Hot Cop

by Laurelin Paige

  “Liv?” I ask. I try to sound solid, stable, but my heart is pounding. I want to go back there. I don’t want Liv out of my sight for a second.

  Liv doesn’t answer, but she squeezes my hand.

  I squeeze back, hoping it tells her all the things I can’t. That I’ll be by her side as long as she wants me, that I’m here for all the ugly and scary parts. That I’m here to be strong for her.

  “If you guys will just follow me,” the nurse says.

  Liv and I walk together back to the room, Liv leaning into me. I have to remind myself that it doesn’t mean all the things I want it to mean, it just means that Liv wants someone with her right now, not that she’s moved on from all the things we talked about earlier this morning.

  But God, I want it to mean everything.

  It’s a Sunday morning, and so the ward is as quiet as I’ve ever seen it, but Livia still seems a little overwhelmed by the slow bustle of nurses and techs wheeling machines around and the low sound of someone moaning from a room. I’ve been in this ER with my hand clamped over a woman’s gashed artery, I’ve tackled violent drunks who’ve attacked nurses here, I’ve accepted a stale donut from a nurse while we watched the other nurses forcibly catheterize a man who refused to willingly leave a urine sample after he mowed down an elderly man gardening by his sidewalk.

  I’m not overwhelmed by the Sunday Morning ER.

  We get into her room and the nurse asks her to change into a gown, and then whisks out through the weirdly patterned curtain all ER rooms seem to have. Liv takes a deep breath and then another one, and before she can ask, I put my hand on the curtain to leave too so she can dress in privacy.

  “Stay,” she says quietly. “Please.”

  My chest collapses inward with a pained gratitude. “Of course.”

  I still turn to give her space as she dresses, and then I feel a small tap on my arm.

  “Will you help me with the ties in back?” she asks, and there’s a note of something in her voice that adds to the collapsing-with-gratitude feeling. Like she’s asking for something more than having her gown tied. Like she’s admitting she doesn’t want to do everything on her own any more.

  Like she’s admitting that she wants me.

  I try to squash these thoughts down and seal them away. The only thing that matters right now is being strong for her, being whatever she needs. And right now, that’s having her gown tied.

  After I tie it, she arranges herself on the bed, and I step forward to unfold the blanket, which is still warm from the mysterious blanket warmer hospitals have. She looks up at me in surprise as I silently spread it over her legs, and then a look of relief and comfort passes over her face.

  “Thank you,” she murmurs. “Feels nice.”

  I squeeze her knee, but I don’t answer. I don’t know if I can. There’s so much in the air between us right now—the painful things I admitted to her, her rejection of me, the danger the pregnancy is in. The thing in my pocket that she doesn’t know about.

  After a minute or two of silence, she says, “I have something for you. In my purse.”

  Now, it’s my turn to be surprised. “A present?”

  She blushes a little. “Well, no. It’s a library book. I checked it out in your name.”

  That sends a weak chuckle through me, and the way her eyes brighten at my laugh and smile remind me of how little I’ve smiled today. I smile again as I stand to get her purse and I’m rewarded with a small smile of hers.

  “It’s the gray book,” she comments as I open her purse to see that she has not one but three library books wedged inside. A glow warms my chest at the sight. Livia working in a library is like an alcoholic working in a liquor store. Except it’s so fucking adorable, I can’t stand it. My bookworm. My librarian.

  I get the gray book and go back to my chair, flipping through it. It’s a book of poems, and even though I generally don’t read poems unless they’re in the middle of an epic fantasy novel, there’s something about these that capture my attention right away. They aren’t the choppy poems about plums I had to read in college or the dense rhymey-rhymey sonnets from high school. There’s a music in the words that leaps off the page, a playful melody and force of vision that capture me right away.

  “It’s Dylan Thomas,” Liv says, as I flip through the pages.

  “The ‘Do Not Go Gentle’ guy?” I realize that maybe I did read him in college after all, but I think I was too busy hitting on the TA to absorb much of the actual poetry.

  “Yes,” she says. “And also he was an alcoholic and chronically unfaithful and not a little emotionally manipulative. But his words are magic. And this last week, after Officer Eaker died, I thought of his poems. How they’re sad and somehow energizing at the same time. He writes about death the way it should be written about.”

  I’m tracing the words of the last poem in the book as she talks. The poem is called “Fern Hill” and it’s as musical and poignant as all the others, but it’s the last two lines that capture me, that make me feel sad and trapped and happy and free all at once.

  I read them aloud, for no other reason than I need to. “‘Time held me green and dying/though I sang in my chains like the sea.’”

  “That’s what we are,” Liv whispers. “Green and dying. All at once. Both.”

  I look up, feeling the words and something else coursing through my veins. “Green and dying,” I echo.

  “I think I’ve been thinking about the dying more than the green,” she admits with a rueful twist of her mouth. “And maybe it’s weird to feel different now, with the bleeding and everything that could go wrong, but I want to sing in my chains like the sea too. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.” She puts her hand low on her belly and I know she’s thinking of the fear we both have right now, that our baby might not make it. That we might never get to meet the new life we created together.

  “The collection is called Deaths and Entrances,” she continues. “Somehow that feels more important than calling it Deaths and Births. Like maybe new things aren’t just births, but new chances. New people.”

  My heart is thudding in my throat because I think I know what she’s building herself up to saying, and I want her to say it; I need her to say it more than I’ve needed anything in my life.

  She swallows and meets my eyes, her eyes that dark, rich liquid color I can’t fucking resist. “Chase, I—”

  Before she can finish, the curtain yanks sharply to the side and someone in scrubs is wheeling a sonography machine into the room. Livia closes her mouth, pressing her lips together as if whatever words she was going to say are still fighting to get out. If it weren’t for my gut-deep fear about the baby, I would shove the machine and its tech outside and make her finish, because I have to know what she was going to say. I have to know how she feels, and living any longer with this uncertain agony twisting in my ribs might actually kill me.

  The sono tech, oblivious to the strained silence she created, hums to herself as she sets everything up. Then she turns to me with a polite smile that is more “no-nonsense” than it is polite, really.

  “Do you mind stepping out so we can have some privacy?” she asks.

  I glance at Liv, who still looks caught in the moment of trying to talk to me, and then with as much grace as I can muster while my heart is tearing itself out of its chest, I stand up to go.

  I’m just the sperm donor, after all.

  “He can stay,” Liv says softly, and I freeze. She clears her throat so she’s louder. “I want him to stay.”

  There’s a pause, and then she adds with a shy smile, “He’s the father.”

  Her eyes meet mine, and I don’t think I’m imagining the shine to her eyes, but it’s kind of hard to tell because my own eyes are burning, probably just allergies or the gusty air conditioning or—

  Ah, fuck it. Yes, I’m crying.

  I’m the father.

  The sono tech shrugs as she rolls a condom onto the sonography wand. I tearfully frown at
it as I pull a chair up next to Liv’s bed. “What’s that for?” I ask.

  Both women give me patronizing smiles. “It’s for the ultrasound, dummy,” Liv tells me.

  I’ve seen people torn open on the pavement, I’ve seen EMTs jam giant syringes into near-comatose diabetics, I’ve felt someone’s sternum crack as I administered CPR, but my ultrasound knowledge is extremely limited. “I thought ultrasounds happened on your stomach?”

  The tech laughs and squirts a glob of clear lube onto the wand with a loud ffffbbbbbtttt noise. “Not this early in the pregnancy. It’s going in the same place where the baby got made.”

  I’m horrified. I don’t remember the baby books or Megan mentioning anything about rapey ultrasounds, and just...why?

  But Liv is completely nonplussed as the tech hands her the wand to guide it inside herself under the sheet. Her face screws up to one side, as if it’s uncomfortable, and I feel the urge to fix it somehow, but before I can speak, the wand is inside Liv and the machine’s screen comes to life with clouds of black and white static.

  I have no idea what the hell I’m looking at, whether it’s good or bad, but the sono tech taps on her keyboard and moves the wand and adjusts the knobs and suddenly a dark oval appears. A dark empty oval.

  Liv’s breath sucks in and so does mine. I know empty means vacant. Empty means bad.

  I take her hand and hold it tight. I’m here with her no matter what, and no matter what, we’ll make it through this. Green and dying, deaths and entrances.

  Then the sonographer moves the wand just a little more, and I see it. A little bean curled up in a sea of dark, and then a whomp-whomp-whomp sound comes through the machine.

  “There’s the heartbeat,” the sonographer says with a smile. “Baby is doing just fine in there.”

  “Oh thank God,” I breathe.

  Next to me, Liv bursts into tears.

  The tech takes a few pictures and then adjusts some more knobs and moves the wand again. The baby bean with its strong heartbeat disappears and reappears on the screen, like a picture coming in and out of focus. But the third time it happens, there’s something else on the screen too, next to our baby bean. In fact, it looks like nothing more than a second baby bean, suspended upside down in Livia’s belly, thinking little, silent baby bean thoughts.

  Liv and I look at each other with wide eyes and then back to the screen.

  Whomp-whomp-whomp goes the machine again.

  “And there’s the second heartbeat,” the sonographer says, as if it’s the most casual thing in the world. “You’re having twins.”

  20

  Livia

  “Twins?” The word feels wrong in my mouth, as though I’ve mispronounced it or said the wrong thing all together.

  But I see the picture on the screen as clear as anything, and even if I didn’t, the ultrasound technician confirms it. “Twins. Let me take some measurements and then I’ll print some pictures for you to take with you.”

  I know my eyes are wide when I turn to Chase. “Twins,” I say, dazed.

  His knee is bouncing with nervous energy and his hand is clutching mine as tightly as mine’s clutching his, but his entire face is lit with excitement. “Twins, Liv! Told you I had super sperm.”

  A giggle escapes through the bubble of terror that has surrounded me since I first saw the blood. “Exactly. This is your fault.” I giggle again. I can’t stop giggling as I return my gaze to the monitor. Back to my babies.

  “What?” Chase asks, chuckling too.

  “I’m just…” It’s hard to talk over the fit of giggles. It’s even harder to explain this incredible, overwhelming, brutally tender joy that I’m feeling. “I’m just happy,” I say, finally, tears brimming at my eyes.

  “Yeah,” Chase says reverently. “Me too.”

  The tech types something into the computer. “It looks like Baby One is measuring at seven weeks two days and Baby Two is measuring at seven weeks exactly. So, based on that, we’d say you’re seven weeks one day along.”

  I mentally pull up my calendar app in my head. “I’ve kept accurate records. I should be just shy of seven weeks.”

  “Our measurements might be off, but it’s also likely that you ovulated earlier than you thought you did.”

  I look at Chase. “The patrol car.”

  “Seriously?” He lowers his voice though the room is small enough the tech can probably hear him anyway. “Neighborhood Hot Cop knocked you up?”

  I giggle again at the name of the game we’d played that night. “Yep. Neighborhood Hot Cop knocked me up.”

  Then I have to turn away and bite my lip so I don’t start crying again in earnest because, goddammit, I love this hot cop. More than I’ve ever wanted to admit. And today he’s been perfect, in every way. I was so scared, and Chase was calm and stable and everything I needed. He was the only person I wanted beside me, and as I sit here looking at our twin baby peanuts, I can’t imagine not having him beside me for all of the rest of it.

  I want to tell him, and I will, but before I can figure out what to say, the sonographer is handing us a strip of black and white printouts of our twin embryos and packing up her ultrasound machine.

  “The doctor will be in soon to talk to you,” she says as she leaves.

  Chase looks over my shoulder as I study the grainy pictures of our babies. They’re barely anything right now. Just little specks, but they have hearts and kidneys and stumps that will soon be legs and arms. And already I’m so in love with them I can barely hold all I feel inside.

  “They’re so beautiful.” I wish I knew what he was thinking. If he still wanted me now that I was bringing two babies to the relationship. “Don’t you think they’re beautiful?”

  “Well.” He squints at the lima bean shapes.

  I laugh. “They’re going to look more baby-like eventually.”

  “They better. Or we’re going to have a hell of a time telling them apart.” He grows serious. “But, yes, I think they’re beautiful. Like their mom. How are you feeling about two of them?”

  Isn’t that the question of the hour? It’s overwhelming, but I already can’t think of them as anything but a pair.

  “I want them. I love them. It’s not what I planned, that’s for sure.” I sigh and look up at him. “You weren’t what I planned either.”

  He seems about to say something, but the curtains swing open and in walks a petite woman in a white lab coat, a stethoscope around her neck and a patient chart in her hand.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. DeMaio,” she says quickly, as though she has places to be. “You’re Livia Ward?”

  She confirms my identity and birth date and then says, “I’ve had a chance to look at your ultrasound results and everything looks fine with both babies. One of the placentas is forming rather close to the cervix, so my guess is that’s why we saw some bleeding today. But that’s nothing that has to be scary, and some light bleeding early in pregnancy can be normal. We’ll just want to keep an eye on it, and worst-case scenario, you might find yourself on bed rest for a while. So follow up with your OB this week for regular prenatal care and also to talk to them about the low placenta, and that should take care of you. Any questions?”

  I’m so grateful that the babies are okay, and still in shock that I have more than one baby inside me, that I can’t really think of any questions off the top of my head. “I see my OB on Tuesday. I’m sure if I have any questions, I can ask then.”

  “I have a question,” Chase says tentatively.

  Dr DeMaio looks to me before she nods for him to go ahead.

  “Is the bleeding…? Could this have been caused because…?” He can’t seem to form the question the way he wants. Finally he blurts it out. “Was this from sex?”

  My face goes warm, but when I look at him, I see nothing but concern, and I realize he’s worried that our rough sex in the library might have harmed our babies.

  “Certainly there can be light bleeding immediately after intercourse,” Dr. DeMaio
says without blinking. “But that’s normal and nothing to be alarmed about. Intercourse during pregnancy is safe unless a doctor tells you otherwise.”

  Chase starts to ask something else, but the doctor guesses what it is and adds, “And I’m a doctor, and I’m not telling you otherwise.”

  “Got it.” His shoulders relax. “Thanks, Doc.”

  I roll my eyes, but really I’m relieved too. Not because I was worried that sex had endangered my pregnancy—I’d known it was fine—but because Chase is asking about the future.

  Which means that he’s still thinking about a future. Together.

  The next half hour passes in a buzz of activity. Nurses and technicians come in to unhook me from the vitals machine and go over discharge paperwork and insurance information. Finally, I’m dressed, the pics of the babies are tucked in my purse, and we’re ready to leave.

  When we walk out of the ER, Megan is in the waiting room. Her eyes are pinned on the doors so she sees us right away and waves us over.

  “I texted her,” Chase admits guiltily. From his expression, I can tell he’s worried he mis-stepped. Or he’s worried about us, about where we stand right now, and that’s fair. I’m worried too. We have a lot to worry about.

  So he doesn’t need to worry about this too. “I’m glad you texted her,” I tell him honestly.

  She’s fidgeting like it’s taking all she has not to run to us. But she’s tentative too, unsure what we’ve found out about my pregnancy, whether it’s good news or bad.

  I put my hand on my belly instinctively and lead the way over to her.

  “Is everything going to be okay? With the baby?” Megan asks softly, as though loud words might wake our sleeping fetus.

  “Yes. I’m all good,” I say, and she audibly sighs in relief as she hugs me tightly. “I have to keep an eye on it, but light bleeding can be normal, according to the doctor.”