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They share a laugh with each other at my expense, then the doctor helps Olivia up onto the examination table.
It feels even realer now. I stand off to the side, watching the two of them. Dr. Lee is a chatterbox. She keeps Olivia’s attention with talk of her dogs as she prepares machines and tools that look like they belong on an alien spaceship. Some weird wand-looking thing hooked to a monitor. A tube filled with jelly that looks like overly thick lube.
No one else in the room seems as off-put as me. This is just normal for women.
For me, this is really fucking bizarre.
I shift where I’m standing, my eyes going from Olivia’s pale, frail body spread out on that examination table to the little wand in Dr. Lee’s hand sliding over Olivia’s stomach. My heart skips again seeing how her stomach pudges out more than it used to.
There’s a baby in there.
There’s our baby in there.
The monitor kicks in with gurgling sounds and a little bit of static. A steady thump, thump, thump of a heartbeat that matches my own. Staring at the screen, I squint at the shapes there. It looks like absolute nonsense to me, but apparently, I’m alone in that regard, because Dr. Lee starts pointing things out.
“We’ve got little baby legs here… and then an arm here. The other one seems to be hiding behind him or her.” She chuckles, circling her fingers around a sizable blob. “There’s the head. I hate to break it to you, but it looks like this little one is going to take after Daddy here with a massive cranium.”
“Big head, big brain.”
Dr. Lee locks eyes with Olivia as both of them sigh melodramatically in unison, then break out into laughter.
Her eyes go back to the screen. A serene little smile curves the corners of her mouth. “Do you two want to know the gender of the baby while we’re here?” she asks cautiously. “I don’t mind keeping a secret, but since this is your first baby together, maybe you want to know…?”
Olivia and I look at each other. My heart kicks up.
Gender doesn’t matter to me. Boy, girl, I’m happy that I’ve made a life with Olivia. But my curiosity burns. Will it be a little boy, a future hockey star for me to mold in my image? Or another little girl who I can show the whole world to?
“I want to know,” I decide suddenly.
Olivia nods. There’s an excited hum in her body that I can practically feel. “Me, too.”
Dr. Lee chuckles. “Should we drumroll? No? Well, you two are gonna be the proud, lucky parents of a brand new, bouncing baby… boy!”
Turns out not having a preference doesn’t do a damn thing to dim how I feel.
“A baby boy,” I murmur. “Holy shit. I’m gonna have a son.”
“ViVi’s going to love that,” Olivia’s voice wavers and teeters on the edge of breaking. “She’s going to have a little brother she gets to love and protect.”
The emotions overwhelm me. Fuck, I don’t want to be weak in front of the mother of my child and yet here I am, eyes misting up like a fucking sap.
A baby boy.
I’m gonna have a son.
“It’s okay to cry,” Dr. Lee says. “Plenty of fathers do. It’s actually quite natural.”
I laugh it off and shake my head. “I’m just goddamn happy right now.”
I go over to Olivia, slip my hand into hers, and squeeze. I don’t care that there’s a doctor in here with us. It doesn’t matter that she’s right there getting an eyeful of me leaning down to kiss Olivia deeply, or that I may or may not sneak a little bit of tongue past Olivia’s lips.
I’m gonna have a son.
“We’re gonna have a little boy.”
“We’re gonna have a little boy,” she repeats. Just as soft. Just as vulnerable.
She’s a perfect woman, through and through. And in this moment, there’s nothing that I want more than to give her the world that she deserves, right alongside our child.
