“Put me down,” Hayes said.
“Big…” I sighed, rubbing my forehead with a finger.
“It’s obviously up to you, and I know you don’t feel like you know me. But I am that baby’s daddy, and I need to be able to take care of both of you. I can’t do that if I’m in the dark.” He paused. “And chances are I’ll never need to ask for any information. After the accident, though, it’s not a chance I want to take.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I wrote his name down. Hayes Ellison. Relationship: baby daddy.
Hayes snorted and sat back in his seat.
I had just finished signing my name when the nurse called me back. I looked down at my signature for a second before I joined her at the door, wondering if my muscle memory was intact or if my signature looked completely different from before. With a mental shrug, I handed her the clipboard and followed her down a short hall to the examination room.
It wasn’t until I stepped over the threshold and paused that I felt a warm presence behind me and realized Hayes had accompanied me.
Awkward.
Not appearing the smallest bit disturbed, Hayes sat in the room’s single chair, leaving the paper covered exam table for me. He was too large for this tiny room, his body dominating the small space. I focused on the nurse and tried to ignore him.
She made small talk as she efficiently took my weight, height, and blood pressure, notating each measurement in an electronic chart. “Is this your first baby?” I nodded. “So sweet! I love that Dad’s here. That’s unusual. It’s something special, let me tell you. Your life will never be the same.”
I didn’t know how to reply. She had no idea. None. Everything had already changed, more than my poor brain could handle.
Seeing that I was tongue-tied, Hayes took charge of the conversation, chatting easily with the woman while she handed me a paper gown and left a minute later.
I clutched the gown and looked at him. He’d started reading a pamphlet from the receptacle on the wall, his dark head bent fixedly over it.
“Hayes.”
“Yes?”
“I need to change.”
He met my eyes and I saw humor lurking deep in their brown depths. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“It’s different now.”
A shadow drifted over his features. “Yeah. I know. I’ll turn around.” He stood and faced the wall behind him.
Swiftly I shimmied out of my jeans and top, conscious that the doctor could knock at any moment. I pulled on the ridiculous paper gown that was more revealing than it was concealing and slipped my underwear off. I hid them in the folded pile of clothing before climbing back on to the exam table and spreading a paper blanket across my lap. “I’m decent.”
As Hayes seated himself once again, his eyes flicked over me. “Sexy,” he murmured. “You look good in paper, Smalls.”
I rolled my eyes. Was he always like this? Irreverent? Teasing? It didn’t fit with how I’d assumed a college professor should act. I bet his male students loved this liveliness, and the girls… well, with looks like his, he could be a complete asshole and they’d love him.
A shaft of pain speared through my head and I winced. He watched me closely. “You okay?”
“Fine. Tell me about your classes this semester,” I asked on impulse. “I should have asked the other day.”
Hayes opened his mouth to reply but was cut short by an abrupt knock on the door. It opened without waiting for a reply, and the doctor entered.
She was a youngish woman with blonde hair and friendly eyes — not at all what I’d imagined when I pictured my baby doctor. I liked her immediately.
“Good morning, Ms. Grant! And you, sir. How are we doing today?” With her brisk greeting, the doctor strode to the in-room sink and washed her hands. Hayes and I murmured greetings, and she came to stand at the foot of the exam table. “First baby, yes?” I nodded. “And you’re Dad?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ve read through the notes the physician at the trauma center attached, and it looks like you’re a very lucky lady. I take it this baby is unexpected?” As she spoke, the nurse who had accompanied her raised the back of the table a few inches and helped me lie back against it.
“I think so,” I told her, and she winced before sending a rueful glance to Hayes.
He grinned. “Definitely unexpected. But not unwelcome.”
The nurse made a notation in the tablet in her hand, and Dr. Blankenship sat on a little rolling stool, wheeling it into place. “Okay, well for the first visit, we basically do your annual, pap and all. Your records indicate that you’ve visited before and were, in fact, on birth control, so while you may not remember, you’re acquainted with everything. I’ll explain though, as I proceed. I’ll also do a transvaginal ultrasound so we can listen to the baby’s heartbeat.” She looked at Hayes again. “You might be more comfortable standing there at the head of —”
Hayes leapt up and moved to stand beside my head, his face bright red. “Uh, yeah, no doubt.”
“Wait.” I sat back up. “I was on birth control? Then how did I get pregnant?”
The doctor cast a glance at Hayes. “Well, nothing is one hundred percent effective, of course. There are any number of things that might have taken place. You could have gotten off track with the pills, or been on an antibiotic, which would have interfered with its efficacy. There’s no real way to know, for sure.”
“You were sick a couple of months ago,” Hayes said. “Sinus infection. I’m pretty sure they gave you an antibiotic for it.”
“Guess that explains it.” Dr. Blankenship motioned and I laid back on the table, putting my feet in the stirrups and scooting down at her directive until I felt my ass hanging over the edge. I fixed my eyes on the ceiling tiles. This was mortifying.
As the doctor began her uncomfortable task, palpating my stomach with her hand and commenting on my “nice, soft cervix,” Hayes’ face filled my vision. He crossed his eyes at me, startling a giggle from me, and dropped a soft kiss on my forehead. As he straightened, he took my hand in his and laced our fingers together. Inexplicable tears filled my eyes and I blinked them away.
He saw them anyway. “You okay?”
I nodded. “I just...want to remember.”
He squeezed my hand. “I want that, too.”
He didn’t say anything more. The doctor and nurse’s presence, though not intrusive, was a shield against anything more personal. I could feel his emotion, though, radiating through the clasp of his hand, the brush of his thumb against the center of my palm. I could see it in the muscle that flexed in his jaw.
He wanted me to remember, too. He was in love with previous me, and he wanted her back.
I was torn. I wanted to give her back to him, but I didn’t want to lose this new self I was creating. It was the only thing I had — half formed ideas about what I did or didn’t like, a fleeting awareness now and again that I held this opinion or this value.
What if those qualities that were slowly creating a picture in my mind of who I was...what if they weren’t creating the same person I’d been just a couple of weeks ago?
Dr. Blankenship pulled me from my reverie. “We’re going to do the ultrasound now...you’re going to feel a little pressure...”