Page 62 of Her Silver Fox Firefighters
“Right.”
“Everything else is right where it’s supposed to be, and the hormonal factors tell me you’ve got a healthy baby growing in there,” the doctor says as she nods at my belly. There’s a bit of a bump now. Nothing I can’t mask under a loose shirt or dress, but she knows it’s there, and so do I. “It looks a little bit bigger than what I had expected for the first part of your second trimester.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s get a look, shall we?”
I nod slowly and do as I’m told while she gets the gel tube and the ultrasound device ready. My appetite has gone up over the past few weeks, truth be told. I could eat a truckload if left unsupervised. Luckily, I’ve got three men taking great care of me, so we do manage a modicum of calorie control to avoid an exaggerated weight gain in the long term—for my health and my baby’s.
“Yikes,” I exclaim as she applies the cold gel all over my abdomen, then positions the device to start picking up ultrasound waves from my womb.
She looks at the screen for a while. I try to make something out of the garble of black and white fuzz, but I’m not sure what I should be looking for exactly.
“Huh, interesting,” Dr. Kravitz says.
“What does that mean?” Dax asks. They’ve been so quiet and damn near motionless up to this point. For a second, I almost forgot that they were even there.
“You might want to come up here and see for yourselves,” she replies with a grin.
“What? Why?” Beck shoots up from his seat, officially concerned, judging by the tension in his voice.
“Doctor, is everything okay?” I ask her.
“Oh, yes. Give me a moment, and I’ll explain.” There’s a full-on smile testing the corners of her mouth as she waits for Dax, Leo, and Beck to reach my side. When they do, and Leo takes my hand, giving it a good, reassuring squeeze, Dr. Kravitz points at the screen. “So this right here is a pair of legs.”
“We see them,” Dax gasps, his eyes softening with raw emotion.
“And this right here,” Dr. Kravitz adds, pointing right next to the baby, “is another pair of legs.”
My heart stops for a second. The words hit me like bricks, leaving me speechless and senseless as I struggle to muster a reaction. My mind is already firing rapid signals to the rest of my body, sending my pulse racing and tears filling my eyes.
“Congratulations, You’re having twins, Miss Fairchild,” Dr. Kravitz says.
“Oh, my God,” I whisper.
She flips a switch next to the monitor, and the room suddenly filled with the echoing double heartbeats of my babies. The sound of two droplets of pure life developing in my womb, eager to be born and to live memorably. My children, our children.
Leo’s grip tightens around my hand. “We’ve got this, Olivia,” he says.
“I want to believe you,” I manage, panic settling in. “This is just… so unexpected. One felt challenging, but this, this is double trouble.”
“We’ve got this,” Beck adds with a firm tone of voice, quick to wrap his head around this new reality as he senses me spiraling away from them. “Olivia, it’s going to be okay.”
“There’s four of us and two of them,” Dax replies and plants a kiss on my temple. “They’re going to be a handful, but you can do this, baby. We’re with you every step of the way.”
The tears flow freely now. Happiness and fear intertwine as I wonder what my future will look like and acknowledge the irreversible changes that will follow. I’ll never be the same again, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I’m just terrified of the unknown, of being a bad mother, of not being good enough.
All the thoughts that Marcus loved putting in my head.
“It’s not what I expected,” I manage.
“We didn’t see two little ones coming either, but they’re coming,” Dax tells me. “And we’re going to be right here, welcoming both with arms wide open. We’ve got you, Olivia. You’re not alone.”
“I’m not alone,” I say. “You’re right.”
I find comfort in their touch, in their words, in their mere presence. It’s something I’ve never felt before, and it’s an odd sensation. It’s also a sorely needed sentiment, because most of my life was lived under a thick veil of uncertainty, of simply making it through to the next day.
It’s different this time.
