“You look like you’re about to faint,” Liberty joked from the exam table, where she sat kicking her feet under one of those long, printed skirts without a care in the world.
“Have you seen the dimensions here?” I pointed to the poster-sized diagram.
She flashed a smile and shook her head. “It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?” My eyes widened.
“I’ve seen babies born all over the world,” she said with a shrug. “Doctors, no doctors. Pain meds or natural. The heart of the Andes or the jungles of Africa. It’s all the same.”
“No doctors?” My chest tightened at the thought of her giving birth somewhere without proper medical care. Nick had had the best doctors and it still hadn’t made it.
“Relax, big shot. There are plenty of doctors here in Raleigh. Speaking of here, you guys are in town this weekend, right?” she asked, leaning back on her hands.
“Yeah.” I turned away from the horrific poster and took a seat on the stool next to the table. “We have four more preseason games before the real ones start.”
“You looked good out there last weekend.” Her gaze dropped down my torso with a little grin. “Good…form and all.”
“Really.” That look was going to get her fucked on the exam table if she kept it up—I wanted her that badly. I wanted to remember every breath, every shudder, every sigh. I wanted to recall with crystal clarity the exact sound she made as she came. The half-memories were killing me.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Really.”
Two knocks sounded at the door, and as Liberty said to come in, I realized she’d distracted me and did a damn good job of it. I’d stopped staring at the poster and focused on her instead.
The doctor was all smiles as she came in with the nurse, and I was stupidly happy she was a woman, which made zero sense. I just didn’t like the idea of a man putting his hands on Liberty, even if it was purely for medical reasons.
Great, now I was regressing back to a Neanderthal.
The doc ran through a series of questions from the opposite side of the table, and I took note of every single one. How Liberty was feeling. How she was eating. How she wasn’t gaining weight.
Wait…what? Was she not eating right?
“Don’t stress, Dad. It’s common not to gain much in the first trimester, especially with morning sickness,” the Doctor reassured me as Liberty laid herself flat on the table.
Dad? Well, that’s why we were here, right? And morning sickness?
“You’ve been sick?” I asked Liberty.
She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “It hasn’t been—” she paused as our eyes locked.
Don’t you dare lie to me.
“It’s pretty much horrible,” she admitted as if she’d heard my thoughts.
“I’m sorry.” I meant it.
“It’s really okay,” she whispered, and even though the doc was currently tugging her waistband down a few inches, it felt like we were alone in the room for those few seconds.
“Little cold, here,” the doc warned as she shot gel out of a bottle onto Liberty’s lower belly.
Her stomach was toned and sloped gently from her rib cage to flatten out and nip in at her waist. She was how far along now? Almost ten weeks? Shit, she hadn’t been eating enough.
“Let’s see if we can find this little guy without using the transvaginal wand,” the doc muttered as she swiped the probe over Liberty’s belly and pressed.
“Trans-what?” My voice hitched.
Liberty laughed but smothered it when the doc shot her a look.
“What exactly are you looking for?” I asked, watching the monitor, which looked like a bunch of wavy shit and sounded like someone was drunkenly running their mouth over a microphone.
“Mom’s HCG levels are slightly elevated, and she told me that you’re a twin,” the doc answered, her eyes narrowing on the monitor. “Identical or fraternal?”
“Identical,” I answered, dropping my eyes to Liberty’s belly. My jaw ticked. She was pressing really fucking hard.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Liberty assured me.
I lifted my eyes to hers.
“There we go,” the doc said, and both our heads turned toward the monitor at the rapid whoosh-whoosh sound that filled the small room.
The course of my life shifted.
The screen still looked like a black and white impressionist painting to me, but I knew what that sound was. My heart skipped a beat or two in response.
“That’s your baby’s heartbeat,” the doc announced, clearly pleased.
Liberty’s breath caught, and a smile spread across her face.
I stopped breathing entirely.
I wasn’t sure who reached for whom, but our fingers laced as we stared at that monitor. My entire body flooded with a sense of…wonder. That little splotch of white in the center of the ultrasound was my baby. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name.
That baby was mine.
The doc moved the wand back and forth a little, using a mouse to click on the monitor. “It’s just the one,” she said with a little laugh. “No twins.” She glanced down at Liberty’s file. “You’re measuring right where you should be, and if I had to guess, I’d say this little guy was conceived right around the tenth of June, and he or she will be here about March fourth.”
March fourth. That was great timing. We’d have all summer before I had to report for training camp, and there was zero chance I’d miss the birth for a game or some shit. I was completely, totally available.
The doc wiped the gel off Liberty’s belly, then printed out a long strip of ultrasound photos.
“What are you thinking?” Liberty asked me quietly.
“That this feels like the best carnival ever, and you’re the photo booth,” I answered, grinning down at her.
She laughed, the sound bright and full of emotion.
“And March fourth is perfect.” I squeezed her hand.
“Seems like a great day, doesn’t it?” Her smile was breathtaking, and I hoped she passed it on to our kid. Her eyes, too. And her laugh. It was a long list.
God, I wanted to kiss her, but I didn’t. Because the baby in her belly was mine, but Liberty wasn’t. Not like that. But, we would be linked for the rest of our lives by that whooshing little heartbeat.
Later, I’d let myself freak out that I was about to be a dad. Later, I’d figure out all the legalities of how to protect both Liberty and our little whoosh. Later, I’d think about how to break the news to Mom that I wasn’t married to her grandchild’s mom, and I’d probably leave out the part where I didn’t remember conceiving that grandchild. Later.
Right now, I was going to let myself swim in happiness until I drowned in it. We were having a baby, and that baby was healthy.
“Dad, you want one of these?” the doc asked as she lifted our photo booth strip.
“Hell yes, I do.” I grabbed my wallet and opened it. Then I took the black and white picture and placed it next to the only other one I kept in there. Look, Nick, I thought as I glanced at his eighteen-year-old face grinning between Nate’s and mine. You’re going to be an uncle.
I couldn’t wait to tell Nate…after I took Liberty to dinner.