The Beginning of Forever (Summer Unplugged Book 5) Read online

  Becca: OMG what happened?

  I don’t know why it’s so embarrassing admitting what happened to Becca. She’s my best friend, and she’s also completely aware of the situation I am in. It’s not like the pregnancy is some secret or anything, so why does it make my fingers shake when I text her the story?

  Me: Some bitch lady was in the waiting room & she said “oh look, another knocked-up teenager to drain my tax dollars on her bastard baby”

  Becca: What the actual fuck.

  Becca: I’m going to kill that bitch.

  Becca: What did you say? Did you slap the shit out of her?

  Me: I just stood here. Like an idiot. :(

  Becca: I’m sorry, Bay. I love you. Screw her. She doesn’t know anything. You and your hot ass future husband won’t go anywhere near her tax dollars. I bet she works as a stripper anyway.

  The woman’s comment still stings, but Becca’s texts puts a smile on my face. I love how she’s always immediately on my side, ready to insult any random stranger just to make me feel better. Now if only Jace would walk through the doors....I glance over hoping to see my wish come true, but the doors are unmoving.

  It’s nearly another hour later when I am finally called back into the exam room. A nurse with short black hair and tiny pink flower tattoos on her wrist leads me into the room. She’s friendly and smiles at me when she talks so I’ve already decided that I like her. She’s the first non-judgmental person I’ve met at this place, besides my doctor.

  “I apologize for the wait,” she says, tearing off the tissue paper roll from the examination bed and pulling out another sheet of it for me. “Dr. Qi had to do an emergency delivery and that’s put him behind a couple of hours.”

  “It’s okay,” I mumble. It’s almost as if fate knew Jace would be late and purposely made my doctor late as well. Only Jace isn’t here yet. Thanks for nothing, fate.

  She smiles again and hands me a paper gown. “Everything off,” she says. “Dr. Qi will be here in a minute.”

  “Everything?” I stammer, feeling my face flush again.

  She nods. “Get used to it, dear. All privacy goes out the window when you have a baby.” She winks at me and then she’s gone, closing the door behind her.

  Quickly, I slip out of my clothing and kick them into a moderately neat pile on top of a chair in the corner of the room. I try not to think about how in an ideal world with perfect situations, Jace would be sitting in that chair right now, holding my clothes for me and saying comforting things. Things like, “You totally don’t look like a fat cow, I promise!”

  I jump when the door opens and my doctor comes inside. He noticeably glances around the room looking for someone else. His brows furrow as he sits on the rolling chair at the foot of the bed on which I am sitting, covered in my paper gown. “Are you alone today?”

  I nod. My throat is too dry to say anything.

  He peers at my file. “Today is your ultrasound appointment, yes? Most women bring someone to watch the first ultrasound.” He offers me a pity smile as he glances through my chart. “Ah, yes,” he says, as if he’s been reminded of something. “Jace is your boyfriend, correct? Are things still...okay with you two?”

  I nod again and hold out my left hand, letting the gorgeous custom designed engagement ring speak for itself. This makes Dr. Qi burst into a big grin. “I am so happy for you!” he says, and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted from the room. I know he wasn’t trying to feel sorry for me, but he did anyhow.

  I somehow manage to find my voice. “Jace had to work today and he was supposed to be here but I’m thinking he got held up.”

  “That’s too bad,” he says.

  After what is a super uncomfortable and totally awkward examination by my doctor, they move me into another room with the ultrasound technician. She’s a woman barely older than I am and she smells like vanilla perfume and Skittles. She introduces herself as Jessica and she doesn’t even mention how I’m alone or how I’m a teenager. For some reason, the simple act of not judging me makes me want to talk to her and explain myself. Yet when people do judge me, all I can do is sit there quietly and wish they’d go away.

  “My fiancé couldn’t make it today because of work,” I say, watching her squirt a bottle of warm clear goo on my stomach. “I’m really annoyed that I have to be here alone.”

  “Totally,” she says. “At least he’s just working. Some guys are way too squeamish and refuse to look at the ultrasounds.”

  “Seriously? It’s just a grainy photo on a computer screen...it’s not like you’re going to cut me open and poke at my organs.”

  This makes her laugh. She presses the ultrasound wand thing to my stomach and moves it around. Almost instantly I can hear a fuzzy thumping sound, rapid like a hummingbird’s wings. “There’s your heartbeat,” she says. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of another human’s heart beating inside my body. It is a beautiful, crazy, amazing sound.

  And then it’s interrupted by the heavy knocking on the door. “What the hell?” Jessica hisses. “I’m so sorry,” she says to me as she storms to the door of the room and opens it just an inch. She immediately berates the person at the door and I’m grateful for it. Whoever chose to knock during my special moment should be chastised. Then to my horror, she swings the door wide open.

  And Jace rushes inside.

  “Jace!” In my excitement, I almost jump off the table but then I remember that my pants are pulled down a few inches and my stomach is covered in goo and disposable paper towels. So I throw my arms up instead and he finds his way into them, leaning over me carefully to avoid my stomach. He smells like exhaust fumes and sweat, but he’s here. I hold him tightly to me, kissing his cheek before I let him go. “Sorry I’m late,” he says.

  “You better be sorry.” I narrow my eyes at him but I can’t hold onto an angry expression for very long. I’m so overwhelmed with happiness that he showed up, and there’s no way I could be mad at him.

  Jessica takes up the ultrasound wand again and places it on my stomach. I’m just about to tell Jace about the rude woman in the waiting room and how I wish he could have been there to make me look better, when Jessica makes a curious sound. Her eyes squint as she stops moving the thing on my stomach, holding it precisely in place while peers at the computer screen.

  “What is it?” I ask, my voice dry and panicky. Oh God, she’s found something wrong with my baby. I grab Jace’s arm. Jessica looks at me and then at Jace and starts laughing.

  “No, no,” she says, rolling her eyes. “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just…” She turns the flat screen monitor toward us and points to the black and white image of our baby. My heart leaps into my throat. There on the screen, is a tiny baby hand. Jessica points to it with the computer mouse. “See there? Your baby looks like it’s making a peace sign. There’s a fist with two fingers open.” She clicks something and the computer prints out a still image of the baby’s hand. “I just thought it was cute. Your baby might be a hippie!”

  “Nah,” Jace says, squeezing my hand. “You know what that is?” He makes the same peace-sign shape with his hand, only he holds it out in front of him with his palm facing down. “That’s a two finger clutch move. He’s clutching an imaginary dirt bike.”

  Of course Jace would think about dirt bikes instead of peace signs. Motocross is his entire world, besides me. Jessica lifts an eyebrow. “He?”

  Jace shrugs sheepishly. “Well, I was just guessing.”

  “Would you two like to know the sex of the baby?” Jessica asks.

  I look at Jace, expecting to see him nodding impatiently. We’ve already talked about this and hell yes we want to know the baby’s sex. But when I look away from the ultrasound screen, I don’t see Jace looking excited like I had expected. He’s...he’s crying.

  “Babe?” I ask.

  He swallows and blinks back his tears. “Yes, Bay?”

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He nods. “Yep. I jus
t...there’s a baby in there.” He runs a hand through his hair and looks at me like I’m the only person in the world. And for a moment, I feel like that’s true. “I mean I knew there was a baby in there, but now I see it. It just hit me that I’m going to be a dad and that this is real and…” He sighs and a single tear rolls down his cheek. “I don’t know, I’m just really happy with my life right now.”

  “Aww,” Jessica croons. She fans herself with one hand. “So what will it be, Dad? Do you want to know your baby’s sex?”

  Jace glances at me for confirmation. Now I’m the one nodding impatiently. He gives Jessica the go ahead and she points to another place on the monitor. “Okay Mom and Dad… you guys are having a little boy.”

  Chapter 5

  The next twenty four hours are one of the most amazing times of my life. They’re amazing not because of what we do, but because of what we don’t do. Jace doesn’t go to work, I don’t do any house work or baby planning or wedding planning. We don’t talk about the future and we don’t mention anything stressful for the entire day.

  Here’s what we do: Sleep in until noon, cuddle and talk about our favorite memories over the last year, make love, sleep some more, order pizza and watch movies.

  It is a glorious day of relaxation. I have never been so in love.

  And then, just like that, the sun rises again the next morning and Jace is up at the butt-crack of dawn. He tries so hard to be quiet as he tiptoes around our bedroom, trying to get dressed and brush his teeth without waking me up. But it never works. The moment he crawls out of our bed, I wake up instantly. It’s like my body knows when he’s not near me, no matter how long I’ve been sleeping.

  Jace slips into the closet and searches for clothes to wear by the light of his cell phone. I yawn and stretch my arms above my head, twisting and sprawling until I’m taking up the entire bed. Jace’s pillow smells like him so I nuzzle against it until the ache of wanting him right next to me becomes overwhelming.

  “You’re weird,” he teases as he pads across the room in his bare feet. I look up from the pillow just in time to see him pull off the shirt he slept in and toss it at my head. It covers my eyes, blinding me but I don’t mind one bit because the shirt smells like him. Like boy and body wash and home.

  “So are you,” I tease back as I roll over and squeeze his shirt to my chest. “You’re the weirdest.”

  He leans over me on the bed, bracing himself against the headboard as he kisses the top of my head. “I love you,” he says. “Try to have some fun today.”

  “How could I possibly have fun when you’re going to be gone all day?” It’s Thursday and Thursdays are Jace’s busiest training day. He’s usually giving lessons at the track until eight or nine at night. I used to go with him but ever since the morning sickness set in, I’ve been staying home more and more, trading in the bleachers for my bed. Today will definitely be one of those days.

  “Do I know your schedule better than you do?” Jace says, poking me in the nose. I swat his hand away and think about his question. “What do you mean? I don’t have a schedule...I’m just a fat preggo with no job and no school until after this kid is born.”

  “You are so not fat,” he says, leaning over and kissing me on the forehead and then the lips. “But you’re wrong. Becca is coming over today. It says it on your online calendar. It’s a good thing we started using that thing because now one of us can remember stuff.”

  “Is it Friday already?” I practically jump out of bed with excitement before I remember how early it is and fall back down into the soft mattress. I rub my eyes and admire Jace’s ridiculously hot backside as he pulls on a Mixon Motocross Park shirt and then buckles his black leather belt.

  I let out a squeal of excitement. “Oh my God, I’m so excited to see her.”

  I can’t believe it’s finally Friday and my best friend is coming to spend the weekend with us. Becca and I grew up as best friends in my hometown. But now she lives an hour away since I moved to Mixon with Jace, so now our friendship is mostly texts, Facebook posts and the random meet up at a mall that’s halfway between both of our houses.

  “I love you,” Jace says. Right about now, I realize he’s been talking for the last few seconds but I wasn’t paying attention to any of it. I was trying to remember all the things Becca and I planned to do in the emails we exchanged while planning for this weekend. “I love you, too.” I say quickly. I grab his hand and pull him back onto the bed with me and kiss him like I’ll never see him again. He smiles and trails a hand down my cheek. “I gotta go, babe. You get some more sleep and call me when you wake up.”

  The apartment is so boring when Jace is at work and I’m pacing around like a weirdo, anxious and excited for my best friend to get here. According to my online calendar, which I checked because I was too embarrassed to call Becca and ask because then she’d know I forgot, Becca is supposed to get here around ten in the morning. We planned a big day of wedding planning, gossip, and eating junk food.

  I’m getting a start on the day by baking half a dozen apple turnovers, using my mom’s recipe. They’re actually so easy to make that a kid could do it, but Jace and Becca practically worship me when I make them, so I keep the recipe a secret in order to preserve my perceived baking skills.

  While they’re in the oven making the kitchen smell amazing, I start making a dish of seven layer dip for us to snack on after lunch. It always tastes better if it’s made in advance and refrigerated for a few hours, but I’m so tempted to eat it now. Stupid pregnancy cravings.

  We call it seven layer dip because it started out having seven layers when my mom used to make it for holidays and parties. But she included things like salsa, jalapenos and these weird yellow peppers that Becca and I can’t eat no matter how hard we tried. When we were old enough, we dove into the kitchen unsupervised and created the greatest layered chip dip known to man: a bottom layer of refried beans, a thin layer of grated cheese–sharp cheddar, hand grated only, another layer of thinly sliced avocados, then sour cream, then more cheese, then a final top layer of sliced black olives. So it’s technically six layers but sometimes we add extra cheese layers to make a legit seven layer dip.

  I sprinkle on the final layer of black olives, swallow back my urge to eat the entire dish at once, then cover it with plastic wrap and toss it in the refrigerator before I change my mind.

  My phone buzzes and I wash the cheese and avocado from my hands before checking it. My heart hurts when I read the message. This can’t be good.

  Becca: Hey Bay, I have some bad news…

  My fingers shake as I type out a reply. Bad news can only mean one thing - she’s cancelling our weekend plans. I bet she got called into work or something. Ugh. Now tears form in my eyes and I try to blink them away and remind myself that I’m an adult and adults don’t cry over broken plans.

  Me: What is it?

  Her reply takes forever. Like, literally, one entire forever goes by before she replies and in that forever, I open the refrigerator door and contemplate eating the seven layer dip before my apple turnovers come out of the oven. Hell, I could eat both of them back to back. It still wouldn’t heal over the pain of not getting to plan the wedding with my best friend.

  My phone buzzes. I close the refrigerator door, blink back more tears and tell myself to stop being so selfish. Maybe something terrible happened to her and that’s why she can’t come over. With fresh new fears in my mind, I open her text message.

  Becca: The bad news is that you’re gonna have to get off your preggo ass in a minute…

  My eyebrows draw together. Me: Huh???

  Before I can press send, there’s a knock at my front door. My phone buzzes again.

  Becca: BECAUSE YOUR BEST FRIEND IS HERE, BEYOTCH.

  With a squeal, I sprint through the kitchen, almost tripping on the shiny tile flooring in my fuzzy socks. I yank open the door without even checking to make sure there’s no murderer on the other side. Luckily, it’s just Becca. She’s be
en keeping up with her hair highlights and now her hair is so long it’s almost down to her butt. We both do this little jumping up and down while squealing thing and then I throw my arms around her in a hug.

  “I cannot believe you tricked me like that! You’re such a jerk!”

  She makes this coy look and then says all innocently, “I don't know what you’re talking about…”

  “I was seriously going to cry when I thought you weren’t coming,” I say. She laughs and takes off her backpack, setting it on the floor in the foyer. “I have some more things,” she says, popping back outside. When she returns, she’s carrying a large duffel bag and a black sign that’s as big as a poster board for a school project, but it doesn’t look like a homemade display board.

  “What’s this?” I ask, taking the sign and turning it around. It’s black foam board with white lettering that has obviously been professionally printed. It only takes a second to recognize it as a type of sign they use for motocross races, only...it’s not a real sign. This one says MAIN EVENT in big letters and then under that is the date of our wedding, August 9th.

  Becca bursts into a big smile and scrolls through her phone, looking for something. “It’s your wedding announcement sign! Isn’t it awesome? My boss has a printing machine and he made it for me.”

  “I’m still confused,” I say. But I smile anyway because her excitement is rubbing off on me.

  “Well you know how you wanted the wedding to be kind of motocross themed?” she says. I nod and she finally finds what she was looking for on her phone. She turns it toward me and it’s open to an image that she had saved from a screenshot. “I got the idea off of Pinterest. My friend Kristina pinned it to her motocross board and I thought it was so perfectly cute and so perfectly you.”

  The image shows a girl standing on a dirt bike track, holding up the sign as if she were starting a real race. Behind her is a guy on a dirt bike, looking like he’s ready to start the race. “This is really awesome,” I say, immediately picturing all the ways Jace and I could take a photo on the track. “This will make an awesome picture for the wedding announcement and the invitations and, like everything. Did you bring your-?”