June 3rd, 2016
I awoke with a start, but I couldn’t quite understand what had stirred me from my sleep. It took several blinks for me to open my tired eyes, but once I was able to make out the still-dark hotel room, I reached my arm out toward Ivy’s side of the bed and came up empty-handed.
Where is she?
I sat up then and leaned toward the nightstand to switch on the light.
It was completely silent, until it wasn’t.
A small gagging noise echoed from the bathroom inside our hotel suite, and that was followed up by several strong heaves, and after that, well, it was pretty easy to put two and two together.
Ivy was in the bathroom, and by the sounds of it, she was sicker than a dog.
“Ivy? You okay, baby?” I asked and slid off the bed and to my feet.
“I’m fine,” she said, but her feeble voice said the opposite.
I rounded the bed and made my way toward the bathroom.
The door was shut, but once I opened it with a turn of the knob and a gentle shove of my hip, my eyes were assaulted by bright white light.
It only took a few moments for my vision to readjust, but once it did, I found Ivy sitting on the cool tile floor, her naked body clinging to the toilet like it was a life raft.
Her face was pale, and sweat droplets pebbled her forehead.
“Are you sick?” I asked, but she didn’t have any time to answer.
She leaned forward with a weak groan and vomited into the toilet.
Yellow bile spewed out of her mouth, and her bare stomach kept contracting violently, forcing everything inside of her body up and out.
Quickly, I moved toward her and held her blond hair out of her face.
She tried to brush me away, moaning near incoherent words about not watching, but there was no way in hell I was leaving her alone like this.
Once she was finished, she sagged against the toilet, and her pale skin had morphed and she was white as a ghost. Tears dripped down her cheeks while droplets of sweat slid down her bare back.
“Baby, what’s going on? You okay?” I asked and she groaned.
“I have no idea. I just woke up and had to pee, but while I was in the bathroom washing my hands, I started to get so nauseous. And then, next thing I knew, I was puking.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Do you think it’s something you ate?”
“Well, if it was, that shouldn’t be a problem now. There’s literally nothing left.”
I moved toward the sink and grabbed a fresh washcloth and held it under a spray of cold water before placing it on the back of Ivy’s neck.
“Thank you,” she said, and a little moan left her lips. “That’s much better.”
Eventually, she scooted away from the toilet until her back was pressed against the tile wall. “Okay… Thank everything…I think I’m actually starting to feel a lot better.”
Understanding the general path of something like a stomach virus or food poisoning, I thought maybe that was wishful thinking, but I kept those thoughts to myself. The likelihood of more puking was the last thing she probably wanted to hear right now.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked, and she looked up at me with those big green eyes of hers and offered a little smile.
“Mind helping me up so I can brush my teeth and wash my face?”
“Like you even have to ask,” I said, but instead of offering her a hand, I leaned down and slid my arms beneath her bent legs and behind her back and cradled her body against my chest.
“Jesus, Levi,” she said through a few giggles as I lifted her up into the air, and I smiled.
God, it was a fucking relief to feel so light and full at the same time.
It’d been a rough stretch, both mentally and emotionally, and despite Ivy being sick, it was nice not to be thinking about difficult things like Camilla’s death or my absent, shitty mother’s hand in the movie Cold.
She’d tried to contact me through Ivy’s manager, Mariah, but the law had already been laid down, and I outright refused to have any sort of contact with her.
Maybe some people would disagree, but I’d had enough pain at the hands of that woman, and I refused to open myself up to any more.
June Gatto wasn’t a part of my life.
She may have been a scar from my past, but she sure as fuck wouldn’t play any sort of part in my future.
“You can put me down now, you big lug,” Ivy said with a giggle. “All I needed was a hand. Pretty sure I could’ve handled the rest.”
“I live to serve you, baby,” I teased and smiled down at her.
“No, no, no,” she said and covered her mouth with her hand. “I know that look. That look is bad fucking news, and I don’t want that look from you until after I’ve brushed my damn teeth.”
I grinned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She laughed at that. “Yeah, you do, you big fat liar.”
I set her to her feet, and she playfully shoved an elbow into my stomach before moving to the bathroom sink and brushing her teeth.
Amazed at how quickly she appeared to be recovering from her puke session, I walked out of the bathroom and grabbed her a pair of underwear and one of my oversized white T-shirts she always loved to wear to bed.
But by the time I reached the bathroom, Ivy’s mood had appeared to drift real fucking far away from feeling better and playful.
Eyes distant and mouth slack, she stared at herself in the mirror.
She looked a million miles away and seemed to have completely forgotten about the running sink water or the toothbrush in her hand.
My heart sank to my stomach.
“Baby?” I asked and moved directly behind her. “You feel sick again?”
She shook her head and opened and closed her mouth several times, but nothing came out. I felt like it took a million years before she pushed words out of her mouth.
“I…I think it’s been two months,” she whispered, and then she dropped her toothbrush into the sink. It fell with clang and started floating beneath the running water. She gasped and lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “Oh my God, it’s definitely been at least two months, maybe more…”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but instantly, my mind went to Camilla.
It was the most obvious path.
“Two months? What are you talking about, Ivy?”
“My…my…my period,” she whispered.
“What about your period?” I asked, but then my brain caught up with my words, and it was my turn to stare into the mirror.
“Levi…” She turned on her heels and stared up at me with shock raising her brow high on her forehead. “I…I think I might be pregnant.”
Pregnant?
Ivy was pregnant?
No way.
No fucking way…right?
Stealthy ninja moves were the only way we managed a trip to the CVS up the street from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel at six in the morning.
Luckily, the last time Mariah had stopped by to chat with Ivy, she’d brought a bag full of disguises. Sunglasses, wigs, oversized hoodies, you name it and we had it.
And this morning, I’d gone the hat and hoodie route, while Ivy had decided to be a brunette.
Dazed and slightly confused by our current situation, the two of us had entered the pharmacy hand in hand, and after a good thirty minutes of walking aimlessly around the store, we’d left with a white plastic bag filled with pregnancy tests, Twizzlers, dill pickle Pringles, and a jug of SunnyD.
The food and drink choices were all Ivy.
By the time we’d gotten back to our hotel room, Ivy had eaten most of the snacks and drunk about half of the SunnyD.
And now, we waited.
Two minutes.
One hundred and twenty seconds until we’d find out our answer.
She’d peed on the test and left it in the bathroom while both of us pretty much paced the floor of the living room.
Jesus. I had no idea what to think.
I mean, Ivy could very well be pregnant. Which meant I would be a father.
And, let’s face it, I hadn’t had the best role models for parents.
My mother, well, she was a fucking stranger who had left when I was just a kid. And my dad had been an intolerant, money-hungry asshole from the day June Fox—or I should say, June fucking Gatto—had stepped out the front door of our house in Cold, until he took his very last breath.
My childhood had been a shitty one, filled with more pain than love.
More sadness than happy moments.
Mostly neglect and very little nurture.
How could I be a good father to a child with a childhood like that corroding my past?
Honestly, having a child with Ivy wasn’t the scary part of this scenario for me.
I loved Ivy, and I knew she would be an amazing mother. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Hell, when I’d picture our future, I’d sometimes see kids.
But that was different.
Those were daydreams.
That wasn’t right now. That wasn’t reality.
This was reality. This was real.
And this whole being a good dad thing had me on edge.
I didn’t want to fuck up another human being the way my parents had done to me.
Every child deserved to grow up inside of a home filled with support and strong parental figures. A home filled with nothing but love.
Could I give that kind of home to a child?
With Ivy, you can.
Not to mention, the timing was all fucking wrong.
I feared it would be too much for Ivy to handle.
She’d just lost her sister. She’d just started to even allow herself to find moments of joy between the grief.
Would she be able to emotionally handle a pregnancy right now?
I wasn’t sure, and it was probably that over everything that scared me the most.
I’d seen her suffer through so much, and I wasn’t sure if my heart could bear seeing her feel misplaced guilt and sadness over being pregnant.
“I can’t be pregnant…right?” she asked and yanked me from my thoughts. She stopped in the middle of the floor to meet my gaze, and both hands went to her hips. “I mean…what are the odds?” She questioned and then groaned and ran frustrated hands through her hair.
Considering I knew we’d had unprotected sex on more than one occasion, I wanted to tell her the odds might have been a little better than she thought. I mean, it seemed my brain turned fucking caveman when it came to Ivy and all rational thought left the fucking building, including ones that allowed for the forethought to put a goddamn condom on.
But I decided to keep my mouth shut. Ivy was too amped up with anxiety as it was, and in a matter of seconds, we’d know the results anyway.
Truth be told, I didn’t even know what I wanted the result to be.
On one hand, I felt deep, all-consuming joy over the idea of having a baby with Ivy.
And on the other, well, I was anxious.
We had just barely started to gain our footing.
Ivy was slowly finding herself again.
We still had so many things to figure out. I mean, we were still living inside of a hotel room, for fuck’s sake. This wasn’t the most perfect timing for a baby.
“I’m scared, Levi,” she whispered. “And I feel bad about being scared.”
My heart ached like a son of a bitch inside of my chest.
“Baby, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to feel whatever it is you’re feeling right now.”
I sure as fuck was all over the place with my thoughts and emotions.
But I refused to tell her that right now.
I just wanted and needed to stay calm for her.
The alarm she had set on her phone went off and startled us both.
Time’s up.
We stared at one another for a long moment.
“It’s time,” she whispered, and instantly, I knew. I had to do something before we stepped inside that bathroom to find out our fate.
“Hold on,” I said and moved toward her. She opened her mouth to question what I was doing, but I used that opportunity to pull her body close to mine and press my mouth to hers.
I kissed her. Long, deep, and filled with all of the love in the world, I kissed Ivy with everything I had.
Eventually, I slowed the kiss back down and pulled away, but for the longest moment, I just let my lips linger against hers. “I love you,” I whispered, and I felt her quick intake of breath. “I know this is scary right now, especially considering the timing, but just know that I love you, Ivy, and I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
She looked up at me, and the emotion shining in her eyes slayed me.
“You mean that?” she whispered, and I nodded.
“Of course I do,” I said and wiped away her tears with my thumbs. “You’re my whole fucking world, baby.”
“You’re mine too,” she said softly, and my heart pounded like a drum inside my chest.
“Well, then, no matter what happens, it’ll be okay.”
She nodded and repeated my words. “No matter what happens, it’ll be okay.”
I grabbed her hand and held it within mine. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be, I guess,” she said through a tight laugh, and I smiled down at her before leading her into the bathroom.
“You check,” she squeaked out the instant we stepped foot onto the cool white tile. “You check first and then tell me what it says.”
With her hand still in mine, I pulled the pregnancy test off the edge of the bathtub and read the result.
Pregnant.
My heart felt like an elevator gone rogue, diving through my stomach, down my legs, and hitting my feet.
Ivy was pregnant.
Holy. Shit.
“Well…” She paused, and the nerves were evident in her voice. “What does it say?”
I set the pregnancy test back down and pulled Ivy straight into my arms and kissed her. “Looks like we’re going to have a baby,” I whispered against her lips.
“I’m pregnant?” she asked, and tears filled her eyes. “We’re going to have a baby?”
“Yeah, baby.” I couldn’t not smile. This was good news. This was amazing news. Surprise or not, this was something that urged joy into my heart. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Her hand abruptly reached up to cover her mouth, and she stepped away from me to check the results for herself.
With shaky hands, she picked up the pregnancy test and stared down at the result window.
She glanced up at me, then back down at the test, until finally, her gaze landed back to mine where it stayed. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant.”
“We are.” I nodded, and my vision fogged with a sheen of happy emotion.
But I held my tears back and searched Ivy’s face closely.
I watched and waited.
I wasn’t sure how she was going to react.
I wasn’t sure what she was thinking.
I wasn’t sure about anything except that I loved her and the baby growing inside of her belly.
Ivy moved toward the bathroom mirror and pulled up her shirt to reveal the soft, toned skin of her belly. “There’s a baby growing inside of there, Levi,” she whispered. “Right now. A teeny tiny baby is in there.”
I stood behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist and placed my hand over hers. “Our teeny tiny baby.”
A few tears spilled from her cheeks.
“I just… I can’t believe it…” She paused, and her voice shook with emotion.
And then she smiled, and it lit up my whole damn world.
A deep breath escaped my lungs, and I felt the worry and concern release from my shoulders.
She tilted her head to look up at me. “Our baby.”