Page 12 of Written with Regret (The Regret Duet 1)
Ian, and at least two of the other mothers, scrolled through their phones the whole time. I, however, had never been so engrossed in a film in my entire life. I needed all the help I could get.
After I miraculously passed the pop quiz they’d passed out after the video, we were escorted into an empty hospital room and handed a stack of papers thicker than when we’d sold Kaleidoscope. Like a good little husband, Ian whipped out a pen, settled in the only chair in the room, and got busy on the paperwork. He knew everything about me anyway, right down to my social security number and mother’s maiden name.
While he made himself useful, I made myself useless, alternating between nervously sitting on the corner of the bed, crossing and uncrossing my legs before giving up and getting up to pace. I couldn’t count how many times I checked the hall to see if the nurse was coming with the baby as promised.
It was the strangest feeling during those few minutes waiting for her. My stomach was in a million knots, but it wasn’t close to anything I would describe as excitement. It was more like an ominous dread.
Dread for what was about to happen.
Dread that I had to wait for it to happen.
Dread that it would eventually be over and I’d be faced with eighteen-plus years because it had happened.
I was considering flinging myself from the room’s fifth-floor window when the door suddenly opened. A nurse came in, rolling a little basket on wheels behind her.
My heart stopped and my lungs momentarily forgot how to process oxygen. I’d seen that little girl in Ian’s arms when we’d first found her at my door, but that was before I’d known she was mine.
This was different. This was monumental.
This was terrifying.
“Here she is, Dad. Your little princess,” the nurse all but sang, parking the basket directly in front of me.
My hands shook as I willed my heart to beat again. She was tiny—even smaller than I remembered—wrapped like a burrito with a pink-and-blue-striped hat pulled snug on her head. All I could see of her were eyelids, chubby cheeks, and pouting lips suckling on nothing.
She didn’t look like me.
She didn’t even look like Hadley for that matter.
She just looked like a baby.
“You want to hold her?” the nurse asked.
“Uhhhh…I think I’m good for now. Actually, maybe I should watch that video again.”
“Oh, come on now. This one doesn’t bite.”
With wide eyes, I swung my puzzled gaze her way. “Do some of them bite?”
Laughing softly, she scooped the baby into her arms. Then she propped it on her shoulder before whispering in her ear, “Your daddy’s funny.”
Daddy. Jesus. What the hell was happening?
“Go ahead and hop up on the bed and get comfortable. I’ll hand her to you. She just ate, so she should be snoozing for a while.”
I flashed Ian one last pleading look, suddenly hoping he had reconsidered that hundred-million-dollar offer, but his only response was a chin jerk toward the bed.
Shit. Okay. I could do this. I was a grown-ass man. She was a tiny baby. It could be worse. She could have been one of the biters.
“Should I, uh…take off my shoes or anything?”
The nurse rolled her eyes with a smile. “Just get on the bed.”
After sparing one last longing glance at the window, I climbed up.
Swear to God, my back had barely hit the upright bed before the nurse plopped that child on my chest.
Instinctively, one of my hands went to the baby’s butt and the other to the back of her head, but that was literally the only instinct I had. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I called as she started to walk away. “What am I supposed to do now?”
She grinned and shrugged. “Get to know your daughter.” As she walked to the door, she called over her shoulder, “As soon as you get that paperwork finished, I can start on getting you guys out of here. The doctor will be in to give her one last look before you leave, but give me a buzz if you need anything.”
Had it not been for the fact that I was balancing a child on my chest with both hands, I would have given her a buzz right then.
I looked to Ian. “She’s just going to leave us alone with her like that?”
Ian chuckled. “Did you think she was going to come home with you too?”
“Good point. Go ask her how much she makes and tell her I’ll double it.”
He shook his head with a smile and walked over to the bed. With two fingers, he stroked her cheek. “You sure this one’s yours? She’s cute.”
I looked down at her, doing my best to lean to the side to see her face without having to move her. I didn’t know what I’d expected. Maybe some latent fatherly emotions to suddenly rise to the surface the moment I touched my own flesh and blood. But, to be honest, I didn’t feel anything. Which was obviously the first clue that I was going to be a total failure at this parenting gig. “I feel like I’m holding someone else’s kid.”
