I was pregnant. I’m actually proud of myself for keeping it together as well as I have. I take that deep breath, shift my weight on the edge of the bathtub, and straighten my spine. “Gabe had a vasectomy.”
“You slept with someone else?” In a flash, her wide eyes go slitted into a scowl. “Was it Merrick? Because I will cut his balls—”
“It wasn’t Merrick! It wasn’t anyone. I haven’t had sex with anyone else. Think about it, did I have sex with anyone else?”
Cora stares at me for another half second and then snorts. “No, definitely not. So he’s the dad. That’s what paternity tests are for.”
“I know, but how is he going to believe me? And he doesn’t want kids.”
That’s enough to get Cora to scowl and stand back up, planting her fists at her waist. “Well, he’s going to be a fucking dad now, and you’re not going to let him bully you—”
She’s cut off by the sound of a bull stampeding up my stairs. We don’t need an announcement to know who it is, although Gabe’s bellow of “Joss? Are you up here?” falls only a second behind the stampede.
Cora storms out of the bathroom, ready to face off with Gabe. “You better take care of her. I will hunt you down and cut off your dick if you don’t.”
“I will take care of her until the day I die,” Gabe says.
And that’s it. That’s all the time I have, that’s all the conviction I need.
Gabe appears in the doorway to the bathroom, still dressed in his workout gear, clearly stressed, a bottle of ginger beer in hand, and I burst into tears and lift my arms to him. There’s no hesitation from him. I ask him to hold me, and he scoops me right up.
“I’m here,” he promises. “I’m here for you.”
“I’m pregnant,” I sob, unable to hold it back for even a second as I flop my weight onto him, so ridiculously thankful he’s this big and strong, that he’s going to hold me like this while I have this meltdown, positive that no matter what tomorrow looks like, he’s going to hold me today.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he assures me again.
“It’s yours, I swear, I would never ever sleep with anyone else. I—oh god, I’m going to barf.”
“Because of morning sickness or because you think I would ever doubt for a second this baby is mine? Because I will put you down if it’s morning sickness.”
I sniffle and reach up from the shoulder I’m gripping to rub my eyes. “But not if I’m barfing because I’m worried that you won’t think it’s yours?”
“Nope, I figure if I hold you through that and you barf all over me, it’ll prove my point better. If you’re pregnant, it’s with my baby.”
“But your vasectomy?”
“Well, I’ve still got nuts, and they’re still doing their job, so I’m guessing sometimes, things don’t work the way they’re supposed to.”
He says it so calmly and rationally when I’m feeling anything but, and it seems so strange that he can be calm in a moment like this. Then again, I’ve had to stay calm in the face of absolute nightmares. When I found out about what Brian had done, once the medical examiner’s report dropped, I knew. I didn’t question it for a second. But I stayed calm because I had to. Because of my baby.
“You should talk to a doctor about it,” I tell Gabe. “See if it’s something they can test. How often this happens. And we’ll schedule a paternity test as soon as possible. I know they can do them in vitro now.”
“I don’t need a paternity test. I know that baby’s mine.”
“We should get it anyway. Peace of mind.”
“Hey.” Gabe takes me by the jaw and tilts my head up so I have to meet him in the eye when I don’t immediately look at him.
The way he looks at me, his eyes wild, his pupils blown slightly, his complexion off and forehead creased, sets my heart pounding. I’m so spun it’s hard to think. And then his thumb traces over my lip, so light and thoughtless, a gentle caress.
“Hey,” he says more gently, maneuvering us out of the bathroom and into the bedroom with slow, careful steps. Herding me with a soft look and a soft touch until we reach the bed. He sits there on the box spring, barren since he pulled the mattress off of it and left it on the floor, a promise he’d always come back. He sits on that box spring and sets me on my feet in front of him, and he’s low enough that we have a rare moment of leveled eyes.
“I don’t need that test,” he says as I continue to resist him. “I definitely don’t want you to do anything while the baby’s in here.” He brings one palm to my belly and smiles. He actually smiles, like he’s totally fine with this. “But do you need peace of mind?”
I frown and shake my head. “What? No. I know you’re the father.” My balance wavers as it hits me what he said, what I said. Gabe’s knees go to my hips to support me, and I brace myself on his thighs. “Oh god, no. Gabe, I don’t—I didn’t mean I’m questioning that. Not at all.”
“I know. I only meant if you’re scared that I’m going to ghost you, I won’t. So if you need that test, I’ll take it. And whatever else you need. Whatever you need to do, whatever you need me to do, anything.” He moves that hand away from my belly, instead covering my hands with his. His eyes stay firmly on mine. “And if you’re not okay with this, I’ll support whatever you need there, too.”
I blink a couple times to figure out if what he’s saying makes sense and I’m just struggling, if he’s saying if I don’t want him to father my child or support me or . . . I don’t even know what. I have no idea what he’s saying.
He finally looks away from me, his eyes shifting meaningfully toward the doorway that leads to the hallway and the room across the way.
The nursery.
But then he sweeps my knees out from under me and scoops me up onto his lap. His lips go to mine, and his kiss is every bit as gentle as his thumb was, but it’s long and deep, his hands spearing my hair to massage my scalp. When his lips part, he tilts so that our foreheads are together, and we share the air between us for several breaths.
“I love you, Joss. I want to marry you and spend my life with you and raise a family with you. I want it all. Whatever you want, I want more. But if you don’t want this baby, either because you don’t want the risk of another pregnancy or you’re not interested in having kids anymore, I respect that. This is your body, and I would never expect you to do something you don’t want to do with it.”
I can’t believe he just said that.
I can’t believe I’m this lucky this time around.
Here I go crying again.
“I said that wrong, didn’t I?” Gabe mutters. “Dammit. I was saving the love thing for the right moment, and I thought this was it.”
I hug him as best as I can even though his shoulders are too broad for me to ever hope of getting around him. I’m gross and wet and snotty. My head hurts from crying out all my hydration, and I’m starving. I don’t know what I’m doing, and there’s so much that needs to be done — I remember exactly how long eight months felt last time, and it was simultaneously an eternity and a blink of an eye — but in the moment, I laugh and say, “I want it all, too. And even though I’ve only known this baby for three seconds, I’m so much in love with them. And you. I love you so much.”
“Well, that’s great then. That’s perfect.”