Chapter 42

Eliza's POV:

I squirmed and shuddered watching the nurse squeeze the sonogram goo out of the little tube and onto my stomach. I was repulsed by the sight of all of that crap on my stomach and my mom whispered "stop it" to me as it was spread over my stomach.

I couldn't help it, the idea of foreign goo on my skin was disgusting and Max had laughed for a good ten minutes when I told  him on the phone that I was more worried about that part than the rest of the exam.

"Aren't you more worried about how the baby's doing?" He asked laughing.

"Max, shut up."

He was right of course, I should be more concerned about the baby but the process of getting a sonogram was just weird.

"Okay, so here we go" the doctor announced turning the screen on and illuminating the room with the glow of the monitor.
"So here's your baby. You can see the heart beating there." I gaspted looking at the tiny peanut on the screen that was our baby.

"Oh my god, Mom look. You can see the heart!" She nodded looking teary eyed and squeezed my hand while she stared at the screen.

"It's too early to know the sex yet, but in a few weeks you'll be able to know if you'd like." I nodded wondering if Max would like to know. It wasn't something we had talked about yet and while I definitely wanted to find out early, I wasn't sure if he would want to be surprised or not.

The doctor finished up the exam letting me know that everything looked normal so far and I lumbered off the table and back to the floor to get out of the gown they had given me. I was finally starting to show and was about 2 months along now in total.

"So how is Max doing?" My mom asked handing me a towel to wipe the plasma-like goo off of my stomach. The Pens had been knocked out of the playoffs the night before by Chicago and Max had returned early this morning and had fallen into bed without saying anything. I had left this morning with the intention of letting him sleep his mood off for the time being and truthfully I was still a little afraid to call. He was exhausted and I didn't want to chance it.
"I don't know yet. He came back early this morning and went straight to sleep without saying anything. I'm letting him rest before I even ask if he's okay. The coverage of the guys getting off the plane last night after losing was horrible." I still couldn't believe that freaking KDKA had shown up just to film the boys looking dejected and heartbroken. Sidney in particular looked miserable and Max hadn't even made some sort of wise-ass joke like he usually did when they interviewed him. Since it hadn't even been a year since I started to work for the Pens, I had no idea what to do in this type of situation. Did the guys just need some time to shrug off the end of the season or was there some kind of procedure for cheering them up? Hell, what did Max need me to do? I made a mental note to ask Vero what she usually did for Marc and kissed my Mom goodbye before getting in my own car to drive home.

I checked my phone to see if Max had called yet and saw that I had 2 missed calls- one from Lucy's cell and another from their house phone. Traffic was kind of dense so I decided to call her back while I navigated my way back through Fox Chapel.

"Allo?" I heard her answer after the third ring using her french way of answering the phone.

"Hi, Lucy. It's Eliza."

"Eliza! Thank goodness I've been calling you all morning" I smiled at her exaggeration given that she had only called me twice. "I wanted to know how Max was doing. He's not picking up his cell-phone and he always has that thing on him."

Oh hell. Either he was sleeping like the dead or he was dead. I wasn't crazy about the last option obviously.

"I'm sure he's just sleeping. They got back around 4am this morning." I said trying to make her feel better. I lived with him and even I hadn't heard from him yet. "I'm on my way home now so I'll check on him and let you guys know how he's doing." That seemed to calm her down and she thanked me before telling me she had to go.

As soon as I walked back in the door of the house, I knew that Max wasn't up yet. It was entirely too quiet and still too clean for him to have been up and about in the house. Thank god it was a Saturday or else I wouldn't be able to be around to make sure that he was okay.

I entered the house and tried to be quiet about opening and closing doors. It didn't matter if you had a beautiful, brand new house or an old, rickety house- the storm doors leading into the house from garages were always noisy.  After turning on the coffee pot and putting the ridiculously fattening chocolate cake I had bought as a cheer up gift for Max in the refrigerator, I crept upstairs to peek in on him and make sure that he was okay.

I turned the knob to our bedroom praying that it wouldn't squeek. The room was dark with the curtains and the blinds firmly closed. I know that the room hadn't been this shut up when I left this morning so he must have gotten up at some point to darken the room even more. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the light, I could see that he was laying belly down in the center of the bed with his head twisted to the side on a scrunched up pillow. He didn't look like he was very comfortable but he was snoring and breathing so deeply that I knew it didn't matter. Still, my instincts told me that he needed to move his head before he woke up with a crick in his neck and I tried  not to jostle the bed too much as I climbed onto the duvet next to him. Suddenly he turned over to face me and tugged me down next to him in bed startling me into shrieking.

"Shhhh, woman" he mumbled pulling me securely against him into our usual spooning position. His voice was husky against my ear and in his exhaustion, his accent was heavier sending chills down my spine. Not the time.

"How was the doctor?" he mumbled after a few minutes of silence. I thought he had drifted off to sleep and was surprised to hear him making the effort to talk.
"How did you know that I was going to the doctor's office?" I asked rolling over to face him. I hadn't told him that I was going today just because they were all so caught up in preparing for the game last night- it hadn't seemed very important at the time.

"I saw the appointment reminder card from the doctor on the refrigerator" he mumbled pulling me even closer. If he pulled me against him even more, I was going to be underneath him and my arm was staring to fall asleep from the squished position I was in now.
"The appointment went really well. In a few weeks we'll get to see what the sex of the baby is." I rolled over to face him making him grunt in the process as I accidentally kicked his shin.

"Will you stop wiggling everywhere?" he asked blinking at me blearily. My eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness of the room and I could vaguely see his face now amongst the shadows. His playoff beard was so thick already that I hardly recognized him. Usually he shaved just for the purpose of not scratching me when we kissed but he was too exhausted right now for me to make any of my usual lumberjack jokes. Our relationship had always functioned on a good amount of playful banter but right now, after last night's loss, it definitely wasn't a good time.

Max's arm tightened around me again and his breathing shallowed out as he fell back asleep easily.

I tried to settle my body and mind down but still couldn't fight off the anxious feeling that I had. It was nice to lay here in bed with him but my internal clock was telling me to get out of bed because it was half past one.

"Okay, let's get up. You obviously can't just lay here with me" Max grumbled startling me because I had believed him to be asleep. His tone off and I wasn't sure if he sounded angry or not.
"I'm sorry, I just can't relax. Go back to sleep" I urged him sliding easily away from him to the edge of the bed. It was pretty hard to really irritate Max in general and I wasn't quite sure how to deal with him right now.
"No, I'm up now" he commented pushing the covers away from his body. This time, his tone was definitely snippy. I did not take snippy tones well, especially because I was a lawyer. Use a snippy tone with me and you get verbally bitch-slapped.

This time, I held my tongue. "Do you want me to make you something to eat?" I asked trying to be nice instead. He was upset right now, I would try to understand that.

He didn't say anything and instead walked into the bathroom. Seconds later I heard the shower turn on.

Well fine. I was going to go downstairs and make him something to eat anyway. He'd have to be starving by now.

Thankfully Mrs. Rollins had grocery shopped for us. I never in a million years would have thought that me, a control freak, would welcome having someone look after my home besides me but Max was definitely right, she was needed around here since both of us were so busy. And she was currently feeding my insane chocolate cravings by baking for me often. For that alone, the woman was a saint. In the pantry I dug out a bottle of spaghetti sauce and some noodles. It wasn't long before the water on the stove was boiling and I was adding noodles to the pot.

"I'm making us some spaghetti" I said after hearing Max walk into the kitchen behind me. "Do you think I should make more noodles?"

"That's fine" he said pulling a bottle of water out of the fridge. 'That's fine' didn't really answer my question so I took that to mean 'Thanks for making me food! Let's add more noodles to the pot'

"Your Mom was looking for you earlier" I told him finally turning to face him since he had entered the kitchen. He had shaved and changed into a pair of clean sweatpants and a t-shirt. His hair was mussed and still dripping a little bit onto the back of his t-shirt- a sure sign of his laziness today.
"I'll call her back" he said without moving. Normally he jumped at the chance to talk to his family so it was weird that he hadn't pulled out his cellphone right away to call them back.

Once I checked that the pot wasn't going to boil over, I moved to where he was standing near the kitchen island to kiss the underside of his jaw and pull him into a hug. He looked so sad and I just wasn't used to this side of him.
"Are you okay? You guys played really well" I felt him relax against me before stiffening again.
"Would you stop asking me that?" he said sounding irritated again. I hadn't asked him that yet at all.

"There's no reason to be mean" I said pulling away from him completely. I wasn't going to be nice if he didn't want me to. Especially if he was just going to be rude.

I turned pretending that the pasta needed to be stirred again just so I didn't have to face him.

"Don't do that" he said sounding edgy. "You always do that."

"Do what?" I asked wondering what the hell we were both doing right now. I was just trying to avoid whatever fight we were about to have over nothing.

"You always do that thing where you make me feel like an ass."

"Max, you ARE being an ass right now. I'm trying to make you feel better." I wasn't going to be able to keep up this sparring thing for much longer. Thanks to my crazy pregnancy hormones, instead of staying mad anymore, I just cried. Last week my coffee order from Starbucks had been screwed up by the same barista that always tries to give me decaf when I want a regular. Instead of bitching her out for messing up the order for the 5th time, I started to tear up in front of everyone and the people waiting behind me. In the end it had worked in my favor because the terrified manager gave me a pass for 5 free coffees after that.

"I can't deal with this right now." He muttered stalking out of the kitchen and into the TV room. This was the dumbest fight we had ever had and if I hadn't been battling tears, I probably would have laughed at the absurdity of it all.

When the spaghetti was finished, I fixed myself a plate and went back upstairs to eat and watch TV there. He obviously just needed to cool off for a little bit and then maybe we could talk. Until then, me and my hormones couldn't handle this rare side of his personality.

He had every right to be upset about last night's game and the season ending but it didn't give him the right to be purposefully mean. I was supposed to be the crazy, bitchy one in this relationship. Not him. If he wanted me to leave him alone for the time being, then I could definitely do that.

Unfortunately this mindset only lasted for a few minutes until I gave in and picked up my cellphone to text Vero.

Max is miserable. What's a good method for cheering Marc up usually?

After that I hit send hoping for the best.