The Friend Zone(98)

I sighed. “I don’t know how long this takes. I’ve never had a pre-op for a hysterectomy before.”

We’d been married four weeks. It had been a hectic month.

Josh had moved in with me, but we realized almost on day one that we needed a place closer to Sloan. Both of us were there more than we were at home.

We asked her to move in with us and she’d flatly refused. We asked to move in with her and she refused that too. So we’d been house hunting in addition to merging our lives, launching our new line of doghouses, and taking care of my best friend.

Josh had taken on all the home repairs that Brandon hadn’t gotten to. He cooked most of our meals, and I spent almost every day still getting her out of bed, cleaning her house, trying to cheer her up.

She wasn’t getting any better.

The only time I could get her to leave the house was to visit Brandon’s grave or for the occasional visit to Starbucks. She refused to go to the doctor for counseling or antidepressants to help get her through. I didn’t know what else to do.

Josh nuzzled me and I closed my eyes, leaning into him. “What should we bring to Sloan’s for lunch?” he asked.

“Um, she likes tacos. We can stop at the taco truck on the way over.”

He cupped my cheek with his hand. “Sounds good. Remind me to fix her bedroom door. The lock has been sticking.”

I tilted my head and he kissed me. He was always kissing me. Touching me, hugging me, holding my hand. We didn’t get a honeymoon, but it didn’t matter.

Every day was our honeymoon.

Last week Sloan’s mom came and spent a few days with her so Josh and I could fly to South Dakota for me to meet his family.

He was not kidding. His sisters were crazy.

I loved those bitches.

It was like running with a pack of female alpha wolves fighting for the pack leader position. It was so much fun.

When we were there, we decided his sister Carmen was in the best place to be our first surrogate. She was a stay-at-home mom with her toddler and her seven-year-old, and she’d had the easiest pregnancies.

I’d have to do daily injections before they could harvest my eggs, and my fibroids never responded pleasantly to hormones, so even though we were busy with Sloan and my recovery was going to be a long one, we decided to schedule my hysterectomy.

It was time. My cramps had been horrible, and I was still spotting almost daily. The fibroids had started pushing against my bladder, and I couldn’t sleep on my stomach anymore because it was too uncomfortable. And no matter how many times Josh told me I was sexy, I didn’t feel like it with my potbelly.

I was ready to be done.

Josh was kissing me when the knock came on the door, and we jumped away from each other like teenagers who just got caught making out.

Dr. Angelo let himself in, looking at my chart. “Well, we have all your tests back. Mr. Copeland, you were definitely right to be concerned.” He flipped a page, scanned it for a moment, and then turned to me. “You’ve got a few things going on that unfortunately are going to make the hysterectomy out of the question.”

His face was grave.

I closed my eyes and let out a long breath. Something was wrong with me.

I knew it.

They say you’re only as old as you feel. I was beginning to think I might be some kind of ancient relic or something.

For the last few weeks, I’d been getting headaches and I was really run-down. And I’d been losing weight like crazy. I kept having dizziness that I didn’t dare tell Josh about because he would have dragged me straight to urgent care. He’d already been riding me relentlessly to get my glucose levels tested. I didn’t have time to be hauled off to the hospital. I had shit to do.

And now I had diabetes or cancer or some rare heart condition, and Josh was going to have to take care of my dying ass.

This was just my luck. Not only was I going to have to keep my stupid, bleeding, bulging uterus, but now I’d have to deal with whatever else was wrong with me.

I seriously didn’t have time for this. Sloan was a full-time job. My job was a full-time job.

And poor Josh. I just wanted to be a good wife to him. I wanted to be normal and healthy. And if I couldn’t have a hysterectomy, could my eggs be harvested for in vitro? I mean, how far-reaching was this? And if I couldn’t do in vitro, would my health keep us from being able to adopt? They had rules about that, didn’t they? If you were dying, you couldn’t bring a kid into it?

My velociraptor scratched at some inner door. But Josh put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring squeeze, and the monster went back into hibernation.

I knew my husband wouldn’t leave me, no matter what bomb was about to be dropped. And the thing that sucked was I’d let him put a ring on this, and now I couldn’t leave him to spare him a lifetime of my health issues. Well played, Josh. He was stuck with me.

I sighed and braced for the news.

Dr. Angelo pulled his stool up and sat, his clipboard balancing on his thigh. He twined his fingers in his lap. “You’re pregnant, Mrs. Copeland.”

Everything stopped.

Josh’s hand went slack on my shoulder.

I stared at the doctor. “I’m what?”

“A little over four months along.” Dr. Angelo gave us a grin.

“What??” Josh breathed.

Dr. Angelo swiveled his stool in front of the ultrasound machine. He typed into the keyboard, and a black-and-white image came up on the monitor.