Beat of the Heart

“Susan said that,” I replied in a strangled voice.

“Yes, she did.”

“Fuuuccck,” I groaned.

Abby laughed. “Should I take that as an ‘I’ll see you guys later. Thanks for letting me see the error of my ways’ curse?”

“Yeah.”

“What about getting home? Want me to send the limo back for you?”

I shook my head. “No, I’ll hopefully be leaving with Mia…if not, I’ll get a cab.”

Abby reached up again on her tip-toes to kiss my cheek. After playfully ruffling my hair, she said, “Good luck.”

“Thanks, mi amor. I’m going to need it.”

When I stepped off the elevator onto Mia’s floor, my heart started pounding so loud in my ears it drowned out all the noise around me. The stretch of hallway to the nurse’s station seemed to draw on forever. As I drew closer to it, Mia’s friend, Dee, stepped out a patient’s room with a chart in the crook of his arm. When he saw me, I grimaced and prepared for a verbal tongue lashing.

Instead, his dark eyes lit up. “Well, well, sweet cheeks, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

I chuckled. “Thanks. Is Mia here?”

“She’s doing some inventory in the medicine room right now.” He then crooked his finger. “Come with me.”

“Okay, thanks.” I fell in step behind him. “Is she…?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Dee replied, “Going to bitch slap you the minute she sees you?”

Damn, he was good. Or maybe it was that he knew Mia so well. “Yeah, something like that.”

Dee spun around, causing me to skid to a stop. “I’m gonna shoot straight with you, pretty boy. I wanted your balls on a skewer for a long time for what you did to Mimi.”

“Dude, I tried to tell her I was sorry a million times. She wouldn’t talk to me. I swear, I—”

He held up a hand to silence me, and surprisingly, I shut the fuck up. “Yeah, I didn’t know that then, but she finally admitted it to me about three months ago.” He took a step closer to me. “I don’t really know you that well, but what I do know seems intrinsically decent despite you being a famous rock-star. I’m hoping that you’ve shown up here today because you miss Mia, and you want to fight for her—despite what you might have going on in your personal life.”

My brows furrowed in confusion. “Wait a minute. You lost me on the personal life stuff.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine, if you wanna play coy, whatever.”

“But I—”

“Look, just get in there and fight for our girl, okay?”

I resisted the urge to salute him. Instead, I nodded. “I will. I swear.”

“Good.” He then produced a key card from his pocket, which unlocked a door behind the nurse’s station. “Go get her, tiger,” he said, before smacking me on the ass.

Already on edge, I jumped out of my skin. At the same time, it felt good having Dee on my side—like I had passed some test. But like an absolute pussy, my hand shook as I opened the door. Mia stood in front of large cart filled with different medical supplies. My heart thudded against my breast bone at the sight of her. Four months later and she was even more beautiful and sexy than I remembered—even outfitted in her standard green scrubs. Her long, dark hair was swept away from her face in a twist, although a few wispy strands had escaped. She was eyeing a label on a bottle. “Dee, we’re getting low on Heparin. You should call the pharmacy and order up some more units.”

“It’s not Dee,” I said softly.

The sound of my voice caused her to jerk her head up. The bottle she was inventorying fell from her hand and smashed onto the floor.

“W-What are you doing here?” she questioned.

“I was in the neighborhood and thought I would come see you.” When her brows rose in suspicion, I replied, “Oka, so maybe I was over at Scottish Rite meeting with some fans.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

I nervously raked my hand through my hair before taking a few tentative steps closer to Mia. “I’m just going to shoot straight with you, okay? When I was over there and saw St. Joe’s, I realized how much I missed you and wanted to see you.”

“You did?” she asked, her voice vibrating with emotion.

“Yeah.”

The closer I got to her, the more panicked Mia appeared. “AJ, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“That you’ve missed me?” I teased, hoping to ease the tension in the air that you couldn’t have sawed through with a chainsaw.

“Yes,” she whispered. “But…something else.”

“That you’re sorry for not answering my calls and texts?” She nodded. “But most of all, you’re sorry you left me naked and handcuffed to a shower.”

She closed her eyes as if she was in pain. “Yes. I’m so, so sorry.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t get to her quick enough. Bounding around the edge of the cart, I reached out for her, but she jerked away, backing up into the wall. Fear and worry raged in her eyes, and although I was glad to see she didn’t appear pissed, I couldn’t help but feel something was off. When her hand flew to her abdomen as if she were shielding herself, my gaze roamed down her body to where her once baggy scrubs pulled tighter over her slightly rounded stomach—a stomach that had been noticeably flatter when we were together. It was at that moment that every molecule in my body felt like it exploded. “Holy shit,” I murmured.

When I snapped my gaze back to Mia’s, tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, AJ. I came to tell you—”

Even though I knew the answer, I demanded, “You’re pregnant with my baby?”

“Yes,” she replied as tears slid down her cheeks.

“Holy shit,” I repeated. The room began spinning around me. Mia’s voice sounded muffled like I was under the surface of the water. And the next thing I knew I was falling back while the world around me went dark.

18

Staring down at the nightmarish white stick, I felt bile once again rise in my throat. “No, please no,” I moaned. I gripped the sides of the marble bathroom counter to keep me from sinking to the floor. With my erratic cycles, I hadn’t been on heightened alert when my period was a week or two late. But when I started creeping into the three and a half week mark, I began to panic, which caused me to swing by Walgreens on the way home from work to buy two pregnancy tests.