Without questioning the woman, Lana stood. “That’s us, Nev. Let’s go see what your sister is up to. Arella has not been too happy with mommy lately, from the way she’s been kicking.” Neveah rushed to take her mother’s offered hand.
The nurse looked at Lana for a moment and then back to the iPad in her hands. “Oh, sorry. Not Mrs. Stevenson. Miss Stevenson.”
I let out a small groan, when my brother and sister-in-law turned startled eyes on me. Drake’s mouth opened and closed like a fish as I stood. Devlin got to his feet behind me after nudging Harris’s arm. I sighed as I passed Drake. “We can talk later, okay?” I told him as I moved toward the nurse.
Lana’s face brightened. “Trust me he will want to talk. But I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Nat. You’re not the only person to ever get knocked up without having a ring on your finger first. Your brother had trouble keeping it in his pants, too.”
“Angel…” Drake grumbled.
“Relax, babe. Let the girl go and see the doctor.” Lana sat back down and pulled Neveah onto her lap. “Look, Nev. When we see that vein pop out in Daddy’s forehead that’s when we know to give him lots and lots of kisses. Right?”
“Daddy, kiss!” Neveah nodded and held her hands out for Drake to hold her. “Kiss. Kiss.”
I relaxed when Drake’s face melted into an adoring grin as he lifted his daughter into his arms and let her kiss every part of his face she could reach. Lana winked at me and I turned back to the nurse and the two men already standing by the door waiting on me.
Devlin held out his hand and I rushed to take it as we followed the nurse down a short hall and straight into an exam room. The nurse glanced from one Cutter male to the other then finally rested on me as she placed her iPad on a table. “How have you been feeling, Miss Stevenson?” she asked as she pulled out a blood pressure cuff.
Before I could even open my mouth, Devlin was answering for me. “She’s been having some bad headaches.”
She nodded as if I’d been the one to speak. “Any morning sickness?”
“No.” Harris surprised me when he answered this time.
I frowned at my future stepson. His face didn’t show any sign of surprise that I was the one on an exam table in an obstetrician’s office. The sly look in his eyes told me that he must have known for a lot longer than just a few minutes. “Jenna told you!” I accused.
He shook his head and smiled. “No. Jenna didn’t say anything. I’m not completely dense about some things.”
“When did you realize..?” I murmured as the nurse started squeezing that damn little ball that tightened the blood pressure cuff around my arm. Fuck, why did it have to be so tight?
“I told Lucy about your headaches and she said that her mom got them all the time when she was pregnant with the twins.” His eyes widened. “It’s not twins, is it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not twins.”
“How do you know?” he demanded. “It could easily be twins.”
“Because when I went in for my first checkup the doctor only heard one heartbeat and then he did an ultrasound and it showed only one embryo,” I assured him.
“Do you normally have a BP this high, Miss Stevenson?” the nurse asked as she frowned down at the monitor attached to the cuff on my arm.
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly.
Devlin caught my free hand and lifted it to his lips when he saw my worried frown. “Is it bad?”
The nurse shook her head. “It’s not great, but it’s not in the range that we worry about. However, it might be something that the doctor wants to monitor throughout the rest of the pregnancy.”
She took a few more vitals, marked them on her iPad and then left us alone with the promise of the doctor seeing us soon. I held onto Devlin’s hand like it was a lifeline. “So… How do you feel about being a brother?” I finally asked Harris.
“As long as you don’t expect me to change shitty diapers, I’m happy about it.” Devlin shot him a glare at his language choice but it quickly turned into a grin when his son smirked at him. “Good work, Dad. Knocking her up to make sure we get to keep her was a great idea.”
Devlin snorted. “Yeah, kid. That was the plan all along.”
Devlin
When the doctor came into the exam room, I was pins and needles. What if there was something wrong with the baby? What if Natalie’s blood pressure issue was something we needed to worry about? What if…?
All my fears were laid to rest as soon as the doctor started his exam. He measured her stomach, which was still flat except for the tiniest of baby bumps trying to peek out. Then he put this little monitor on her stomach and the most amazing sound filled the room.
When Tawny had been pregnant with Harris, I’d never gotten to do this. Never gone to doctors’ appointments with her, never heard my son’s heartbeat or watched him move around on a screen when the doctor did an ultrasound. I hadn’t even known I was going to be a father during that time.
Experiencing all this with Natalie, while my son sat in a chair and witnessed it all too, was probably the best moment in my life up to that point in time. Dr. Rashid asked Natalie a few questions and then advised her to try and keep her stress level down for the next six months. When the tour was over she would need to pick an obstetrician and keep regular appointments with him. While her blood pressure wasn’t something he was overly worried about at the moment, it could be an issue later on in the pregnancy.
She nodded and told him she understood, but I was the one that assured him that she would be getting the best care possible. She wasn’t going back to fucking New York. Emmie would have to find herself another assistant to deal with her East Coast shit, because Natalie was going to stay in California with Harris and me from now on.
When the doctor was finished, we went back out into the waiting room where Axton and Dallas were already sitting. Lana was supposed to have an ultrasound so she and Drake were going to take a little longer.
Harris went back to listening to music and playing on his phone while I sat with Natalie on my lap beside Axton. My bandmate gave me a grin as he glanced from me to Natalie and back again. “So, it looks like December is a good month to have kids in this family.”
I snorted. “Looks like it’s a lucky month for us, bro.” Since Natalie and Dallas were both due in December, I would say it was pretty fucking lucky.