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“Yeah, of course. What time?”
She told me, and I jotted it down to program into my phone later. It was late enough to where I could take a flight out in the morning and get there without rushing, but early enough that I could also get home for by midnight or so. As much as I was tempted to get a hotel again and stay the night, I really was needed at work. And while I could take as much time off as I wanted because, well, I was the boss, that didn’t mean I should.
“Anyways, safe travels and all that. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” I said, waiting for her to hang up.
Once that was over, I quickly buzzed my secretary, asking her to secure my flight. If she was curious as to why I was rushing to St. Louis again, she didn’t say, and I appreciated that. She really was a great secretary. I needed to check what vacation she wanted to go on since she didn’t come to Vegas.
I went about getting everything all settled and then sat back, thinking hard about how I had reacted and what I could expect. But no matter how much thinking I did, I couldn’t deny the fact that I was downright excited. For a doctor’s appointment.
What the hell was wrong with me?
***
It took a little longer than I would like to rent a car and get to Nicole’s, which meant we didn’t have enough time to go out to eat beforehand. That was probably a good thing considering that she was going to probably have to get blood tests and all that done, but I was a bit miffed.
Nevertheless, I texted her that I was almost there when I was at a stoplight and tried to pull my mood back to neutral. Normally that wasn’t a struggle for me, but nothing was normal with Nicole. She inverted my world and turned it upside down, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about that.
As I pulled up to the front door, she was standing there in the entryway, absolutely glowing. I could tell from all the way where I was that there was a rosy hue to her cheeks and her stomach was a good bit larger.
Living in a real place and not her car was doing wonders for her obviously, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud. Already I had made a notable improvement on her life, and it hadn’t even been a month yet.
She waved as she saw me, walking quickly towards the car. I noticed that there was a distinct sort of waddle developing in her gait, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before she was in full on pregnancy walk.
For some reason I wanted to see that quite badly. Something about the idea of seeing her full bellied and slowed down made me a bit hotter under the collar than I thought it would.
“Hey there,” she said, hopping in. Although her tone was laid back and her body language was relaxed, I couldn’t help but feel electricity crackle between us. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem. You mind putting the address into the GPS?”
“Not at all. I saved it to my phone.”
She leaned forward and typed it in, her smile never leaving her face. God, she was so beautiful. What give her the right to just come in my life and disrupt everything?
I didn’t know, and I didn’t get the answer as we drove along. Instead, she told me about how work had been and how grateful she was for her place and asked me how my life was going.
I gave her some generic answers, a bit distracted by driving, and wondering how the appointment was going to be. I had been so busy with work that I hadn’t bothered to learn more about the normal pregnancy schedule. I really should have done that. It was the least I could do for my child considering that Nicole was renting out her body to them for nine to ten months.
“So, what’s on the schedule for this appointment?” I asked, trying to sound like I was just clarifying rather than totally clueless.
“Oh, you know, the usual for the beginning of the second trimester.”
“…which would be?”
She raised her eyebrow but thankfully kept explaining. “Recording my weight, checking my blood pressure and maybe a pee-test. Poking and prodding my belly, discussing my pregnancy plan. The paternity test, of course. Probably a blood test, and then -of course- hearing the baby’s heartbeat.”
“What?” I said, almost accidentally slamming on the break right then and there. “We’re going to hear the heartrate?”
“Yeah, of course. That’s the big thing with second trimesters. Your baby actually starts to seem human. Why?”
“I guess I just hadn’t thought about it.”
I knew that was particularly silly of me, of course we would listen to the heartbeat, but I couldn’t help my surprise. I had just found out about the baby and now I was going to hear scientific proof of its existence. That was… important. I knew at least that much.
