by Sosie Frost
Her eyes darted away, the dark mystery a puzzle for another day. She looked towards my bedroom.
“For this,” she said.
“No problem, doc.”
She followed me to the elevator, her voice low. “It’s a little…scary.”
I tensed. “What’s so scary?”
“I know what can go wrong.”
I didn’t know what we were talking about, but it didn’t matter. “Nothing will go wrong as long as I’m here. Got me?”
“I just always get nervous to hear the heartbeat. I can’t imagine what we’re gonna see.”
Heartbeat?
The memory faded back in.
Her sonogram.
How the hell did I forget something so important?
I took her hand, holding it until I had to let her go to get into the Jeep. “Nothing is wrong. You’re doing great. Everyone is perfectly healthy.”
She rubbed her tummy as I started the Jeep and pulled from the garage. Her hand fit over the tiny bump, and it rested there for most of the ride.
“What are you wishing for now?” I asked.
“What?”
“You’re rubbing the lamp again,” I said. “First wish was to keep your fellowship. That came true. What’s the next wish?”
She looked away, a sweet, shy smile tracing her features. “I can’t say.”
“Why?”
“Because it already came true.”
“What did?”
“Last night.”
This woman would be the death of me.
“Those are some powerful wishes,” I said. “Better be careful.”
“Why?”
“Because I might make one too.”
“You won’t have to.”
“Why not?”
Rory curled her hand in mine. “I don’t think my wish is over yet.”
I liked hearing it, but this wasn’t right. I wanted Rory, but the baby, her family, Eric’s reaction, and my feelings made everything harder than it had to be. She was beautiful. Sweet. Such a perfect companion that ever minute she shared with me in my home only made me realize how lonely I’d become.
I didn’t think our pretend arrangement would get this out of control. The riskier it became, the simpler the solution—stay away.
But it’d be easier to walk away from football than Rory.
Rory’s appointment was in the clinic attached to the hospital. We waited a few minutes before the nurse called her back.
She stood. I didn’t.
And her eyes widened with a hint of fear.
Who could leave her in a time like this?
“Want me there?” I asked.
“Only if you want to.”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I knew what I had to do. I took her hand. “Lead the way.”
And that’s when my day went from great to fucking weird.
I’d woken up next to a naked woman, but the examination room had more vaginas than a strip club after a playoff victory.
Some were dissected. Some models. Some were pushing things out that didn’t seem physically possible.
This wasn’t a miracle of life—it was a freak show that made Alien look like a documentary.
“What’s the matter?” Rory folded and unfolded her hands over her bump. “Uncomfortable?”
“No. This is…beautiful.”
Did that mannequin’s pussy have real hair? What kind of Stephen King mutant bullshit where they hiding in these offices?
“You look uncomfortable,” Rory said.
“No, I’m just…not used to all these…” I didn’t mean to smack the wayward mannequin’s cut-away breasts. “Glands.”
“I really appreciate you waiting with me.”
“And I’ll thank you to never, ever tell me exactly what is happening…” I pointed to the plastic mold of ovaries or tentacles or something equally horrifying. “Inside there. Let me think pregnancy is gumdrops and fairies and storks.”
“It’s more mucus, fluids, and smooshed organs.”
“That’s…” I shuddered. “Fantastic.”
Rory’s mood swung the wrong way. Her lip trembled. “I’m sorry if my insides are freaking you out…”
“No.” I answered quickly. “No, no. Your insides are amazing.”
“Really?”
“They should be making the models out of you.”
“That’s so sweet.”
Was it?
Crisis averted, but I was still on high alert. Doctors’ offices made me nervous enough. At least my specialists never came at me with stirrups, a moving table, and sterilized artifacts waiting for a procedure that looked a hell of a lot more invasive than memorization puzzles and balance checks.
Everything was so sterile. I felt like a big blundering ball of dirt and grass barging into such a quiet place.
Rory watched with a raised eyebrow as I reached for the hand sanitizer. “Jude, what are you—”
“Just trying to clean up.”
“But that’s—”
The gel squirted like hand sanitizer, but it slipped like a girl after three drinks and a peek at my jersey. She snorted.
“That would be lube,” Rory said.
“Thanks, Doc.” I rubbed my hands. “This stuff doesn’t come off.”
“Kinda the point…”
I didn’t make it to the sink. The door opened, and a sprite of a doctor waltzed in, arms a-flutter with a smile that practically spat sunshine. She was greying, but that didn’t slow her down.
“Rory Merriweather.” She gasped and danced to me. “And this must be Daddy! Finally, I get a good look at you.”
“I—”
We hadn’t discussed if we were pretending to be a couple with the doctors too. Rory’s eyes went wide, but she spoke quick.
“Jude, this is Doctor Fawna. She’s friends with my step-mother…”
I reflexively extended my hand but pulled it back as it shimmered with lubricant. I nodded instead. “Jude Owens. I’m the daddy-to-be.”
“Always fun to put a face on Daddy. You two make a darling couple.” She pointed at Rory. “I just saw your mother in the cafeteria.”
This wasn’t good news.
“Did you…tell her I was coming in today?”
“Of course. I told her we were getting our first look at her newest grandbaby.”
Rory’s face fell. “Great.”
“Now, before we start…Do you and Daddy want to know the gender?”
Doctor Fawna looked at me, and, in a moment of stupidity, I answered for Rory. “Yeah! That’d be fun.”
“No!” Rory practically leapt from the bed-chair-table-thing. She accidentally kicked a stirrup, and the foot petal spun quick in a creaky circle. “Jude, honey, I thought we agreed? We didn’t want to know the gender.”
Well that seemed like a waste of modern technology. “Okay. Fine by me.”
“Oh, a surprise is always fun,” Doctor Fawna said. “Momma and Daddy are thrilled either way, but it’s just another little adrenaline rush on the big day.”
“Looking forward to it,” I said.
Rory glanced at me, but I shrugged. Just another aspect of this relationship we hadn’t discussed.
I didn’t know what would happen or what she wanted when she went into labor.
And we hadn’t talked about what would happen when she came home with the baby either. The baby’s gender wouldn’t be the only surprise.
Doctor Fawna wheeled the sonogram machine to the bed and let Rory relax. She tucked her shirt up and pulled the waistband of her pants down, but that was as much of a show as I was likely to get.
Rory gave a cute little squeal as the doctor squirted what I’d discovered to be some sort of lube onto her belly. I waited in the corner, but Rory extended her hand.
“Jude?” She swallowed. “I’m nervous.”
I took her hand and squeezed. “Nothing to be nervous about. Everything’s fine.”
Rory grimaced. Her fingers slippe
d out of mine, and she rubbed the lube away. She held my wrist instead.
Doctor Fawna prepared the machine. “You’re drinking your water, right?”
Rory nodded. “Extra since I’m outside on the field with the players.”
“Good. And taking your vitamins?”
“Like clockwork.”
“Any more nausea?”
“No. I’m loving the second trimester.”
So was I.
Doctor Fawna pushed the wand into Rory’s belly. “And are you having sex?”
Rory froze.
Jesus? Could she tell from the ultrasound?
“Oh, shit. Did I hurt the baby?” I clutched at the nearest table for support, missed, and punched straight through a cut-away woman. Her breast clattered to the floor, her uterus frisbee’d into the sink, and I leapt for the Barbie sized baby before it dropped on its head. The woman exploded into various organs, but the kid was safe.
Rory covered her face. She couldn’t look at me. “Yes. There’s sex. But it was only once and—”
Doctor Fawna stopped us. “That’s a good thing. Don’t be afraid of some intimacy. This is a difficult time, and the months ahead are going to be stressful, especially once the baby comes and you’re up all night changing diapers and feeding the little bugger. Do everything you can to improve your bond with Daddy.” She waved at me. “And…no, you won’t hurt the baby if you have sex with Rory. You will hurt the baby if you punch through Momma like you did my mannequins.”
“Sorry.” I bent down to collect the various…organs.
The model was empty, and I held something in my hand. A lung? A stomach? The ankle bone was connected to the uterus somehow.
“That’s the gallbladder,” Rory said. “It goes under the liver.”
I held up a hose.
“That’s the intestine. The liver is next to your left foot.”
I reached for another flat type blob. Rory shook her head.
“Your other left. You’ve got a pancreas.”
I offered her an oval.
“Jude, that’s the uterus.”
Damn it. “Well, I don’t have one of those to use as a reference.”
Doctor Fawna waved me away. “Leave it, Doctor Frankenstien. I’ll put her back together. Come see, you won’t want to miss this.”
The sonogram flicked on, and a bunch of blurry, black and white blobs appeared on the screen. I squinted as Rory grabbed my hand, whimpered, then sighed in contentment.
“And there’s your baby,” Doctor Fawna said.
And damn if it wasn’t a baby. Head and all. I could even make out the little feet and fingers.
Rory breathed a wavering sigh, but she blocked part of the image with her hand. “I don’t want to know the gender.”
“Are you sure?” I tilted my head. I had a general idea what I was looking for, but it wasn’t like the baby rolled around in the womb with a Barbie or a football. Rory nodded. “Okay. No gender.”
“Well, everything looks good here, Momma,” Doctor Fawna said. “You’re doing a great job. Baby is healthy, happy, and…” She pointed. “Waving at you.”
Rory teared up. She looked from the sonogram to her belly. “Hi, Genie.”
Christ, even my chest tightened a bit.
Doctor Fawna found an angle which didn’t reveal too much of the baby’s mystery parts and printed Rory a picture. She scribbled a word on a card and sealed it in an envelope for me.
“The gender,” she said. “In case you change your mind.”
I pocketed the paper. “Thanks.”
“Now go tell your mom that her grandbaby is healthy,” Doctor Fawna wiped off the jelly from Rory’s tummy. “Call me with any questions or concerns, and try not to think of all the crazy, bad, or scary case studies from med school, okay, Doctor Merriweather?”
Rory thanked her. I helped her from the table as she stared at the picture.
“It’s so real,” she said.
Yeah. It was.
Real. And complicated.
And still one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen.
Rory wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stood. “I should probably find Regan.”
“Are you sure?”
“Fill a bucket with water and remember to grab her broomstick when we’re done.”
“She’s not that bad.”
Rory used her purse as a shield and led me out of the office. “Yeah. We only need a sword to slay this dragon.”
She didn’t ask me, but I took her hand anyway. It shouldn’t have felt so right.
Regan ruled the hospital’s third floor as the Chief of Pediatrics. Her reputation preceded her. Rory stepped off the elevator into a world of quiet healing and rigorous standards.
Scrubs were clean. The nurses quick on their feet. And the doctors scattered from the central desk the instant the woman in blue scrubs with a white coat thundered down the hall.
Rory stood her ground, but Regan had a habit of turning the floor to quicksand when facing confrontation.
“Hi, Mom.”
Regan glanced at her step-daughter swelling tummy once, raised an eyebrow, and merely nodded.
Rory handed her the sonogram. “This is…your grandbaby.”
Regan placed a pair of glasses over her nose before searching the image. “Healthy?”
“Doctor Fawna said yes.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Good.”
“Eating well? Sleeping well?”
“Yes and yes.”
“Good.”
The sonogram thrust into Rory’s hand. A tense moment passed, and Rory offered Regan a shrug.
“You could keep this…if you wanted.”
Regan wouldn’t cause a scene in public, especially not in her hospital, but her words bit, fierce and unforgiving.
“Why don’t you hang it next to your degree, Aurora. I’ll have enough reminders of my grandbaby soon enough.”
Regan said nothing to me—a far cry from the second mother I once considered her. But I expected nothing less.
Rory did.
She held it together until Regan rounded a corner. Tears filled her eyes.
I wasn’t letting her get upset.
I pulled her into a hug. To my surprise, Rory rested her head on my shoulder. I gave her that moment, a quiet minute where she could lean on me for as much support as she needed.
It lasted only a few seconds before she stepped away, but it had calmed her.
Her eyes dried.
But I crumbled.
All of the fears I had of taking this too far, too fast, too intimate—vanished. I’d told Rory the truth when I said I wanted to help her, but I’d lied to myself.
I didn’t fear the complications of helping her with the pregnancy and baby. I worried about the consequences of letting myself get too close.
What I would feel.
What she’d discover.
And how quickly I’d fall for the perfect woman I wasn’t supposed to have.
14
Rory
It was a secret I couldn’t tell Eric or Jude.
I didn’t actually like football.
That revelation would have been sacrilege in a household that organized piano recitals around Eric’s games and stored spare cleats in the trunk next to Regan’s medical bag. Families supported one another—or so my step-mother once taught me. And the perfect family would always be there to root on a superstar son and step-brother. Football became as important as medicine. After all, Regan was never as proud as when her son was drafted into the league, not even when I took my oath and became a doctor like she’d always dreamed.
Wanted.
Demanded.
But after med school and my neurology internships, I hated watching grown men do everything they could to hurt themselves and others. Concussions scared me—and I wasn’t even the one on the receiving end.
Still, it was exciting watching the game from the sidelines.
I
waited in the tunnel as the guys lined up for their seventh game, nearly halfway through the season with no losses yet. They should have celebrated, but most of the men cracked under the pressure.
Not Jude.
He called me his lucky charm, even if it was just a ploy for him to get lucky again.
We hadn’t had sex since that wild, amazing, foolish night, but for five wonderful nights, I’d curled in his arms—sharing his bed, his warmth, and, apparently, his luck. And while I longed for another night of pleasure…
What could be better than just trusting each other?
Holding each other?
Keeping secrets and pretending life wasn’t quite so complicated?
Jude broke away from the team and found me in the locker room. He stood like a wall of muscle, smirking with that telltale flirt that I had come to expect. And avoid. And love.
He ripped off his glove. “I gotta rub the lamp.”
“Superstitious much?”
“Don’t deny me a belly rub?”
“You need to focus on the game, Mr. Owens.”
“Hard to do when you’re here, Doc.” Jude winked. “Though you do make me wanna score.”
“Jude.”
“We could go all the way.”
“I think your helmet is strapped on a little too tight.”
He really couldn’t talk to me this way—not before a game, not when I had absolutely no way to unknot the thrill that his words gave me.
Who was I kidding? One night with him wasn’t enough. Hell, I was starting to fear the remaining months together—less than fourteen weeks—wouldn’t be enough.
If I wasn’t careful, I’d wish for an entire lifetime.
He groaned. “Come on. Let me give Genie a rub. For luck.”
“You think my tummy is just on loan?”
“I’ll return the favor.”
I smirked. “I get to rub something of yours?”
“Rub. Stroke. Kiss. I’m yours.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“You make one hell of a bargain.” Jude leaned in close, pressing against my polo shirt.
I bit my lip. His hands were warm. Wonderful. Perfect.
And, despite every rational impulse in my head, it felt like they belonged on my tummy.
It was a disaster waiting to happen, but I couldn’t help but place my hand over his.
