Chapter Eight Layla
Chapter Eight
Layla
Morning sickness hit me as soon as Grant’s colleague Jessica stopped by our table at lunch four days ago. And it hadn’t stopped afflicting me since.
I didn’t know if my nausea was due to my pregnancy or the fact that Grant was moving away to another state with a gorgeous, accomplished, elegant, super-skinny woman who obviously also wanted to give him babies.
I just knew that for the first time since I was twenty-one, I’d experienced this pesky feeling called jealousy.
I was extremely, tremendously, violently jealous.
She looked like something out of a toothpaste commercial. The kind of put-together I would never dream of achieving. Like Kate Middleton, but with a medical degree.
And apparently, she was the person he’d spent time with on Valentine’s Day.
They were clearly more than just friends. Or, at the very least, headed in that direction.
And you have no right to say anything about this.
Grant had stepped up, just like I knew he would. He’d offered his support, his resources, and the promise that he’d be present.
Now, I was waiting for him outside the ob-gyn’s building, bundled in my coat and rain boots.
I watched Grant jogging from the hospital building in his Canada Goose jacket across the street. He had a boyish, dimpled smile, color in his cheeks, and that sparkle in his forest green eyes, which oozed genuine, good-hearted joy.
My stomach did a weird flip.
It’s probably the oatmeal from this morning. Too much fiber.
“Hey!” Grant leaned down to kiss my cheek, and more butterflies gathered in the pit of my belly. God, what was the baby doing in there? Making sandcastles using my internal organs?
“Hi.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Ready?”
“Yeah. Thanks for letting me come.”
“You coming is what got us into this mess,” I blurted out, wishing I hadn’t. It was a distasteful joke. One I bet Jessica wouldn’t make.
Grant shot me a lopsided grin that made my heart stutter. “Hey, no regrets there.”
Yeah, right.
He was really, really handsome. With his shaggy brown hair and jade eyes and lean but muscular figure.
But I think what truly made him so attractive was his smile.
It was kind, honest, and jam packed with good intentions, with crow’s feet mapping the corner of his eyes.
He also had dimples, and slightly overlapping front teeth that knocked him down from commercial-handsome to approachable-handsome.
“You feeling okay?” He reached to rub my lower back.
“For the most part.”
“I’m excited to hear our predicted due date.” He put his hand to the small of my back as he strode toward the entrance. “I already emailed my new boss in Rochester that I’m going to need some paternity leave carved into my schedule next year.”
Our. He said our.
God, I’m not one of your strongest soldiers, because I will clearly let this man knock me up again, and in the next fifteen minutes if he continues being this dreamy.
I also couldn’t deny the shift in Grant’s behavior since the day he’d found out I was expecting. It felt like he was less dry, less guarded. Like he was showing me parts of him I never knew existed.
He opened the door for me, and I walked to the elevator bank and hit the second floor button. My stomach cramped again. It’d been like that for days.
“I hate to admit it, but I’m still super constipated.
” I felt my cheeks heat. It sucked to talk to him about my mundane, unglamorous pregnancy issues, especially when the Jessicas of the world vied for his attention, but he was a doctor and I wanted his take on it.
“I’m going on, like, four days without.”
“Are you usually regular?” His tone was businesslike, not a trace of awkwardness in his features.
Still. How was I going to come back from this conversation? He was never going to want to have sex with me again.
Which is a good thing, Layla. You changed a phase. You’re no longer fuck buddies. To keep this healthy and constructive, all you’ll ever be is coparents.
“Every morning,” I confirmed. “Before I hop into the shower. My body is like clockwork. Was, anyway.”
“Have you tried laxatives?”
“Yes. And oatmeal. And prune juice. Nothing works.”
“I’ll prescribe you something stronger if your ob-gyn budges on it.” He jerked his chin with a nod.
“I think that’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.” I put a hand to my heart as the elevator door opened. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a lie.
“I don’t know if I should be mad or not that the bar is this low.” Grant flashed me a teasing smirk. “Less work for me; then again, fuck those other dudes for not trying their hardest.”
I thought back to when Grant had asked me to marry him.
The truth was, I was 89 percent sure it wasn’t a joke.
He’d really meant it. But just as I was sure that he was serious, I was also sure it had come from a place of wanting to do the right thing.
He was the kind of guy who dedicated his life to helping others. He always did the right thing.
After I’d filled out two trees’ worth of paperwork at the reception area and peed into a cup, Grant and I were ushered into an examination room.
The room was cold and dark, and there was a flat-screen LED TV connected to an ultrasound machine.
A nurse took my vitals and weight, then finally, Dr. Horwitz walked in.
“Hello, Ms. Schmi . . . Dr. Gerwig!” she exclaimed.
She and Grant apparently knew each other from med school.
There were hugs and a what-a-small-world conversation before she remembered I was there, mostly naked, with a bare-assed, overbleached robe.
Then we dove into another session of my telling her how I felt, when was the last time we had sex, etc.
If Dr. Horwitz was surprised to learn I was pregnant with Grant’s baby, she didn’t show it.
She knew I was single from my annual Pap smears.
We discussed our mutual dissatisfaction with the New York dating pool often.
“So, are we ready to see your baby?” She clapped her hands excitedly.
“Ready since I was about eighteen.” Grant grinned.
“You knew you wanted kids even as a teenager?” I whipped my head to look at him from the examination table. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Yeah.” Pink tinted Grant’s chiseled cheekbones. “I have three siblings. I always thought I’d go the pediatric route, actually. For med school.”
I didn’t know that about him. All I knew was that back in the day, he seemed very serious and marriage oriented, which was why I’d broken things off with him.
But after we’d reconnected and started sleeping together, he didn’t give me serious vibes anymore.
I had assumed he’d changed gears as his career became more demanding.
“What made you choose oncology, then?” I frowned.
“I lost my grandpa to cancer when I did my undergrad degree,” he explained. “Colon. It was fast. Two weeks. He helped raise my siblings and me, since our parents had very demanding careers, also as doctors. It changed the fabric of who I was. My entire personality.”
“I’m so sorry,” I choked out, realizing for the first time that there was so much I didn’t know about this man, and how badly I wanted to get to know him.
I’d always wanted to get to know him better. To learn every nook and cranny in his soul. But it was easier not to when I could keep him at arm’s length. Now that we were embarking on this journey, I could no longer run away from catching feelings toward him. Could no longer hide.
I was in deep, deep trouble.
Dr. Horwitz squirted gel onto a dildo-like white machine covered by a nylon bag and pressed a hand to my flat tummy. “At this stage, we’ll likely only see the gestational sac, so this is going to have to be vaginal.”
Great. Another humbling moment in my new and evolving relationship with Grant. Even though I was a fan of having things put inside my vagina when he was around, getting that stick fully into me until she had a close-up shot of my uterus was not a great feeling.
The fizzy black screen in front of us came to life. Everyone’s eyes were glued to it.
Grant’s hand found mine, and he laced his fingers around my own. The butterflies in my stomach nearly ripped my stomach in half.
“This okay?” he mouthed to me.
I nodded quickly and averted my gaze back to the screen so he wouldn’t see my eyes glittering.
And then we saw . . . nothing.
There truly was a whole lot of nothingness on the screen. Just black fuzzy stuff with a white unclear round thing in the middle. Inside it, a small dot swam around like it was being chased by sharks.
“There it is!” Dr. Horwitz announced. “Let’s see if we can find that heartbeat, shall we?”
Grant squeezed my hand, and I returned a squeeze.
I didn’t know why, but suddenly I felt paralyzing anxiety that there wouldn’t be a heartbeat.
I knew it was still pretty early into the pregnancy, but I realized I cared deeply about this.
From someone who didn’t want children, I’d morphed into a person who couldn’t imagine losing my popcorn-size baby.
And then Dr. Horwitz did find the heartbeat, and in that small jittery dot I found reason, and purpose, and joy, and love. So much love.
So. Much. Love.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Strong and fast,” Dr. Horwitz cooed. “Just how we want it.”
I turned to look at Grant. His eyes were twinkling. I was sure, by the sting of it, that mine were too.
“We’re having a baby,” I whispered.
“And you’re doing all the hard work.” He leaned to swipe a lock of hair from my forehead. “I’m just sitting here in stupid awe with you.”
Dr. Horwitz used the ultrasound to measure the fetus, then took screenshots of it. Unfortunately, this also meant she was moving that thing around inside me with the tenderness of an MMA fighter.
“Are you giving our baby a photo shoot?” I said, eying her. “I did notice it was fine looking, even for a fetus.”
Dr. Horwitz laughed. “Yes, I’m taking pictures. I’ll print them out so you can have them.”
I perked up. “We’re going to have pictures of our peanut?”
“Plenty of them. You appear to be six and a half weeks along, give or take. So I’m going to put November seventh as your due date.”
“Did you hear that?” I turned to Grant. “We have a due d—”
But his head was tilted down, his eyes stuck on his phone screen. He was reading a text message. I couldn’t see what it said, but I could see where it was from.
Jessica.
“Hmm?” He looked up, smiling at me.
I slid my fingers out of his. My smile fell.
“The due date is November seventh,” I said evenly, reminding myself I was in no position to interfere with his love life.