by C. C. Piper
What the hell was that?
Maybe it was that we were having a baby together. That was a connection that would never be broken. No matter what transpired between us going forward, once that child had been brought into the world, I would forever be its father while Jessica was its mother. We would always have that touchstone, that bond. So that high feeling must be that.
Right?
15
Jessie
APRIL
I stared up at the ceiling. It was after one in the morning, but despite the pall of exhaustion that tended to hang over me, I couldn’t make my eyes stay shut. Part of it was because the baby was kicking me, but it was also because I kept reliving the episode I’d shared with Trevor at the baby boutique a few weeks back.
We’d had … a moment. The kind I’d heard about but never experienced. We’d gone from busting a gut to just staring at each other like a couple of sappy imbeciles, and I hadn’t known what to make of it.
I still didn’t.
That moment had seemed to stretch out and hover there for an indeterminate amount of time as his amber eyes bored into mine. There’d been both intensity and a sense of wonder that had blossomed between us, but I couldn’t say what any of it meant. Trevor had been the one to back off, and I’d been glad when he did. Or so I thought. But I kept missing the heat of his arms surrounding me all the way home.
In fact, if I let myself, I could still imagine the heat of them around me now.
Trevor and I continued to hang out together. He went with me to all my prenatal appointments, and our lunch outings increased from twice a week to four or five. We grew closer and developed what I’d have to call a quasi-friendship. I learned that he liked to tell jokes, many of them puns about something sexual. At first, I hadn’t known how to react to these, but eventually I accepted that his humor was just of the bawdier sort.
Considering his preferences in the bedroom, I shouldn’t have been shocked by this.
But even his dirty sense of humor never strayed into the realm of something disgusting or inappropriate. They were more mischievous than anything else, and lately, I’d found myself snickering at them more often than not. And every time I did, he beamed at me. Not smiled, beamed. Like a beacon inside of a lighthouse. I enjoyed seeing his handsome face light up like that. It made his eyes gleam and drew attention to his scruff-covered square jaw.
It was as if he was growing more and more attractive with each passing day. The opposite of what was happening to me. I’d gotten to the point in my pregnancy where I couldn’t hide anything. One look from anyone confirmed my condition, and even simple tasks like getting up and down from the loveseat or sliding into and out of a vehicle became much more difficult than I would’ve previously considered.
I wasn’t sure if it was due to this change or not, but Trevor had taken to touching me more. He would rest a palm at the bottom of my spine as I swayed—I no longer merely walked—beside him. He’d take my hand to help me up or down and in or out. Anytime we were caught in a crowd, he stood to one side of me, with one arm around my shoulders and the other over my bulging belly.
If I hadn’t been pregnant, such protectiveness might’ve felt too aggressive or possessive to me, but the solicitous way he stood between me and any possible threat made me feel important. Treasured. Cherished. And no one had ever made me feel that way.
I reasoned that this was simply his response to becoming a father. He was protecting the baby more so than me. But then I started to watch other men with their expectant significant others. Some would show these women no deference at all. There was no door opening or preferential care.
Yet some would do as Trevor would and lavish their women with limitless attention. Most of these men appeared to be married to these women. I saw wedding rings on them ninety percent of the time. They’d also help with any additional children already a part of their families.
I could tell that these couples faced parenthood as a team. And though I’d never say anything to Trevor about my desires other than what I thought the baby might need, I wanted what these couples had. The unity. The commitment. The trust. The love.
Which was stupid. I would never have all that. If even my mother couldn’t love me, how could I expect to ever find a partner who would?
So I went about my days feeling grateful for every fleeting touch Trevor offered me, memorizing every detail. Once this pregnancy was over, all that would end, so I did my best to enjoy his kindness while it lasted.
At seven months along, teaching my Zumba class was becoming a challenge. While I could still do all the moves necessary, my stamina had taken a hit, and I struggled to complete each hour-long session. One day Trevor sauntered in just prior to the cool down exercises and found me sweating profusely at the front. Normally, by the time I saw him for our lunches, I’d showered and cleaned up, but this time he caught me early.
Redoubling my efforts to look strong as I finished, I dug deep and completed the set with more vigor than I really felt. Unfortunately, this meant I was shaky by the end, a fact I attempted to conceal from him as he approached.
“Are you all right?” he asked me, his voice edged with worry.
Okay, so epic fail on the “I might be knocked up, but you will still hear me roar” front.
“Yeah,” I told him, huffing and puffing. That should help my case. Not. “Just … just about to jump in the shower.”
“You look like you’re about to fall over, Jessica. Sit down.”
I bristled at this. He had no right to order me around. I continued to stand out of sheer defiance. “Stop it, Trevor. I’m fine.”
“You’re pale and shaking like a leaf,” he countered, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“No, I’m not,” I argued, even though what he said was undeniable.
“Have you eaten today?” This came out as a terse demand for answers, and I pursed my lips at him. He was pissing me off.
“Yes, I had a …” But when I thought about it, I had to backtrack. I hadn’t felt hungry this morning and had skipped breakfast. I used to do it all the time before I was pregnant, so it shouldn’t matter, should it? Yet, I did feel a little woozy. Not that I’d mention that to him. Time to change tack. “Why are you here so early anyway?”
“Your checkup. It’s at noon, remember?”
Shit. No, I hadn’t remembered. Cheese and crackers. Maybe this stuff I’d been hearing about pregnancy brain really was a thing.
“Um …” was my ever-so-witty comeback. He yanked at his phone with the short jerky movements I’d come to recognize as his aggravated mood, scrolling through his contacts. “What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m rescheduling. I need to get you something to eat.”
“No,” I protested, grabbing at his cell even though I shouldn’t. “We’re going to find out the gender today.”
He’d been contemplating the screen of his phone, but now, he squinted at me. “That can wait. You need food more than you need to know about the sex.”
A vein in his neck was popping out a little, so I knew his attitude hadn’t improved. That, plus his mention of the word sex, even though it hadn’t nothing to do with the act, had thrummed up my body like a struck chord. I ignored it. Or tried to. “What I need is a shower.”
“No. If I let you go in there in your current state, you might fall. At least tell me you’re hydrated. You’ve been drinking your water like you’re supposed to, right?”
The thing of it was, I hadn’t been thirsty, either. Not till now. At that moment, I felt as if I could’ve drained a camel. Letting myself get to that point had been cardinally dumb. I knew better, but I’d just rushed around and forgotten all about it. Not that I’d admit that to the guy who was chastising me like a recalcitrant toddler, though.
“Jessica,” His voice was all warning, so I fired back at him.
“Trevor.”
He chuffed out an angry sigh, looked away from me and lifted his phone to his ear once more.
“Yes, this is Trevor Keller. Jessie Souza had an appointment at noon but may not be able to make it. Do you have any openings for later today?”
I seized his elbow, but his greater height and strength made my physical challenge more of a symbol of my irritation than anything else. Still, I pinched his bicep for all I was worth and saw him flinch. He didn’t spin away from me as I anticipated but kept himself stationary, despite the punishment I inflicted on him.
Mule.
“A cancellation?” he spoke in an unaffected voice. Apparently, what I was doing didn’t ruffle him nearly as much as I wanted it to. “2:30pm? We can make that no problem. Thanks so much.” He disconnected.
I was so mad at him right then I could’ve kicked his shin.
I considered it. But then he zeroed in on me again, and I froze. His eyes were ablaze with molten fire, the amber darkening to a deep topaz. Not since our so-called date had I seen such naked desire written all over him, and even that had been the briefest of glimpses before he’d tied a blindfold over my eyes. There was no blindfold now, though, and I felt an answering call, primal and uncontrollable as my panties dampened without my permission.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he ground out, ogling my form up and down as if he wanted to devour me alive.
I hadn’t thought such a look was possible. I was hugely pregnant and getting huger all the time. Could he truly want me right now? But even as the question entered my mind, the heat in his answering gaze showed me in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t hesitate to ravish me given the chance.
Holy crap!
He drew a finger along my jaw and down my chin, raising it as he lowered his lips toward mine. I couldn’t believe this was happening, and even more, I couldn’t believe how much I yearned for it to happen.
“Hey, Jessie, I was wondering if I could—Oh!”
Trevor and I snapped out heads up to see my boss Lance sticking his nose into the room. The look on his face might’ve been comical had he not had the power to rob me of all my sources of income in one fell swoop. He was my direct supervisor for both my instructor position and my fitness trainer job, and if he so chose, he could can me for cavorting on the clock.
“We were just on our way out,” Trevor said into the tense silence.
“Uh, I need to go over your most recent group of evaluations,” Lance said to me. We were evaluated every six months by both our students and our supervisors, but right now, evaluations were the last thing I could think about.
“Lance, this is Trevor,” I made hasty introductions, my voice too high. “Trevor, this is Lance, my boss.”
“Lance, those evaluations are going to have to be postponed,” Trevor told him, one of his large hands cupping my stomach. “She has a doctor’s appointment.”
My boss’s features went stony, but all he said was a long and drawn out, “Yeah … Okay.”
Trevor stayed by my side until we’d made it to the sidewalk, his posture rigid. “How is he with you?”
“Excuse me?” I asked him, not understanding.
“You’re boss. How is he with you? Does he treat you fairly, or does he give you shit?”
“He’s fine.”
I wouldn’t say anything about how Lance had cut my hours a few months ago, because he’d given them back to me when another instructor quit. I think the opening up of my availability had something to do with it, too. I wondered if Lance had planned to tell me to stop due to the pregnancy. I hoped not. I needed to work right up to delivery if possible. I would miss hours once the baby was born as it was.
“Would you tell me if he wasn’t?”
Damn, was I that transparent? Feeling a bit gun shy, I gazed up into the face of the father of my child. I didn’t see heat or irritation this time. This time there was nothing there but the concern I’d come to know so well.
“I need to stay on good terms with him,” I said. “For the sake of my job.”
Trevor examined my gaze like he might in a suspense or thriller novel. “You still want a shower?”
“That’s a non-negotiable.”
“I’m guessing you don’t want to take it here.”
“No. I’ll take one at home.”
“I’ll drive you,” he insisted, and as a wave of drowsiness made me yawn, I gave in.
Dr. Carrey greeted us, as always, with a polite, professional expression. I wondered if they taught physicians how to do that in medical school, maybe under the heading of “bedside manner.”
“How are you feeling today, Jessie?”
Trevor had bought me a bottle of water at the gym, driven me home, and waited for me to take a shower. Then he’d taken me by a fresh foods restaurant where we ate raw veggies with hummus and shared a good-sized bowl of nuts mixed with chopped pieces of fruit. He also bought me two additional bottles of water and watched as I drank them down with the meal. I’d felt like grumbling at him the entire time and almost did.
I wasn’t going to admit it to him, but I felt significantly better after eating and rehydrating.
“Good,” I told my OBGYN.
“Still anxious to determine whether the balloons will be pink or blue?”
“Definitely,” Trevor and I said in unison, but I still refused to look at him. I hadn’t appreciated his take charge behavior from earlier. I was tempted to tell him that I might’ve gone along with him being the boss in the bedroom but that didn’t mean he got to be that way outside of it. He’d really gotten on my last nerve today, while also turning me on when I didn’t want to be.
Jerk.
“You couldn’t tell last time,” Trevor chimed in, never one to hold back any questions. “What if the same thing happens again?”
“Well, the truth is, sometimes even when we do get a good view of what’s between the legs, it can be difficult to determine the gender. That early on everything is still developing and often a penis and clitoris look very much the same.”
I wondered if Trevor was stifling all the puns or dirty jokes that had probably started to ping through his brain like popcorn at that little morsel of information.
“Now, however,” Dr. Carrey went on, “those parts of the body should be more identifiable. And if they aren’t, or if we run into a similar issue as last time, we’ll simply run a blood test and find out that way. Any other questions before we do another scan?”
“The baby kicks a lot when I’m trying to sleep but sometimes won’t do anything when I’m awake,” I told her, casting a sideways glimpse at Trevor. This had been annoying him for a few weeks because not once had he felt the movement of his own child. At first, he’d played it off, but lately, I’d seen unmistakable pain in his eyes over it. Especially when I encouraged the baby to move to no avail. I’d literally said, “Come on, kick for your daddy!”
It hadn’t worked.
And as much as I still felt aggravated by his actions this morning, noticing that disappointed look on his face killed me.
“Well,” my OBGYN began. “At twenty-eight weeks, it’s normal to have periods of rest and periods of activity. Often those are opposite of yours.”
Trevor seemed to find one of the posters on the wall fascinating, so I knew this was bothering him. “Is there anything we can do to make the baby kick at a certain time?”
“Talking directly to your stomach usually works. It may sound silly, but the more the baby hears yours and Trevor’s voices, the more likely it is to respond to you both.”
The father of my child looked back at me, then, his amber eyes more hopeful. As soon as we had a moment alone, I’d encourage him to speak to the baby.
“Let’s get you all hooked up,” Dr. Carrey said, proceeding with this second scan.
The most beautiful sound in the world filled the room again as she drew the wand across my abdomen. An image filled the screen, and there it was, our baby, its heartbeat going strong. I could listen to that noise and stare at that screen forever. As we all watched, it moved its arm.
“Is it �
� is it sucking its thumb?” Trevor asked, his tone one hundred percent awe.
“Sure is. Let’s try to go for the money shot again, shall we?”
Dr. Carrey directed the wand over to my left side, and maybe due to this, the baby twisted as if doing a head over heels spin.
“Stop,” I whispered out, as if sneaking into a church service late. “Can you take away the wand for a sec?”
My doctor blinked but did as I asked. I flattened my palm to my left side and pressed Trevor’s palm to the same spot. “That. That right there. You feel it?”
His amber eyes went from awe to absolute joy as that beaming smile of his filled his face. “Holy shit! Oh my God.”
“I know, right?” I said, half giggling the words, but I couldn’t help it. Trevor’s joy was catching.
“Hey, there, kiddo. I’m your daddy.” The amazing thing was that the baby kicked harder at the sound of his voice. I was so happy for him, and when his eyes grew overly shiny, mine got all teary, too.
My OBGYN was grinning at us. “Shall we go on with the program?”
“Please,” I told her.
She resumed scanning my belly until our baby’s bottom was once again on display. This time, though, its legs were spread out into a wide V, giving us a much more definitive view. She froze the frame and took a picture, then she announced the verdict.
“Congratulations. It’s a boy.”
16
Trevor
“Congratulations. It’s a boy.”
The woman’s words echoed in the examination room, and I let them wash over me like rain. A boy. A boy. We were having a son. I was smiling so big I thought my face might crack, but I didn’t care. The baby was a boy.
A boy!
I put my hand back on Jessica’s stomach, and even though our son—our son—had quit doing somersaults like a gymnast in training so I could no longer feel like tiny thumping against my palm, I didn’t move it. This was the best moment of my life, bar none. I couldn’t imagine anything being better or more exciting than this. Nothing. I felt giddy. Gleeful. Jubilant.
