Chapter 9
The Coyotes were having a really good season.
They were playing well and had a good record.
The analysts were already touting them as a team to beat in their division.
Kaynaan was busy—practice, games, endorsement obligations.
I’d never spent real time with an elite athlete before.
I didn’t understand the time commitment and the dedication it took to succeed at Kaynaan’s level.
And the fact that despite all his responsibility, despite the long days, despite everything that was on his plate, he still made time for me—that blew my mind.
He sat with me on a Monday morning in the quiet of the examination room in the doctor’s office.
It was the first time I asked him to come to an appointment with me.
He never pushed to come—he never really pushed me at all.
He just made sure that his actions, that his presence let me know he was there for me.
I was nervous, but that wasn’t anything new.
I was always nervous. Because of my history with the missed miscarriage, Dr. Butler had been willing to schedule me for an ultrasound for the last three weeks.
I needed those ultrasounds as proof of life.
Since I was self-employed and provided my own medical, I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay the invoice once it came due, but I would figure it out.
I’d needed those weekly visits as evidence that I was still pregnant.
I wouldn’t have been able to relax at all without knowing definitively that my baby was still growing on schedule.
Kaynaan didn’t agree with weekly ultrasounds.
Apparently, he’d been doing some research and found out the pulse from ultrasounds could reach really high decibel levels in the womb.
Though these levels weren’t considered harmful for the baby, Kaynaan made it his business to tell me that he wished there was another way I could get reassurance.
Anyway, since this was my twelve-week checkup, if everything went well, I would be mostly out of the woods.
Since the risk of miscarriage decreased once the first trimester ended, I would be able to exhale, .
. . at least a little. I didn’t think I would fully exhale and relax until I was holding a little bundle of joy in my arms.
As I sat there rocking lightly back and forth, in attempt to reset my nervous system, Kaynaan kissed my forehead. “You gotta calm down, Brown Eyes. This appointment is gonna be good. Baby girl is good. She’s strong and healthy.”
“Baby girl?” I repeated, looking up at him. “Since when do we know the baby’s gender? You could not see all that on the ultrasound screen.” We had just come from having a sonogram to get measurements.
“Since she came to me in a dream a few nights ago and introduced herself to me.”
I rolled my eyes long and strong at him. “Why are you playing with me?”
His expression remained earnest. “I’m not. She was two years old. It must’ve been her birthday or something because she was wearing all pink. A pink dress, pink tights, and pink patent leather shoes. Her hair had pink bows. She was laughing and blowing me kisses.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” His expression went thoughtful. “She was laughing and blowing me kisses. I kept telling her to come here, but she was teasing me. She wouldn’t come. Instead, she was blowing kisses and saying, catch.”
My heart stuttered in my chest. “What?” I repeated. Not because I didn’t hear him, but because blowing kisses and telling somebody to catch was something I grew up doing with my grandfather.
He kept talking. “She’s pretty, Wyn. Your complexion . . . looks nothing like her sperm donor. Dimples, like me.”
“Dimples?” My voice came out like a yelp. Neither Preston nor I had dimples. Of course I didn’t know Preston’s family. I had seen some of them in passing at the party, but I knew for sure that I couldn’t name anybody in my own family that had dimples. “How would that be possible?”
Before he could respond, Dr. Butler entered the room with a huge smile on her face. “Good morning, Wyndsor.”
“Good morning, Dr. Butler.” I saw her eyes go to Kaynaan, then linger for a second or two too long.
I wasn’t sure if she was clocking him as the baby’s dad, or if she was just clocking him period.
Either way, I didn’t like the way the irritation at the action bubbled up in my stomach, especially when I identified it as jealousy.
I pushed the feeling down and gave her a small smile.
“Hey, Dr. Butler. This is my friend Kaynaan.”
His eyes moved to me. “Yeah, whatever. I’m her special friend.” He held out his hand, and Dr. Butler shook it, never taking her eyes off him.
Yeah. She noticed how gorgeous he was—all tall, muscular, and looking like he stepped out of a magazine ad.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he continued.
“It’s nice to meet you, too. You look very familiar.”
He shrugged sheepishly. “I have a familiar face,” he lied. “And because I’m kinda tall, people always think I play professional basketball. I don’t. I’m trash on the basketball court.”
Dr. Butler’s eyes were glued to him, but Kaynaan was looking my way. He saw when I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and stuck out my tongue.
“No, not basketball.” She shook her head and continued to stare.
I tussled with the urge to snap my fingers under her nose to bring her attention back to where it belonged, not on my . . .
Your what? my inner voice questioned. Then she cackled loudly in my head. Your man?
Kaynaan had become too good at reading me. He must’ve sensed that I was about to act ugly with the doctor, because he redirected her kindly.
“Dr. Butler, my girl’s been on pins and needles worrying about baby girl. You think you can put her out of her misery?”
“Oh, yes.” She eased back into professional mode, finally remembering I was even there. “I have the images from the tech. The baby . . . wait.” She looked back over at Kaynaan. “You called the baby, baby girl. You’re wanting a daughter?”
“He claims that the baby comes to him in dreams and tells him about herself,” I mocked.
“See, that’s why she told me not to tell you.”
Dr. Butler laughed, and I had to laugh at that, too.
Kaynaan was ridiculous, but I had to admit that I was falling hard for him.
I wasn’t sure if it was the pregnancy hormones or what, but I was starting to long for him.
When he had away games, or he was too tired for us to see each other, there was a physical ache in my chest. I never mentioned that to anybody. I wasn’t ready to examine it.
“Well, he or she looks good. Measuring right at twelve weeks and six days. Tomorrow you’ll be thirteen weeks and officially out of your first trimester.
Don’t be surprised if you still experience some first trimester hallmarks, like nausea, food aversions, and fatigue.
You might still notice tenderness in your breasts and the frequent need to urinate as well.
“Since you have successfully made it out of the danger zone, we will move you to a regular schedule. I’ll see you once a month until you hit your twenty-eighth week. Let’s listen to the baby’s heartbeat. I’ll have the nurse up front print off some pics, and you two are out of here.”
Listening to my baby’s heartbeat always brought tears to my eyes, and this time was no different.
Kaynaan dabbed at the tears with a tissue he grabbed from the countertop and placed a kiss on my forehead.
Once my stomach had been wiped free of the gel used in hearing the heartbeat and I had the pictures of Baby Castle in hand, I prepared to leave the examination room.
“Wyndsor,” Dr. Butler called before Kaynaan and I walked out of the door.
“My receptionist asked me to mention to you that you have an outstanding balance. When you go up there to make your next appointment, please try to put something down on it. If it’s not paid in full a week before your return visit, I won’t be able to see you. ”
I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.
I was mortified. I couldn’t believe she said that in front of Kaynaan.
What happened to HIPPA? She didn’t know what my relationship was with him.
She presumed he was the baby’s father. Even if he was, maybe I didn’t want him to know I had a balance.
Maybe he’d given me the money to pay the bill and I tricked it off.
I forced myself to concentrate on the fact that she blurted it out in front of Kaynaan so I wouldn’t have to concentrate on the fact that I didn’t have the money to cover it.
I could maybe put one hundred dollars toward it, but not much else.
And I was keenly aware that one hundred dollars wouldn’t make much of a dent.
A moment earlier, I’d been happily gazing at pictures of my unborn child; now I walked to the reception desk like I was walking toward the firing squad.
“Hey,” the receptionist said with a bright smile. “Do you need to schedule your return appointment?”
Before I could even nod, Kaynaan gently moved me to the side so that he was right in front of the receptionist. “Listen, about the balance on the account . . .” He handed over a card. “Pay it off.”
Now, I was the type of woman who always hated it when I heard or read about a situation where a broke woman refused to take help from a man. But as I watched her reach for the card he was extending, I couldn’t help but speak up. “No. No.”
My inner voice was asking me, what the hell? I couldn’t answer, because I didn’t have a valid response. I just knew it made my stomach hurt to think of Kaynaan paying a bill for a baby that had nothing to do with him.