Decidedly With Baby

by Stina Lindenblatt

  The phone conversations with them had gone something like this:

  “What the hell is your problem?” a rather pissed off Aussie accent said over the phone. It was three in the morning, and I had answered the phone without checking caller ID first, thinking it was Holly.

  “You’ve got three seconds to tell me who this is before I hang up on you,” I growled, the sleep in my voice making me sound even crankier. Did I mention it was three in the fucking morning?

  It wouldn’t be so bad if Holly’s warm body was next to me. That would’ve helped me get back to sleep after I hung up on her dumbass brother.

  And yes, I knew it was her brother—I just didn’t know which one.

  “It’s Chris. Now will you tell me why you knocked up my sister? Especially since you two aren’t really engaged?”

  I choked back a laugh. It wasn’t as if I had purposely impregnated her. It hadn’t been part of some nefarious plan.

  “You do realize this is between your sister and me, don’t you?”

  Should I be worried if I received a package from Chris in the mail? Given the poisonous spiders and snakes over there, I was going with a yes.

  “And you do realize if you do anything to hurt Holly, I will come over and hurt you?”

  Note to self: no opening anything from Australia from now on.

  Guess who then phoned me five minutes later? And yes, the conversation with Simon had been pretty much the same. Only a little more colorful.

  Mark turned off his shower. “My advice is—do everything in your power to make her happy. Gain as many brownie points while you still can. You’ll be cashing in a lot of them over the next year or so. Trust me on that.”

  Sean grabbed his towel from the hook. Drying himself, he asked, “So what’s the vote, guys? Are we letting the rookie here join HDF?”

  “I vote yes,” Mark said.

  Jyri nodded—with what was best described as an evil grin on his face. An evil grin mixed with hope. “Agree.”

  “That makes three of us.” Sean threw me my towel as I turned off the water. I easily caught it with one hand. “But you have to agree to the initiation test first.”

  “Initiation test? What kind of initiation test?”

  They shared a glance, devious smirks on their faces.

  “You have to babysit Jyri’s twins,” Sean said. “Both Mark and I did it. It’s become a tradition.”

  I thought about it for a second. “Can Holly help me?” No way was I doing this on my own, even if she knew as much about kids as I did.

  They looked at each other, silently communicating their decision between themselves. “Does she know anything about looking after kids?” Sean asked, clearly the group’s leader.

  I shook my head. “We’re both going into this parenting thing clueless.”

  Their grins were hardly comforting.

  “Okay,” Sean said. “Your friend can help you.”

  “And after I join the group, you’ll share your parenting secrets?” I was going on the assumption they knew what the heck they were doing. But I could also be way off base on that.

  All three nodded.

  “All right, count me in.”

  “I’ll talk to Kari and let you know when you can look after the kids for a few hours,” Jyri told me.

  Was it just me, or did he sound a lot happier than he had a few minutes ago?

  “I’ll give you a freebie piece of advice. Try to make it to every single medical appointment that you can. Those are easy brownie points. You don’t want to waste them.”

  Oh. Shit.

  A memory of last night’s conversation with Holly flashed in my head. Well, not so much a conversation as her mentioning an ultrasound appointment today. In about twenty minutes.

  And the clinic wasn’t twenty minutes from here. Not even close.

  “Dammit!” I rushed from the shower area, the guys’ laughter escorting me. Yep, they had figured out I’d already fucked up my easy brownie points.

  Now, I just had to hope it didn’t cost me too much.

  17

  Holly

  “You will let me know if the sperm donor steps out of line?” Simon said on the phone. I was parked outside the medical building where Josh and I would soon learn if our baby was healthy.

  Was I nervous? Let me put it this way. Did seals swim?

  I glanced around the parking lot, checking for Josh. “Would you and Chris quit calling him that? He has a name.”

  “That’s right. It’s Josh-the-fucking-sperm-donor. But you have to admit that’s a mouthful. So Sperm Donor it is. Or I can call him SD. That works too.”

  I rolled my eyes. Yes, I loved my brothers, but they really could be kangaroo arses at times.

  “Anyway,” Simon continued, “Drew’s been asking about you.”

  I laughed and peered down at my growing belly. “I bet he wouldn’t find me quite so crush-worthy now.” According to the pregnancy website I subscribed to, I was officially eighteen weeks today.

  And there was no missing it.

  Smiling affectionately at the bulge, I caressed it. I was still completely clueless about the whole mothering thing, but doing this felt right. Like somehow it let Junior know everything would be all right—I would love her no matter what.

  And yes, I had decided Junior was a girl. Call it mother’s intuition.

  Simon cracked up. “Who knows? Maybe he has a thing for single pregnant women.”

  “Well, that’s not creepy at all…” My comment only made Simon laugh harder. “Does he know I’m no longer engaged?” I asked. “Shit, you didn’t tell Mum I’m pregnant, right?

  “Yes, he knows you’re no longer engaged. And no, Mum doesn’t know yet. And neither does Drew.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “You should just tell her, then she’ll get off your back when it comes to her plans for you and him.”

  I snorted an unladylike laugh. “Delusional much? That will just make her push things even more. But now she’ll have ammunition—the baby.”

  Of course that was only if Drew didn’t care if I was pregnant or not. If he did, end of problem…on that front.

  “Good point. Well, good luck with that.” A female voice on Simon’s end said something, but it was too muffled for me to hear. “I have to go now, Hols. Talk to you later.” And with that, he ended the call.

  “What do you think?” I asked Junior. “Do I send Drew a copy of your ultrasound and write ‘Wish you were here’ on it? That’s bound to scare him off.”

  Let’s call that Plan B.

  Plan A? No idea yet.

  I still had time before the ultrasound appointment, so I walked to the nearby playground and sat on the bench. You couldn’t get a better classroom than this for learning how to be a great mummy.

  Several young kids were running around, giggling. A toddler who was scooping up handfuls of gravel and dumping it on the sidewalk looked up from what he was doing. The woman with him said something and pointed at the approaching man. The kid squealed and toddled over to him. Laughing, the man swung him up and hugged him.

  That sound? Ignore it. It was my ovaries sighing dreamily.

  The toddler giggled and the mother gave them both a kiss on the cheek.

  This time it was me who gave a dreamy sigh. Would Junior and I ever experience that?

  Or would I spend my life balancing my career with being a single mother, with no chance of falling in love with a man? Right now I had Josh in my life and we were having sex practically daily. Great sex—in case you were wondering. Afterward? He went home and I spent the night alone.

  That didn’t exactly make for a happily ever after.

  I returned to the medical building and headed upstairs to the ultrasound clinic. After I checked in, I located two empty seats, sat in one of them, and grabbed a magazine from the pile on the coffee table.

  I should’ve been reading an annual report for a company I needed to analyze. So what trumped the all-important career-relate
d task? The cute article about making bath time fun for little kids, with a picture of a happy, soapy toddler.

  “Holly Whittaker,” a woman in a lab coat called out after I’d been sitting in the waiting room for about ten minutes.

  I guess that was it. Josh’s practice must have gone longer than expected.

  Or he didn’t care enough to be here. That bitchy voice? Just ignore it—even if it might’ve been right.

  The woman led me to a dimly lit exam room and asked me to lie on the exam table.

  “I’m going to put some warm gel on your stomach first,” she said. After doing that, she positioned the head of the ultrasound wand on my belly, then moved it around while watching the screen. Every few seconds, she tapped away on the keyboard.

  What’s the best way to make a patient nervous? One—don’t speak to her. And two—study the screen with the same expression doctors wore when delivering bad news. You know the one.

  Just as I was about to beg her to tell me what was wrong, a knock on the door jerked me from my near panic. The tech paused what she was doing and answered it. I couldn’t see who it was or hear what they were saying, but a moment later, she opened the door wider and Josh strolled in, smiling.

  Good thing I wasn’t attached to a heart rate monitor, what with the way my heart did a happy dance at seeing him. The corners of my mouth slid up into a big relieved grin. “You made it!”

  Those tears? They were nothing. Must have been dust in my eyes.

  Josh reached for my hand. “Sorry I’m late. Practice went later than expected. Did I miss anything?”

  I might have melted a little at the concern in his tone, and blinked back the new round of tears.

  “Not at all,” the tech explained. “I’m just taking measurements first and then I can show you your baby.” She went back to doing her job.

  Maybe sensing my fear, Josh kissed my temple. My heart paused a moment to let out a dreamy sigh, matching the one my ovaries had made at the playground.

  There was no doubt about it—I was falling for him.

  I know, bad idea. The sole reason Josh and I were “together” was because of the baby. If Junior hadn’t existed, then things between Josh and me wouldn’t be what they were now.

  Right—even now there wasn’t really an us. At least not in the sense I wished for. After what his father and mother did to him, he was too damaged to even consider it—too scared to try.

  But could you blame him?

  And let’s not forget one important thing. I didn’t know much about hockey, but I did know players got traded. Which meant Josh could end up moving away…and where did that leave Junior and me?

  “I was talking to some guys on the team who have young kids and babies,” Josh said, “and…well…they invited me to join their group, HDF.”

  “HDF?”

  “Hockey Dads Forever.”

  I laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? One of your teammates actually dreamed up that name?”

  His shoulders raised in a What-can-you-do? shrug. “No, one of their wives. Anyway, they’ll teach me everything I need to know about being a good father. It’s like a support group.”

  “A daddy support group?” Was I the only one who thought that was utterly adorable?

  My support group, who actually knew what they were talking about when it came to pregnancy and having a newborn, consisted of one member—Erin.

  “Yes, but being hockey players, they came up with an initiation for you and me to do first before I can join them.”

  “What kind of initiation?”

  “We just need to babysit my teammate’s two-year-old twin boys for a few hours.”

  “That’s it?” Oh, who was I kidding? What did I know about babysitting two-year-olds? The last time I’d hung out with one was never…if you didn’t count when I had been that age.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard. I figured with the two of us, it’ll be pretty easy.”

  Now if only I was as convinced about that as Josh. “Have you had a lot of experience looking after two-year-olds?”

  His expression pretty much said it all.

  Well, if it meant that much to him…“Okay.”

  “All right,” the tech said. “I’m finished. Do you want to see your baby?”

  And the winner of the dumbest question…

  “Yes,” Josh and I said at the same time.

  She turned the screen around to face us. “There it is. Do you want to know the sex?”

  Did we? I looked up at Josh, who was staring at the screen in awe. “Do you want to know?”

  “I’m fine either way,” he said. “Do you want to know?”

  “I wouldn’t mind knowing,” I said, my gaze on the screen again

  Could you believe it? That was a picture of my baby—Josh’s and my baby.

  I blinked back the new round of tears.

  “Okay, let’s find out,” Josh said.

  “You’re having a boy,” the tech told us.

  So much for a mother’s intuition. But given my own mum’s lack of mothering intuition, clearly she and I had never inherited the gene for it.

  Wow. I was having a boy—and nothing made me happier.

  Judging from Josh’s grin, I wasn’t the only one who was happy. An image of him teaching our son to skate popped into my head. Along with the image of me skating alongside them, cheering them on.

  And I mentally added “learn how to skate” to my to-do list.

  18

  Josh

  Kari handed Holly the large leather diaper bag, which looked ready to explode from everything stuffed inside. “Thank you for looking after the boys for a few hours,” Kari said, grinning.

  Instead of us babysitting Jyri and Kari’s twins at their house, they had met us at the zoo—at Jyri’s suggestion.

  “Tomas. Mikko. Do you remember Josh and Holly?” he asked the boys.

  Don’t ask me which was which. They looked the same to me. Both had the same blond hair, blue eyes, and I’m-going-to-cause-all-kinds-of-trouble grins. “They’re taking you to see the animals.”

  Holly and I had met the boys last night. And let me tell you now, there was a good reason both Jyri and Kari looked exhausted. The twins never stopped moving.

  “Hi,” Twin #1 said to me.

  “No,” the other one said. Ah, that must have been Mikko. “No” was his favorite word. Correction. It was the only word I’d heard him utter last night.

  So that meant Mikko was in the red dinosaur T-shirt, and Tomas was in the matching blue one.

  Got it.

  “Mikko, you go with Holly so I can help Josh put your car seat in her car.”

  “No.”

  You might think “no” means no—and for the most part that’s usually true. But with Mikko, it was all in the inflection of his voice. And in this case he wasn’t screaming the word, so his “no” could be loosely translated to, “Okay, Daddy. That sounds like a great idea.”

  Jyri successfully handed Mikko off to Holly, then he and I walked over to his SUV.

  “Kari and I really appreciate this,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time we had sex.”

  Huh? So that was why Holly and I had to meet them here? So he and Kari could go home and have sex?

  Nice.

  And in case you missed the sarcasm, there was more in that single word than there was animal shit at the zoo.

  He fastened the car seats in Holly’s Corolla. Why not my Nissan GT-R? Have you ever tried squeezing a car seat into a two seater?

  And don’t even say it. I was not giving up my baby. If you had ever ridden in one, you would understand why.

  We returned to the women. Jyri and Kari said good-bye to the twins and told them to have fun. I could have sworn Jyri’s words held a secret message—reminding the boys to be little hell-raisers and make their daddy proud.

  Or maybe that was me being paranoid.

  “Okay, guys,” I said. “You ready to see the animals?”

  �
�See bear.” Tomas growled like one, then took off running toward the front gate. Not wanting to be left behind, Mikko ran after him.

  “You corral them and I’ll get the tickets,” Holly said, before walking away and not giving me a chance to respond.

  For little guys, those two sure could move. It took me a minute to capture them. With each holding on to my hands, we walked over to join Holly in line.

  Thirty seconds—that was how long they lasted before they got bored of waiting. They released my hands and ran toward the gate again. Holly stepped up to the cashier window to buy the tickets, and I hurried after the boys a second time.

  Once I caught up with them, I crouched in front of them. “Hold on you two. Holly’s getting the tickets now.”

  “See lion.” Tomas tried to duck past me, but I scooped him up before he got far. He giggled.

  “Nice try, dude.” Luckily Mikko decided not to run off, so to stall him, I asked, “What animals do you want to see?”

  “No.”

  One corner of my mouth jerked up. “Is that a type of animal?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, so it is a big animal?”

  “No.”

  “A small one then?”

  “No.”

  Meanwhile, during this enlightening conversation, Tomas discovered my nose and grabbed it.

  “Do you know what that is, Tomas?”

  “Lion.”

  I laughed. “Not quite. That’s my nose. Can you say nose?”

  “Lion,” Tomas said.

  “No,” said Mikko.

  A pair of never-ending legs wearing jeans and sneakers stepped in front of us. Their owner was pulling the plastic green wagon belonging to the boys—and I peered up at the sexiest mommy-to-be on the planet, now nineteen weeks pregnant. She was wearing a long navy and white striped T-shirt that hugged the form of my growing son.

  I grinned at her. “You got the tickets?”

  She flashed them at me. “You boys ready to see some animals?”

  They didn’t bother to answer. They just toddled off toward the gate again.

  “I guess they’re not ready for the wagon yet,” Holly said as we followed after them.