16. Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
Lauren
When I arrived at my OB/GYN’s office, Aiden was already seated in the waiting room in a chair facing the door. He looked up from his phone and nodded at me before casting his eyes down again. OK, so he really wasn’t going to talk to me.
I hadn’t heard a peep from him in six weeks. Not a single text to check how I was doing. He hadn’t even come into Karma to buy coffee. I’d hoped he’d come to the same conclusion I had and accepted that the baby was better off with other parents. Probably not, since he was here now.
I signed in at the front desk and debated whether I should sit with Aiden or across the room from him. It would seem odd when the nurse called us back if we weren’t sitting together. I should have called ahead and explained our situation. Rather than point it out in front of everyone else in the waiting room, I took a seat in the empty chair beside him.
His entire body tensed, but he kept his eyes on his phone. Half the waiting room snuck glances at him with obvious appreciation. I understood the lust-filled stares. Aiden was looking far too sexy for my own good. He even smelled sexier than usual. Now that I only threw up once or twice a day, a few new pregnancy symptoms had emerged. I’d gone up a cup size and my libido spiked to match. Mother Nature had a sick sense of humor. I was already pregnant. What need did I have for sex, biologically speaking?
Too bad my body thought otherwise. I needed to set up something with one of my friends with benefits. Someone whose orgasm skills were reliable and willingness to keep things casual established. I just had to get through the ultrasound with Mr. Pheromones first.
“Ms. Arnauld,” a nurse called from the doorway.
Aiden and I both stood. He kept a solid six feet between us as he followed me into the back. “Dad can have a seat there,” the nurse said, pointing to a chair on one side of the exam table. “Let me grab your weight before you lie down, Mom.”
No one had called me Mom before. The word felt like a punch.
“I’m Aiden,” I heard him say. “And this is Lauren.”
I couldn’t see him, but the nurse’s reaction told me he’d somehow signaled for her to stop addressing me as Mom. “Ah, yes, Lauren,” she said, scanning through my file on the laptop she’d carried into the room. “Hop up on the scale.”
The nurse fussed with the scale and smiled at me. “You’ve maintained your weight since your last visit. That’s great. I didn’t see any hospitalization or ER visits in your chart. Have you needed intravenous fluids again?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been trying to take it easy, and that’s really helped with the nausea. I’m only sick a couple times a day now.”
The nurse nodded and typed into my chart. “Hopefully it will lessen even more in your second trimester. The ultrasound tech will be here soon. Go ahead and lie down on the exam table.”
I stretched out on the crinkly paper and was hit with the smell of Aiden’s cologne again. Damn, he smelled good. Like springtime and sawdust and toe-curling sex. OK, he didn’t smell like sex, but his scent always reminded me of the night we shared. I wanted to bury my face in his neck and sniff. Instead, I turned my head away and watched the nurse gently close the door after she stepped into the hallway.
Aiden settled back into his vow of silence. I heard him shift on the plastic seat, then clear his throat. That ultrasound tech better hurry up. The tension in the room was already making my head hurt. Another great side effect of pregnancy.
We waited in complete silence for a good five minutes while I stared at the door. I couldn’t even hear him breathing. When the ultrasound tech finally arrived, Aiden and I both let out a sigh of relief.
“Let’s get started,” the tech said without so much as a greeting. I wondered if the nurse had given her a heads-up that ours would be an awkward appointment. “If you could just pull up your shirt and move your skirt down a little. I’m going to put some gel on your abdomen.”
I’d thought ahead enough to wear a simple black tank top and a loose maroon skirt with an elastic band that I could fold down. I pushed my shirt up to my bra and flipped the elastic band on my skirt. The tech squirted a blob of warm goo on my skin. “We warm the gel, but the ultrasound wand is cold. Sorry about that,” she said, using the wand to rub the gel across my stomach. “There you are,” she said, pointing to the screen beside her.
Aiden sucked in a breath.
I’d told myself I wouldn’t look. I’d stare at the ceiling or close my eyes, but that single breath broke me. I glanced at the screen and my heart skipped a beat at the white and gray image set against a perfect black oval. A tiny head. A curved little body. Buds where the arms and legs would lengthen and grow.
The tech hit a couple of buttons on either side of the image. “Gestational age puts your due date at December 8 th . Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”
Aiden leaned closer to the screen, the awe on his face obvious.
The tech smiled at him, waiting for an answer.
“Yes,” I said before I could change my mind.
He tore his attention from the screen and watched me as the tech hit a button and a staccato whoosh filled the room. I closed my eyes and listened.
“Can I have a picture?” Aiden asked in a broken voice.
My eyes snapped open in time to see him wipe at his face.
“Of course,” the tech said, hitting another button. An image of the screen shot out of the machine on flimsy paper. “I’ll get a few from different angles.”
“Is it healthy? Big enough?” I asked.
The tech smiled. “The doctor will go over everything and call you if there’s an issue, but between us, the heart rate is strong and the fetus is measuring the size of a lime, which is right where it should be. I can’t tell the gender yet, but if you want to know, we should be able to tell you at the twenty-week scan.”
My eyes filled with unexpected tears. “I was so worried. I haven’t been able to eat much with the HG.”
She nodded. “That’s understandable.” She moved the wand away from the little peanut and stared intently at the screen.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“Just double checking there aren’t multiples. HG is common with those.”
“Oh,” I said, my stomach doing a dangerous flip. I glanced at Aiden, but he was focused on the screen. I spotted a nearby trashcan just in case and tried to breathe.
“Just the one,” the tech said, moving back to the baby.
Something strange crossed Aiden’s face. Something an awful lot like disappointment.
The tech snapped several more images before handing the ribbon of printouts to Aiden. She hit a button, and the same images reprinted on another length of flimsy paper. She tore it off and laid it on the top of the machine. “In case you each want a copy.”
Clearly this tech had seen some shit.
“Thank you,” Aiden said with genuine warmth. He stared at the strip of paper in his hands with a goofy smile on his face. I knew in that moment he wanted this baby, not to piss me off or for some weird ego trip, but because he already loved it.
I didn’t know my dad, but I knew my mom. In all my time living with her, I never saw the powerful look of love on her face that Aiden gave that piece of paper. For the first time, the thought of him wearing an infant around town didn’t feel absurd. “You really want this baby?”
He looked up from the pictures and nodded.
“You can talk, Aiden,” I said as I rubbed the gel from my stomach with the paper towel the tech had handed me before she left. “You honestly think you can raise a child on your own?”
“I wouldn’t be alone,” he said.
“I told you. I don’t want to be a mother.”
“I just meant that I have a huge family. They’ll love this baby and help me however I need.”
I hadn’t even had a decent mom. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have aunts and uncles and cousins in my life. Living with my grandfather had given me stability, but his affection was measured. I always felt like he gave me a home because it was the right thing to do, not because he wanted me. The only extended conversations we ever had were about books.
But Aiden wanted this child. Truly wanted it. He’d raise it in Peace Falls with his family, and I’d have to see them walking hand-in-hand to the ice cream parlor or playing in the park. Part of me was relieved I’d at least get to watch them from afar, but the selfish side, the side that had helped me survive my childhood no matter the cost, didn’t want to know that pain. To be always on the outside looking in. It was easier to think of the baby in some other place with some other family.
“I better get back to Karma,” I said, rolling my shirt down and swinging my legs off the exam table.
“I’ll walk out with you,” he said, opening the door for me. We walked through the waiting room together, and I couldn’t help but notice when he shortened the distance between us to about three feet.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” I said, heading toward Karma.
“Wait.”
“Yes, you can come to the twenty-week scan.”
“Great, but that isn’t what I wanted to ask you.”
“What, Aiden?” I said, turning around to glare at him. “Want to know if I’m drinking enough water? Or maybe you want to know if I’m still considering adoption after what we just saw in there?”
His eyes softened. “I want to know how you’re doing. Maybe not down to how much water you’ve had, but I’d like to know you have everything you need.”
“Right now, I need you to leave me alone, so I can get ready for my date.”
“Date?” he asked, stepping so close I could smell his cologne again.
“More like a booty call,” I said. Best way to lie: Throw in a little truth. If I had a date planned, it would have been more like a booty call. “But we’ll probably order dinner in at some point.”
“No,” he said in the same tone he’d used when I told him I planned to put the baby up for adoption: commanding, resolute, and strangely hot.
“Excuse me? What makes you think you have any control over what I do with my body?”
He closed his eyes and blew out a breath. When he opened them again, all the anger had morphed into something more dangerous. “When I said everything you need, I meant it. You got an itch you need scratched, Princess? I can do that.”
My stomach swooped. Aiden’s ability to give orgasms was unparalleled, but our situation was complicated enough without adding sex.
“Go away,” I said, shoving his hard chest. He grabbed my fingers and lifted them to his lush mouth, placing a gentle kiss on each sensitive tip. “If all you need is to get off, you know I can deliver.”
“You don’t want to sleep with me,” I said, hating how breathless I sounded. “You just don’t want me sleeping with anyone else while I’m carrying your baby.”
“I never want you sleeping with anyone else,” he said, eyes blazing.
My stomach dipped, but I straightened my spine and stared into his intoxicating eyes. “Remind me again why I’d care what you think?”
He snaked his arm around my back, pulled me close, and slammed his lips to mine.