Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Foster
I’m never going to get used to being in this doctor’s office.
As Callie checks in, I look around the waiting room, seeing the spots by the plant where we sat last month are taken. So I search the room for anywhere else that might be more protected from all the other waiting patients.
Nothing.
The receptionist tells Callie the amount of the co-pay, and I hand her my credit card. As expected, Callie huffs. I’m not sure why she thinks I’m not going to pay. Would she prefer me to be like, That’s a you problem?
I leave the area to go claim a seat and let Callie finish up with the receptionist.
Last night’s one-for-one game in the kitchen left me feeling vulnerable.
I lay in bed most of the night rethinking whether I should’ve told her anything.
Wondering if I should keep the past where it belongs, in the past, as I always have.
But I was the one who put this whole living together thing into action.
And maybe she needs to know my demons so she can protect our kid from having any.
“They said the doctor is in labor.” She cringes and takes a seat beside me.
“The doctor was pregnant?” I frown.
Callie laughs. “No, she’s delivering someone’s baby, so she’s running late.”
The guy a few seats down on my right nods at me. Recognition. Fuck. I didn’t even wear my baseball cap because I swear people are less likely to recognize me without it, since they usually see me wearing a baseball cap. But it’s left me with nothing I can tip down to conceal my face a bit.
We’re as far away from other people as we can be, but we’re out in the open, so I pick up a magazine and hold it in front of me.
This extra time in the waiting room is just more time for someone to put a face to my name and snap a picture.
Callie glances over with an expression that says, What the fuck are you doing? But then she goes back to putting her receipt in her purse. She pulls out her phone and faces away from me, leaning one arm on the opposite armrest.
“Hey,” I whisper.
She peeks at me from the corner of her eye, then leans over.
Fuck, now her scent is in my orbit again, and I have to control the urge to drag her onto my lap and kiss her.
“We need to tell Hayes.” I know we already agreed to after this appointment, but for some reason, the fear that he’ll find out from someone other than us washes over me.
She pats my arm. “We said after this appointment. We’ll be at the end of the first trimester. I was thinking we could tell him after tomorrow’s game.”
I’m in the rotation tomorrow, and I was already thinking that it wouldn’t be a good idea to go over to Hayes’s house tonight and tell him.
Jagger said some bigwigs from the sports drink company who are looking at me for an endorsement will be there tomorrow, and I really need to have everything on my side.
Meaning as selfish as it is, I need my best friend Hayes behind the plate, not hates-my-guts Hayes.
I nod in agreement.
She glances at the magazine and chuckles.
I give her a questioning look, wondering what’s so funny.
She points at the magazine article and raises her eyebrows. “Trying to figure out what category you’re in?”
I read the headline of the article the magazine is open to.
The Pleasure Gap Isn’t in Your Head
I continue reading because I don’t want to show my face anyway.
In over 566 straight-couple sexual encounters polled, men orgasmed in about 90%, while women only orgasmed in about 54% of encounters. That’s basically a coin flip.
Heads or tails if you have an orgasm? That can’t be right. And men are only at ninety percent? I’ve had an orgasm every single time I’ve had sex.
“Hey, Callie,” I whisper and nudge her with my elbow.
Her head is buried in her phone, and she gives me a quick look, but I’m clearly annoying her from the way her lips thin. I nod for her to come closer.
“You’re pretty needy this visit.” But she gets closer, so I move the magazine so it’s in front of both of us.
“Read this.”
She scans the article and shrugs. “And?”
“That can’t be right. Just over fifty percent? That has to be wrong.”
Her eyebrows crinkle and a smile teases her lips. “Sounds right to me.”
I scowl at her. “No fucking way.”
Her face grows serious, and she nods. “Depends how much time we have, how much foreplay there is, and honestly whether I feel like putting the effort in to get there. Whether toys are involved. There are lots of factors for us women. Do I have a lot going on in my life at that moment, and I’m all up in my head…
” She studies me then draws back, realization dawning.
“Oh. Your ego a little bruised? You thought you rocked every woman’s world, did you? ”
I scoff. “Well, everyone I’ve been with has come.” I can’t help the way I puff my chest out a little.
She arches an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
I rack my brain. Yeah, I’m sure. They scream, they tense, their pussy clenches around my dick before all that pressure releases. “Yeah.”
A look crosses her face. One that suggests I’m very wrong.
“You did, right?”
She bites her lip as if she’s trying to remember.
How can she not remember? I mean, it’s a little fuzzy because we’d been drinking, but the ending I remember pretty damn well.
“Yeah, sure.” She shrugs.
“Not very convincing.”
Her shoulders deflate, and she scans the room. “I don’t think this is the place to talk about it.”
The magazine drops from my hands and falls to my lap, and I turn to her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Her gaze shifts to look around the room again, and I scramble to pick up the magazine, opening it and placing it in front of us.
“This isn’t hiding anything. If anything, we’re being more obvious.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I bite out. “Did you really not finish?”
“Callie?” the nurse calls.
“Here!” She springs out of the seat, and I follow her, bringing the magazine with me.
The fucking guy nods at me again, and I nod back, hoping to appease him so he doesn’t try to get a picture and put something on the internet about me being in an OBGYN office.
I’m going to have Callie alone for a few minutes before the doctor comes in. I need answers.