Wish Come True (The Blogger Diaries Trilogy Book 3) (21 page)

A few seconds later, I’m taking the dropper from the test package, collecting enough urine to drip into the little circular window at the far end of the white plastic test, and before I even have time to lay it flat, not having to wait the three minutes it says the test will take, the unthinkable happens.
 

Normally, when I take these things, you can see as the liquid is absorbed up the material of the test, and it skips the first line, which would tell you if you’re pregnant, and only makes the Control line appear across the window, letting you know the test is complete. One line, letting you know you are not pregnant.
 

My test. My little one-dollar, superstitious, ‘I only take you to jumpstart Aunt Flow’s visit’ test. My test?

Has two lines.
 

I stare at it for a solid minute, my jeans still around my calves as I sit on the pot, picking the test back up, tilting it toward the light, trying to make sure I’m not seeing things as the hysterical panic starts to gurgle and brew inside my stomach. My breath starts to come out in sharp pants and heat crawls up the back of my neck, into my scalp, making it tingle as my face flushes. Oh, God!

I go to hop up then realize I’m still in a state of undress. With shaking hands, I set the pregnancy test on the side of the tub and clean myself up before rebuttoning my jeans. And then… I collapse.
 

I sit in the middle of the bathroom floor, grab the towel hanging on the towel rack, and finally release the sob of overwhelming emotion inside me as I begin to bawl into the thick, soft fabric.
 

Oh, fuck. Oh, shit! What the fuck am I going to do? I’m
pregnant?
How the hell did that happen? I mean, duh. But Jason is infertile! Has been since he was twelve years old. Plus, I’m on birth control!

We live half a country away from each other. What about school? Oh, God. Josalyn. My poor baby! She’s going to think I don’t love her and am trying to replace her! She’s my world, my everything. This baby… how am I supposed to love it enough, when all my love already pours into my daughter, and all the reserves go to Jason? I’m only one person. Do I have enough love inside me for everyone? Oh, sweet Jesus. What is Jason going to think? Is he going to think I cheated on him, since he’s always been told he couldn’t have kids, and here I am pregnant? He has to know I’d never do that in a million years. I fought too fucking long and hard, and put up with entirely too much shit to do something so stupid as cheat on my soul mate after I finally got him. He has to know. Right?
Right?

A knock at the door sends me gasping and clutching at the towel in my hand like a life preserver. After a few seconds, it comes again, and I gather my wits enough to crawl on my hands and knees to the door to pull down on the handle enough to pop the lock undone. I don’t have it in me to actually open the door. That would mean I’d voluntarily be giving up my solitude, here, hidden in the bathroom with my secret. But that privacy doesn’t last even a moment longer as Jason pushes the door open and comes inside. Looking down at me, where I’ve backed myself up on my ass against the wooden cabinet beneath the sink, still clinging desperately to the towel, he quickly closes the door behind him then crouches down in front of me, reaching out to push my hair out of my face.

“Baby, what’s wrong? What happened?” His deep voice flows over me gently as he tilts my face up to him.
 

I manage to look up at him, into those beautiful dark chocolate eyes I love so much, and I choke out, barely making it through the two words, “It’s positive.”

I hold my breath, waiting for the horrible reaction I know is coming, the bitch inside my head chanting,
He can’t have kids. He won’t believe you. He can’t have kids. He won’t believe you. He can’t have kids…

“The test? It’s positive?” he asks, his voice steady, not angry, not disbelieving, just solid, trying to clarify what I’m telling him.

“Y-yes. It’s on the tu-tub,” I sob out, my heart racing at the thought of him getting up, walking over to the test, picking it up, and seeing it for himself.

Which is exactly what he does.
 

A part of me wants to giggle as he tilts the test toward the light, just as I had, but I think I’m in shock and can’t do anything but stare at his face, waiting for his reaction.
 

He comes back over to me and sits down Indian-style next to me then opens his arms. “Come here, baby.”

I launch myself at him, nearly knocking him backward, but he quickly recovers and wraps his arms around me and my towel, which I think has now cemented itself to me with the amount of snot I’ve blown into it. I’m sure I look
extremely
attractive at the moment, but I give zero fucks.
 

After a few minutes of him rocking me, he stops suddenly, tightens his arms around me, and says aloud, “I’m gonna be a dad,” as if it just at this very moment hit him what my positive pregnancy test means. “Baby,” he pushes his chest forward to sit me up then looks me dead in the eyes while holding my face in his hands, “I’m gonna be a dad!”
 

I bite my lip, cut my eyes to my far right, where he’s holding the test against my cheek, and then with as much humor as I can muster, I look back into his awe-filled stare and tell him, “Babe… I just peed on that.”

He looks at the test in his hand then swiftly pulls it away from my face, reaching above our heads to place it on the bathroom counter. “Sorry,” he grunts, using his thumb to rub at the spot on my cheek the test had rested against.
 

“You’re not mad?” I ask in a small voice, watching his eyes observe the movement of his thumb before they lift to mine.
 

“Mad? Baby, are you kidding me?” He shakes his head, a disbelieving look on his face. “I told you a long time ago that if I could, I would have a ton of kids.”

“That’s the problem, Jason.
If
you could. I’m scared you’re gonna think I—” My voice breaks and I can’t continue, not wanting to be the one who puts it in his head that I could’ve possibly cheated on him.

“Stop. Seriously? I
know
you didn’t, baby. We talk every. Single. Night. For hours, on the phone. When you’re not talking to me, you’re raising that precious little girl of yours and working your ass off on your schoolwork. You live with your parents, and you never even stay out late enough when you go out for me to even waste brainpower on thinking you might be at some other guy’s house. Plus, I don’t think anyone on the planet makes their significant other feel as loved, wanted, and desired as you make me feel. I know you’d never do that to me. I
know
this is my baby. Our little miracle.” And with that, he pulls me to him and kisses me like he’s never kissed me before. Loving, tender, his whole heart pouring into it, with notes of possessiveness I’d never felt from him before.
 

When the kiss finally ends, my heart drops once more when something pops into my head, and seeing the panic in my eyes, he asks, “What is it?”

“Go get your mom,” I state firmly.

“What? Why?” he asks, a tinge of panic lining his own voice now.

“Jason, go get your mother. We
have
to tell her,” I implore.

“Can’t we tell her later? I mean… we just found out like five seconds ago,” he tries to rebuff, but I’m not having it. My mommy isn’t here, and I need my stand-in. STAT.
 

“Jason Louis, you go get your mom for me right fucking now,” I growl, and he pulls his head back, his brow furrowing.

“Okay, okay, geez, Satan. Pregnancy hormones already?” He shakes his head as he unwraps himself from around me and pulls himself up to stand. I scoot back against the cabinet once again, my heart pounding as I wait for him to come back with his mom.
 

When she sees me on the floor, just like her son, she gets down on her haunches in front of me and asks what’s wrong. Instead of answering with words, I reach above my head, grasp a hold of the test, and bring it down in front of her face.
 

She pulls her glasses down onto her nose from the where they sat on the top of her head and looks at the rectangle of white plastic. After a second, she tells me, “Honey, I don’t know what this is.”

“It-it’s a pregnancy test,” I stutter. I had thought I’d just have to show it to her and that would be the end of it, but oh no. I guess God wants to play a little joke on me and make me spell everything out for her.
 

“And what does it say, baby doll? I never had to take one of these before,” she adds, taking the test in her hand.
 

I had forgotten she’d never been pregnant before, never conceiving once, even after years of fertility treatments. “The two lines you see in the little window there,” I explain, pointing to the little blue lines, “that means the test is positive.”

As soon as the words process in her mind, she falls out of her crouch, plopping down onto her pajama-covered butt. “Oh, my gosh,” she breathes. After a few moments, she asks, “How accurate are these things? Are you sure? When did you take it?”

“It’s over 99 percent accurate, and the reason I took it is because my period is late and I’ve been feeling really weird lately, so I’m almost certain. And I just took it about ten minutes ago. I… I don’t have my mom… so I asked Jason to run get you,” I answer.

“Oh, honey.” She leans forward and wraps her arms around my back. For such a tiny woman, she gives wonderful, fierce hugs, and I absorb all the comfort she’s giving me. “We gotta tell Steve!” she exclaims, leaning back and grasping my forearms, not hesitating as she gets to her feet and yanks me up. She tugs on me until I’m out in the hallway, where Jason has been waiting, leaning up against the wall beside his bedroom doorway, and she tells him, “Y’all go sit at the kitchen table and I’ll go get him.”

“Oh, shit,” Jason grumbles, but seeing the scared look on my face when I whip my head toward him, he gives me a sexy smile and leans down to kiss me. “Remind me to tell you a story after we tell Pop.”

“Ooookay,” I reply, taking a moment to peek in at Josalyn, where she’s asleep in the middle of the full-size bed in the room next to Jason’s.
 

We sit down at the kitchen table and wait for Mom to go to the shop out back to tell Dad we need to talk to him. When they return, the couple sits across from us, and his dad takes his ball cap off of his head, setting it next to him. “So what’s going on?”

“Mom didn’t tell you?” Jason asks, fidgeting in his seat, and I reach over and place my hand on his knee.

“No, I didn’t tell him. This is all you, bud,” his mom interjects, giving Jason a haughty look.

Jason seems to have gone speechless, so I take a breath, clear my throat, gaining Dad’s attention, and tell him, “Well… even though I was on birth control, it seems we’ve… um, well… you see—”

“We’re pregnant.”
 

The words burst out of Jason like canon fire, but I can’t even move to look over at him as my eyes widen, watching for his dad’s reaction, utterly terrified out of my mind. You can never, ever tell what Steve’s reaction will be when it comes to
anything
. Sometimes you think he’ll absolutely love something, but he ends up hating it. Food, movies, tools, politics… you name it. Whatever opinion or reaction you think he might have, it’s almost guaranteed it’ll actually be the opposite. Makes it hard to buy him anything for gifts, but in this instance, as I sit here scared to death he’s going to hate me for ruining his son’s life, it’s a very, very good thing.

Steve stands up, pushing his chair back, walks around the table, scoots past his son, and obviously having seen the fear in my eyes, he takes hold of my hands and pulls me up into a bear hug. He then pats me on the back as he pulls away, and tells me with his contagious smile planted firmly on his face, “Well, welcome to the family, sweetheart.”

The words send me launching back into his embrace and I squeeze him hard, so relieved that he isn’t upset.
 

He must feel me trembling, because he tells me, his Texan accent strong, “What’s all this about, girl? You thought I’d be mad atcha or something? Hell, y’all have been friends for how long? And you’ve been dating for about a year now. I’ve never seen Jason so hung up on a girl before. My boy loves the hell outta you. I mean, damn—we’re Mimi and Papa to your youngin’,” he adds, holding his hand out to Mom. “I knew those doctors were full of shit, tellin’ us he wouldn’t be able to have kids.” He turns to face his son, pointing his finger and narrowing his eyes. “That’s why I always told you to wrap your shit up.” His face softens again when he turns back to me. “And it might be happenin’ a little sooner than y’all planned, but there ain’t nothin’ to be mad about, babe.” He gives me one last hug before making his exit, calling over his shoulder, “Going back to the shop, Mama,” and we hear the back door close.

Well, I guess that’s that,
I think, letting out a relieved sigh before looking up at Jason, who has a stunned look on his face.
 

“He can think what he wants, but I say it’s a miracle. Those doctors were certain you wouldn’t be able to have kids. And you were on birth control, honey?” Mom asks, gaining our attention.

“Yes, ma’am. I had been on the mini-pill ever since I had Josalyn, since that’s all you’re allowed to take while you’re breastfeeding, but then when I stopped nursing, my body went haywire, so they put me on the Nuvaring,” I explain.

“See there? I mean, I’ll take you somewhere to really get tested. I don’t really trust this little thing anybody can buy at the store. But if you took the test because you’re late and because you felt funny, then the test is really just confirming what you already knew. Whether you realized you knew it or not,” she tells me, and I nod. “And of course this happens on a weekend. We’ll go bright and early Monday morning. Sound good?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

With that, Jason seems to snap out of his stupor and wraps his arms around both of us, kissing his mom on the top of her head first before leaning down to kiss me on my lips. “Night, Mama,” he tells her, and then he lets go of her before leading me out of the kitchen and down the hallway to his room.