Delayed Penalty (Empire State Hockey #5)

Chapter 28 – Avery

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Avery

W omen who are thirty-four weeks pregnant should not be required to move; unfortunately, neither my friends nor my sister agree with me and decided to plan a baby shower. Thankfully, the attention won’t only be on me since it’s for both Ellie and I. Ellie is literally due in the next week or something ridiculous, and unfortunately, no one’s schedules lined up until today, so we weren’t able to do it any earlier.

She said she wasn’t worried about it, though, because she’s already had a baby. She wanted it for more of a sprinkle just to celebrate, and I’m thankful she did, or I’d probably get extremely overwhelmed with the attention all on me.

I was surprised when Harris told me his mom and sisters were all coming, as well as my sister and our friends who are obviously throwing it. Sawyer decided to host and their place is absolutely beautiful, and plenty spacious which is nice because it was able to fit a pretty large group of people.

They, of course, tried to reach out to my mom—and so did Kelly—but she declined to come to the baby shower because she said she didn’t want to celebrate my shitty decisions.

I never told anyone what went down with Peter the week before I left… maybe if they knew, they’d understand it had just become too much for me to handle, too much for me to turn a blind eye on.

When he came home super drunk and started to yell at me, it was like I didn’t even recognize him. I couldn’t figure out what had gotten him so angry, especially since he had just come home from dinner with his parents.

Usually that put him in a good mood, so this was unusual. It got even weirder when he mentioned us getting married and something about a property. I tried to understand it but then he stepped even closer to me, and I got uncomfortable.

The moment I turned to walk away, he grabbed my arm, holding me still with a grip just tight enough to sting, promising a bruise tomorrow. It only lasted a moment as he berated me for being useless, another fight he’d forget in the morning. Whether he didn’t remember, or he was choosing to ignore his horrible behavior I’m not exactly sure, but I chose to believe he had no memory of being such a piece of shit.

It made it much easier to not poison his coffee.

Orange has never been my color.

If my family knew this, I know they would understand—at least, I hope they would. Kelly, for sure would, but I would actually be concerned she might run him over or something. Same with Harris, so I’ve pretty much kept it to myself.

I’m not even sure why, I guess it just never came up and now, I’m just too nervous to bring it up. Maybe sometime.

“How much longer do you have?” Cassie asks as she bring me over another cup of lemonade. I’ve still been on a lemonade kick, the more sour the better. It’s been a relief not throwing up these last few weeks, at least making that portion of the pregnancy better.

It’s been exhausting growing this baby, but we’re finally in the home stretch.

“I have six weeks left, almost five. I’ll be thirty-five weeks on Monday,” I say, hardly believing we are this close to meeting this little boy.

We haven’t picked out a name yet, we’ve been trying to choose between a couple but I think at this point, we are just hoping that when we meet him we feel such a strong connection the name will come easily. That’s how it works, right?

“You’re getting so close!” Cassie says excitedly. “I can’t wait to be pregnant. Okay, that’s a lie. Right now, I can. I thought I was ready, but honestly I want to enjoy Max for a little bit longer now that we are back together.”

“Oh, that’s right, didn’t you guys date in high school?”

She beams, but shakes her head no. “We were best friends who shared a night together, but we both know that’s when we fell in love. We just needed to grow up a bit more before we could accept it.”

“I understand that, all right.” I laugh.

“But you two are good?”

“Perfect, honestly,” I tell her, setting my glass down on the table in front of me and messing with my ring. My fingers have been swelling a bit these last few days, which I’m sure just has to do with the fact my entire body is swelling, but this ring is getting closer and closer to not being able to fit on my sausage fingers. I know it can be normal, so I’ve just been trying to drink water but between the swelling and my headache today, it’s making me even more frustrated to be at a party dressed up and not laying on the couch in a pair of sweats.

Especially because I just want a nap.

“You okay?” Cassie asks.

“Yeah, my fingers have just been swelling,” I tell her, right as Harris’s mom and Gwen make their way over, Harris’s mom immediately wrapping me in another hug. She’s been such a big support system through this process, answering dumb questions for me through text, easing my nerves when she can, and overall, just being someone I can count on, which is more that I can say for my own mother.

“Did I hear you say you were swelling?” Gwen asks, her eyes scrunched as she looks at me, eyes scanning down my body as she looks at my hands then my calves and ankles.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Uh, I just noticed it a couple of days ago. I figured I’d talk to my doctor on Tuesday.”

“Have you checked your blood pressure?” Gwen asks, her tone getting a little more serious and I can see Harris’s mom immediately get concerned.

What the heck are they so worried about?

“No?”

“Hold, please,” Gwen says before scurrying off to her bag and coming back with a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. Getting my position how she wants, sitting down with my feet flat, she checks my blood pressure.

The cuff squeezes tightly, every pump of air making it tighter and tighter, but once the air lets out its immediate relief.

Until Gwen’s face drops.

“Avery, your blood pressure is 150/90. How long did you say until your next appointment?”

“Three days.”

“I’m not sure you should wait that long to get checked, I think we should have you go to labor and delivery, just to be safe. I know you don’t want to leave the baby shower, but gestational hypertension is not something we mess around about, you definitely want to get it figured out right away.”

“I’m sure that’s not necessary, can’t I go later? I don’t want to cause a big scene. I’m probably just worked up from the excitement,” I say, waving her off, but she doesn’t look convinced.

“I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Gwen says honestly, and I can tell she is being honest because she cares.

“I agree,” Harris’s mom says, her eyes down on her phone while her fingers furiously type. “I just texted Harris to meet us at the hospital, I’ll go get my purse and we can head out.”

She leaves no room for discussion as she nods to Gwen and walks away in search of her purse.

Four hours later and more blood pressure readings than I care to remember, I’ve officially been diagnosed with gestational hypertension. When Harris got to the hospital, I thought he was going to burst an aneurism he was stressing so badly; apparently, he googled it on his way over and of course, Dr. Google is never kind.

They hooked me up to monitors on my belly, monitoring the baby, and a blood pressure cuff that rechecked my blood pressure every ten minutes. The numbers bounced around, but they end up putting me on blood pressure medication after getting multiple readings between 140/90 to 160/96, when up until now my entire pregnancy was consistently at 120/80. Thankfully, after some struggles, they were able to use medication to bring it down, although, they still decided to keep me for a couple of hours to monitor me and make sure I didn’t have another spike.

Being not even thirty-five weeks pregnant makes this whole situation even more terrifying because I know if I were going to deliver because of it, my baby would be early. I know thirty-five weeks isn’t drastically early, but it’s still scary because you never know if they’ll need NICU time. They gave me a steroid shot, apparently, in some cases they do end up delivering early if they can’t get their blood pressure under control and by giving this shot it helps to develop the babies lungs. I just have to have another one tomorrow and then hopefully everything will be okay.

I didn’t know they figured out how to do this, so it’s encouraging to know they have found ways to help babies not need so much time in the hospital.

None of this has calmed Harris down, who has been treating me like I’m made of glass. It’s adorable, although it sort of makes me feel stabby when he feels like he has to walk me to the bathroom. His mom opted to stay to make sure everything was okay, sending his sisters back home in their car.

At least this way, maybe she can calm her son down. I doubt it, though.

“Did Harris get you all settled in?” his mom asks from the doorway to his room, a soft smile on her face as she stands there, already ready for bed.

“I feel like I should be asking you that.” I laugh. “But yes, he is rather demanding.”

“He is, but it’s only because he cares.”

I smile because I know she’s right. That man loves hard and is always willing to do whatever he can for those he cares about. It’s one of my favorite things about him.

“I know, and I appreciate it, from all of you.”

“We’re here for you, Avery, now get some rest. You’re growing my new favorite person,” she says with a wink before walking away.

With Harris still showering, I lie in the bed we share thinking about how different my life has become, and how one night when I needed a quick escape, I ended up finding the most perfect surprise.

How after a night out, our lives were forever changed in the most perfect way, how together we have created a family? But not only that, I’ve found a home and a love I no longer feel like I need to run from.