KnotMyProblem: That picture proves NOTHING
Gwynning: Uh huh.
Vincent snorted again. The ensuing glare from Dr. Biernacki was worth it.
xVerity: Okay guys, I’ve gotta go. Gwynn, you have my blessing to tell them if you want… and my total permission to keep it a secret, if you want to hold it over Knot’s head a while longer.
Gwynning: Score.
KnotMyProblem: I’m pretty sure you guys are the worst
Gwynning: Glitter. Bomb.
LoveHarley: I love all of you so much haha
It was time to go. If Vincent hung around in the chat any longer, he’d get sucked in and be left scrambling for his next appointment—the one appointment today he didn’t want to miss.
As he turned off his phone and put it away, Dr. Biernacki stood. While the operating system booted down, Vincent watched him cross the room on his way to the door. Before Dr. Biernacki made it, his foot snagged on the leg of a chair, and he stumbled, barely catching himself on the edge of a nearby table.
“Whoa.” Vincent rushed over to help, but by the time he arrived at Dr. Biernacki’s side, he was already back on his feet. “Dr. Biernacki, are you feeling well?”
The reply came through Dr. Biernacki’s teeth, his voice not stretched thin with irritation, but burdened with pain. “I’ll be fine.”
“If you need to sit down—”
“I’ll be fine, Dr. Rhyne.” Dr. Biernacki winced and rolled his shoulders back. From this close, the discoloration beneath his eyes revealed themselves to be dark bags. Dr. Biernacki’s full face of foundation, although expertly applied, wasn’t enough to hide them entirely. “I wasn’t paying attention and I stubbed my toe. That’s all. There’s no medical emergency.”
There might not have been, but there was emotion locked behind Dr. Biernacki’s eyes that Vincent couldn’t make sense of. He frowned, but allowed whatever it was to pass. While Vincent didn’t particularly like Dr. Biernacki, he didn’t wish him ill. “Okay.”
“You’ll be ready in twenty minutes for patient Collins?” Dr. Biernacki asked. “We have a busy day ahead of us, and we’ll need you on top of your game.”
“I’m ready.” Vincent gave Dr. Biernacki one last look, then nodded at the door. “Shall we go?”
Dr. Biernacki didn’t reply, but the look he gave Vincent said what his lips didn’t. Whatever had happened last night was in the past, and now Dr. Biernacki looked toward the future.
Vincent did, too.
In under an hour, the conception process, which had begun in vitro, would be moved to flesh. Years of practice would guide Vincent’s hand and allow him to find the best spot for each embryo to sit to better the odds of attachment. The rest was up to Mal’s body, but with the clomiphene phylacetate solution to help him, Vincent already knew that odds didn’t matter.
Hewouldimpregnate Mal.
Vincent followed Dr. Biernacki down the hall to the operating room in body only. His mind was already an hour ahead, imagining all that could, and all that would be.
35
Mal
Cold tile. Bare feet.
Mal made his way from the curtained partition to the surgical table in the center of the room. The same faces Mal had seen throughout his treatment were present today—Dr. Peterman and Dr. Heaney, who were engaged in quiet conversation off to the side, hunched over endless reports, Dr. Biernacki, who Mal had come to distrust, but whose eyes had lost their luster, and whose cheerful mask had slipped away, and Vincent. Dr. Rhyne himself. The man Mal had met three months ago in a storage closet at a wedding, and who now meant more to him than anything else did.
“Today’s procedure should be relatively quick,” Vincent told Mal cheerfully as Mal climbed onto the examination table. “You’ll find it similar, if not identical, to the embryo transfers you underwent with Dr. Kanna.”
Only it wouldn’t be the same. With Vincent’s hand guiding the procedure, it couldn’t be. Mal had respected Dr. Kanna as a medical expert, but he knew Vincent as a lover. What they did now, even if it was sterile and bound by science, was shaded by emotion.
Vincent continued in the same professional tone of voice he always used, but when his eyes met Mal’s, his true emotions sprang forth—excitement, anticipation, wonder… “Whenever you’re ready, place your feet in the stirrups at the end of the table, and we’ll get started. As you’re likely aware, the placement window is narrow, and a mistake can drastically reduce the chances of conception. While the procedure is underway, I’ll need you to lie very still so I can place the embryos exactly where they need to go.”
“I understand,” Mal said. The joy in Vincent’s eyes supplemented his own, and a goofy grin burst the severity of the situation like a pin to a soap bubble. After half a year of heartbreak, failing IVF treatment after IVF treatment, Mal had found the solution he’d been desperate for.
