Rowan
“No, we are all together,” I said as irritation crept in at the woman attempting to block my path.
“Yes, we’re all potential fathers,” Alec added smoothly.
Nick stood beside Ella, flipping us off since he was already inside the room. Ella nudged him with her elbow.
“It’s true,” she said. “I couldn’t choose which one had the best hair.”
My hand flew instinctively to my hairline—only to realise Ella was sniggering.
The nurse swallowed and stepped aside as we filed into the room.
“This is highly irregular,” she muttered while Alec sauntered past her.
Ella offered her a polite smile when the woman continued to stare.
“I suppose you could have done worse,” the nurse said cautiously.
“I’m still on the fence,” Ella replied dryly.
The nurse might have been temperamental, but she was thorough.
She checked Ella’s blood pressure twice, asked the same questions in two slightly different ways, and watched her face carefully when she answered. She was assessing us, but she remained professional despite the crowded room.
When it came time for the scan, I noticed Ella’s hand tremble against the paper-lined bed. She quickly covered it with her other hand and drew in a slow, measured breath.
I smoothed my palm down her leg, rubbing gently back and forth as the nurse explained the purpose of the scan in clinical tones.
“This is to confirm the pregnancy is intrauterine and progressing as expected,” she said, adjusting the machine.
“Why wouldn’t the baby be in the right place?” Nick whispered, frowning.
“Probably yours if it isn’t,” Alec muttered under his breath.
The nurse didn’t look at them, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
“I’ll also calculate an estimated delivery date based on the baby’s measurements,” she continued before turning her attention fully to the monitor.
“Are you okay?” I asked Ella quietly when she inhaled again, deeper this time.
It had been almost two weeks since she learned she hadn’t been receiving the pill. Enough time to process. To settle.
Or so I’d thought.
“I’m not feeling great,” she admitted. “My throat’s sore. It’s probably just a cold.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Alec asked immediately, frowning.
Nick pressed a broad palm to her forehead as if testing for fever. Ella swatted him away with an annoyed glare.
“Soup and bed,” Alec decided.
“I’ll stay with her,” I added smoothly, unable to suppress a small smile when both of them scowled at me.
When I glanced up, the nurse was watching us with open curiosity.
“I can see my patient will be very well cared for,” she said carefully.
Ella rolled her eyes. “More like I’ll be annoyed for the next few months.”
The nurse’s gaze lifted again, slow and evaluating, lingering on Nick’s tattooed hands before sweeping back to Alec, then to me. She didn’t say anything—but she was drawing conclusions.
“She is growing a baby,” she said finally, softer now. “That takes a lot out of a woman.”
My back stiffened. I sat straighter.
“We’ve been looking after her very carefully,” I replied. Even to my own ears, it sounded defensive.
“Hm.” She adjusted the gel bottle. “Let’s have a look at the baby.”
The silence felt deafening as she began to glide the wand over Ella’s belly.
The faint hum of the machine filled the room, accompanied by the soft squelch of gel and the rhythmic tapping of keys. No one spoke.
As we waited for our baby to appear on the screen, it struck me all at once—we were about to become parents.
Ella’s eyes were fixed on the monitor. Her nails dug into Alec’s hand, but she didn’t look away. Her eyes were bright.
Too bright.
Tears pooled along her lower lashes, threatening to spill.
A memory of my mother surfaced, sharp and unwelcome. I grimaced.
Thank God Ella wasn’t cold like her.
Even with childminders and an endless rotation of nannies, I had been an inconvenience. A disruption. Something to be managed rather than loved.
I glanced back at Ella, watching the way her hand instinctively drifted toward her stomach again.
Whatever this child would be to us, it would not grow up unwanted.
When the baby appeared on the screen, we all leaned forward instinctively.
Alec’s smile curved into something unmistakably self-satisfied. Nick’s jaw dropped, unguarded for once. Ella gasped.
“Oh,” she breathed, her voice catching. “That’s my baby.”
“Our baby,” I corrected quietly, swallowing against the sudden tightness in my throat.
This hit harder than I’d expected.
A new life.
A life we had created with Ella.
There it was—flickering and undeniable.
Proof on the screen.
?
?
?
Ella grew quiet in the days that followed.
Not empty—just contained. I knew there was plenty she wanted to say, but her throat was red and swollen, her voice reduced to something low and rough that scraped when she tried to use it.
When she did speak, it was usually frustration breaking through—aimed at the three of us hovering, correcting, offering, adjusting.
I wouldn’t deny it: that husky edge to her voice did things to me. Still did. But it wasn’t the time.
It never developed into a full-blown flu, not quite, but she was tired and miserable enough that we kept our hands—and our dicks—to ourselves. That restraint mattered. It wasn’t performative. It was instinctive. Care before appetite. Protection before want.
A part of me wanted to prove the nurse wrong.
We could get her pregnant.
And we could look after her.
Fuck her thinly veiled judgement. Fuck the way she’d looked at us like we were a complication instead of a unit.
Nick and Alec both had their own ways of needling Ella—pressing buttons, teasing reactions—but we weren’t animals. Not where it counted. Not when she was like this. There was a line, and none of us crossed it.
The days slipped by quietly. The accusatory looks she’d thrown at us at first—measuring, suspicious—softened into something else. Appraisal, maybe. Recognition. She was watching us the way people do when they’re trying to decide if something is real.
This wasn’t manipulation. And she was beginning to understand that.
We didn’t flinch at the used tissues piling up on the bedside table.
We took turns through feverish nights, passing water, checking her temperature, changing the sheets when she sweated through them.
Sometimes we failed to dodge a sneeze, caught it full in the chest or the side of the face, and just wiped it off without comment.
No theatrics. No martyrdom.
Just presence.
And slowly—so slowly—it stopped feeling like we were proving something. It just became what we did.