Chapter 46 Indie

Chapter 46

Indie

Gravity pulls me to my stomach and I groan in pain from the new position. It takes me a minute in the dark to figure out that a dip in the bed is the reason for my discomfort.

“Shhh.” The warm body beside me soothes. Even barely conscious, I sag into him, clinging to his hard body after five days without him. “What’s wrong, Baby? Is the trigger shot making you uncomfortable?” His voice is hushed, like he’s trying not to wake me more than he already has.

“Yeah,” I grumble softly, curling around him, desperate to find a comfortable position. The heaviness in my stomach has had me tossing and turning since I laid down in our empty bed.

Our bed. I’m still not used to that.

“The shot wasn’t terrible, or maybe I’m just used to it, but the fullness is . . . awful. I hate it Dom,” I groan, allowing him to see the rawness of it all.

He kisses my head, and I sigh into his chest. Not feeling any better, but having him home from the series in Atlanta making this suck-fest easier to stomach. We have barely seventy-two hours before he has to board another plane and head to Chicago for their next stop on the road to hopefully win a world series.

While the rest of the team flew straight from Atlanta to Chicago, he chartered a flight home just to be here for my egg retrieval procedure tomorrow. Or is it this morning? “What time is it?”

“Three, go back to sleep. You need your rest for tomorrow.”

It’s a short procedure, barely fifteen minutes, but he was adamant he would be there when he found out that they would put me under.

His big palm covers my back, rubbing slow circles on it until I drift off in his arms.

Hours later, I wake the same way, only this time the sun is streaming through the blinds and creating shadows on the most handsome face I’ve ever seen. His chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm as I watch him sleep, knowing he has to be as exhausted as me from his games and the cross-country flight to be here this morning.

“I can feel you watching me.” The scratchy voice hits me right in the heart and his grip on me tightens. “Is it time to leave for the clinic? Did I sleep through my alarm?”

“No, the sun woke me up and now I’m just watching you like a creep. Past me would hardly believe it.”

“Past me always knew this is how we’d end up.” His warm breath fans across my head as he huffs out a laugh. “Not you being a creep, but us together.”

“I knew what you meant.”

His chest vibrates against me as he continues to chuckle over his own joke.

“You’re ridiculous,” I tell him, a smile tilting up my lips despite still feeling miserable.

“You married me.” Is his sleepy response.

“That I did.”

He watches me through lidded eyes and asks, “Are you feeling any better?”

“Not even a little,” I admit, looking down at my bloated stomach.

“Since you can’t eat, do you want to go for a walk before we leave? Maybe moving will help. ”

Moving doesn’t help, it doesn’t hurt either. But nothing I do eases the discomfort. Thankfully, the procedure itself isn’t bad. I’m in and out within an hour of arriving and the Gatorade they give me afterward is life changing. Unfortunately, that bloating has turned to cramping and even just getting to the car from the clinic is a struggle.

Poppy would have gladly helped me today, but having Dom here is a relief. The after-effects are worse than I imagined.

“Take it easy, Baby,” Dom says, as he helps me into bed when we get home.

“Will you lay with me?” I ask. “You can put on a movie or something,” I add nervously.

The moment he crawls into bed with me and presses his forehead to mine the minty scent of his toothpaste takes hold and I know it was silly to be worried. This man has put aside his life for me time and time again over the past three months to make sure I’m taken care of. Laying with me while I recover from a procedure isn’t going to faze him.

“You couldn’t keep me away if you tried,” he says, crawling in behind with the utmost care not to disturb me.

The next twelve hours are rough, but things improve when I wake up two days later feeling human for the first time since he got home. It only gets better when the clinic calls to let me know we have ten mature eggs. It’s a great number, but we will still need another round if we want any chance of having more than one child using my eggs in the future.

It’s a problem for another day because Dom and I only have a few hours before he leaves again for Chicago. The plan is for me to join him for the second or third game of the series, depending on how I’m feeling.