Chapter 15: Strong Heartbeat

The scan was on a Thursday, three weeks after my mother left.

I was twelve weeks along.

Nothing about my body had changed, except that I cried at an advert for a building society.

Rhys took the afternoon off and sat in the clinic waiting room with his knee bouncing.

I had never seen him nervous.

"You can come in with me," I said.

"Am I allowed?"

"You're the father, Rhys."

"I keep forgetting that I'm allowed to say that."

The sonographer was a brisk woman with warm hands.

She put cold gel on my stomach and turned the screen toward us.

For a moment there was only grey static.

Then there was a shape, a curled one, with a head too big for the rest of it.

"There," she said. "Strong heartbeat. One hundred and sixty."

It was a fast flicker in the middle of the grey, going and going.

Rhys made a sound I had never heard from him.

I turned my head.

His eyes were wet, and he didn't try to hide it.

"That's ours," he said.

"That's ours."

"Look at its hand."

"It's waving."

"It's not waving. It's telling Hugh to piss off."

The sonographer laughed out loud and handed us a strip of printed pictures.

He carried them out to the car in both hands.

We drove home in the rain without talking.

In the lift he took my hand and did not let go.

In the corridor outside his flat he stopped with the key halfway to the lock.

"I want to say something," he said.

"Say it inside."

"I've been trying to say it for a week."

"Rhys."

"Yes."

"Open the door."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé Chose My Brother, So I Chose My Brother's Best Friend from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.