Refrain (Soul Series Book 3) (10 page)

He sets me on my feet and pulls back to peer into my face. There is no anger or disappointment or uncertainty.

“This is amazing.” He shakes his head, a dazed look still in his eyes. “I can’t believe this. Oh, my God, Pep. Can you believe it?”

No, I really can’t, but Dr. Allister’s light tap on the door comes before I can respond.

“Okay to come in?” she asks. Her eyes flick to Rhyson, widening a little with recognition. “Mr. Gray, hello.”

“Hi.” Rhyson studies the cart the nurse rolls in behind the doctor. “I hear we’re having a baby.”

“I believe you are.” She extends her hand. “Dr. Allister, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you.” He returns the handshake and offers that famous devastating smile. “Rhyson.”

“Yes, well.” Dr. Allister flushes a little while she snaps on rubber gloves. Always a comforting sound. “Let’s take a look.”

I smile weakly and lie back on the table when she instructs me to.

“I’m going to do a transvaginal ultrasound. It’s the most accurate way to determine how far along you are,” Dr. Allister says. “Are you fine with your fiancé being present for that?”

Rhyson looks slightly panicked like I might actually ask him to step outside and he’ll miss something.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I find his hand and squeeze.

Rhyson smiles, shifting his eyes from me to the doctor and then to the machine with the flat screen mounted on it.

I lie back and rest my feet in the stirrups. This should be incredibly awkward with Rhyson in the room, but he’s near my head, holding my hand. His eyes never leave the screen even though there’s nothing to see yet.

“You’ll feel a different kind of pressure than with a typical pelvic exam,” Dr. Allister says. “This probe will be moving around to get shots of what’s going on inside.”

The probe is a bit uncomfortable, but not too bad. It just takes a few seconds to get used to. A grey mass appears onscreen.

“Here’s what we’re looking for.” Dr. Allister points to a dark blob in the grey sea of my uterus. “This is the gestational sac. The yolk sac that tells us for sure we’ve got a baby in there. About four weeks and a few days, I’d say.”

I glance from the blobby uterine world onscreen to Rhyson’s face. His expression is absolutely rapt, his attention fully taken by the little pouch our kid is living in.

“Is there a heartbeat?” Anxiety tightens his expression. “Shouldn’t we hear a heartbeat?”

“Too early for that.” Dr. Allister types in a few notes. “Next appointment maybe.”

Rhyson releases my hand he’s been clutching this whole time to aim his phone at the screen and presses record.

“We’ll give you a 3D picture, Mr. Gray,” Dr. Allister assures him.

“I just want my own.” He shakes his head dazedly again. “This is just . . . wow.”

Absolute awe and joy light up his expression. My emotions aren’t as straightforward. I do feel this incredible sense of connection with what looks like an ink blot in my uterus, but other emotions press in too. Fear. Disappointment. Maybe a little resentment. And, yes, guilt for even feeling anything less than the joy all over Rhyson’s face. There are women who have been trying to get pregnant for years. And here I wasn’t even trying, didn’t even want it yet, and I’m . . .

Pregnant.

Once the machine is wheeled out, and Dr. Allister and Rhyson leave so I can get dressed, I’m left with just the little square print out of my ink blot. This little blob growing for the last few weeks inside of me just turned my life upside down, and I had no idea.

I CAN’T STOP WATCHING IT.

My phone glows in the unlit music room as I play the video over and over. I only recorded a few seconds of today’s ultrasound. It’s just this little smudgy sack in a grainy pool of Jell-O. There’s not even any sound other than us breathing and Dr. Allister’s voice. There’s no heartbeat. No head or feet or fingers. No little peter.

Peter? I can’t say dick now? I’m already censoring myself in my head. I guess peter is better than wiener or some other kid-appropriate name for cock. I’m already thinking like a father.

A father.

Shit. I’m gonna be a father. I
am
a father because I bet this child couldn’t feel any more real to me if she were already here.

It’s a girl, by the way.

All I’ve felt since Kai told me she was pregnant is joy, wonder, amazement. I can’t even assign names to all the emotions that washed over me in that examination room. For the first time since today’s appointment, fear and doubt creep in. What if I screw this kid up the way my parents screwed up on me? How much therapy would
that
take? Anything could happen. I Googled the first trimester, and Kai is more likely to miscarry over the next couple of months than at any other time during her pregnancy. Three minutes with that little blob, and I’d already do anything to protect it. To keep it. The same staunch protectiveness I feel for Kai instantly extended to our little blob.

“You okay?” Kai whispers from the doorway.

A wedge of darkness yields to the moonlight pouring in just beyond the wide windows, silhouetting her slim curves. The hem of my Jim Morrison t-shirt caresses her legs. She crosses one foot over the other, leaning her head against the doorframe.

“Why are we whispering?” I ask just as quietly, adding a smile that she slowly returns. “Come here.”

I open my arms and wait for her to cover the few feet between the entrance and the piano where I’m seated. She settles on my knees, and I kiss her hair when she leans into me. I can’t help it. One hand strays to her left ring finger, touching the glittering sign to the world that she belongs to me. My other hand covers her flat stomach holding our little secret. You can’t see it, but my baby’s in there, and it makes me feel a hundred feet tall.

“You couldn’t sleep?” she asks.

“Too wired, I guess. Thinking about the baby.” I scan her expression for any signs of the same excitement that has me out of bed at two o’clock in the morning. She’s pulled that blank mask over her feelings. I’m not having it. I’ll spend the rest of my life digging around in that pretty head and excavating her heart. I don’t want to leave anything unspoken between us. Not ever again. We’ve been there and done that, and I want to give her everything. I’m only asking her for one thing in return.

Everything.

“If I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?” I tuck silky strands of dark hair behind her ear.

“Of course.” In the faint glow of moonlight, she lowers her lashes before looking back up at me, waiting.

I cup her chin and brush my thumb over the lushness of her mouth.

“Do you want this baby?”

I’ve surprised her. Her eyes widen and then drop.

“I want this baby, yes.” I will her to lift her eyes back to me and she eventually does. “In about three years.”

I asked for that. We always say we want honesty until the truth slips in like a dagger between our ribs. I draw a sharp breath like she stabbed me.

“What are you saying? You want . . .” I can’t even string the ugly words together. I can’t even imagine that word anywhere near my baby.

“No!” Shock flashes across her face. She cups my face with both hands. “Oh, Rhys, no. I wouldn’t. This is our baby. It never even crossed my mind. I promise.”

I knew that. I
know
that. I believe her, but for just a second . . . relief steals over me, loosening the coiled muscles in my shoulders and neck.

“That came out wrong.” She shakes her head and looks up at me, eyes earnest. “Really wrong. What I meant was I didn’t want this
now
.”

She traces a line from my neck and over my chest before blowing out a short breath.

“It’s like I don’t want this to happen now, but I
do
want our baby.” She scrunches up her face. “I know how that sounds, but I’m trying to be honest with myself and with you.”

“I know.” I catch her hand and link it with mine to rest on my chest. “Keep talking. It’s okay.”

All she has is moonlight to see my face, but she scans my eyes and expression until something satisfies her that I mean it. That she doesn’t have to hide from me.

“You know that my whole life, especially the last five years or so, felt like this series of stops and starts. Like as soon as I have any momentum, something blocks it. Something delays it.”

Her fingers tighten around mine, squeezing to emphasize her next words.

“I was on birth control for a reason,” she says. “I didn’t want to have a baby right now. I’m coming off Luke’s tour, finally with Prodigy, featured on one of the biggest albums of the year with Grip’s song that’s about to drop. And I was up next. We were launching my solo career next.”

“And we still can, Pep.” I stroke my knuckles over her cheekbone. “We still will.”

Later
.

I don’t say the word out loud, but it somehow clangs as loud as a cymbal between us. She hears it. She knows it. It’s the truth.

“Look.” I tip my head back to consider the ceiling for a second before looking back to her, trying to match the unflinching honesty she offered me. “There’s a lot we
can
do before the baby comes. We’ll find the best producers for you to work with. Start getting songs together. And we can record throughout your pregnancy. You can be in the studio the whole time.”

“But . . .” Kai plucks the unspoken word right out of my head. She waits for me to say what we both know I have to say.

“
But
I don’t think we’ll have the songs recorded and the videos done before you start showing,” I continue. “And with dance being such a huge part of your brand, we’ll need you in the best shape of your life for those, and for the tour. You got a taste of how grueling world tours are, but that was just opening for Luke. This would be your own show, with multiple sets. A different city every night. And I feel strongly that we’ll get the most momentum if your world tour launches not too long after the album release.”

“And since I can’t do the world tour until after the baby is born, you’d want to wait on the album release.” Her eyes find mine in the dim light. “Right?”

Right.

We stare at one another, each of us weighing our words. Waiting for the other to speak. She finally does.

“Are you telling me this as my baby daddy,” she asks with a touch of lightness, even though her eyes offer no levity. “Or as my boss?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah, because if you’re saying this as the father of my child, then you’ve been heard, and I’ll take your opinion into account.” She folds her bottom lip into her mouth. “If you’re saying this as the head of my record label, then I don’t have much choice, do I?”

There’s no right answer. It’s in this moment that I realize just how much therapy must have helped me. Love is not control. I don’t want to control, Kai. I’m in a position of power over her, and I don’t want it. I love her so much, I hate being the one holding the power to take away what she wants.

“So baby daddy or boss?” she whispers.

I thought there was no right answer, but when I look in her eyes, I see there’s no wrong one either. Unconditional love bounces back at me. No matter what I say, we’re together. We’re getting married. We’ve having a baby. We’ll launch her career. Everything will happen when it’s supposed to as long as it’s us.

“Both.”

Regret and resignation wrestle in her eyes before she nods and kisses my lips lightly.

“Kai, there’s so much we
can
do.”

“But I was ready to do
everything
.” She presses her lips against emotion. “To finally do it all now. And then in two years, three years, sure, we’d start a family.”

“Time will fly,”

“That’s much easier for you to say than it is for me to do.” She closes her eyes and swipes at the lone tear escaping over her cheek. “I don’t know if you can understand this, but all these emotions are warring inside me. I don’t feel one more or less than the other.”

She swallows and strokes her thumb over my hand still linked with hers.

“This baby, our baby,” she leans forward until her lips float over mine, her breath cool on my lips, “
Your
baby inside me is the greatest joy I’ve ever had.”