3. Omar
Chapter three
Omar
On my second day reporting to the NICU, Olivia assigned me two specific infants. Each was carried to term and delivered without issues. Neither was sick, malnourished, or needed special care in any way. I reviewed their paperwork twice to make sure I hadn’t missed some hidden malady Olivia might’ve snuck in to trip me up, but everything looked normal.
“Steel Bun give you the twins?” Carlie brushed past me on her way to a supply locker.
I snorted. “Steel Bun?”
She leaned toward me like she was about to share a national security secret and whispered, “That’s what we call her when she’s not around. I wouldn’t dare say it loud enough for her to hear. She might stab me with a syringe.”
“Right,” I said, shaking my head. Then something sank in. “They’re twins?”
Carlie stared a moment, then nodded. “I know, they all look alike, but those two actually are alike. Didn’t see it on their chart?”
I grabbed the clipboard and flipped through the pages. “It’s not here. I read these twice.”
A slender finger reached over the paper and pointed. “Same last names, same parents. They’re subtle clues, but pretty obvious when you see them.”
My lips made an “O.”
Carlie grinned. “Don’t think you got off lucky. Most of the Level Ones are easy, but those two are terrors. You’ll want the biggest burp blanket we’ve got before you feed them, maybe one of those X-ray gowns with the lead lining.”
“Great.” I dropped the clipboard onto a table and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can’t tell if Olivia likes me or hates my guts.”
Carlie patted my shoulder on her way by. Her other arm held a handful of tiny blankets. “She hates everyone . . . until she likes you. Hang in there. You’re our only man, and your accent is sexy, like butter. With all the estrogen floating around this department, she’s bound to hump your leg before this is all over.”
My face must’ve contorted in horror because Carlie’s laugh echoed off the sterile walls of the nursery long after she vanished.
A tiny squawk from one of the twins banished all laughter.
When the second raised her voice, their insistence clawed beneath my skin. How could something so tiny command such immediate attention?
“All right, you two. It’s time to eat. Just give me a minute.”
Rather than calming at the sound of my voice, they cried louder. I tossed a bottle in the fancy warming device, pressed start, then turned and picked up Demon Number One.
“Come on,” I said, bobbing up and down with the infant. “It will be warm in two minutes. You can hold out that long, can’t you?”
Right on cue, Demon One spewed all over my brand-new scrubs.
“Aw, really? You haven’t even eaten.” I set the baby back in her crib and searched for a towel. By the time I rinsed off and dried down, the bottle warmer was beeping.
Demon One took her bottle like a champ. She even managed a monster burp without a second round of scrub destruction.
Demon Two was stubborn.
He refused the bottle, slapping at it with his meaty little hand and squirming so hard I almost dropped him. I had to dribble some of the milk onto my finger and feed it to him to get his interest. After that, he made me hold the bottle to my chest so the nipple stuck out where, well, a nipple should be. Only then did His Highness deign to dine.
He was not as considerate as his sister, vomiting baby juice all over the side of my scrubs his sis had left clean.
At least I was symmetrical.
The one thing Demon Two was better at than his sister was falling asleep. The moment he was changed and set in his crib, the little beast gripped my finger and closed his eyes. Even with bits of milk gunk all over me, I couldn’t help but feel a tingle and a smile at his firm grip.
“You’re going to be a strong one, aren’t you? A footballer? American, of course.” I glanced at his itty-bitty toes. “Maybe a real footballer, like the gods intended?”
Motion at the giant glass wall between the nursery and hallway brought my head up.
One lone figure stood there.
Matty, the ER cutie with the platinum hair, pressed his palm to the glass and smiled his million-dollar grin.
I’d been a bit mesmerized by Matty when he’d spoken to our new-hire group, but seeing him out in the wild, staring back at me, I realized just how deliciously cute the guy was. His hair was even more platinum than I remembered—and a lot more curly, to the point of intentionally disheveled—making him look like some forgotten member of House Targaryen. It wasn’t a look I’d seen more than a few times, TV shows excluded. It was captivating.
Oddly, his eyebrows were brown without a hint of white or whatever that other color was. I squinted, studying his roots, but couldn’t find any clue that he dyed or peroxided. As badly as I wanted to ask, I would never dare. Aside from the glass wall separating us, there was a special circle of gay hell for questions like that.
His skin was about as creamy white as they came, a stark contrast to the rich darkness granted to me by the Egyptian gods. The nurse in me wanted to check his Vitamin D levels. He looked pretty thin, but in a fit way. Maybe he liked to run or jog?
And then there were his eyes.
I sucked on my bottom lip, staring into those pools of gray, so clear and bright they rivaled the lightness of his hair.
Suddenly very self-conscious of my vomit-covered scrubs, I tried to turn, but some force of nature or gravity or magnetic propulsion—if that was even a thing—fixed me in place. In this case, it was a group of tiny digits wrapped around my finger.
I blinked but couldn’t look away.
“Hungry?” he said—or mouthed, as I couldn’t hear him through the glass.
I blinked a few more times, looked down at my shirt, then at the baby, then at my watch.
It was lunchtime.
I was two minutes from my break, and I was hungry.
I glanced back up to find Matty’s smile even wider than before. “Two minutes.” I held up two fingers, then motioned at my disastrous shirt.
Matty chuckled. At least, I think he did. I could feel him laughing, and oddly, it made me warm inside.
What the hell?
“Two minutes,” he mouthed, holding up two fingers just like I had. He then pointed to the end of the hallway where a few chairs allowed parents to relax. “Meet me down there?”
Without thinking, I reached up and pressed my palm to my chest. The sickening squish reminded me I needed to wash or change or burn my shirt. When I pulled my hand away, and my face scrunched at the goo covering my skin, Matty burst into laughter that somehow penetrated the glass.
“Let me get a fresh shirt,” I said, pulling at my scrubs like an idiot.
He nodded, wiggled his fingertips again, then vanished down the hallway.