Layla
Morning sickness hit me as soon as Grant’s colleague Jessica stopped by our table at lunch four days ago. And it hadn’t stopped afflicting me since.
I didn’t know if my nausea was due to my pregnancy or the fact that Grant was moving away to another state with a gorgeous, accomplished, elegant, super-skinny woman who obviouslyalsowanted to give him babies. I just knew that for the first time since I was twenty-one, I’d experienced this pesky feeling called jealousy.
I was extremely, tremendously,violentlyjealous.
She looked like something out of a toothpaste commercial. The kind of put-together I would never dream of achieving. Like Kate Middleton, but with a medical degree.
And apparently, she was the person he’d spent time with on Valentine’s Day.
They were clearly more than just friends. Or, at the very least, headed in that direction.
And you have no right to say anything about this.
Grant had stepped up, just like I knew he would. He’d offered his support, his resources, and the promise that he’d be present.
Now, I was waiting for him outside the ob-gyn’s building, bundled in my coat and rain boots.
I watched Grant jogging from the hospital building in his Canada Goose jacket across the street. He had a boyish, dimpled smile, color in his cheeks, and that sparkle in his forest green eyes, which oozed genuine, good-hearted joy.
My stomach did a weird flip.
It’s probably the oatmeal from this morning. Too much fiber.
“Hey!” Grant leaned down to kiss my cheek, and more butterflies gathered in the pit of my belly. God, what was the baby doing in there? Making sandcastles using my internal organs?
“Hi.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Ready?”
“Yeah. Thanks for letting me come.”
“You coming is what got us into this mess,” I blurted out, wishing I hadn’t. It was a distasteful joke. One I bet Jessica wouldn’t make.
Grant shot me a lopsided grin that made my heart stutter. “Hey, no regrets there.”
Yeah, right.
He was really,reallyhandsome. With his shaggy brown hair and jade eyes and lean but muscular figure. But I think what truly made him so attractive was his smile. It was kind, honest, and jam packed with good intentions, with crow’s feet mapping the corner of his eyes. He also had dimples, and slightly overlapping front teeth that knocked him down from commercial-handsome to approachable-handsome.
“You feeling okay?” He reached to rub my lower back.
“For the most part.”
“I’m excited to hear our predicted due date.” He put his hand to the small of my back as he strode toward the entrance.“I already emailed my new boss in Rochester that I’m going to need some paternity leave carved into my schedule next year.”
Our.He saidour.
God, I’m not one of your strongest soldiers, because I will clearly let this man knock me up again, and in the next fifteen minutes if he continues being this dreamy.
I also couldn’t deny the shift in Grant’s behavior since the day he’d found out I was expecting. It felt like he was less dry, less guarded. Like he was showing me parts of him I never knew existed.
He opened the door for me, and I walked to the elevator bank and hit the second floor button. My stomach cramped again. It’d been like that for days.
“I hate to admit it, but I’m still super constipated.” I felt my cheeks heat. It sucked to talk to him about my mundane, unglamorous pregnancy issues, especially when the Jessicas of the world vied for his attention, but he was a doctor and I wanted his take on it. “I’m going on, like, four days without.”
“Are you usually regular?” His tone was businesslike, not a trace of awkwardness in his features.
Still. How was I going to come back from this conversation? He was never going to want to have sex with me again.
