The Goal

And he knows it.

“You ready to be more than friends yet?” he murmurs.

I glare at him. “I’m telling you I’m nervous and you’re thinking about sex?”

“No, you’re thinking about sex.” He grins. “Your eyes are begging me to fuck you.”

I hastily glance around to make sure nobody heard that, but the other pregnant women are either talking to their partners or have their heads buried in baby magazines.

“Nope,” I lie. “My eyes are too busy worrying about what they’re going to see on the ultrasound. I read that we might be able to see the baby’s face, and the fingers and toes.” Panic flutters in my belly again. “What if it only has three fingers, Tuck? What if it doesn’t have a nose?” My breathing grows labored. “Oh my God, what if we have a mutant baby?”

Tucker hunches over and starts to shake. It takes me a second to realize he’s shuddering with silent, hysterical laughter. Wonderful. The father of my child is laughing at me.

“Oh hell. Goddamn, darlin’.” He’s wheezing as he lifts his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you watch The Hills Have Eyes last night.”

“There was nothing else on,” I protest. And I didn’t want you to leave.

I’m so pathetic. This past week, I’ve been finding reasons to have Tucker over. Like, “we need to research breathing classes,” and, “my back is killing me—do you feel like coming by to rub it?” and, “maybe I should have a water birth.” He urged me to reconsider that last one, but I wasn’t serious about it to begin with. The idea of my pregnant ass submerged in a tub full of water and childbirth fluids makes me want to throw up.

But because he’s Tucker, he’s driven to Boston every time I’ve called. In the back of my mind, I’m scared I’m taking advantage of him, but he keeps assuring me that this is what he signed up for.

“We’re not going to have a mutant baby.” His chuckles have subsided, and he’s holding my hand again. “He or she is going to be perfect. I promise.”

I nod weakly.

“Sabrina James?” a voice calls from the doorway.

“That’s me.” I shoot to my feet so fast that I wobble for a moment. Tucker steadies me by placing one muscular arm around my shoulders.

“That’s us,” he corrects.

We follow the pink-scrubs-wearing nurse down a wide, well-lit hallway. She guides us into an exam room and instructs me to sit up on the table. The ultrasound machine is already set up beside it, and my heart does an excited little flip.

“I really want to know,” I blurt out once the nurse leaves the room.

Tucker pouts. “But think about how exciting it will be when the doctor shouts out ‘It’s a boy!’ or ‘It’s a girl!’”

This is his go-to argument. But frankly, I don’t need any more excitement in my life right now. My home situation is already way too charged, what with Nana lecturing me daily about getting knocked up, chastising me for keeping the baby, and constantly reminding me that she’s not dishing out free childcare just because I’m her granddaughter. And of course, then there’s Ray, with his snide comments about my promiscuity, my fat stomach, and my stupidity for not knowing how to use a condom.

Ray, I don’t give a shit about. Nana…well, I’m sure she’ll come around once she holds her great-granddaughter or grandson in her arms. She’s always been a sucker for babies.

“I want to know now,” I whine, not caring that I sound like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum.

“How about this? We’ll Rock, Paper, Scissors for it.”

Yeah, we’re going to make great parents, all right.

“Fine.” I crack my knuckles, which makes him snicker. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

We count in unison. On three, we reveal our hands. He did paper. I did rock.

“I win,” he says smugly.

“Sorry, baby, but you lose.”

“Paper covers rock!”

I smirk. “Rock weighs down the paper so it can’t fly away. It traps it.”

A loud sigh fills the room. “I’m not going to win on this, am I?”

“Nope.” But he looks so cute right now that I offer a compromise. “How about this? You can leave the room while the doctor tells me, and I swear I won’t give it away. I’ll hide all my baby purchases in my closet so you can’t see what I’m buying.”

“Deal.”

We’re interrupted by the arrival of the technician, who greets me warmly and then orders me to pull up my loose-fitting shirt so she can slather cold goo all over my belly.

“Is your bladder full?” she asks.

“My bladder is always full,” I answer dryly.

That gets me a laugh. “Don’t worry. This won’t take long. Soon you’ll be able to pee to your heart’s content.”

“Awesome. Living the dream.”

I’ve already had an ultrasound, so I’m not concerned when the tech shuts up once we get going. Every now and then she points something out, like how the baby’s spine resembles a teeny string of pearls, or how—thank the Lord—we’ve got ten fingers and ten toes.

Tucker stands there in silent wonder, watching the grainy images on the screen. At one point he bends down and kisses my forehead, and ribbons of warmth unfurl inside my body. I’m glad he’s here. I really am.

“Okay. All done.” After wiping the goo off my belly, the tech presses a button and the machine makes a whirring sound as it spits out a picture of the ultrasound. She doesn’t hand it over yet, instead saying, “The doctor will be in shortly to talk to you. If you need to empty your bladder, the bathroom is two doors down, on your left.”

Tucker chuckles as I instantly shoot off the table. “I’ll be right back,” I tell him, ducking out of the room.

I do my business, wash my hands, and when I step back into the exam room, Doctor Laura is already there, chatting with Tuck. When I first met her, I wasn’t sure what to think. Calling a doctor by their first name is weird to me. I guess maybe I thought it was a sign of unprofessionalism or something, but the woman seems to know her stuff. She’s in her mid-thirties and talks in a no-nonsense way that I appreciate.

“So Daddy here says you’ve been arguing about whether to find out the sex of the baby,” she teases when I walk in.