Page 27 of Doctor Daddies

“No, it’s fine,” I assure her.

I know that I’ve just been sitting there in silence, listening to her, but it’s because I want to know how things really are for her and Lewis. Even though I haven’t met the kid yet, I still feel an intense attachment to him, and I’m glad to hear that she seems to take his condition so seriously. It can’t be easy for someone like her, someone all alone in their care for their child, to take responsibility like that. No matter whether it’s her fault or not, I can imagine that she puts herself under a hell of a lot of pressure, no matter how much I might wish that she wouldn’t.

“I’m just glad, that’s all,” she replies. “Glad to have a chance to give him the kind of life I always imagined for him.”

“Well, I’m glad too,” I reply, and I lean forward slightly, something in me drawn to her with an almost magnetic force. “It sounds like you…like you haven’t had an easy time with this.”

“You can say that again,” she replies, with a slight snort that tells me that’s one hell of an understatement. “Shit, before the three of you came along, I thought I wasn’t ever going to be able to get my feet under me. I was down to my last few hundred dollars, and…” She trails off once more.

“God, I just can’t believe how much has changed,” she admits after a wistful pause. “And I know none of it would have happened if the three of you hadn’t come looking for me again. I’m not one to believe in fate, really, but I guess…I guess if I did, I would say something like this falls under that banner, huh?”

“I guess you could.”

“You not really a believer in all of that stuff either?” she asks curiously. “You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want. I’m just curious.”

“I wasn’t,” I reply, and she raises an eyebrow, obviously intrigued.

“But you are now?”

“I think I’m starting to get there.”

As I look up at her, I know she can tell precisely what’s going through my head, even if I haven’t gone and said it out loud yet.

She’s right—with everything that has happened, it’s hard to believe that fate hasn’t had some kind of hand in this, theenormity of everything that has changed in our lives, the way everything has been revealed these last few weeks.

Discovering that I have a child—or at least, that I might have a child—at the same time that I had decided I was going to become a father…the timing was too perfect for me to see it any other way. We could have gone with any number of surrogates through our system, but we decided on her, and I can see now that there’s good reason for it.

“That’s really sweet,” she murmurs, and she takes another sip of her coffee, her lips lingering on the rim of the cup for just a moment longer than they need to. “Whatever it is, I’m glad it happened. Glad that I got to see the three of you again.”

“Me too.”

Just a second, I consider broaching the subject that has been bothering me all week—seeing her with James. I push it down, but she seems to read my mind, sensing there’s more there than I might be ready to say out loud.

“You know, we still haven’t talked about it,” she remarks.

I lift my chin, paying dumb. “Talked about what?”

She raises her eyebrows at me slightly, incredulous. “About you seeing James and me together the other day.”

I shift in my seat. I can’t play it off. All three of us looked at each other in that bedroom, not like I could have pretend to be anyone else, but it’s the last thing I want to have to say out loud right now.

“It’s not a big deal,” I reply dismissively. “If the two of you have something going on, then?—”

“We don’t,” she replies. “I mean—not that we weren’t doing anything that day, but we haven’t been involved outside of that. It was just a one-off spontaneous thing. I don’t think either of us expected it to happen…”

I can’t help but grin. “You really don’t know James well at all, do you?”

“What do you mean?” She laughs.

“I guarantee that was the only thing on his mind when he got you into that bedroom,” I point out. “Whether he wanted you to know it or not…”

“He was only there because I asked him to be,” she protests, giggling. “He was helping me unpack some boxes, and there were a couple that I had to move into the bedroom before I could start…”

“Hmm, sure,” I shoot back, cocking an eyebrow.

“You really think he came to the apartment with me because he was hoping to…?”

“I don’t know exactly what it is James planned,” I reply. “But I know that I?—”