At least, they had been.
But right now, sitting in Dr. Cherry’s office with its tabletop Christmas tree, watching as the good doctor herself approached his wife with something that looked like an intercom from Star Trek, fear clung to him like the peanut butter he’d had for breakfast had stuck to the knife.
The squeeze of Lexi’s hand in his brought him back to the present and he turned to face her. Her smile was glorious. “Ready?” she asked.
“Not even fucking close,” he muttered.
The doctor had already squirted something that looked a lot like lube all over his wife’s stomach. “Right, let’s see what we have here,” Dr. Cherry said, placing the gadget in her hand on Lexi’s stomach. Slowly, she moved it around, angling it this way and that.
And then…
Woosh.
Woosh.
Woosh.
Woosh.
The sound was fast, but it still matched his heart rate as he became breathless. Blood started to leave his brain, leave his legs, leaving him floating somewhere close to elation and about to pass out from fear, from the enormity of it.
His eyes met Lexi’s again. He couldn’t form words. If he said anything, everything might fall out of his mouth. Words, feelings, fears. Lexi reached for his cheeks and brushed away a tear he hadn’t even realized had spilled over his lashes.
“Angel,” he said gruffly.
“That’s our baby,” Lexi said with laughter that spluttered on the verge of tears.
He swiveled in his chair and gently laid his forehead to her chest, wrapping one arm over her. He bit his tongue… hard. Dug the nails he played bass with into the palm of his hand. Anything to stop the overwhelming flood of emotions that were about to overtake him.
“I’ve got no idea how to be a dad,” he muttered.
Lexi stroked his hair. “Your relationship with Petal would suggest very strongly otherwise,” Lexi said. “Plus, we’ll learn together.”
A cough from the good doctor interrupted their moment. “Everything looks perfect for twelve weeks. If you look at the screen, you can see your little one.”
They both looked at the monitor. “You can see the baby’s head there, and that’s a foot. It’s even got its hand in the air, waving to you,” Dr. Cherry said, as she pointed out various parts with a blue pen.
Holy shit.
“We made that,” he said to Lexi. “Our…baby.”
He’d not allowed himself to believe it when Lexi had taken a test at seven weeks. He’d asked her to take another test, and another, and another. And she’d humored him, saying she’d need to drink a lot more water first. Thanks to her athletic frame and ballet career, her stomach was as flat as it ever had been, no visible proof that such a wondrous creation was growing inside her. He’d been scared to touch her. Scared to make love to her, no matter how much she’d reassured him that it wouldn’t do the baby any harm. Given biology had never been his strong suit at school, he’d had to look up on the fucking internet where exactly the thing was growing because he didn’t want his dick anywhere near it.
And he’d not been able to share a single fear or worry with anyone he knew because Lexi had told him that miscarriage before twelve weeks was fairly common and she hadn’t wanted to deal with that publicly. So, they’d kept it a secret, a painfully glorious one that had scalded his heart.
But now, there was moving, breathing, wiggling proof of its existence. Proof that had a head…and hands that waved. And it was alive.
Woosh.
Woosh.
Woosh.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
Dr. Cherry looked confused and then down at her file. “It’s too early to tell the gender yet, but it says here you don’t want to know. Is that correct?”
Jordan shook his head. “I didn’t mean the baby. I meant my wife.” He squeezed Lexi’s hand tightly.
Dr. Cherry grinned. “Lexi is completely fine.” She turned to Lexi. “You are taking the vitamins we talked about at our last appointment, right?”
Lexi nodded. “Jordan set an alarm on his phone to make sure I remember to take them every morning.”
Dr. Cherry put her hand to her heart. “That’s very supportive of you, Jordan.”
Supportive? It was the fucking least he could do. One wild night when they’d desperately reached for each other in a moment of lust and forgot the most basic tenets of contraception. By the time he’d gotten over just how fucking good it had felt to come deep inside her, they realized he’d not put a condom on.
There had been changes they’d had to make immediately once they’d had a positive pregnancy test, like telling the company director of the ballet. But Lexi hadn’t so much as blinked and was still dancing her favorite role in The Nutcracker, the Snow Queen, every night. Thank fuck her last night was that evening or he might just die from panic every time she was hoisted into the air.
And now she was growing their fucking child while he sat on the sidelines. So, yeah, making sure she remembered to take her vitamins while cooking her a healthy breakfast each morning was the absolute bare minimum he could do.
“Are you ready for Christmas?” Dr. Cherry asked, wiping the gel off Lexi’s stomach. “Got all the shopping done?”
Lexi sat up. “Pretty much. We’re off to Miami tomorrow for Christmas and New Year. A friend is getting married.”
“Oh, that sounds exciting,” Dr. Cherry said. “And to get away from this weather.”
The weather? He’d not slept the night before with worry about the whole thing. Wouldn’t she be safer in their own bed, near their own OB? Was altitude even safe? And seat belts on planes? Wait, she wore seat belts in their car. Was it the same thing?
“We aren’t going,” Jordan blurted.
Dr. Cherry and Lexi both turned to look at Jordan.
“Why not?” Lexi asked, but she asked it kindly and took his hand. “It’s perfectly safe for me to fly. Right, Doctor?”
Dr. Cherry nodded her head. “It is. You are past the twelve-week stage, so miscarriage risks are much lower. The flight time is less than four hours, so risks of deep vein thrombosis are nearly negligible. And Lexi is in perfect health with no underlying conditions that would increase the risk of anything. She’s fine, Jordan.”
He shook his head. “No. I want to keep her here, closer to you if there is a problem.”
Dr. Cherry thought for a moment. “I’ll make an introduction to a doctor I know in Miami. Then you’ll have a point of contact.”
Lexi looked at him. “Jordan. We’ve talked about this. You can’t wrap me up in cotton wool for the next six months, you know this.”
Jordan raised her knuckles to his lips and kissed them. “I can fucking try, Lex. It was bad enough dealing with the thought of something happening to you. The idea of something happening to both of you is more than I can deal with.”
Lexi sighed. “Can we have a moment, Dr. Cherry?”
Dr. Cherry stood. “Certainly. I’ll get copies of your ultrasound printed. How many would you like?”
“Two,” Lexi said.
“Thirty,” Jordan said at the same time.
“We’ll take a dozen,” Lexi said, smiling at him in a way he knew he didn’t deserve.