Chapter
Twenty-Five
Foster
* * *
I’m never going to get used to being in this doctor’s office.
As Callie checks in, I look around the waiting room, seeing the spots by the plant where we sat last month are taken. So I search the room for anywhere else that might be more protected from all the other waiting patients.
Nothing.
The receptionist tells Callie the amount of the co-pay, and I hand her my credit card. As expected, Callie huffs. I’m not sure why she thinks I’m not going to pay. Would she prefer me to be like, That’s a you problem?
I leave the area to go claim a seat and let Callie finish up with the receptionist.
Last night’s one-for-one game in the kitchen left me feeling vulnerable. I lay in bed most of the night rethinking whether I should’ve told her anything. Wondering if I should keep the past where it belongs, in the past, as I always have. But I was the one who put this whole living together thing into action. And maybe she needs to know my demons so she can protect our kid from having any.
“They said the doctor is in labor.” She cringes and takes a seat beside me.
“The doctor was pregnant?” I frown.
Callie laughs. “No, she’s delivering someone’s baby, so she’s running late.”
The guy a few seats down on my right nods at me. Recognition. Fuck. I didn’t even wear my baseball cap because I swear people are less likely to recognize me without it, since they usually see me wearing a baseball cap. But it’s left me with nothing I can tip down to conceal my face a bit.
We’re as far away from other people as we can be, but we’re out in the open, so I pick up a magazine and hold it in front of me.
This extra time in the waiting room is just more time for someone to put a face to my name and snap a picture.
Callie glances over with an expression that says, What the fuck are you doing? But then she goes back to putting her receipt in her purse. She pulls out her phone and faces away from me, leaning one arm on the opposite armrest.
“Hey,” I whisper.
She peeks at me from the corner of her eye, then leans over.
Fuck, now her scent is in my orbit again, and I have to control the urge to drag her onto my lap and kiss her.
“We need to tell Hayes.” I know we already agreed to after this appointment, but for some reason, the fear that he’ll find out from someone other than us washes over me.
She pats my arm. “We said after this appointment. We’ll be at the end of the first trimester. I was thinking we could tell him after tomorrow’s game.”
I’m in the rotation tomorrow, and I was already thinking that it wouldn’t be a good idea to go over to Hayes’s house tonight and tell him. Jagger said some bigwigs from the sports drink company who are looking at me for an endorsement will be there tomorrow, and I really need to have everything on my side. Meaning as selfish as it is, I need my best friend Hayes behind the plate, not hates-my-guts Hayes.
I nod in agreement.
She glances at the magazine and chuckles.
I give her a questioning look, wondering what’s so funny.
She points at the magazine article and raises her eyebrows. “Trying to figure out what category you’re in?”
I read the headline of the article the magazine is open to.
The Pleasure Gap Isn’t in Your Head
I continue reading because I don’t want to show my face anyway.
