Page 23 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

She goes down the list—bowel movements, headaches, fever, recent stress. I answer on autopilot. She’s good at not telegraphing concern, but I clock the way her eyebrow lifts when she presses on my abdomen and I wince.

“Any chance you’re pregnant?” she says, casual as a weather report.

The question is a sucker punch. I keep my eyes on the wall, trace the outline of the sticker residue near the sink. “I…I don’t think so. I’m on the pill.”

“When was your last cycle?”

I have to think. I count backward, picturing the calendar in my office, the black marks for training days and games, the gaps where my period should be, and I frown. It’s been a while. “I skipped a month, but that happens sometimes.”

She’s nodding, already making another note.

“I’ve been under a lot of stress,” I say, voice thin. “We’re coming up on playoffs, I’ve been working late.”

She doesn’t challenge it. “Any changes in the way your clothes fit? Weight gain, bloating?”

I glance down at my shirt, the way it’s pulled tight over my hips. “A little. Nothing major.”

She finishes the physical, then says, “I’d like to run a quick blood panel. We’ll do a urine test, and just to rule things out, I’ll order an ultrasound.”

The words bounce around the room, too large for the space. My hands crumple the exam table paper, the sound louder than my own voice.

“Is that really necessary?” I say, but I already know the answer.

She gives me a practiced smile. “Just protocol. Easier to know than to guess.”

She leaves, closing the door behind her. The room is instantly twice as quiet. I stare at the ceiling, count the holes in the acoustic tile. Forty-six. Forty-seven.

It’s just a precaution. Just the flu, or the playoffs, or the fact that I haven’t eaten a meal in three days that stayed down.

The words echo in my head, every time a little less convincing.

The waiting is the worst part. There’s nothing to do but sit there and wonder if every little shift in my body is something new growing, or just the same old damage repeating.

When the nurse finally comes back, she’s carrying a cup and a plastic-wrapped kit. “Right this way,” she says.

I follow her to the bathroom, the inside of my head ringing.

I pee in the cup and try not to look at my own reflection in the silvered plastic of the hand dryer.

After handing the cup back, I move to a new room for the ultrasound—darker, quieter, walls painted a soft, patronizing yellow.

The tech introduces herself, but the only detail I clock is the cartoon otter on her scrub top, floating in a navy sea.

She dims the lights, adjusts the computer, and rolls a tissue-paper sheet over the edge of the exam table.

“Sorry, it’s cold,” she says, as the gel hits my belly. The sensation makes me flinch, and she gives a soft, practiced laugh like she’s seen this a thousand times.

I keep my eyes on the acoustic tile, counting the divots and imagining each as a little lunar crater.

The wand moves in slow arcs, pressing harder in some places, then releasing.

There’s a wet, slippery sound as she navigates.

The machine’s screen is angled away, but I can see the edge reflected in the plexiglass window of the cabinet behind her.

It’s an X-ray negative, flickering gray and black and white.

“So, what are we looking for?” the tech asks. Her tone is conversational, as if we’re waiting for an Uber together.

“Nothing,” I say, because it’s the only word I can find. “Just ruling things out.”

She nods, eyes on the screen. “Could be a cyst, sometimes it’s just stress. You’d be surprised how much the body holds onto.”

I don’t reply. I’m trying not to puke. The cold is spreading, the jelly seeping past my waistband, and I wish I could disappear into the table itself. I want to call Mia, ask her to come sit with me, but I’m not a kid, and this isn’t the kind of problem anyone else can fix.

The tech hums a little tune under her breath, tapping the wand against my skin in rhythm. She clicks the keyboard a few times, then slows down, eyes narrowing. The hum stops.

There’s a silence, the kind that means something.

She drags the wand up, then down again, more careful this time. “Did they have you drink water before you came in?”

I shake my head, eyes glued to the ceiling.

“That’s fine,” she says. “You’re easy to image, anyway.” She bites her lip, leans in close to the monitor. Her fingers start flying over the keys, capturing stills, measuring with on-screen calipers.

I start to sweat, a bead running from my hairline to my cheek. “Is there something wrong?” I ask, voice thin.

She doesn’t answer at first. She’s too focused on whatever she’s seeing.

“How far along did you think you might be?” she says, dead casual, not looking at me.

The question hits harder than the cold. I blink, try to recall any frame of reference. “I’m not…I mean, I’ve missed…But I’m on the pill.”

She nods, like this is the answer she expected. “Birth control’s not always a guarantee.”

She turns the screen slightly toward me. “You want to look?”

I don’t, but my head tilts anyway. The screen is a mess of static, black blobs floating in a pale sea. The tech toggles a layer, and the shapes snap into sharper relief: one, two, three little orbs, stacked like a snowman knocked sideways.

My brain refuses to process what my eyes see.

The tech points. “There’s one,” she says, the tip of her pinky on the glass, “and there’s two more, right there and there.”

She clicks, saves, then looks at me with something like awe.

I’m already lying flat, but the room sways as if I’ve been pushed off a ledge. She smiles, this time with genuine warmth. “Congrats, I guess. It’s definitely not the flu.”

I stare at the screen. Three. There are three. I should not be able to do this.

I was told once that pregnancy would be unlikely.

The kind of statement they make while clicking through charts, while offering pamphlets on alternate paths and words like assisted and monitoring .

With PCOS and irregular cycles and years of being told that my body had already made its choice, I learned to file that part of myself under impossibility.

Not when my entire life had been built on managing symptoms, suppressing side effects, choosing the practical over the fragile.

And now there are three.

The tech wipes off the gel, hands me a rough paper towel. “You okay?”

I nod, because it’s easier than explaining what’s happening in my head. I sit up, but the world is still tilted, every line slanting toward a future I never planned for. She prints a copy of the scan, hands it to me with care. “Doctor will be in soon. You can wait here.”

I hold the paper in my lap, the dark circles floating in white like planets caught in some celestial net. I press a palm to my belly, try to feel anything. There’s just the distant thrum of my own heart, wild and erratic.

Alone in the room, I stare at the printout, then at the ceiling, then back again.

I count to three. I try to breathe. This is real. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s close.