by J. S. Scott
“Yeah. I’m just hungry.” Sophie removed her gloves and jacket as soon as they cleared the door and got in line.
She resisted crossing her fingers as she brought her hands to her face to warm them. Cupping her hands in front of her mouth, she blew into her palms and tried to concentrate on the sensation of warm air thawing her nose, which, after a day in the city, had now turned into an icicle. Just as she felt the tingles that indicated defrosting, the line moved and it was their turn to place an order.
Setting her hands on the glass case, Sophie scanned the menu on the chalkboard display that hung behind the counter. Every other time they’d come here, they had always each tried one of the specials. It was tradition. Unfortunately, that particular tradition was about to be broken.
“I’ll have a turkey on wheat with mayo, mustard, lettuce, and tomato. Also, can I get a side of macaroni salad and two pickle spears?”
The young worker wearing a white apron nodded as he wrote down her order and then looked up at Bobby, who ordered one of the specials. After paying, Bobby led her to a booth against the wall. As she slid into the padded seat, her body inwardly sighed in relief. The same feeling of a rush of endorphins she’d only ever experienced when she was getting a massage or after sex, spread through her now at the chance to sit down and take a load off.
She closed her eyes for just a beat, listening to the sounds of the other diners chitchatting, the clink of glasses and silverware on the tiled tabletops, and the low hum of Christmas music that filled the air, before opening them to find two very worried baby blues staring a hole in her head.
Lifting her mouth in what she knew was a weak smile, Sophie simply said, “Hey.”
Bobby’s brow wrinkled. “Are you coming down with something?”
Umm…well, I guess you can say that… Again, Sophie had the perfect opening to share the news she’d learned yesterday, and again, she heard herself saying, “I’m just tired. I think all the travel is just finally catching up to my system.”
At this point, she half-expected her nose to grow or her pants to catch on fire because there were no two ways about it—she was a liar, liar. Upon waking up this morning, Sophie had had the best intentions of spilling the beans about their little bean, but she’d gotten sidetracked. When she’d woken up to a sound-asleep Bobby beside her, she’d figured she’d hop in the shower and be dressed and ready to have the talk, but her plan had quickly been hijacked when her husband had joined her in the shower and proceeded to give her not one, not two, but—ding, ding, ding!—three earth-shattering orgasms.
After that, she’d been starving, which really should have been her first red flag over the past couple of weeks. She’d never been a breakfast eater. Ever. But for probably three weeks, she’d been famished every morning and a little nauseated every night. Although hindsight is twenty-twenty, the more Sophie thought about the differences in her sleep pattern, appetite, and energy levels, she was pretty frustrated with herself that the light bulb moment hadn’t occurred sooner. It was just that she’d attributed all of her symptoms to her schedule and travel.
“We can skip The Christmas Carol.”
Sophie wasn’t sure if her husband was offering or commanding, but either way, she dismissed him. “I’ll be fine after I eat. But I may want to go back to the hotel to rest a little before.”
After she’d practically raced them to breakfast, they’d rushed over to the Christmas Around the World and Holidays of Light Days at the Museum of Science and Industry. Then they went to the Wonderland Express Exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and they had tickets to A Christmas Carol at Goodman Theatre Chicago. Tomorrow, they planned on going ice skating at Millennium Park and seeing a matinee of Joffrey Ballet’s: The Nutcracker at the Auditorium Theatre before heading back for the family Christmas party. It was a jam-packed weekend that she herself had planned.
All her life, she’d been a go, go, go girl. People used to joke that her motto was ‘why walk when you can run?’ Last year, they hadn’t made it out of their hotel room, which was amazing, and she wasn’t complaining, but this year, she’d wanted to do all the touristy things they usually did on their annual trip.
Her mind and spirit were still on board with that plan, but her body was not. She was so tired. Lately, she’d been hitting a wall around one in the afternoon, and today she’d crashed into that sucker like a crash test dummy. You could stick a fork in her—she was done.
Maybe she’d tell Bobby after they got back from the show tonight what was really going on. After careful consideration, she’d decided that there was no way she wanted to tell him in public. She needed to do that in private. Her stomach turned at the thought of how he was going to react to the news that he was going to be a daddy. She wasn’t scared that he was going to yell or freak out on her—that so wasn’t his style. No, her greatest fear was that he wouldn’t say anything. That he’d just stand there silently, nod his head, and then internally deal with whatever his reaction was to their own little Christmas miracle.
Bobby didn’t open up to people easily, and even though Sophie was sure he’d never do anything to intentionally shut her out, his instinct was to power down and go into fix-it or maintenance mode. Part of that could have come from his upbringing. Sophie knew it couldn’t have been easy on him to have been raised without a mom. His dad was great and had done an amazing job bringing up five boys on his own, but Sophie would never characterize Bob Sr. as nurturing. The boys joked that he’d run their house kind of like a drill sergeant in the Army.
So it made sense that Bobby didn’t really open up and ‘talk about his feelings.’ Sophie remembered the first time he’d told her that he’d basically been in love with her since middle school. She’d snorted and sprayed the soda she had been drinking all over the inside of the cab of his old truck. She hadn’t been able to believe it. He’d never given her even the slightest clue that he’d had any feelings at all for her—much less been in love with her. And she’d definitely been looking for them.
The thought of him shutting down, closing her out, and dealing with all of this alone made her sick to her stomach. It was rolling like a bowling ball headed for a strike as she imagined herself trying to drag information out of him. She knew her efforts would be as useless as the G in lasagna.
Her mouth began watering as they sat in the back booth waiting for their food and it wasn’t the ‘oh yummy, I’m about to eat’ mouth water. It was more the ‘first spurt of a whale’s spout before it’s about to blow’ mouth water. She quickly realized that her nausea was not borne out of worry over Bobby’s reaction but rather to the fact that she was preggo.
“I’m gonna use the restroom,” Sophie managed to get out as she slid out of the booth, covering her mouth as she navigated through the wooden tables like she was a champion dog in an agility competition doing weave poles.
Her hands were shaking slightly as she made her way down the tiny hallway. She felt like she’d just won the lottery when she saw that not only was there no line to the women’s bathroom, she also didn’t have to get a key from the cashier to use it.
As she pushed her way into the small two-stall restroom, the Hallelujah chorus was playing in her head. Several minutes later, after she was sure nothing else could possibly come out of her, she stood and was wiping her watery eyes when she heard a voice on the other side of the stall.
“Are you okay in there? Do you want me to find someone for you?”
“Thanks, but no. I’m fi—” After opening the latch, Sophie stepped out and began to assure the woman that she was fine when she was stopped dead in her tracks. “Pam?”
Katie’s mom and the woman who had lived next door to Sophie since she’d moved to Harper’s Crossing stood in front of her.
“Sophie.” Pam’s brown eyes widened and she looked just as shocked at this random run-in as Sophie was. She recovered more quickly than Sophie did, however. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
Oh no. If Pam mentioned this to her daught
er, Sherlock, a.k.a. Katie, then her secret would most definitely be out of the bag. She just needed a little more time.
“Oh yeah.” Sophie once again drew on her limited acting experience. “I think I might have eaten something funny.”
Pam nodded, but it was clear that she was not buying what Sophie was selling.
In a not-so-subtle attempt to redirect the conversation, Sophie spoke brightly as she moved to the sink to wash up. “What are you doing here?”
In the reflection of the mirror, Sophie watched Pam blink as if the question had come out of left field. Then she stumbled over her words slightly. “Oh…I’m… I was just…shopping. Last-minute Christmas shopping.”
After turning off the water and waving her hand in front of the automatic paper towel dispenser, Sophie said a quick goodbye to Pam, reassuring her once again that she was fine and she would see her at the Sloan Christmas party, before hightailing it out of there. The last thing she wanted was a repeat performance that would raise even more suspicion.
She just needed a little more time to do things like, oh…tell the baby daddy.
* * * *
“Actually, can we get that to go?” Bobby handed a twenty to the kid who’d brought over their sandwiches on a plastic tray.
The guy’s eyes lit up when he saw the bill and he nodded quickly, turning on his heel and rushing back to the counter.
It didn’t matter what Sophie said. They were going back to the hotel. Bobby wasn’t sure if she was just overtired, dehydrated, or coming down with a bug, but he was sure that he was taking her back to rest. All day, she’d been trying to put on this brave face, but he’d watched as the day had worn on and dark circles had appeared under her eyes. Her pace had slowed and she’d yawned with increasing frequency.
He was deciding whether or not to drive them home as soon as they got back to the hotel when Sophie appeared at their table.
She smiled sweetly. “Hey, would you mind if we get the food to—”
“Here you go, sir.” The kid handed him a large paper bag.
Sir?
Damn. Was he that old?
“Thanks.” Bobby stood and grabbed their coats. When he felt Sophie’s arms fly around his neck, his hands wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closely to him.
Her chilly nose nuzzled into the side of his neck as she said, “You take such good care of me. You’re the best husband in the world.”
Kissing the top of her head, Bobby squeezed her once before releasing her. The head on top of his shoulders knew that they were in public. His other one was less concerned with that and only cared about how sweet Sophie’s body felt pressed against his. Luckily, his jacket covered the half-chub he was rocking as they made their way out of the crowded deli.
As he held the door open, Sophie walked in front of him and the cold air hit him like a slap in the face. Shifting his body so that he could shield her from the worst of it, Bobby wrapped his arm around her waist and then guided her to the curb, where he stepped out and put his arm up to hail a cab.
“What are you doing? The hotel’s only five blocks away.”
Bobby looked down at Sophie’s angelic face, which was staring up at him in confusion and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a dash of stubbornness. “I’m being a good husband and taking care of you,” he said, using her own words against her.
Her lips pursed and her face scrunched up the way they always did when he challenged her and she knew he was right. That look had always caused his heart to swell and simultaneously skip a beat—and not because it meant that she was conceding his point. Nope. It had just always done something to his insides since the first time he’d seen it. She must have been about eight and she’d come over to the Sloans’ house with Nick, who had immediately ditched her to head up into the ‘boys only’ treehouse that had been in the Sloan’s backyard since Seth was in Boy Scouts. Bobby had been playing “Super Nintendo Mario Brothers” and Sophie had asked to play too. When he told her that there were cheat codes that would make Mario go warp speed and turn into Super Mario, she informed him that she might be a girl but she wasn’t an idiot and she didn’t believe him. When he’d shown her, her mouth had dropped open and then she turned slowly to look at him with the same expression that was on her face now.
At the time, ten-year-old Bobby wanted to gloat about the fact that he’d been right and she’d been wrong, but the second he’d seen that look on her face, he’d gotten a funny feeling in his chest, which he didn’t understand. Now, he knew what it was and he still got it every time she looked at him like that.
After kissing her briefly on her scrunched nose, Bobby turned to see that a cab was pulling up. Just as he was holding the door open for Sophie, something caught his eye. Or, actually, someone.
“Dad?” Bobby called out.
Bob Sr. looked up over in their direction, and at first, his face didn’t register any recognition at all. Then, after a moment, he blinked, shook his head slightly, and crossed the sidewalk filled with people going in both directions like he was playing Frogger.
After carefully making his way to them, his dad asked, “Hey, what are you guys doing in the city?”
“We’re here on our annual Christmas trip.” Sophie smiled brightly as she reached out and pulled Bobby’s dad into a hug. “What are you doing here?”
Again, Bobby’s chest grew tight, filled with love. Sophie didn’t just like his family—she truly loved them. All of them. All of his brothers and their wives and children. His aunt and uncle and his cousins and their husbands. She’d loved them even before they’d gotten together.
“Oh, I’m just… I had to come in to pick up a part.” Bob looked back and forth between Sophie and Bobby. Uncomfortably.
A “part”? Okay.
As much as Bobby wanted to ask a follow-up question, he wanted more to get Sophie lying down. . “Well, we were just headed back to the hotel. Sophie’s not feeling well.”
His dad’s face morphed from awkward and uncomfortable to worried and concerned in the blink of an eye. “Oh, yes. Don’t let me keep you. Do you need anything, sweetie?”
It was so surreal to hear his gruff dad call someone “sweetie” and ask if they were okay. Bobby had to admit that Bob Sloan’s daughters-in-law had definitely brought out a softer side that none of his son’s had ever seen.
“No, I’m fine.” Sophie beamed up at him before tilting her head towards Bobby. “Someone is just a little overprotective.”
Bob slapped Bobby on the shoulder as a look of pride and approval spread across his face. “I think he’s just the right amount of protective. Carry on, son.”
Bob stood on the side of the street as Bobby and Sophie piled into the cab and pulled away. After letting the driver know what hotel they were at, he turned to Sophie to ask if she thought that his dad’s behavior had been a little odd, but he found her mouth wide open in a silent yawn that ended as she closed her eyes and cuddled up beside him, resting her head on his shoulder with a little sniff. He decided he’d let her rest on the quick drive.
Reaching across her lap, he pulled her closer to him. He made up his mind then and there that, if she wasn’t feeling better after Christmas, which was only a day away, he was taking her in to see the doctor. He didn’t care if she thought he was being “overprotective.” In the wise words of his pop, he was just the right amount of protective.
Chapter Nine
Sophie suddenly woke up with her stomach rolling like it was Tina Turner on the river. Placing her hands flat over her belly, she forced the heavy lids of her eyes open as she inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. With each breath, awareness crept in as her rebelling body settled down to a manageable state.
While she stared up at a white ceiling, repeating steady breaths, it took her a moment before her surroundings registered. It slowly dawned on her that she was not at home, not in her bed. Glancing to her left, she saw the beautiful Chicago skyline lit up to postcard perfection.
Chicago? Oh, right.
Bullet points scrolled across her mind’s eye like the ticker tape of the NYSE. She was in Chicago. With Bobby. And the reason she felt like she was about to toss her cookies was because she was carrying the newest addition to the Sloan family.
The room was dim and Bobby was not beside her. She wondered if he’d gone down to the vending machines or something. Pushing up on her elbows, she scooted her rear back and sat up. When she did, she saw her husband sitting across the room, their suitcases beside him.
She jumped slightly at the sight and brought her hand to her chest, still feeling a little disorientated. “You scared me.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay.” Sophie glanced at the clock and noticed that it was nine fifteen. Why did she feel like she was late for something?
Memories came back to her with crystal clarity. After their cab ride back to the hotel, Sophie had brushed her teeth and told Bobby that she just wanted to lie down for a half an hour. Then she’d planned on getting up to go see The Christmas Carol, which had begun at seven p.m.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” She started to scramble out of bed but was stopped by two things. First, her stomach did not appreciate the sudden movements and was now staging a full-blown protest. Second, it didn’t matter if she had a fairy godmother that could bippity boppity boo her with the flick of her wand to make her look red-carpet ready in an instant—the show was over. They’d missed it.
With her legs slung over the side of the bed, Sophie rested her head in her hands, trying to wait out the rumble tumble currently happening in her midsection. Feeling a warm hand on her knee Sophie opened her eyes to see Bobby kneeling in front of her, his face twisted in worry.
“We’re packed and ready to go. I called Dr. Jenkins and he said that he can see you if we get back—”
“Whoa.” Sophie sat up straight. “I don’t need to go to see Dr.—”
Bobby’s face set stubbornly. “This is not up for discuss—”
