Chapter 54
Magma
My hands shake a little as I unlock my front door.
My hands have never shaken. Not once in my entire life. Not even on the frontline.
Carla stands next to me on the porch with a worried expression on her face. She hasn’t said much since the pharmacy. I can hear how fast her heart is beating, a quick, light rhythm that hasn’t slowed since we got in the car. She’s clutching a paper bag in one hand, holding it against her tightly.
I get the door open on the second attempt and step aside to let her in.
“This is a really nice place,” she says, looking around my entryway, then through to the living room and the big windows beyond.
“Excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”
There’s a jacket over the back of one chair and half a glass of water on the coffee table.
I lead her straight through the living room, down the hall, and into the master suite, then through to my bathroom.
There’s a rumpled towel thrown over the side of the bath, and my razor sits next to the basin, which has a smattering of my hair after shaving yesterday.
I reach past her, sweep the towel off the tub and throw it into the half-full laundry basket.
“It’s fine,” she tells me. Then she gives me a pointed look.
“What?” I ask.
“This is the part where you give me a minute of privacy to pee on the stick.” She takes the pregnancy test out of the bag. It’s in a pink-and-white box that looks far too cheerful considering the amount of power it holds over both our lives.
“Surely I can watch you pee. It isn’t a big deal.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “So you’re both a stalker, and you have a pee fetish.” She smiles.
“Holy shit.” I bark out a laugh, and some of the pressure in my chest goes with it. “I am neither of those things. Fine, I’m leaving, but don’t look without me.”
“I would never.”
“And you’ll read all of the instructions?”
“Yes, I will. You can calm down already. I highly doubt it will be positive. Robyn told me there’s less than a one percent chance. I’m not pregnant. I can’t be. This is just precautionary.” She holds up the box like it’s evidence in a court case.
“Okay. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
“I’ll pee on the thing, put it back in its wrapper, and call you in. How’s that?”
I nod, then I make myself walk out and close the door and immediately start pacing the length of my bedroom.
Holy crap.
This is huge. It’s huge.
What if she’s pregnant?
I groan. Then I walk from the window to the door and back again. Water runs in the bathroom. The tap shuts off. Paper rustles. I stop pacing.
What if she is?
A baby. Our baby.
Something enormous moves through me, and it isn’t fear.
That’s the part I can’t get my head around.
It should be fear. We got together properly less than twenty-four hours ago.
We haven’t been on a single date. I don’t know how she takes her coffee.
And yet the thing filling my chest to the point of pain feels a lot more like hope than anything else.
My dragon rumbles, low and constant, like an engine idling. He has no doubts whatsoever. He’s already decided. He decided a long time ago; I was just too stubborn to accept it.
Carla is ours.
It feels like a lifetime of waiting when the door finally opens.
“Done?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s back in the wrapper. And I set a timer for three minutes.”
“I have to wait three whole minutes,” I groan.
Carla laughs. “Less, actually, since I washed my hands and cleaned up before letting you in. You really should calm down.” She comes to me and puts her arms around my neck, leaning up to kiss me. “It’s going to be absolutely fine.”
I wrap my arms around her and hug her back, holding her close, her cheek against my chest, her heart still racing away against me.
We stay like that for a while, and then we pull apart, and I look down into her gorgeous blue eyes.
I bite my bottom lip for a few beats, working out how to say it, whether to say it at all.
“That’s just it, Carla. I find that I want this test to be positive. I want there to be two lines. I know we should probably spend time getting to know each other first, but…” I push out a heavy breath. “Fuck. I want this so badly. I didn’t even realize how much until you told me.”
“You do?” Her eyes are shining with unshed tears. “That makes me so happy. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, though.”
“Too late.” I kiss her, cupping her face in my hands. “If it’s negative, we’ll practice really hard for when we’re actually trying.”
She giggles against my mouth.
“I think we—” she starts to say, and the timer goes off.
We look at one another. I wonder if I look as worried as she does. Probably. No. Definitely.
She silences her phone. Then she picks up the test off the counter, still in its wrapper, and I go and stand next to her, close enough that our arms touch.
“I love you, Carla.”
She turns and reaches up and hugs me, the test clasped in one hand behind my neck. The wrapper crinkles.
“I love you too. And it doesn’t matter what this test says, because I will be having your babies one of these days regardless. I hope you want a big, messy family like I do.”
“That sounds amazing.” I kiss the side of her mouth. “Let’s do this.”
I stand at her side. Carla pulls in a deep breath and slides the test out of the wrapper.
There are two pink lines.
Two.
For a second, I can’t compute what I’m seeing. I stare at those two lines, and my brain refuses to do anything with the information.
Carla’s hand starts shaking. She holds the test up and looks at it from different angles, even though the lines couldn’t be darker if they tried.
“Oh, my god.” Carla’s voice cracks. “I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant, Magma.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper, still looking at the test, half expecting one of the lines to fade away. “I’m going to be a father. A dad. You’re going to be… You’re pregnant.”
Carla is crying when I lift her straight off her feet, her toes leaving the tile, her arms flung around my neck.
“This is the best fucking news of my life,” I say into her hair.
And then I realize that I’m crying. Carla’s face is buried in my neck, and she’s crying too. I work hard at stopping, because I don’t cry. Not ever.
I fucking don’t.
We hug for a good while longer, me holding her off the ground, her wrapped around me. Carla keeps crying.
“They’re happy tears,” she says, sniffing.
“So happy,” I mutter.
Fuck.
I put her down and wipe my face with the back of my hand, and there’s nothing to be done about it, so I stop pretending. We’re both grinning like idiots. Then we’re laughing and crying at the same time.
“I’m pregnant,” Carla says again. She keeps saying it, like the words need repeating before they’ll turn true. “I’m pregnant. Oh, my god, I’m pregnant.”
“Yes, you are,” I say on repeat, every time like an idiot.
I go down on my knees in front of her, right there on the bathroom floor, and I kiss her belly through her shirt. Then I put my cheek against her and gather her in by the hips, and her fingers slide into my hair, and I stay there. There’s a life in there. Tiny and ours.
I stand, and we hug again, slower this time, her face tucked under my jaw, my chin resting on top of her head.
“I’m trying to work it out in my head,” Carla says. “It’s been ten or eleven weeks since Mistveil. I can’t believe I didn’t realize. I don’t menstruate because of the injection. How could I not know?”
“You were taking precautions.” I shrug. “You had no reason to look for it.”
She gasps and pulls back. “I have to call Robyn. I promised I would let her know. She was the one who put two and two together.”
I nod.
She picks up her phone and dials, and I lean against the counter and watch her, this woman standing in my bathroom carrying my child, and I honestly don’t know what I ever did to deserve this.
“Hi, it’s me. I’m here with Magma.” Her eyes move to mine.
“And?” I hear Robyn’s voice on the other side, sharp with impatience.
“I’m pregnant.” Carla starts crying again as she says it, wiping her tears with her other hand.
Robyn goes nuts on the other end of the line. There’s a shriek, then a lot of words tumbling out on top of each other, and Carla starts laughing, even though she’s still crying.
“That’s amazing! Oh, my god! Did you hear that, Ridge?” Robyn laughs. “I’m so happy for you guys. I take it you’re happy?” She pauses, sounding unsure.
Carla looks at me, and I have never felt such love in all my life. Not like this. Not this big.
“So happy,” she says, her eyes on mine.
“Okay. Okay, okay, okay. You need an ultrasound, and I am going to be the one to do it. Ask Magma if he can be at the hospital tomorrow at ten.”
Carla frowns. “No, Robyn. You can’t. You’re on your honeymoon. Don’t be silly.”
“I want to do this for you. Please let me do this for you. It has to be me.” A pause. “Ridge doesn’t mind, do you, babe?” Another pause. “He doesn’t mind. We’re only half an hour away.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I’ll set it up. You go and have that apple danish. You’re growing a baby. Oh, my god, you’re pregnant.”
Carla gasps. “Shit! I’ve been drinking two cups of coffee a day, and I drank alcohol last night.”
“You should cut back to one cup of coffee, but relax…two cups will not have done any harm. Your body ejected the Cosmo almost straight after you drank it. It’ll all be fine. You’ve been eating healthy.”
“I’ve been on a diet.” She covers her mouth. “My poor baby.”
“It’s fine. He or she will be absolutely fine. Do not worry. You’ll see it for yourself at ten tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait.” Carla smiles.
They chatter for another minute, Robyn firing off instructions about vitamins and rest, and Carla laughing and agreeing to all of it, and I just stand there grinning from ear to ear, unable to stop.
I’m going to be a dad.
Holy shit.
This is huge.
It’s everything.