This was not a feeling he enjoyed. Which was weird because he usually liked it when others did shit for him and left him in his own head.
“Super excited to meet the little dude or dudette,” he said as he climbed into the seat beside her.
Were the circumstances ideal? No, they were not.
“What’s with the smile?” Courtney asked, waving her fingertip toward his face.
Up close, she was even prettier than when she’d come outside. Her cheeks were pinker than usual. This pregnancy agreed with her. Not just the plump tits and ass, which he noticed but didn’t mention, but the glow of her skin and the way her eyes seemed brighter.
“What smile?” he asked, intentionally moving his lips into a frown.
“That goofy grin you’ve got going on.” She squinted at him, evaluating.
Oh, that smile. Yeah. He actually felt… giddy about the whole prospect of being a dad. Giddy and unsure of what to do. They didn’t write books for rock stars who knocked up their friend’s sister in a one-night-shower stand after breaking up with their fiancée and imploding their band.
“What’s your angle?” she asked. Again with the criticism in her tone.
“I don’t have an angle.” He didn’t. Also, he wouldn’t argue with the woman who was going to be his baby mama. That was his new rule.
So he said nothing. Because apparently saying anything led to her wanting to argue. She said nothing. Chet said nothing.
A couple of other security guys met them at the medical plaza where they did these scans. They were discreet enough. As discreet as two beefy guys in black suits could be.
“Security?” Courtney took in the security guards, then turned to Bax and gave him a slow blink. “Are you serious right now?”
He was 100 percent serious. There was no way he was risking anything happening to her or the kid. Or him. Not to leave him out of the equation.
“He’s serious.” Courtney answered her own question, apparently not appreciating his efforts to protect her or their baby.
Chet opened the door, and Bax slipped out onto the sidewalk. He held his hand out for Courtney. She did not take it, because apparently he now had cooties.
“You know how things get when we go out,” Bax said, shoving his rejected hand into his pocket. “Fans can get weird.”
As their publicist, Courtney knew better than most how things could go badly when they went out.
“When you go out,” she corrected. “When I go out, things are fine.”
“But you’re with me,” he said. Actually, that might be the first time he’d said those words. She was with him. They were in this together. And that meant certain precautions needed to be taken.
“This entire production is totally unnecessary,” she said, fidgeting with the edge of her skirt, smoothing and fiddling some more.
Damn, he wished he didn’t have cooties, so he could reach for her hand. Soothe away the nerves. Promise that things would be just fine because today they got to see the inside of her uterus. But that’d be a weird thing to say, and if he reached for her, she’d probably just swat him away.
“Not unnecessary.” He said it. He meant it.
Courtney clearly didn’t like it.
“You’re being unreasonable,” she said with a huff.
You’re being unreasonable, Bax.Em’s words floated through the air. That’d been part of the last argument they’d had. The one after he caught her with the neighbor guy.
You’re being unreasonable…
“Think you’re thinking of yourself, sweets,” he said.
To Em? To Courtney? He couldn’t be sure. What he understood for certain was that the buzz he’d been enjoying today had come to a screeching halt.
“Brennan, seriously,” Courtney murmured. “Don’t be this guy.”
