Chapter 61

Millie

The next couple of weeks went by in a blur. At work, we were all scrupulous to maintain distance. I went to work in my own car, turned up for my own shifts, which were sometimes different to theirs, but once we all arrived back at Knox’s, all bets were off. Uniforms came off and my guys emerged.

Turns out they weren’t lying. Having one man hovering around me, cooking for me, making sure I had everything I needed as if I was made of glass, not bearing a childlike billions had before me, but three? Sometimes it got a little intense, but I was learning. To accept their help, their attention, their smiles, and all the amazing cuddles. I’d always wanted one guy to choose me, just like Dad had Mum, and now I had three. Yeah, I adjusted real freaking fast, our nights taking on a familiar rhythm.

Knox and Charlie had footy on Wednesday night. Noah did some geeky D&D thing on Mondays, and I… I went for walks on the beach with a guy holding my hand and our dog running off ahead. I ate good food and slept on the couch as someone read for me from one of my favourite books. I woke up on their chests, covered in a soft blanket, just in time to turn the TV off and go to sleep in our actual bed. I got more and more nauseous, and they had dry crackers and ginger ale ready for me before I even woke up.

It was hard and it was easy all at the same time.

Hard because there were two Millies: one that was deliriously happy with her three lovers and the other who would never do something so stupid as get into an office romance with not one but three of the guys she worked with, all while being pregnant.

Judy finished up with the fire service, and a farewell party was thrown for her. She gave me a tearful hug and promised that she was only a phone call away, but the things I wanted to call her about had nothing to do with work.

How did she find shoes to accommodate feet that seemed to swell alarmingly during the day? What the hell did you do about wanting to throw up not long after eating something that tasted amazing seconds before? And exhaustion, I had a newfound respect for the woman as peak first trimester tiredness hit me from nowhere. Brent had caught me staring blankly at my computer more than once, the numbers dancing before my eyes as they threatened to close. Instead, I kept drinking my bloody herbal tea and forged on, until the guys staged an intervention.

“Millie, you’re falling asleep at the dinner table again.”

I blinked and saw that Noah was staring at me in concern.

“You need some time off, to go on leave,” Knox insisted.

“Noo—” I started to complain.

“Just tomorrow then?”

Charlie wasn’t smiling anywhere near as much now. It seemed to dim the more my energy dipped. At his words, I stiffened. Not because they were fussing over me, but because I tapped on my phone screen and then looked at my calendar. I had an appointment set up, one they didn’t know anything about, and taking the day off would make it much easier to attend.

“OK.” I forced myself to smile as the guys all relaxed back against their chairs. “I’ll send Brent an email.”

“Maybe we should take the day off too.” Charlie waggled his eyebrows at me. “We could spend the day in bed and?—”

“Make it really obvious what’s happening here?” Noah shot him a dark look. “You know Millie doesn’t want that. Not yet,” he amended before turning to me. “Is there anything you need? We’ll look through the cupboards, make sure you have all your favourite snacks stocked.”

“I’ll be fine.” I surveyed each one of them. “A day in front of the TV watching people treating each other like shit is all I’ll need to feel better.”

Except I wouldn’t be catching up on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives . I had an appointment at the hospital.

Mum had made a case over one family dinner for finding out who the father was for medical reasons. Hereditary conditions, genetic complications, she’d hit us all with a rapid array of medical reasons until we agreed, but sitting in the car on the way home, the truth came out.

“I don’t want to know,” Noah had said as we drove home. “I get that we need that information if there’s any…” He looked down at me. “Medical complications, but other than that, I don’t want to know.”

“You can tell me if you want.” Charlie shrugged. “A piece of paper won’t mean anything to me.” His hand came to rest on my stomach, the surface now taut and slightly swelling. “The little guy or girl in there–they’re mine, no matter what it says.”

“We can get the information, put it in a shared folder.” Knox was frowning as he drove, his knuckles white as he gripped the wheel. “Everyone will know where it is if they need it, but…” My eyes met his in the rear vision mirror. “I’m the same. Don’t tell me.”

He was one hundred percent invested in the idea of us as a family and didn’t want anything messing with it and I understood that perfectly. I nodded and agreed with everything they said. It didn’t stop things from getting tense when we got the DNA kits delivered. I’d watched them silently wipe the swab against the insides of their cheeks, then slot the sample back into the provided tube, feeling light headed and somewhat spacey. It didn’t matter, I told myself. This was for just in case.

So why the hell was I standing on the curb outside our house, gripping my bag so tightly now?

“All ready?”

Mum pulled up beside me, rolling down her car window, and I peered inside. I was going to become a mother in mere months, and right now, I wanted my mummy with me. I could’ve gone the non-invasive route, but when I discussed the options with Mum, I’d decided on an amniocentesis. It seemed all very cut and dried. I’d have more information than just who the father was. The gender, any genetic abnormalities, they’d all be identified in the report.

“Don’t worry, love.” Her tone was overly bright as I slipped into the passenger seat. “You looked over the list of possible risks?”

I had. Miscarriage, early labour, the list went on and on it felt as I studied it before signing the consent form. A small part of me wanted to shove it at the guys, make them make the decision, but a larger part felt like I needed to protect them. They were doing so much for me and I could do this for them. With a complete genetic picture of our child we would all be able to rest a little easier during the pregnancy.

“Try not to worry too much.” Her hand went to mine and I clung to it without shame. “It’s all over really quickly.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Not as far as I remember,” she replied in a much softer tone.

“Will I see it?”

It was a bloody big needle, and they’d need to put that into my stomach and extract a sample. I didn’t even look when I was getting blood drawn for pathology tests, let alone this.

“Just look at me.”

My eyes flicked up obediently, staring into her eyes, and in some ways, that was a mistake. I saw the worry there, and if she was freaking out, that had me losing the goddamn plot, because nothing scared Mum. Well, there was that time we all rode our bikes off the balcony and into the pool, but… She was always this calm, strong presence in my life, and to see that fracture did something to me. The Pandora’s box of anxiety that was rattling around in my chest popped out, letting all my fears run free.

“Everything will be OK because you’re my little girl. You’ll come through the test fine, and then you’ll know.” She patted my hand. “You’ll know what we already do, that you’ve got a healthy, beautiful baby growing inside you. So what’re you hoping for?”

I knew what she was doing, redirecting my focus to my great and glorious future, and away from what I needed to do today. Was this adulthood? Seeing through the strategies your parents always used and seeing the person, not the parent, behind them. I smiled then, just a small thing, but it was genuine. Mum needed as much reassuring as I did, and knowing that, doing that, helped me see how I’d become a mother myself.

“Healthy,” I told her, my smile widening. “Not twins.”

“Healthy and not twins.” She nodded slowly. “Sounds perfectly reasonable. OK, put your seatbelt on because we need to get going if we’re going to get there in time.”

I did as I was told, relegated back to the role of daughter, right up until I walked into the operating room.

For some reason, I thought it would be much like getting blood taken at a pathology clinic. Rather than wrap a tourniquet around my arm, somehow it would wrap around my stomach? Instead, I walked into a sterile operating room, feeling the bright lights beaming down on me. Everyone else in the room was rendered anonymous by the blue surgical gowns and masks, even Mum. I saw her eyes though, too wide, too alert, but then crinkling at the edges in a masked smile as I laid down on the gurney.

The procedure itself was a blur. The doctor talked to me about something, then there was a swab that left my skin feeling cold before the needle was produced. I dimly thought about calling off the whole thing right before the doctor checked in with me, making sure I wanted to proceed. I nodded rather than shook my head.

I didn’t remember feeling any pain, just the weird sensation of all my stomach muscles contracting. My hand clamped down on Mum’s and held it tight until finally it was done. The sample was retrieved, we were sent out of the room to recover for a minute, and the nurse told me how long I would need to wait for the results. She double checked my email and I dimly told her what it was. We needed to know, that’s what I told myself, over and over, on the drive back home. We needed to know about my child’s genetic makeup.

And weeks later, the results arrived.

I was at work when my inbox had my phone pinging. My eyes slid sideways for just a second, expecting to see a notification from a stupid spam site or something, but when the name of the hospital popped up, I went still. It could be something else, I told myself. I’d had other tests, more routine ones, to check my blood sugar, iron levels, thyroid. Somehow, I knew that wasn’t it, though. I went from moving steadily through the pile of paperwork on my desk to alert in seconds.

I was like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights, or a deer quivering in the thicket, hiding from a wolf. Danger, that’s what my heart beat. I was in danger. We were in danger, I quickly amended, my hand sliding under my desk to touch my stomach. I’d been forced to invest in a looser fitting wardrobe, hoping to hide my condition under voluminous folds, so for just a moment, I acknowledged my bump.

“Millie.” My head snapped up, my hand was shoved away as Brent’s door swung open. “Have we got those quarterly reports? Head office is asking for them.”

“On it,” I said, bending my head over my laptop. Anything to stop him from seeing the terrified expression on my face. With a few clicks, I navigated over to our reporting module and then sent what he was after to the printer as well as to his email.

“Good girl.” He moved closer, flicking through the printed pages. “Are you alright? You look a little pale.”

“Just feeling a little under the weather.” I shot him a weak smile. “My immune system is terrible. I catch every bug known to man.”

“You don’t need a day off?” Brent the station commander was shoved aside and Daddy Brent replaced him. “You’ve got sick leave. No point in just letting it accrue.”

Except I’d need it for a much more long-lasting condition.

“Just need to go to the loo and splash some water on my face,” I told him.

“Alright, you let me know if you start feeling worse. You’re on top of everything. Taking a half day won’t hurt.”

I might need to do just that. When he was safely back in his office, I was clicking over to the internet on my computer. A phone screen wouldn’t be big enough to display the information I needed to see. I logged in, my arm feeling numb, the mouse barely making a dent in my fingers as I opened up my email. Test results, said the email topic line. I clicked on it and opened it up, ready to skim it when?—

“Brent in?”

God dammit fucking Dave walked in the door, barely giving me a nod before walking towards the boss’ office.

“He is, but he asked not to be disturbed,” I told him with a frown.

“He want to be disturbed for this,” Dave said, that oily smile of his spreading.

Ugh, I had more than enough to deal with without being Brent’s door bitch. The boss would tear strips off Dave far more effectively than I could. My fingers released my mouse and I got up, knowing I needed to get in control of myself before I looked at the email. A quick walk, go to the loo and wash my face, something to settle me back down. If it was bad news, I’d need to be able to hold it together before I made a run for my car, driving and driving until I could get the results out of my head.

It could be fine, I told myself. The baby is probably just as healthy as it was the last doctor’s visit. My positive self-talk was a babble inside my head, forcing me back into the chair. I clicked on the email, then the attached PDF, and there it was: my baby’s genetic profile.

A girl…

Nope, I’d grossly overestimated my ability to cope because there were tears in my eyes seconds later. “Come in!” Brent shouted at Dave. Having him here, in the same room as I tried to digest this information just felt wrong, because he couldn’t co-exist around her.

A little girl with blonde hair or brown, with blue eyes or hazel, or even grey. I saw her romping through the park, Buster by her side, the sun shining in her hair. I saw her, my baby, and hadn’t realised how much I needed this. Fuzzy ultrasounds did nothing, yet somehow this… This had me dreaming about a future I hadn’t dared to consider until now. A quick cursory look and it was clear there were no genetic issues. She was healthy. I needed to go to the loo, have a nice neat cry in the toilet stall, and then send the guys a text with the news.

They were having a daughter.

Oh my god, baby , I thought to myself as I hurried towards the door, I’m sorry for any boy that looks sideways at you. Three protective daddies…

As if summoned, Brent’s door opened and Dave stepped out. I couldn’t disguise the look of disgust, knowing he was exactly what they’d want to protect her from. His lip curled into a sly smile and then he made a theatrical gesture for me to precede him.

“After you.”

I didn’t need to be told twice, finding my stride once I got into the hall. I walked away from the office, from him, from everything as I shoved the toilet doors open. Being one of the only women in the entire station was perfect, so nobody heard my choked sob as I flung myself into the nearest cubicle. I locked the door and pulled out my phone with shaking hands.

Girl… I typed out then erased from the group chat. We’re having a little girl.