Baby & Bump (The This & That Series)

  Baby & Bump

  Book one in the This & That Series

  Brooke Moss

  Copyright© by Brooke Moss

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form, or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the author.For inquiries, please contact the Brooke Moss, at www.brookemoss.com.

  Cover art by: Brooke Moss

  Edited by: Meggan Connors, www.megganconnors.com

  Published by: Brooke Moss, CHP

  ISBN ebook: 978-1-939976-01-7

  ISBN print: 978-939976-02-4

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Dora the Explorer; 16 and Pregnant; My Little Pony; The Muppets; Eastern Washington University; Fifty Shades of Grey; Cabbage Patch Dolls; Red Door; Jello; Tic Tacs; The Lawrence Welch Show; Food Network; YouTube; Alka Seltzer; Doppler; The Bachelor; Doogie Howser; QVC; Funyuns; Hermes; The Maury Povitch Show; Disney on Ice; Aliens; Sesame Street; Micheal Korrs; Graceland; Dungeons & Dragons; Oldsmobile; Valentino; Little House on the Prairie; BMW; Carrot Top; Dancing With the Stars; Volkswagen; Red Cross; Hot House; Kotex; Libman; Washington State University; Taebo; Cosmopolitan Magazine; People Magazine; Hamburger Helper; Sex in the City; Lifetime Network; Beverly Hills 90210; Gatorade; Tupperware; Chicklets; Real Housewives; Levis; Angus Beef; iPod; iPhone; As The World Turns; Kool Aid; Toyota Sentra; Chuck Taylors; CNN; CIA; Victoria’s Secret; and Michael Kors, Gap Kids.

  For my mom.

  (Not as nuts as Patsy Baump, but every bit as devoted to her children.)

  Chapter One

  Peeing on a stick isn’t nearly as simple as the women in the commercial make it out to be, especially in a pair of four-inch heels and a pencil skirt.

  In the commercials, women emerge from a perfectly clean restroom wearing head-to-toe virginal white, while carrying their positive tests across their breezy living rooms. They pause by the open windows, where air lifts the gauzy curtains and blows back their long, flowing hair. Gazing off into some distant, sun-filled meadow, they smile serenely and wrap their arms around themselves as if relishing their God-given gift of procreation. Their faces seem to say, “I am a giver of life. My husband and I have created tangible proof of our undying union.”

  Never once in those commercials do the sticks drip urine all over their hands like mine did. And those women aren’t late for a meeting with prospective clients. They don’t collapse onto the floor with their skirt jacked up to their waists crying, “No. Oh, please, God. No. No, no, no, no, no…”

  And in the commercials the women don’t smell their friend’s breakfast and dry heave.

  “And so help me, if you fry one more egg on my stove, I will choke you with the toaster cord. Do you understand me?”

  Still chewing on said fried egg sandwich, my friend and coworker, Marisol, popped her head through the creaky bathroom door. “What’s your problem?”

  Upon finding me in a heap on the floor, curled in a ball with my backside covered in mint green granny panties, she added, “Good Lord, you’re never going to find yourself a man wearing drawers like that, now are you?”

  Yup. That was how I found out I would be a giver of life.

  ***

  “You should go see my obstetrician. He’s fabulous.”

  I looked up from my plate of saltine crackers at my cousin, Candace. She was stir-frying tofu and pea pods, the steam rising off the wok just enough to make her skin glisten and her wavy blonde hair dance. Candace was the only woman in the world who made being a housewife with three children under the age of five look hot. Seriously, it was a wonder we were from the same gene pool.

  “I literally just found out this morning. This baby is approximately the size of the eye of a needle, and you’re wanting me to go to an obstetrician?” I shuddered at the aroma of fried tofu, and stuffed a cracker into my mouth.

  “You need to get on some prenatal vitamins stat,” she announced wisely. She went back to chopping onions and tossed it into the mix.

  My nostrils flared when the scent hit the air. “I really don’t want to think about seeing an obstetrician right now.”

  “So, does that mean you’re giving some thought to an abortion?” Marisol asked as she emerged from the bathroom. Her glossy curtain of mahogany hair swung as she sauntered to the kitchen table and sat next down to me.

  “Shush.” Candace pointed her spatula at her. “Could you be any more cavalier about this?”

  Marisol plopped down in a chair and looked around, her caramel brown eyes fluttering with feigned innocence. “What? Oh, sorry. So what’s the deal, Lexie? Are you gonna keep it?”

  My stomach whirled like a dryer on spin, and I grabbed another cracker. “I haven’t really had very long to think about it, but I think so.”

  Candace put down her spatula and pressed a hand to her heart. “I can’t believe this is happening. You’re going to be a mommy.”

  Marisol rolled her eyes. She didn’t have what some would call a “maternal instinct” like Candace did. Growing up, Candace worked in the nursery at church and babysat for all of the neighborhood kids. Marisol spent her adolescence sneaking cigarettes in the girls’ room and practiced “tongue kissing” with the neighborhood boys.

  Me? I was somewhere in the middle. I’d enjoyed watching little kids for extra money, but also enjoyed the attention of an occasional boy, as well.

  “Yeah…” My voice shook, and I took a sip of the ginger ale sitting in front of me.

  I couldn’t believe it, either. Not that I didn’t want to be a mother. I’d spent my fair share of time gazing at baby booties and bassinets as my thirties approached. But when my marriage went down in a ball of flames before I’d even hit twenty-five, I’d assumed my chance at motherhood was permanently out of reach.

  Candace gasped, jerking me out of my thoughts and back into her steamy kitchen. “Have you told your mom yet? Oh, Aunt Patsy is going to love being a grandma.”

  I felt the color drain from my face. “She’s going to love being a grandma after she gets done raking me over the coals for being a single, unwed mother to her only grandchild.”

  My mother had been waiting for entirely too long for grandchildren. I have two brothers, and she’d expected procreation from at least one of us a long time ago. Since my brothers hadn’t reproduced yet, all of the pressure fell onto my own thirty-year-old eggs. My little brother, Darren, who was five years my junior, was less interested in children and more interested in dating every single woman in eastern Washington. His job selling cell phones at the mall paid his bills just enough to keep the electricity on and a plentiful supply of beer in his fridge.

  My older brother, Corbin, who was five years my senior, had already conquered the business world, after having opened his own successful house-flipping business with his wife of eight years, Andrea. Now that their business was thriving, thanks to their eye for detail and the local buyers’ market, and their own home was completed and designed to perfection, Corbin and Andrea longed for a child of their own, and had been unsuccessfully trying to have a baby for years.

  Reason number 462 why telling my family I was pregnant would be almost as unpleasant as dipping my face in acid: though my mother craved grandchildren with the same urgency as someone fighting to stay out of the electric chair, she certainly didn’t want me to go about having them outside the bonds of holy matrimony. Patsy Holiday Baump was nothing if not traditional. She was the choir director and B
ible study teacher at the First United Presbyterian Church, after all, and Pastor Irm—whom everyone in the family knows my mother has a crush on—expected better choices from us Baump kids.

  “Oh, yeah.” Candace grimaced. “I guess she will be a little disappointed in you, won’t she?”

  “Disappointed?” I snorted, and some cracker crumbs flew. “When she found out I lost my virginity in college she cried for a solid week and sent me three copies of The Scarlet Letter.”

  Marisol snickered. “In college?”

  I cast her a dirty look. “Not everyone can develop as early as you, Mar.”

  “I remember.” Candace smiled sympathetically at me.

  Candace had lived at home with her parents while I’d gone to stay in the dorms, so she’d been there for the entire melodrama. When I’d told Candace over the phone that I’d finally “done it” with Bo Anderson in the Phi Beta House over Halloween weekend, my mother’s sister, Aunt Dory, had eavesdropped overheard the conversation. She’d promptly called both my mother and Pastor Irm. The aftermath of those stolen thirteen minutes lasted approximately two weeks longer than the relationship with Bo Anderson had, and my mother still brought it up every Thanksgiving over pecan pie.

  “So what if you’re not married,” scoffed Marisol, tossing her hair. “You’re thirty years old. It’s not like you’re going to be on an episode of 16 and Pregnant. Er, unless the dad is sixteen.” She looked at me pointedly. “He’s not, is he? You dirty cougar, you.”

  “Geez, no! Give me some credit.” I rubbed my stomach. It ached like it was empty, despite the seventeen crackers I’d eaten.

  Candace set down her spatula and sat down across the table from me. “Listen, about that. You need to tell us.”

  The crackers in my stomach curdled like milk. “You need me to tell you what?”

  “Well, who the lucky daddy is, of course.” Marisol stole one of my crackers.

  “Come on, Lexie. Spill it.” Candace nodded. “I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”

  “I’m not.” Looking down at my plate, I avoided their heavy stares.

  “You’re not dating anyone?” Candace asked. I could practically feel her frown on the side of my head. “But you’re pregnant.”

  I nodded. “Precisely.”

  “Way to go!” Marisol held up her hand for a high five, but I didn’t move. “I told you that you should cut loose more often.”

  Candace shook her head. “This is really out of character for you.”

  I nodded and pushed my short red hair behind my ears. Candace was right. It was out of character for me to have gotten myself pregnant outside of any sort of relationship whatsoever. Actually, that was the understatement of the year. It was out of character for me to forget to set the timer when I made a soufflé at work, or to misfile a CD in my classic rock collection. To sleep with a man, and consequently get knocked up, even though I had no interest in having a relationship with him… now that was a departure.

  “We just want to know who to buy cigars for, that’s all.” Marisol rested her chin on her hand and batted her eyes at me. “Come on, Lex. Spill it. Who’s the lucky dad?”

  This time Candace didn’t shush her; instead she leaned forward in her seat and watched me closely.

  I opened my mouth, not knowing what the hell I was going to say and not really sure how to articulate it, but was interrupted by the thundering feet of Candace’s children. Before I knew it, there were three children crawling all over us, each of them screaming in a different pitch. Candace’s children—four-and-a-half year old Ellie, three-year-old Quentin, and eighteen-month-old Aubrey—redefined cute. It made me wonder if all of the cute genes had been used up in my family. Because, if so, my poor baby was screwed.

  “Mommy, when’s dinner? I’m starving!” Ellie announced at the top of her voice. She’d not spoken at a normal decibel since uttering her first word.

  Candace bounced up from her seat, hiking the two little ones off of the table and onto her hips like a superhero. “Soon, soon. Where’s Daddy?”

  “He’s watching the game.” Ellie wound her tiny fingers into Marisol’s long sheet of hair. “He said that the Seahawks are a bunch of friggin’—”

  “Stop right there.” Candace put a hand up and turned to the kitchen doorway. “Brian!”

  Both Marisol and I jumped. “Ellie, darling, as much as I love you, could you get your hands out of my hair.” Marisol untangled the little hands from her pride and joy. “You smell like peanut butter.”

  Ellie shoved a finger in her nose. “You’re weird.”

  “Likewise.” Marisol made a face. “Kids. Oy. How does she stand it?” She glanced down at my midriff. “Oh, woops. Sorry.”

  The kitchen door swung open and Brian walked in, his tie loosened and collar unbuttoned. He plucked the baby off Candace’s hip and picked a pea pod out of the stir-fry. “I lost track of them. All I did was blink, and they were gone.”

  Candace rolled her eyes and returned to stirring the food. “You sure it didn’t have anything to do to with the Seahawks playing the Dolphins tonight?”

  He shooed the kids out of the kitchen with promises of Dora the Explorer playing in the living room, then faced the table with a wide smile. “Marisol. How’s it going? Working hard these days? You look tired.”

  “What?” Marisol turned to the nearby countertop and examined herself in the side of the stainless steel toaster. “I do not. Shut up.”

  Brian threw another pea pod into the air, catching it with his mouth. He and Marisol had a love/hate relationship that consisted of insults and the occasional crass joke. They mostly tolerated each other because of their connection to Candace, who’d introduced me to Marisol in college. But it wasn’t until Marisol and I started our catering company, Eats & Sweets, that our lives became so intertwined. Now Marisol and I spent more time sitting around this kitchen table than we spent at our own places.

  Brian laughed. “Made you look. Hey, Lex. Heard your good news. I guess congratulations are in order, eh?”

  I smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

  “Does Patsy know yet?” As soon as he asked me, Candace slapped her forehead.

  “She hasn’t told Aunty Patsy yet, so you keep your mouth shut,” she hissed.

  “So, what’s the scoop?” He sat down in the seat his wife abandoned. “We didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”

  “Neither did she,” Marisol snorted.

  “Brian, would you grab the plates out of the cabinet?” Candace turned off the wok and tilted her head at me. “You’re overwhelmed, aren’t you?”

  I cringed and looked down at my crackers. The smell of Chinese food, mixed with the weight of my newfound role as human incubator, and everyone’s curiosity about the father of my offspring, was all contributing to a monster headache. As much as I wanted to answer my friends’ questions, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. In fact, simply thinking about how I got myself into this colossal pickle made me want to crawl into a pair of sweats and cry it out for a week. Or two.

  My stomach roiled at the thought of pickles.

  No more food analogies for a while, I thought to myself.

  “Overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to cover it.” I stood up, the chair scraping along the tile floor noisily. “Listen, thanks for the crackers. I’ve got to go now.”

  “Oh, come on. Stay for dinner.” Candace wiped her hands on a dishtowel and scooped me into her arms. “It’ll be good for you. You’re pale.”

  “Stop fussing.” Marisol stood up and put her hands on her hips. “She’s pale because she puked three times during our meeting with a bride-to-be today.”

  “It was food poisoning.” I mumbled, pulling my sweater on.

  “It was the baby.” Candace rubbed my arms lovingly. “You poor thing. You’ve got morning sickness.”

  “It’s not morning sickness. She’s terrified. Good Lord, her whole life changed in the time it took her to piss on a stick.” Marisol tossed her hair again.
>
  “I’ve got a bug or something.” I pulled away from my two best friends, who stood shaking their heads at me in unison. They weren’t falling for my excuses. They knew better.

  First off, Candace had been pregnant three times in four years and had her obstetrician on speed dial. And Marisol owned and operated a business with me, meaning she could sense my stress from fifty paces. And lastly, they were both right. Hands down, this had been one of the most stressful days of my life, topping the day my father died of an aneurysm when I was in eleventh grade, and the day I came home to discover that my husband had moved out while I was at work.

  And it was only going to get worse.

  Chapter Two

  I took the folded blue paper from the nurse and smiled, even though the smell of her perfume made my stomach rock back and forth. It wasn’t her fault. I felt nauseated by random smells lately. The other day, Marisol had opened a can of water chestnuts at work, and I’d vomited into the sink.

  “Go ahead and get undressed from the waist down, and the doctor will be right in to see you.” She nodded encouragingly, then slipped out of the examination room, leaving me with Candace, who bounced little Aubrey on her knee. The other two kids were in preschool, so Candace had deemed it the perfect time to introduce me to Dr. Haybee, obstetrician extraordinaire.

  Dr. Haybee’s office shared a building with Brian’s ophthalmology practice. Apparently after six years of sharing a hallway and three pregnancies, Brian and Candace had become friends with the noble doctor. Now she’d made it her personal responsibility to guide every human with a uterus to his office.

  “I already had a gynecologist,” I muttered, unbuttoning my jeans.

  Candace’s nostrils flared. “You mean the old hag your mom and my mom both see? Yeah. She’s the one who called to tell your mom when you went on the pill.”

  “Okay. So she’s sort of…” My voice trailed off and I bit my lip.