Together: A Surprise Pregnancy Romance

by Jennifer Van Wyk

She playfully shoves me. “Shut up, you can’t deny that there’s truth to what I’m saying.”

  “I can deny it. Why in the hell would I want to be in the room while my sister shoves a baby out of her vagina?”

  “Hey! I’m still here, you know. Just come so that you’re here when the baby arrives. You don’t have to be in the room. Holy shit, that would be awkward.”

  I point to the phone. “See? Even Dean says it would be awkward.”

  She drops back onto her butt, pouting. “I don’t know why you’re being such a party pooper about it. It would be so cool.”

  “You’re so wrong. It would in no way be cool.”

  “Yo!” Dean shouts. “Are you listening to me? Are you on your way? I’m kind of in the middle of something here and listening to you and your woman argue about seeing my wife give birth isn’t at the top of the list.”

  “She isn’t my…” I trail off, knowing that’s not the point right now, “yeah, we’ll be there soon.” I slip my phone back into my pocket after saying goodbye to Dean.

  “Yes!” Ashley pumps her fist in the air and jumps off the couch. “I’m sooooo excited!”

  “You don’t say?” I deadpan.

  We slip back into our coats and I place a hand on her lower back as we walk out of the coffee shop. “Just riding with me?”

  “Makes sense. Unless you’re going to want to stay longer, then I should probably drive separate.”

  “Just ride with me. It’s supposed to snow and there’s no way I can put you into that car when it’s bad weather. I don’t really have long-term plans of hanging out at the hospital, anyway.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “How are you calm right now? You’re not freaking out. You’re just chill. Like your sister isn’t having a baby at this very moment.”

  I shrug. “It’s not that I’m not worried, but people have babies every day. It’s not exactly Bible times, you know? Besides, Dean is capable of being there for her and so will the doctors and nurses.”

  “But… you’re just, walking around like this is totally normal.”

  “And? Would you rather I begin running through the streets, screaming and yelling?”

  “Maybe?”

  “Careful what you wish for, babe. This is the same guy you’re going to want to be completely calm in about thirty-three weeks when it’s our turn.”

  “Our turn. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? We still barely know each other.”

  I wrap an arm around her shoulder. “But we’re getting there, little by little.”

  She looks up at me. “He’s gonna have the darkest eyes ever, isn’t he?”

  “Appears so.” I wink at her.

  “If he takes after you, he’s going to charm the literal pants off anyone, too.”

  “Clearly,” I tease, adding another wink in for good measure and she smiles.

  Something that she said earlier clicks with me, making my feet come to a stop. “Do I touch you too much?”

  “What?”

  I turn to look at her. “I’m kind of a handsy guy, I know this and maybe you’re not okay with it? I just show my affection often and maybe I’m overstepping. You’ve mentioned more than once that we barely know each other.”

  “Do you not want to be so touchy with me?”

  “Clearly not,” I admit. “But that doesn’t mean I have the right to do it. I’m sorry.”

  She groans and throws her arms up, letting her hands slap against her legs. “Please stop apologizing about stuff like this. It’s super annoying. Like, you have no idea how annoying right now. I have a bad enough feeling that I’ll be second-guessing every single one of my own moves without you second-guessing yours. I understand that you’re a physical guy. I knew that the first night we met. If I don’t want you to do something, I’m a grown up and I’ll tell you as such. You need to trust me, okay? If you can’t do that, this,” she gestures between us, “won’t work. I don’t mind you touching me. I don’t mind when you wrap your arm around my shoulders. I don’t mind when you grab my hand or get me out of my comfort zone and encourage me to do something different.”

  Blinking, I look at her in shock. “Okay.”

  She blinks back. “That’s it?”

  “I don’t think there are any words left in the English language to say, do you?”

  “Jerk.” She smirks.

  “A simple, touch me all you want, is all you needed to say.”

  “But now you really know, right?”

  “Facts. Also, now that you know that I’m an affectionate guy and now that I know that you don’t mind it, I’m not going to hold back.”

  “You’ve been holding back?”

  “Well, no.”

  “How about this: I promise to be honest with you. If I ever feel like you’re overstepping, I’ll let you know.”

  “Deal.”

  We shake on it and together we make the short three block trip back to my truck that’s still parked at the diner. Then we drive together to the hospital and I realize that one day this will be us. I wonder if I’ll be as calm as I am right now.

  My prediction? Absolutely not.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ashley

  This was a mistake. A big mistake. Dare I say, a bigger mistake than the one I made the night I forgot that antibiotics mess with the effectiveness of birth control. Though, that wasn’t necessarily a mistake so much as me being an idiot.

  But I digress.

  Right now, I’m regretting my behavior from thirty minutes ago.

  When I was begging Nik to let me come with him to the hospital because it would be a learning experience. What the heck was I thinking?

  This isn’t okay. The baby is literally killing Nik’s sister. There’s no way what we saw five minutes ago is normal.

  “You okay?” Nik leans over and asks me. We’re sitting in the waiting room after the nurse calmly escorted us out of the room Josie is about to die in. But there are some things you don’t forget. The combination of the sound and look of pain that Josie was experiencing at the time is one of those things. So basically, I’ve decided that I’ll keep the baby inside my stomach forever. Modern medicine is a miraculous thing. I’m sure it’s plausible.

  Shaking my head, I tell him, “Nope.”

  “That was a little extreme,” he agrees.

  “She’s going to die.”

  He pulls one of my famous moves and snorts. “No, she isn’t. Though I imagine her body will never be the same.”

  “This is the twenty-first century. Why haven’t they come up with a better system for extracting babies from a woman’s womb?”

  He presses his lips together to stop from laughing. “I’m not sure that there’s a system. It’s kind of nature.” He points upward. “He had a hand in that design so if you have a problem with it, you might need to take it up with Him. I’m sure he’s open to suggestions.”

  I look up. “You hear that, God? We’ve got a meeting we need to schedule in the next thirty some-odd weeks, you got it?”

  “That’ll work,” he placates me.

  We’re quiet for a few minutes, nothing but the soft sounds of the Discovery Channel on the television in the upper right hand corner to drown out my internal panic.

  Nik leans back in his chair like the calm and relaxed jerk he is. Seriously. Was he not in that room?

  We got to the hospital and he charmed his way into Josie’s room, marching in like it was no big deal and it was normal business to walk into a room and see his sister sweating and swearing, yelling that she changed her mind about not wanting to have pain medication to ease the sting of giving birth.

  The.

  Sting.

  That’s what she called it.

  Like it was a little bee sting or a bug bite.

  Not a baby ripping her body in half.

  I don’t understand why anyone would ever think to themselves, gee, pushing a head out of my crotch can’t be that hard,
why would I want medicine to help?

  “I’m going to tell you this right now…”

  “You’re getting medicated?”

  “Damn skippy.”

  “Don’t blame you,” he murmurs. “That’s your call. I told Josie she was insane for not wanting it. She was stubborn, as usual, though. She said she could handle it and dared Dean and me to challenge her abilities. So now she’s learning that she’s an idiot.”

  A bubble of laughter bursts out of my throat. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Something tells me she’ll kick his ass if I let her know he’s walking around calling her an idiot.

  I sit quietly, thinking back over what we saw when we walked into the room. At first, I was like wow, she looks amazing for being in active labor right now.

  “Hey, you! What took you so long?”

  “We’re here now.”

  “Oh, right! Ashley is with you?”

  I step out from behind Nik and give her a little wave. “Hi.”

  Josie stretches out her arms. “Yay! Come here, come here! I’m so excited to meet you!”

  “Probably figured it would be under different circumstances, right?”

  She shrugs. “Meh. This is fine. I’m not shy.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Nik teases and Josie ignores him, leaning up out of her bed to give me a small hug.

  “How you feeling, brat?” Nik asks.

  “Well, I yelled at the doctor once,” she says and Dean interrupts with a cough and “Three times,” and she continues with, “but otherwise I’m just ready for us to get this show on the road. The contractions are coming harder and quicker and last time they checked I was almost fully dilated so we’re there.”

  “That’s a lot of information,” he says, pulling a funny face. “I take it that’s all good?”

  “Yup. You’ll learn. I can’t believe you’re having this guy’s baby.” Josie grins but before I can respond she winces, curling into herself. She starts a series of breathing with Dean by her side, holding her hand and breathing along with her. She looks straight into his eyes and he whispers and murmurs encouraging words. It’s intimate and I feel like we’re intruding on something special between the two.

  Before long, she lies back against the mattress, blowing out a deep breath and giving him a faint smile. “That was a big one.”

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “Do you need anything?”

  “Only… ooh, holy shit! It’s coming again. What the…” She lets out a deep groan, sitting up and repeating the same process from earlier. Dean counts as she works through the contraction. I look at Nik whose eyes are as wide as my own. He mouths, what the fuck to me and I can only nod before looking back at Josie and Dean. He takes a wash cloth and wipes her forehead.

  “You okay? Should we get the doctor?”

  She shoots him a glare. “And what’s the doctor supposed to do for me? I can have this baby on my own.”

  Nik barks out a laugh. “Good grief. Josie, now’s not the time to hold to your stubborn ways. The doctor has to basically pull the child from your body, you know that, right?”

  She harrumphs and crosses her arms over her belly. Her very, very large belly. That’s not normal either, is it? No way is my stomach going to grow to that size. Also, there’s no way I’ll say that out loud because I like having my face arranged the way it is and Josie looks like she could murder someone in their sleep right now and walk away as if nothing happened. “No, he doesn’t. He’s not pulling anyone out of anywhere, you dumby. Besides, he hasn’t done much for me so far. He never walks in here to check on me! He hasn’t even been sending in his nurses! I had to make Dean check me to see how far along I’m dilated, which, by the way, he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing so for all we know, I somehow regressed and now I’m only at a two.”

  “What are you talking about? He hasn’t been good to you?” Nik asks, his hackles rising.

  Dean’s already shaking his head, grinning big. “You’re so full of it.” He dares to say to Josie. “You told him he didn’t know how to help anyone with childbirth because he’s never squeezed a baby out of his body.”

  “I did not.”

  “Oh, baby, you did. You also told him he wasn’t allowed back in here until he could prove he went to medical school. You said that I knew how to handle it all because no one knew your body better than me so I might as well do their jobs.”

  “You’re such a liar!”

  “I am not.”

  “I didn’t… oh no.” She looks panicked as she tugs on his arm. “I think I did! Dean! Why didn’t you put a muzzle on me?”

  “Right,” he snorts. “Like that would have worked out well for me.”

  “Well, get him back! He’s the one who can give me the happy medicine!”

  “Baby, it’s way too late for that. Besides, you had a plan and told the doctor that he wasn’t allowed to change it up under any circumstance.”

  She’s shaking her head rapidly. “I was out of my mind when I said that.”

  “I’m not denying that, but it’s almost time. You can’t change your mind now.”

  Dean and Josie are completely adorable together.

  “I want to maybe go back a little bit in time. Nik, you thought you could invent a time machine when you were a kid. Did you ever make that happen? Go get it and we’ll go back in time a few months.”

  “Time machine?” I ask him and he rolls his eyes.

  “I was eight,” he explains to me. “And no. You’d probably have known if I made a scientific discovery worth billions of dollars. Suck it up, buttercup. You wanted this. You were sure you could handle it, now you’re about to prove it to yourself.”

  Josie looks to me, pleading. “Trade places?”

  “Nope. Sorry, I’m happy over here for a little bit.”

  “Some friend you are,” she harrumphs.

  I want to remind her that we met ten minutes ago and we’re hardly friends, but maybe someday we will be? Hopefully.

  Another contraction hits and she buckles over, her face twisting in pain. “Oh hell. It hurts so bad!” Her mouth is pulled tight and she grunts, long and low. Her eyes are closed tightly and her teeth are bared. I believe her when she said that it hurts. It looks extreme. This can’t be right. No one in their right mind would have more than one child if this is the pain they have to endure every time.

  “Doctor,” she says breathlessly and Nik jumps into action, racing to the door.

  “We need help in here!” he yells.

  He strolls back in as if he didn’t just scream something at the top of his lungs and walks to his sister, patting her on top of the head. “They’ll be right in. Just hang tight and then we’ll get to meet the little one soon.”

  “I can’t do this, Nik. Why did I think I could?”

  He bends down, grabbing one of her hands and holding it between them. “You can and you will. You’re the strongest person I know and I’m not just saying that to make you feel better right now. I’m being serious. You are so capable and tough. And you’re going to be a mommy soon, which means you need to set those bad thoughts aside and remember how awesome you are.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Now, give me a niece. Or a nephew. And let the nurses and doctor do their jobs. They get paid for it and would feel really sad if they didn’t get to help.”

  “You’re right,” she rallies, sitting up. “I’ve got this. Now, get out of here because the nurse that just walked in is going to make me spread my legs and even though I love you, there’s no reason for my brother to see my legs spread apart.”

  “Agree. Love you, sis.”

  “Love you, Niko.”

  I follow him out and murmur, “Niko?” and he shakes his head.

  “She’s the only one who calls me Niko. Full name is Nikolas and she likes it better than Nik.”

  “You were great in there. Still so calm. How do you do it?”


  He shrugs. “I don’t know. No sense in getting worked up when she already is. It’s just the way I am. It’s no big deal.”

  Yeah. It’s just the way he is. Calm in the storm. No biggie. I almost scoff, but I don’t.

  “She looked like she was in a lot of pain, Nik.”

  “That’s because she is in a lot of pain,” he reminds me, not so helpfully. “It’s kind of what happens when you give birth to a baby.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  He grins, his eyes closed, head leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He’s seriously the calmest person I’ve ever met. From what I understand, he and his sister are really close so I would think he’d be freaking out. Nope. Not one bit. He’s totally chill.

  “I won’t be that strong,” I warn him.

  “Yes, you will,” he assures me, so certain of his words. He’s wrong, though. He has no idea who I am and what I’m capable of. Or, in this case, what I’m not capable of.

  I spent years of my life pretending to be someone else just to please my boyfriends. I didn’t think anything of it. I changed my personality to meet the needs of others and tried to fit in with people I didn’t even like all that much. The fear of being alone was too overpowering, though.

  “How do you know?”

  He looks at me with one eye open. “You don’t have a choice. You think that baby’s going to extract itself in a simple way?”

  “Nik! You’re not making me feel any better.” I chuckle, nudging his arm.

  He sits up and turns to me. “Not here just to make you feel better about life, baby. I’m not the one who is going to say shit to make you feel better. We aren’t about that, remember? Sometimes the truth hurts — in this case, quite literally — but that’s better than living a lie, right? You want the truth? Labor, whether by C-section or straight up pushed out, is going to be a lot of work. It’s not easy. But I have a feeling you can handle it. Actually, I have a feeling you can handle a lot more than you think you can. Whoever you’ve been spending time with in your past has led you to believe that you aren’t the kick ass woman you are.”

  He’s not wrong. Even my family has always treated me with kid gloves. I was the fragile one, or so they thought. Their miracle baby after the miscarriage needed to be kept safe. “How do you know?”