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On top of everything,Orlie does his best to make me feel cared for. After the appointment, he takes me back to his beautiful home in Santa Monica and orders me all the Chinese food I could possibly want.
I sit like a queen on a throne in a comfy chair looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the ocean as the sun sets. It might be Winter, but we still have beautiful sunsets in LA.
With a carton of lo mein perched on my belly, I eat while Orlie kneels at my feet and massages them with the mastery of a reflexologist.
“Mmm…” I moan.
“Did I hit the spot?” he asks with a smile.
“I don’t know if it was the foot massage or the lo mein, but whatever it is…” I lean my head back and sigh.
Orlie’s hands slide up from the soles of my feet to my calves. He caresses them. “This alright?”
“Yes. Feels amazing.”
He chuckles. “Good.”
I watch him as he works with precision and intensity.
“You’re too good to me.”
“You’re joking, right?” Orlie shakes his head. “You’re carrying my baby. I could never do anything for you to match that.”
“Well, it was an accident, so don’t give me too much credit.”
Orlie doesn’t reply, continuing the work on my calves. Then my ankles. His fingers work in easy circles.
“Mm. That’s nice.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while and we descend into a silence. Not quite comfortable. Not yet. There’s still so much tension, so much unsaid. Silences are still filled with potential.
“Thank you,” he says in a quiet, low voice.
I consider him for a moment. “For what?”
“For including me today,” he says as he gets another squirt of body lotion to continue massaging my feet.
“Of course. Thank you for coming.”
My body feels hot all of a sudden.
Orlie lifts his eyes. His arm muscles bulge as he works on my feet. “I never thought I’d have this.”
I frown.
“I thought I had a vasectomy and that was it.” He inhales. Shaky. “I didn’t picture ever having a child after everything that happened…. Because it broke me, Kira. To think I had this little part of me in the world and then to have it taken all away like that.”
I put my lo mein to the side and lean my head in my hand. “Of course. I can only imagine.”
‘“So, whatever happens here with us, it’s…” Orlie swallows. “It’s everything to me. Our baby. Ourson–” He cuts himself off with a tear-filled laugh.
As best I can, given my very protruding bump, I lean forward and wrap Orlie in my arms.
“Please don’t take it away from me,” he brokenly whispers.
“What makes you think I’m going to do that?” I ask.
Orlie hangs onto me desperately. “I don’t know, I just can’t lose you. Either of you. You don’t have to give me anything else. Don’t have to be with me, don’t have to love me, just –”
