Chapter 18
IfI could give you one thing in life, it would be to see yourself how you truly are. Only then, you’d see how much of an asshole you are.
—Text from Ellodie to Quaid
ELLODIE
“Baby, wake up.”
I blinked open my eyes, lids heavy like anvils, stared blearily at Quaid, and swayed.
He was standing directly in front of me, and I was staring up at him from my two feet.
Shit.
“I did it again?” I asked curiously.
“Yep,” he confirmed. “ButI can’t just let you take off when I leave.”
That was an understatement.
In actuality, what he was trying to say without saying, was that he couldn’t leave the house with me sleepwalking because I might hand deliver myself to a serial killer. A serial killer who hadn’t made a peep in fucking forever.
My head tilted as I took him in. “Your glasses today?”
“Head and eyes hurt,” he admitted. “You were really restless last night, and it sort of, maybe, kept me up.”
I instantly felt bad.
He was the one who had to go to work today, not me.
It was my first of not one, not two, but three whole days off.
Yes, I had to take a test this morning. But, after that, I was free!
I didn’t know what to do with my excitement.
IfI was a normal girl, and I could do anything I wanted, when and where I wanted, I’d spend the day getting my toes done. ThenI’d go to lunch by myself. ThenI’d visit that bakery with the drool worthy pastries everyone kept appearing with. ThenI’d go buy some new scrub pants, because the ones I was wearing were getting a little tight in the waist thanks to my addiction with said bakery.
ButI wasn’t normal.
I had a serial killer who wanted to see me dead.
Meaning, nothing was happening today.
Not unless I could convince one of the Carter brothers to go with me…
I bet I could get Auden to do it…
“Who’s my jailer today?” I asked as I leaned forward and placed my head on his chest.
He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me a little too tightly before saying, “My dad, actually.”
My brows rose. “Really?”
“Yep,” he confirmed. “He’s got some errands to do in town, and I figured you’d appreciate getting to do them with him.”
I smiled against his muscular pecs.
“Thanks, Quaid.” I nuzzled into that space between his muscles. “Sorry for keeping you up all night.”
“It wasn’t all you,” he said as he let me go. “It was a bunch of things. That murder I worked two nights ago? I was texting with Quincy off and on helping him roll some ideas through his brain. ThenI got a text from the night watch letting me know I’ve already had three men call in today due to the stomach flu.”
Speaking of stomach flu…
“I don’t feel so hot myself,” I admitted, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
The longer I was awake, the worst I started to feel.
YesterdayI’d felt off all day.
But today? It was pretty bad.
My stomach was roiling, and I wondered idly if it was okay to drink Pepto and take Zofran…
Obviously, these were things that I should know as a nurse, but my brain wasn’t working at one hundred percent. MaybeI should ask my mom?
“Great,” Quaid sighed. “It’ll go through us all like wildfire anyway. Might as well start with you.”
I couldn’t even muster up a smile as he disappeared into the kitchen, coming back a few moments later with a cup of coffee.
The smell hit me like a freight train, and what I thought was nausea earlier, turned into a full-blown evacuation imminent, DEFCON 1 situation.
As per our new routine, he headed to the bathroom for our pills.
When he came back out, he was already holding his hand out to me.
“Here ya go,” Quaid said as he placed my birth control pill into my hand.
I would’ve said thank you had I not thought opening my mouth would’ve caused me to Poltergeist projectile puke everywhere.
He frowned when I didn’t say anything and dropped to the mattress beside me.
The movement caused my body to jerk, and that was all it took.
“Are you…”
The smell of the coffee hit me, and I had one whole second where I thought I was going to straight throw up right into Quaid’s face, but he read the look before I could do it.
He took a large step back, and then I was all but falling out of the bed in my haste to get to the toilet.
I didn’t make it to the toilet.
I did, however, make it to the shower mat where I promptly lost every bit of the contents of my stomach.
“You gonna make it?” Quaid asked worriedly.
I grimaced and stood up, only to wish I’d stayed on my knees.
“I’m gonna do something,” I said as I swayed.
He caught me by the arm and steadied me. “You have to leave in fifteen minutes.”
I knew.
Today was my final exam.
The last and final final exam that I would ever take.
That meant I had one more clinical rotation to work, and I would be officially done with school.
I. Was. Ecstatic.
And where had my nausea gone? It was as if it was magically cured.
“I guess at least you didn’t take your pill yet,” he murmured as he handed it to me for a second time.
I took it and was just about to pop it into my mouth when I saw the small white pill. It wouldn’t have struck me as odd had I not seen a similar pill yesterday when a woman had come in with hives. I’d given her a steroid…oh, sweet Mary, mother of God.
Quaid picked up the bathmat covered in puke and tossed it into the laundry basket folded in quarters.
“Um,” I said carefully. “Quaid. Can you bring me both of our pills and let me see them?”
He frowned, but nonetheless reached over me to grab both packets of pills.
That’s when I swallowed hard and said, “Quaid.”
There was a long moment and then, “Yeah?”
“Which one of these have you been taking every morning?” I asked.
He moved, pulled back the pack of prednisone, and then said, “This one.”
I was already shaking my head, showing him the pill he’d handed me. “No. Because you handed me this one.”
He took the small pill from me, then looked first at my package of birth control pills, then his packet of prednisone, and then stilled.
He went so still I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
“Yeah…” I said as he realized what he’d done.
“I’ve… You’ve… Holy shit,” he breathed.
We met at Walgreens on his lunch break.
My final exam was over, and I’d already gotten the grade back.
I’d passed with flying colors, and I would be graduating in two weeks.
And though I had a lot on my mind during that test, it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t work through it.
But now that I was done…
I needed answers.
ASAP.
“What are we meeting here for?” Germaine asked, wrinkling his nose.
“We’re meeting here because your son decided to switch out his prednisone for my birth control pills,” I said.
“He’s still taking that?” he asked.
“Intermittently,” I admitted. “They weren’t really working. The doc kept prescribing them because he was still having issues. He was on and off of it since he started the steroid weeks ago. On his off weeks, I’ve not been taking my actual pills. Which is why I think I didn’t catch on as fast. But it was apparently enough that I now suspect I’m pregnant.”
“When was your last period?” Germaine asked as we both walked into Walgreens.
I saw Quaid immediately.
Dressed in his customary black tactical pants, black boots, and black t-shirt that said, ‘DallasPolice’ on it, I was momentarily stunned by his hotness.
Germaine pushed me forward and I answered him almost automatically, not finding it weird at all that my boyfriend’s father was asking about my menstrual cycle.
MaybeI was just jaded thanks to working as a medical professional for the last few years.
“About five or so weeks ago,” I admitted as we came to a stop in front of Quaid.
He caught me up in his arms and pulled me to him, nodding at his dad. “Thanks for bringing her by, old man.”
“I feel like maybe I should teach you how to be more observant,” he said as a way of greeting. “I mean, I know you’re not a detective like me and your brother, but the pills look different, don’t they?”
Quaid’s lips twitched and he handed me the bag. “Bathroom is in the back. Let’s go.”
I was already rolling my eyes. “I’ll do it at the restaurant next door.”
The restaurant next door was Panera, and though it wasn’t my favorite, they had really good brownies that had the perfect amount of powdered sugar on them.
“Fine,” Quaid said as we all fell into step out the door and to the Panera around the corner.
Quaid escorted me to the bathroom and checked the room before standing outside like a sentinel.
I rolled my eyes and disappeared into a stall, laughing to myself when I pulled out five different pregnancy tests from five different brands.
I peed on them all, washed up, then headed to the hall where I handed the bag to Quaid.
He took them and looked at them warily.
“Are you still nauseous?” he wondered as he escorted me to our table.
I was already shaking my head before he finished. “I’ve been fine since this morning.”
“That tracks with being pregnant…” he admitted.
I took my seat and raised my brows at Germaine, who was chowing down on a brownie without waiting for his lunch.
“That better not be mine,” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You know,” he said. “This explains your obsession with eating everyone’s snack cakes.”
“Speaking of snack cakes,” I turned to look at Quaid. “Your dad and I got our toes done this morning. Look at my toes.”
The nail tech had painted snack cakes on all of my toes but my pinky one because apparently, I was in the no pinky nail club.
Quaid’s eyes widened as he looked at them then to his dad. “You got your toes done?”
He nodded. “They shelk-lacked them.”
“Shellac,” I giggled. “And he painted his red, white and blue for the Fourth of July.”
“Ahh,” Quaid shook his head. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“Me neither.” Germaine shrugged, as if he couldn’t have cared less that he’d gotten them done. “ButI couldn’t very well just sit there while she got hers done without paying for the seat I took up. Then things kind of devolved from there.”
“Well, what happened was he saw me getting my feet massaged, and he wanted it done, too. And there was a bit of a language barrier, and well, he ended up getting the whole treatment. Shellac and all,” I said just before the buzzer buzzed, indicating our food was ready.
Quaid glanced at the side of the table where our plastic bag of pregnancy tests sat, then said, “I’m going to get the food.”
“He’s scared.” Germaine lifted the bag and said, “You’re pregnant.”
I didn’t need the clarification.
I knew.
My breasts were tender.
My waist was thicker.
The tiredness that I’d associated with burning the candle at both ends had more meaning now.
“I know,” I said as I took the test out that clearly said pregnant and placed it at his spot.
He came back with his hands loaded down with plates and started passing them out, studiously ignoring the test until the last possible second.
“Shit,” he said when he finally took it in his hands.
“I was really, really careful about peeing on that,” I said. “But you still might want to go wash your hands since you just picked it up from the wrong end.”
He did, coming back with a towel in his hands and a bit of green tint to his face.
“It’ll be okay, son.” Germaine chuckled. “The first one is always the scariest. Let’s just hope there’s only one, and not three.”
The utter horror on Quaid’s face was what got me through the rest of the day smiling.