Chapter 6
six
“Come on. You have to eat something. You barely ate your dinner last night.”
I want to growl at Brett right now. Literally growl.
I don’t, though. I keep it together and manage to not punch him.
I wish he was going through all the changes my body is.
Cravings, soreness, sickness. You name it, I’ve felt it, and it’s only been fifteen weeks.
I can’t believe that it’s been three since I told Brett about this whole crazy thing.
I still wake up sometimes thinking it was a dream, but nope. There is always something to remind me.
Brett has truly been amazing through it, though. He has been by my side every step of the way. He has even started to wear a hair tie around his wrist for when I puke so he can put my hair back and rub my back at the same time. It is so sweet when he isn’t being annoying, like right now.
“Maybe a couple of crackers?”
I glare at him from my curled-up position on the couch. “I threw up like fifteen minutes ago. I cannot eat yet. I will throw it up again, and I don’t think you realize just how much I loathe throwing up.”
He cracks a smile. “I couldn’t tell from how much you’ve been doing it.”
It’s a joke. I know it’s a joke, but I’m not in a joking mood.
“Well, blame your child for that. He or she will not let me eat. Or sleep. Or get comfortable. Or feel like myself. I feel like a huge vessel for this human to make it into the world that everyone has forgotten about.” I can’t help the pout in my tone.
“Is this about them replacing you on the team?” he asks gently as he sits on the floor in front of me crossing his legs.
Yesterday they announced that Ashley was taking my place on the team. It didn’t help that she came back to our apartment to celebrate, acting like she didn’t know I would be there. She doesn’t even know why I’m not on the team anymore, only that she got my spot.
I thought she was my friend, but now I’m starting to wonder.
“It’s everything. I want to feel better,” I groan.
I hear a key in the front door, so I sit up suddenly, fighting the nausea. Brett sits up suddenly too, gripping my cheeks.
Before he can ask if I’m okay, I press my lips to his, holding them there while I breathe through my nose.
Please don’t puke on him. Please don’t puke on him.
The chant keeps replaying in my head as I pull back to look at Ashley.
“Oh, I see. You get a break from the team and go full wild child. Must be nice,” Ashley says, dropping her things on the counter.
I look back to Brett and find him frowning.
“Sorry. I didn’t think you would be back so soon. We were about to leave for breakfast anyway.”
“Yeah. Let’s get going, buttercup.”
He helps me stand, keeping a hand on my back, rubbing in a soothing pattern. I grab my wallet and keys by the door before we walk out, leaving Ashley behind.
“That’s the girl that replaced you?” Brett asks quietly as we exit my building.
“Yep.”
“She seems like a peach.” I don’t miss his sarcastic tone.
“She was my friend, but I guess there’s no room for friends in figure skating,” I admit.
As soon as we are outside and around the corner, I stop.
“What’s wrong?”
I hold my hand up, trying to fight back the nausea.
It doesn’t work. Within seconds, I’m bent over the bushes throwing up what little water I was able to keep down.
Brett’s hands go to my hair, pulling it back into the hair tie as he rubs my back.
After a moment, I hear something crack, then something cool is on my neck.
I focus on the coolness as I collect myself. When I stand, I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my long-sleeved shirt, wincing at how disgusting it is.
Turning to Brett, I look at the pack in his hand. “Did you buy one of those medical cold packs?”
“Not one. A whole box.” He pulls two more out of his pockets. “I figured I’d keep them on me for situations like this. Do you feel better?”
I nod. “I’ll feel even better when I can change and lie back down.”
“Let’s get you back to my place then.”
“I feel like if I show up at your place, all of your friends are going to think something is going on.”
He laughs. “There is something going on. You’re my baby mama.”
“Please don’t say it like that. It sounds like we are about to be on an episode of Maury.”
He laughs. “Nah. I’d never take you on national television. Besides, I know that little champ in your belly is mine.”
“What if it’s not a boy?” I ask him.
“I said champ. I didn’t say what he or she was a champ of, but come on. With us as parents? How can the little apple not be a champion?”
I shake my head. He got a pregnancy app that tells him the size of the baby. Now each week our child has a new nickname. Secretly I love it.
“Maybe we can find out next week at the doctor’s.”
All the good feelings fade away as my worry over the appointment settles in.
“What’s that look for?” he asks.
“What if I hurt the baby somehow when I didn’t know I had a baby? I worked hard on the ice,” I admit.
“Babies are resilient. There are some women who have even gone through the whole pregnancy not knowing they were growing a baby. I read this one article about a girl giving birth on a toilet. She thought she had to shit real bad, then boom, a baby. You caught it pretty early on. The baby will be fine,” he reassures me.
“We don’t know that, though.”
He takes a deep breath. “No. We don’t, but we will. If there are women out there who can do crack while pregnant and their babies still come out okay, then I think you can do some pretty rigorous exercise and the baby will be fine. Please, stop worrying so much. It’s not good for the baby.”
I snort. “Of course it’s not. Doesn’t stop the worry, though.”
“I know.” He puts his arm over my shoulder. “Let’s get you into my bed resting, then I’ll grab you something small to nibble on while I’m in class. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Just like that, Brett changes the subject, completely taking my mind off the baby as we climb into his car and head across campus.
I’ve been in class all day. Emery was supposed to go too, but she emailed all of her teachers and told them she was sick and asked if she could turn in her assignments remotely. Since a stomach bug has been going around, the teachers are a bit more lenient these days.
Stopping at one of our healthier options on campus, I order a salad with some grilled chicken for Emery and a burger for myself. Then I make my way back to my place to feed the girl dinner.
I know she’s okay. She’s been texting me throughout the day to check in so I don’t worry. Either that or she was bored. I don’t mind the reason. It helped ease my mind.
When I step through the front door, the first thing I notice is the noise. Feminine laughter from the living room. Toeing off my shoes at the door, I come around to find Cora and Emery on the couch watching television.
“Hey, ladies. What are you doing?” I ask.
“I saved your hostage from your room. Now we are bingeing trashy reality television,” Cora says without looking away from the TV.
“I didn’t have her locked in my room. She could have left at any time,” I tell her, moving around to set the food on the coffee table.
“Could have fooled me. She was sneaking into the hall bathroom,” Cora tells me.
“Hey, I wasn’t sneaking. I didn’t want to wake anyone up.” Emery tries to defend herself, but Cora doesn’t allow it.
“At noon? Honey, none of these hockey guys sleep past six in the morning,” she says.
“Well, you were here. Maybe you were sleeping.”
“I wasn’t here. I came home from my morning shift at the center. Anyway, whatcha got there?”
I pull out the burger first. Emery’s eyes light up.
“Ooh, that looks good,” she tells me.
“Good, because it’s for you.” I hand it over to her.
“Cora, I grabbed this too in case the burger wasn’t what Emery wanted. You can have it.” I hand over the salad.
“Good looking out, my guy. I appreciate it,” she tells me.
“Did you not get yourself anything?” Emery asks, concern in her eyes.
So I lie.
“We do meal prep. Better if I eat the chicken and veggies. I’m going to go heat some up.”
While it is true that I should be eating the meal plan that the team has us on, I haven’t cared much about that recently. Not since the injury. Now with Emery, I really don’t care as much. I don’t want to be a professional hockey player.
All I want is to be a dad.
When I come back into the living room with my food, Cora has already finished hers, while Emery is still picking at her burger.
“I’m going to head out. I need to grab some things. Emery, don’t you be a stranger now, and don’t hide in his room. You are allowed to be here. In fact, I want you here.”
Emery smiles up at Cora. “Okay. Next time I’ll act like I own the place.”
“That’s more like it. Treat her well, Brett.”
“I plan on it,” I tell her, taking a seat on the couch.
After Cora leaves, Emery speaks up. “The burger was for you, wasn’t it?”
I look over at her, chewing the bit of food in my mouth.
“I want you to eat whatever you can eat. I don’t care why I bought the burger as long as you eat it,” I tell her honestly.
“We can trade,” she says, her nose scrunching at my steamed veggies.
“No. We really can’t. You eat that and get your strength back. I’ll eat this and stay in performance shape. Really. It’s okay.”
She huffs. “Okay.”
We eat in silence as I stare at whatever show they have on. Someone just threw a glass of something in someone else’s face, and now they are about to brawl. I have no idea what is going on.
“So Cora made a comment earlier that had me thinking.”
“Oh yeah?” I turn and give her my full attention. “What were you thinking?”
“This weekend is parents’ weekend. My parents will be here. I think I need to tell them about the baby.”
“Of course we should. Let’s set up dinner or something with them. I’ll pay.”
She shakes her head. “No. That’s not what I meant. I am going to tell them.”
I laugh. Straight up laughing, making her glare at me.
“Buttercup, I am not letting you face your parents alone. We will tell them together so that when they get angry, they take it out on me. The boy who soiled their daughter’s image and impregnated her out of wedlock.
They won’t even be able to be mad at you if I’m there.
Trust me. Instant hate.” I stab another piece of chicken and eat it.
“I don’t want them to hate you.”
“Oh, but they will. At least for a little while. They will learn to love me when I show them how much I care for you and our little apple, but until then, they are going to hate me, and I’m okay with that.”
She finishes her food, pushing a quarter of the burger and fries away from her on the coffee table.
“They are going to be mad at me either way. They sank a lot of money into figure skating. We were going to get the gold. That dream is gone now.”
“Not gone,” I tell her.
“What do you mean not gone? What are the chances that I will actually get back to competition shape?” she asks.
“So I don’t know much, but I do know that Clay’s mom was small when she got pregnant with both of her kids, and she is still small and all that. She said that if you eat properly during pregnancy and watch the weight gain, you can get back into shape pretty quickly after birth.”
She looks at me dumbfounded. “You told Clay’s mom?”
I wince. “I mean, not really, but she totally knows. I called to ask her about pregnancy stuff. I lied and said it was for class, but I think she knows it’s not.
She won’t say anything if that’s what you are worried about.
She said that if you were active before pregnancy, then you can work back to your shape.
Now I know you won’t make the Olympics next year, but we can work toward 2030. We will get you there.”
“You really mean that, don’t you?” she muses.
“Of course I do. We can get this done, buttercup. You only have to have faith.”
She sighs. “Okay, but we have dinner at my place. If we tell them in public, they will yell and cause a scene.”
I smile at her. “I’ll make dinner then.”
Little does she know, I plan to do everything I can to make those people love me.
I’m going to be in their daughter’s life one way or another.
I need them on my side.