Chapter 19 #2
“What about you?” he asks after a few beats of silence between us. “Did you ever think about having kids?”
I glance down at my not-so-flat stomach, marveling at the change that’s already occurred before answering.
“Not really.” I push out a heavy breath. “I mean, I went through periods of expecting it to happen, then not wanting any kids, and then kind of not thinking about it.
“None of my previous exes interested me enough that I envisioned having children with them.” It’s like once I start talking my mouth moves before my brain has time to stop it and shut it up.
Why would I start a discussion about my ex-boyfriends with Travis?
He chuckles. “Me either, to be honest.” Then he looks over at me, pulling my hand. “Is that why you don’t want to know the gender?”
“What do you mean?”
A seriousness invades his eyes. “Is not finding out the gender a way to keep this less real for you?”
The question isn’t laced in judgement. He’s curious, wanting to know what’s going on in my mind.
I squirm a little in the way I often do when I feel someone trying to prod at the inner workings of my mind. I conclude it must be the extra hormones coursing through my body that has me opening up, where I typically would’ve pivoted the conversation at such a direction question.
“I don’t want to put any preconceived notions on this baby.”
His eyebrows wrinkle.
“As soon as you tell people you’re having a girl, they’ll want to start buying pink this and pink that. Not to mention all of a sudden it’ll become ‘aww, mama, you get to have a mini me.’”
I shake my head.
“If she is a girl, what if she’s nothing like me? What if she hates pink?”
“Or what if it’s a boy and he hates blue?” Travis adds.
“See?” I thrust my hand out. “You get it. Besides, who said blue and pink have to be gender exclusive anyway?”
“Like if we have a son and his favorite color is pink?”
I cock my head to the side. “Would you have a problem with that?”
He jerks his head back, surprised by the question. “A problem? I mean, if he tries to match pink with, say, bright orange, we’ll have to have a serious discussion about taste.”
I snicker.
“Then I’ll have to send him to my cousin Andreas’ wife who’s a costume designer so she can get his fashion sense together. No way in hell I can have a kid that clashes like that.”
“Whew.” I blow out a breath and wipe my forehead. “Thank goodness I’m having a baby with a guy who worries about the important things.”
“See?” He points at me. “To think, you could’ve missed that elevator in Vegas and then where would you be?”
Stuck in New York instead of here with you.
The thought passes through my mind so quickly that I almost miss it. What I don’t miss is the way my heart strains at the idea.
“Let me guess,” Travis continues, “your favorite color is blue?” He punctuates the question with a lifted eyebrow.
“Ha! No,” I reply. “I just find it absurd that with so many colors in the world we automatically designate blue for boys and pink for girls. I mean, what about teal?”
“That’s a good color,” he affirms.
“Right?”
“Then teal is your favorite color?”
“It’s so beautiful,” I say in reverie.
Travis’ sideways grin as he squeezes my hand has a flipping in my belly happening that has nothing to do with the pregnancy.
“What’s your favorite color?” I ask.
He peers over his shoulder before answering. “We’re getting left behind.” He pulls me along the corridor to catch up with the rest of our group.
“Excuse me!” someone yells out in French and then in accented English.
The sharpness in their voice speaks of the emergency and all I see out of the corner of my eye is a flurry of white.
That’s before something bands around my waist, pulling me out of the way.
When I blink my eyes open, it’s to Travis with his front body pressed against mine, my back against the door of an empty maternity room. Travis sticks his head out into the hallway, watching as a couple more healthcare workers race down the corridor.
“Looks serious," he mumbles. “Hope everyone’s okay.”
The softness in his voice is almost more than my heart can bear. How is this man equal parts sexy and soft and caring? Perhaps it's the latter that makes the former possible.
“Are you okay?” He looks at me, his arm still wrapped around my waist. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asks while his eyes do a scan of my face.
“No.” My voice is a whisper. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”
He looks confused for a second before his lips spread into a grin.
“Fire engine red,” he says.
“That’s oddly specific,” I point out.
“And teal isn’t?”
“Why fire engine red?”
“One of the first toy cars my parents ever bought me was fire engine red. It was an Amato Racing replica.
“Fifteen years later, I signed my first contract with Amato in my first year on the F2 circuit and less than a year later I was promoted to the F1 team.”
I nod, knowing that’s the name of the team Travis races for.
“They’re one of the original F1 teams,” I say.
His smile widens. “They’re the original team,” he corrects.
It’s not the firm passion in his voice that has the hairs on the back of my neck standing, or the way his arm holds my waist while the other braces against the door to the side of my head, holding me up with his chest pressing against mine that nearly undoes me.
The fire in his eyes makes me want to know more about him, to open up and tell him more about me.
“I’m glad you achieved your dream,” I whisper.
Travis shakes head, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “It hasn’t come true yet.”
The championship.
That’s right. He still hasn’t quite achieved the ultimate crowning of F1 royalty.
But the way his eyes linger on my mouth, a small voice at the back of my mind wonders if that’s the dream he’s referring to.
Someone clearing their throat draws our attention.
It’s the hospital administrator again. The rest of the members of our group stand behind her, a couple of them smirking.
I turn to Travis once more, recognizing our awkward position. I don’t want to imagine how this looks to the staff and the rest of the group.
“I have a recommendation for your hospital,” Travis tells the guide. “Wider hallways. We were almost run over by a stampede. Good thing I have some of the quickest reflexes in the world.”
“Is that true?” she asks, grinning.
“According to my team principal, but he likes to butter me up. It helps win the races.”
She playfully nods and gestures toward the hall to continue the rest of our tour.
Travis finally releases my waist, but moves a hand to the small of my back.
We trail behind everyone, arm in arm, and it takes everything inside of me not to lean my head against his shoulder every time we stop to listen to our guide explain some new feature or element of what the hospital has to offer.
For this little while it feels okay to let myself imagine we’re a real couple.
“They even have private rooms,” I tell Travis, flipping to one of the pages in the brochure.
“This hospital is rated as one of the best in the world,” I whisper in his ear.
“It’s terrific,” he tells me, slowly guiding me to the side as a woman in a wheelchair and her attendant pass us.
“When I broke my arm a while back, I had to come here for surgery and rehab. State-of-the-art.”
I look over at him with wide eyes. “How did you break your arm?”
His face scrunches up in anger. “It happened while I was racing F2. I got hit pretty hard in a race and spun out. It wasn’t” He stops talking after realizing I’ve stopped walking.
“You broke your arm in a race?” I hate the way the words tremble as they fall from my mouth.
He shrugs. “It was an illegal move. The driver was punished. Sometimes it comes with the territory.”
My hand goes to my shoulder to stem the prickling sensation that starts.
The way he speaks so nonchalantly about it, as if it’s not that big of a deal, but the way his voice hardened as he spoke of the incident says there’s more to the story.
Was he injured more severely than he’s letting on?
Even if he’s not, a broken arm is pretty serious. I know what it’s like to have your bones snapped and crushed by the impact of metal on metal. The months of pain in rehab only compound the initial agony of the accident.
A broken bone can’t be walked off, and the impact can last forever. Just when I start to forget how dangerous Travis’ job is, something inevitably rears its head to let me know I’m living in a fantasyland.
A fantasy where people who drive over two hundred miles an hour don’t regularly get hurt or lose their lives.
Another reminder of why it could never work between us.
While my mind tries to spin out, Travis takes my hand, pulling it from my shoulder and holding it in his. I yank it away, ignoring the look he gives me, and instead focus on our tour guide.
“Now, our staff has provided refreshments for you all to enjoy,” she says, bringing us into an office meeting room. A spread of pastries, fresh fruit, sparkling water, and other snacks sits on the table.
“Please enjoy and let me know if you have any questions.”
Travis is the first to speak up. “About the private rooms …”
He goes on, but my thoughts drown the question out.
All I can think about is his broken arm.