Jordan’s gaze ping-ponged between the men as a shock of anxiety hit his system. “How can forty-two days be an eternity?”
He didn’t know all that much about fetal development, but he couldn’t imagine the kid was more than the size of a gumball.
The man chasing his kid plopped down next to him, holding the child upside-down by his ankles as the boy giggled with delight. “You need to get on it. You’re a big guy. Do you play sports? Do you want your kid to play first base, or how about the NFL?”
“The National Football League?” Jordan repeated. This was getting ludicrous!
The man set the child right-side up. “No, the other NFL. Newborn fitness lessons. They’re classes to work on baby hand-eye coordination to get your kid ready to try out for the club teams.”
Jordan’s mouth hung open. He’d spent the last decade of his life immersed in the fitness world, but he’d never heard of these kinds of classes or that you needed to get on the wait-list pre-baby.
“You start training your baby to be a professional athlete during infancy?” he asked, incredulity lacing the question.
Had he heard the guy wrong? He was trying to hold it together and play it cool for Georgie, but his nerves were starting to get the better of him.
The guy shook his head. “You should start before that! I began prepping Dewey to play quarterback, explaining football plays to my wife’s belly once the doc said our little bun in the oven was able to hear.”
“You did that while your wife was still pregnant?” Jordan pressed.
“Yep! And look at him now! That kid is going places,” the man answered.
Jordan glanced down to find this Dewey, who was apparently going places, sitting on the floor, cross-legged with both his index fingers jammed up his nose.
The dentist clucked his tongue at Dewey’s dad. “You’re blowing his mind.”
“Let’s move on. How about a musical instrument?” another dad asked.
He didn’t know which dad because his damn head was spinning thanks to the waiting room interrogation.
He tried to think, then imagined a little boy or girl, bowing away on a violin or fingertips fluttering down black and white piano keys.
“Music is great. I’m sure we’d consider it,” he answered cautiously.
“Then you’re really late,” the man with the little girl said.
“I am?” he shot back.
“Yeah, the best teachers in Denver are booked way before six weeks.”
“Like five weeks?” he queried, unable to believe the insane timeline parents needed to follow to give a kid a hobby these days.
How much pre-prenatal prep was required?
The man lowered his voice. “Try, four.”
Jordan reared back, bumping a flurry of board books off an end table. “Holy sh—”
“Whoa!” the dads said in unison, graciously cutting off his expletive.
Oh, f!
He and Georgie would have to crack down on their language, too, or else they might have a kid whose first word would be asshat or douche canoe.
Douche canoe was two words—but he and Georgie were relatively smart people. They’d probably have a smart kid who could manage it.
Jesus! Wait…goodness! What was wrong with him? He had to weed these words out of his vocabulary.
He reached down to pick up the books when the nose-picker kid—who was going places—grabbed the book in his hand.
“Hey, buddy! I was cleaning those up.” He released the book and allowed the child to take it.
The little cherub stared at him with wide blue eyes. What color eyes would their baby have? His were sage green, and Georgie’s were a gorgeous shade of bluish-green. There was a chance their baby would look up at him with inquisitive blue eyes like this. He cocked his head to the side and stared at the boy, all rosy cheeks and dark curls. When the toddler wasn’t digging for gold up his nostrils, the kid was kind of cute. He smiled at the child, feeling damned, no, darned good about this father business when the boy held the book above his head.
“Are you going to show me the book?” he asked, channeling Mr. Rogers.
He could do this. Kids liked him. This kid liked him. That had to mean something.
The little boy grinned up at him, then shook his head as a maniacal twinkle glinted in his baby-blues.
“You’re not?” he asked as a thread of trepidation wove its way through his chest.
With a grin akin to that of a mad scientist, the child reared back, then used every ounce of NFL baby training to whack him clean in the eye, wielding the board book with the agility of a tiny major league baseball player, swinging for the fences.
“Holy hard as hell board book!” he blurted, unable to stop himself, but not before losing his balance and falling to the floor. Thankfully, he was able to keep himself from clobbering the little boy by twisting his torso and tweaking his back in the process.
He pushed up onto his knees, then massaged a sharp kink in his neck as his eyeball throbbed. His half-blurry gaze darted between the now crying blue-eyed toddler, afraid of the giant man almost flattening him into a pancake as the dads sat motionless, staring at him with expressions of horror.
“Sorry, I didn’t expect—” he began when a woman’s stern voice cut him off.
“I’m looking for Mr. Marks.”
He glanced up to find a nurse with a deep crease between her eyebrows and thin, pursed lips. Swap out the scrubs for a corset and a Victorian gown with a high, lace-trimmed neckline, and this lady would be a dead ringer for a harsh headmistress in a period piece.
He’d have to tell Georgie about her—once they were far, far away from this place.
He raised his hand like a kindergartener. “That’s me. I’m Jordan Marks.”
“I’m here to bring you back. Are you ready?” she asked with a disapproving gaze, taking in the crying child and the look of shock on every face in the waiting room.
Was he ready?
Now, that was the question.
He thought he was ready—figured a few physiology classes in college and a working knowledge of pregnancy had put him ahead of the curve when it came to this baby business. He let out a tight breath, then glanced up and caught a glimpse of the little girl, no longer sucking her thumb. Instead, the child stuck her tongue out at him, giving him the toddler equivalent of go fuck yourself.
With his back aching and his eye pounding, he rose to his feet like a defeated gladiator.
What the hell had he and Georgie gotten themselves into?
He stepped over the crying child, nodded to the speechless fathers, then hobbled toward the nurse.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, praying that this would be his lowest moment of the whole pregnancy journey. Unfortunately, a nagging little voice in his head told him this was just the beginning.
3
Georgie
Georgie shifted her weight in the chair, then crossed and uncrossed her legs. This wasn’t her first time rocking the gown you tie in the front for your annual lady parts examination. She’d been going to the gynecologist since she was a teenager. But for this visit, the nurse had told her she only needed to remove her clothes from the waist down.
Not an easy feat. Scratch that. Not possible when wearing a one-piece romper. Yes, that fashion-forward pants connected to the shirt ensemble, which meant, if the bottom had to go, so did the top.