Chapter 35

BLAKE

I can’t believe it. I seriously can’t. Even as I stare down at the test for what I think is the tenth time at least, I am still in total awe.

Honestly, I still have the test in my hand. I am still looking at it. Those two plus symbols are right in my face, and all I can do is gawk. Even Carrie, who still has her arms wrapped around me, is an afterthought at the moment. I am just so damn happy.

“So, should we celebrate?” Carrie asks. “I would suggest Champagne but that seems inappropriate.”

She leans over my shoulder and looks down at the test in my hand.

It’s incredible the effect that good news can have on somebody. Up until five minutes ago, I was seriously doubting if I had made the right choice with Carrie. Sure, everything leading up to the previous few days was perfect in almost every way, but her sudden flip in attitude and the tension between us all but canceled that out.

But from the moment she came out of the bathroom, all that began to change. And now, it seems as if it had never happened at all.

She is smiling, she is happy and she is jokey. I am, too. There is zero tension, and again, I am glad that I chose her to do this with.

“How about we just have some breakfast instead?” I suggest. “I’ve been told those donuts are pretty special in their own right.”

“Sounds good to me,” she says.

As she does, she kisses me on the neck and takes her hands off my waist. The kiss was warm and natural. The last few days were a bad dream and nothing more. I am now lucky enough to be living in the reality.

I watch her stroll around to the kitchen, and I can’t believe how pretty she looks. Her cheeks seem to be glowing, most likely from the tears and her eyes are a bloodshot red. Yet, she is still perfect in every way. I can only imagine how amazing she will look when she is showing. Beautiful, I am sure.

She reaches for the coffee, and I suddenly remember something.

“Wait!” I say, a little too loudly.

“What?” She asks, looking at me in a panic. “What’s wrong?”

“The coffee,” I say, and I nod to the cup she holds in her hands. “Are you allowed to drink that? Isn’t caffeine bad for the baby? Actually, it was idiotic for me to even bring it over here in the first place.”

“That’s not true,” she scoffs, and again, she goes to drink the coffee.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“That’s not sure,” I say.

“Hmm,” she says, biting her lip. “It’s a shame we live in 1987 and not 2017. Otherwise we could go online and — oh, wait a minute, this is 2017!” She speaks in a dramatic fashion.

She puts down the coffee. I watch as she rushes from the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

“Laptop,” she yells back. She returns with a laptop already open. She types away for a few seconds, her eyes skimming down the screen.

“There,” she says with a smile, and she turns the laptop to face me. “Told you.”

I read the screen quickly. And then slowly. According to the site she is using, pregnant women are allowed to have up to a hundred milligrams of coffee a day. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than would be in that coffee I brought her.

“Fine,” I relent. “But just the one.”

“Gee, I can’t have any fun.” She smirks as she picks up the coffee and takes a sip. “It makes me think, actually, that neither of us knows anywhere near enough about this whole pregnancy thing. It’s all happened kind of fast.”

“I know,” I agree. “But we have time to learn.”

“We do. But what if we make a mistake before that? One that we should have caught early.”

“What are you suggesting?” I ask, not able to read the look in her eye.

***

Carrie holds my hand as she leads me through the busy bookstore. I look around the store, surprised by how busy it is. I wasn’t even aware that bookstores were still a thing.

It is Carrie who made the suggestion that we do some of our own research. And it is also she who thinks that we should buy actual, physical books. And not just one book, but many. And two copies of each. Now that it is official and we are pregnant, she plans to be the best pregnant woman of all time, or at least, that is how she tells it.

“Baby books, baby books,” she mutters to herself as we walk deeper and deeper into the store. Finally, she pulls up, releasing my hand as she turns on the very last shelf in the store.

“Is this them?” I ask.

I am nowhere near as enthused as she is, truth be told. I knew that being a father would be hard work, but I didn’t think that work would start so quickly. I really don’t like the idea of spending the next few weeks devouring all these books.

“Yep. There’s a bit of a selection so obviously we can’t…” She trails off as her eyes begin to wander through the titles.

I watch her for a second before I to turn to the shelf. I look up and down the stacks, vaguely reading the titles. They all sound kind of the same to me. The one right in front of my face reads The Nine Best Things to Know about Being Pregnant, while the one right next to that reads All The Things You Need to Know about Being Pregnant.

“I am out of my element,” I say.

I really am. The two books sound exactly the same, and as I look over the others, they are all in the same vein.

Luckily, Carrie looks as if she knows what she is doing. She reaches forward, pulling out two identical books. She hands them to me, and I take them. Before I have a chance to read the titles, she hands me two more, and two more after that.

“Do we really need all these?” I ask as she hands me more and more.

“You can’t be too prepared,” she says enthusiastically.

I smile down at her. Her enthusiasm is infectious. Although I was a little hesitant about all this homework, her eagerness for it has very quickly changed my mind. I am starting to warm to the idea of it. Being a father isn’t just about raising a child once they are born. But about everything before that as well.

“You’re totally right,” I say. “The more the merrier.”

“Really?” She asks in surprise.

“Of course. Now, where is the counter? Let’s buy these so we can start right away.”

She pauses and looks up at me. I can see that she is trying to decide if I am being serious or sarcastic. She sees how serious I am, she smiles, stands on her tiptoes, and kisses me on the lips. We are in this together, and I am now beyond excited about the process. All of it.