Page 124 of False Start

My stomach fluttered violently as if it had been waiting for me to put the pieces together.

And as I ran to my car and drove like a bat out of hell to the store, I felt like a mad woman.

Because while I did feel a tinge of worry, a bit of uncertainty, and a dash ofholy fuck, oh shit…

What I feltmostwas pure, undulating excitement.

Oh, God.

Am I pregnant?

The short five-minute drive to get a test felt like the longest journey of my life.

I couldn’t wait to find out.

Kyle

“So, your job is to catch the ball,” Sebastian said as he tried to follow my explanation, his tiny hands kneading the dough for his own personal pan pizza.

“That’s part of it. Think about Titan,” I said. “One part of your job is to feed him, right?”

Sebastian nodded, his little tongue sticking out as he stretched the dough.

“What else do you have to do to make sure he’s cared for?”

“I gotta clean his aquarium,” he said, and I smiled a little at how therin that word sounded a bit like aw.

“Mm-hmm. What else?”

“I gotta make sure he’s warm enough. Like his lamps and heating pads.”

“You sure do. So, the same way there are a lot of jobs for you to take care of Titan, that’s how it is for me on the field. I’ve got to catch the ball, but I also have to keep it safe while I run with it to make sure the other team doesn’t steal it.”

“That’s illegal!”

I chuckled, helping him stretch out his dough a bit before we started adding toppings. I was working on mine and Madelyn’s both, and I was ready to make sure hers had lots of pineapple — because she was weird like that.

“It’s actually allowed in football,” I explained. “There are rules, of course, but if they were to knock the ball out of my hands while I’m running and get it for themselves, then it would be their team’s chance to score.”

“How do you score?”

I explained that next, along with the many, many jobs I had on the field. By the time we were sitting down to eat the pizzas we’d made, Sebastian was throwing questions at me faster than I could bat the answers back. He was excited, bouncing in his chair with wide eyes the more he understood, and when I took him down the hallway to get ready for bed, he begged me to watch a game with him sometime that week so I could teach him more.

He begged me to let him come tomygame.

I swallowed, nodding toward the sink for him to brush his teeth. “We’ll see. It’s a big stadium with a lot of people. We’ll have to talk to Mommy about it.”

Sebastian nodded, brushing away before he took a moment to spit. “Yeah. Mommy doesn’t really like people.” He shrugged. “’Cept you, of course.”

“And you,” I added, digging my fingers into his ribs.

He giggled and wiggled away, and once he’d finished brushing his teeth, he changed into his pajamas and crawled into bed.

His room was stacked high with boxes just like the rest of the house, and movers were coming in just two days. He’d been such a champ about the news of a new house and a new school. That was just the kind of kid he was. Anything new, anything different excited him.

I hoped he held onto that forever.

I read him one of his new books — a space book that I actually found interesting even though it was written for a first grader.