“Hi yourself.” I trace soft patterns on his chest, feeling boneless and satisfied and maybe just a little bit hopeful.
“For the record,” Felix says, “I’m definitely staying, Hart. Doctor appointments, midnight crying sessions, teaching our kid to throw a proper spiral.” He tilts my chin up to meet his eyes. “Girl or boy. You’re stuck with me now.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?”
“Both.” He grins. “One hundred percent both.”
I snuggle closer and let my eyes drift closed. We still need to figure out the complicated parts—logistics, fears, and the thousand questions neither of us has answers for yet. But tonight, enveloped in his heat with our baby safe between us, I’m happy to feel not quite so alone.
“Felix?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you caught the doll I threw at your head.”
His chest rumbles with quiet laughter. “Me, too, sweetheart.”
I fall asleep with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear and his arms solid around me, Olivia Benson probably still kicking ass on the TV downstairs.
19
FELIX
I’m lurkingin the parking lot of Skylark Women’s Health like some kind of stalker, which is not exactly how I pictured spending a Friday afternoon.
The plan is for me to wait out here until Piper texts me that it’s safe to sneak in through the back. She doesn’t want anyone at the clinic to see the Grizzlies’ high-profile new team member entering an OB/GYN office and start doing the math.
Smart, I guess. But it’s also making me feel like I’m some kind of liability when all I want to do is see my kid for the first time.
I’ve checked the phone sitting on my thigh approximately four hundred times in the last ten minutes. Sadie came over to watch Ellie, accompanied by Ian, who clapped me on the shoulder on my way out the door with “Good luck, bro. Don’t screw it up.”
Not exactly reassuring.
I drum my fingers on the steering wheel and try not to think about all the ways I could mess this up. What if I say something stupid during the ultrasound? Or what if I don’t say enough? What if the baby looks weird on the screen and I make a face and Piper thinks I’m not excited? What if?—
My phone buzzes.
Piper: Back door. Now.
I’m out of the SUV before I can overthink things anymore. I jog across the parking lot toward the rear of the building, and the door opens just as I reach it. A nurse who looks about twelve years old ushers me inside with a finger pressed to her lips.
“This way,” she whispers, like we’re in a spy movie.
I follow her down a hallway that smells like antiseptic, past exam rooms with closed doors. The whole thing reminds me of being snuck through the back entrance of clubs in Vegas when I was still riding high on college football fame.
Except this is nothing like that.
This is about Piper and our baby, and that thought makes my chest squeeze in a way that’s sharp and soft all at once.
The nurse stops at a door, knocks twice, then pushes it open. “Your plus-one is here,” she says cheerfully before disappearing.
I step into the dim room, and it takes my eyes a second to adjust before I see her.
Piper’s lying on the exam table, thin paper crinkling under her as she shifts. The overhead lights are off, but there’s a soft glow from the monitor beside her.
“Hey,” I say, incapable of anything more eloquent.
“Hey.” She sounds as anxious as I feel. “Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger routine.”
