Page 24 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

SAGE

I get myself home from urgent care, and let Mia know I’m fine, it’s just stress. She texts back, asking if I need help. My answer is an immediate no. After that, I climb into bed.

There’s a ceiling fan above, the plastic kind sold at a discount hardware store, rotating in slow, unsteady arcs.

I bought it because the listing said nearly silent , and I liked the idea of something existing purely to soothe me.

Now, at three in the morning, it’s the only thing keeping the air in my room moving, the only thing reminding me that I’m not dead yet.

I stare at it, counting rotations, one, two, three, again, again, again, until my eyes blur and the edges of the blades seem to melt.

I haven’t slept in twenty-nine hours and forty-three minutes, but who’s counting. Me. I am.

There’s a printout of an ultrasound on my nightstand.

I don’t need to look at it; the image has already been sandblasted onto the inside of my eyelids.

Three distinct orbs, pale against the black, lined up in a row like the world’s most condescending game of connect-the-dots.

It’s not even the weirdest thing I’ve seen on a scan.

I’ve seen teratomas with hair and teeth.

I’ve seen cysts so big they have their own zip code.

I’ve never seen anything that looked at me.

My body is doing its best to reject the news.

Every muscle group is locked in a different flavor of protest. There’s the dull ache behind my sternum, a constant since the moment the technician said, “You want to look?” There’s the ripple of nausea that starts deep in my gut and works upward, cresting in my esophagus like a reverse ocean tide.

There’s the skin at my lower abdomen, prickling and tight, as if the cells themselves have begun an unauthorized union strike.

I should move. I should eat. Instead, I flatten my palms against the blanket, squeeze until my fingers hurt, and wait for the next round of symptoms.

I’m not one for melodrama. When my first boyfriend dumped me via group text, I ate a sleeve of saltines, watched three episodes of CSI: Miami , and then went for a run.

When my mother’s thyroid tried to kill her, I learned how to give subcutaneous injections, then charted her hormone levels in Excel for fun.

I am not the kind of person who lies in bed and wallows.

Except tonight, when the alternative is getting up and admitting that it’s all real.

Reaching for my phone, my thumb hovers over the recent searches tab.

The last five are a showcase of denial: phantom pregnancy symptoms , can ultrasound be wrong , three sacs not always triplets , PCOS mimics pregnancy , ultrasound technician error stories .

I click into the first, scroll past the paywall, skim the bullet points.

It’s not a match. The real punchline is that I already know.

I’ve done this for years—collected other people’s pain, organized it into neat folders, told them how to manage it. The hypocrisy is not lost on me.

I swipe to the next article, something on vanishing twin syndrome , and start calculating odds.

My brain offers up statistics: one in fifty for multiples, one in a hundred thousand for triplets, even less for a full-term set.

I’ve never been lucky. I was the kid who got chicken pox after the vaccine.

I was the one who missed the scholarship cutoff by a single decimal point.

My pulse is up. I can feel it in my fingertips, in the thread of veins at my wrist. I set the phone down, let the screen time out, and try breathing exercises.

Four seconds in, six out, the kind they teach you in basic training for panic attacks.

It doesn’t help. The only thing it does is make me aware of how shallow my breath has gotten, how every inhale tastes of last night’s mouthwash and something metallic underneath.

I push the blanket away, roll onto my side, and press my knees to my chest. Fetal position, irony noted.

I rock forward and back, eyes fixed on the strip of LED light bleeding through the gap under my door.

At some point, I hear the heat click on, the whine of the ancient baseboards, but it’s not enough to make the room feel less like a morgue.

I try to think about anything else. The upcoming game schedule.

Whether the new rookie will finally learn to keep his mouth shut.

If Mia’s cat will ever stop peeing in her shoes.

I try to remember what it felt like to have a normal problem—a parking ticket, a flat tire, a bad date.

I try to remember what it felt like to want anything.

Instead, all I get is the ghost of the tech’s voice, bright and chirpy: “Congrats, I guess.” It repeats, over and over, like an error message in the background of my brain.

I flex my toes, curling and uncurling until the sheets bunch up under my heels.

There’s a buzzing in my ears, a low white noise, and for a second, I think I might pass out.

Not a bad outcome. Maybe I’ll wake up to find it was all some elaborate prank, or maybe I’ll just wake up in the ER, and someone else can deal with the paperwork.

My stomach flips. Not hunger. Not even close.

I roll back onto my spine, fan my fingers over the skin just below my navel.

There’s nothing to feel, not yet. It could still be a joke, or a tumor, or a bureaucratic error.

I press harder, searching for any sign of movement, any proof that it’s not all in my head.

The flesh gives under my hand, soft and yielding, as if to say: you’re not in charge here .

The riot in my head just won’t stop, so I make it to the kitchen at 1:08, if you believe my microwave clock, which gained three minutes during the last blackout and now refuses to be corrected.

The fridge hums softly as I open it. Inside, it looks like someone who lives well most of the time.

Glass containers stacked like puzzle pieces, grilled chicken in lemon and thyme, roasted vegetables sealed with wax paper, brown rice and sautéed kale portioned with surgical precision.

There’s a quart of bone broth, an untouched wedge of Manchego, two ripe avocados resting on a folded dish towel, and three mason jars of chia pudding layered with pomegranate seeds and coconut yogurt I prepped last Sunday.

I lean on the door and scan the lineup like I’m reading a menu I forgot how to want.

Nothing sounds wrong, but nothing sounds right either.

I think about eating the chicken, then picture myself chewing and chewing and never swallowing.

I try to imagine a spoonful of pudding, but the idea hits too cold, too slippery, too slow.

My stomach curls up like it’s bracing for impact. I almost close the fridge.

Then it hits me.

Pickles.

Out of nowhere, wild and loud and absurd.

Not the artisan kind, not half-sours from the fancy deli.

I want the cheap ones. The kind in a plastic jar with a green lid.

Crinkle-cut. Vinegar sharp and bright enough to make your teeth hurt.

I want them straight from the fridge, standing barefoot on the tile, juice dripping down my wrist.

I dig through the lower shelf and find the jar hidden behind a container of roasted chickpeas and a bag of shredded mozzarella.

I don’t even remember buying them. I unscrew the lid and the smell nearly makes me cry.

I spear one with my fingers, take a bite, and it hits every corner of my mouth like a lit match.

I groan. Actually groan. The cold brine, the snap of the cucumber, the ridiculous satisfaction of it.

It’s better than anything I’ve eaten in weeks.

Two pickles in, I grab a spoon and drink the juice. No hesitation. Just tip my head back and go.

It tastes like electricity.

I brace a hand against the counter, breathing through the sudden, inexplicable high of it.

The hunger comes fast and wild. I think about toast slathered with cream cheese and layered with pickles.

I think about pasta with lemon and dill and garlic.

I think about ice cream and hot sauce and peanut butter and salt.

My brain is short-circuiting with combinations I would have gagged at a week ago.

My stomach isn’t twisting now. It’s awake.

I set the jar down gently like it might explode, press a hand to my abdomen, and try to remember the last time food made me feel like this.

I can’t.

My phone rings, rattling across the countertop. I read the name: CASSIE in all-caps, the photo a drunken shot from Halloween three years ago, both of us in lab coats, holding up rubber rats. I don’t answer. She calls again, then again, and by the fourth time I cave.

“Sage!” Her voice is too bright for the hour, too bright for the universe. “You alive? I saw your text and assumed you were dead.”

“Not dead,” I say. My voice is gravel. “Just busy.”

She snorts. “Busy being a hermit? Busy ignoring your best friend’s perfectly good invitations to come stay for a weekend?”

I picture her in her apartment, feet up on the coffee table, toenails painted neon orange, hair in the same chaotic bun she’s worn since high school. “I’m working,” I say, which is sort of true.

As always, Cassidy reads between the lines. “You are not working. You are spiraling. There’s a difference. What’s going on? You sound like you’re about to confess to a murder.”

I close the fridge, lean against the counter, and let my head thunk back against the cabinet. “You know those things you think only happen to other people?”

A pause. “Did you get scammed again? Because if so, I have a great malware guy.”

“No. Not a scam. A…medical thing.”

She’s silent, for once, and I hear the gears turning through the static of the call. “Are you dying? If you say you’re dying, I’m driving over.”