He grumbled underneath his breath but kept a hold of me.
Luckily, the elevator doors slid open in the next instant, leaving us without time to argue.
When we arrived in the suite that housed the doctors I was using, the nurse behind the glass took one look at my state and hurried to open the door for me.
“You can place her in the exam room,” the nurse said as she pointed the way.
Fifteen minutes later, I was as cleaned up as I was going to get, and pronounced to have scraped knees and hands, and good to go.
It still stung like a bitch, but I could manage.
“You can go now,” I grumbled under my breath once the nurse left to go find the chick that would be doing the sonogram for me.
“I could,” Murphy agreed. “But I don’t like being told what to do.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that it didn’t matter what he liked but was interrupted.
“Is this dad?”
My thoughts were interrupted by a woman coming into the room. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Perfect timing to come to the ultrasound today. You’ll get to see a lot of great photos. This is about the time where they’re not too big, making there room enough to see everything. But not too small that they look alienlike anymore.”
I opened my mouth to say he wasn’t the baby’s father, but Murphy beat me to the punch and said, “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I didn’t think I should find out but…if daddy wants to know.”
He narrowed his eyes as the woman laughed. “Lie back on that table and let’s get a good look.”
I started to, but when I put my hand back to keep myself from falling—there was surprisingly little core strength available when you had a big basketball attached to your front—I almost collapsed all the way backward.
I would have had Murphy not caught me.
I glared at him. “Thanks.”
His eyes sparkled with mirth, and I wanted to throat punch him.
“You’re welcome.”
I sighed and turned away, my eyes going to the screen where there was nothing as of yet.
But then she put her wand against my belly, and there my baby was.
“Oh, first thing you get is a foot,” she teased. “Right in the face.”
Murphy leaned his hip against the side of the table I was leaning on, and I could feel the heat pouring off of him.
A delicious shiver slid down my spine as I inhaled and caught the scent of pine and man.
Most likely, he used some boring soap, but that boring soap did wonderous things on his delectable body.
“And there is…” she paused. “His or her tush.”
I snickered.
“Looks like it’s a girl!”
I grinned, unable to help myself.
I’d wanted a girl.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true.
I’d wanted a boy, until my sister jokingly told me that I would have to deal with a boy and boners when they went through puberty.
Now I wanted girls.
For the next ten minutes we went through all the cuteness overload, eventually printing off a photo of her face, her feet, and what the sonographer said was a vagina that really only looked like a butt to me.
But I wasn’t the expert.
After I was once again situated, Fran took one side, and Murphy took the other, as they helped me stand to my feet.
It physically hurt to walk.
And by the time I was outside, I could already see blood soaking the bandage.
We’d have to go straight home.
“Unfortunately,” I said, “we can’t go buy clothes.” I pointed at my knees.
“Clothes?” Murphy asked.
I pointed at my belly next. “Now that I know what she is, I need to prepare.”
Murphy looked at my belly.
“I thought for sure it would be a boy,” Murphy said. “In my head, that’s what I was calling him. A boy. Guess I’ll have to get used to it being a girl.”
He almost seemed disappointed. “Girls are cool, too, Murph!”
I grinned at my sister’s words. “Yeah. Girls are cool, too, Alessio.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll see y’all later. Try not to trip over any more curbs as you watch my ass move away from you.”
Then, I did just that, as I watched him walk away.
Well, not trip over any curbs. But I did watch his ass.
“You totally like him,” Fran whispered.
“No, I don’t,” I lied. “I like Madden.”
My sister frowned. “Do you really?”
I shrugged.
I mean, not like I liked Murphy, but he was a very attractive guy.
And her thinking Madden caught my fancy served a purpose. What purpose, you ask?
Keeping my nosey sister out of my business.
CHAPTER 6
The world would be a nicer place if everyone took a chill pill. It’d be a great place if a few of those people choked on it.
-Mavis to Murphy
MAVIS
2 months later
The last person that I wanted to see was him.
Especially when I was going into labor and there was a high likelihood that he’d be seeing my coochie here in a second.
I watched him walk toward my car, then a contraction hit me hard, and I forgot all about who was around me, because the pain overtook every single aspect of my brain.
Holy shit, having babies hurt!
I’d always assumed that I would be in a hospital with the good drugs when my time came. Not in the middle of the road, with no one around but the damn town mechanic that hated me.
I was hunched over my steering wheel when the tap on the door came.
I was in the middle of the road.
Honestly, I was lucky that someone hadn’t hit me yet.
I had a flat tire.
I also had no spare.
Why did I have no spare?
Because last week, when I’d taken my car to get it inspected, the tires rotated, and everything ‘ready’ for a baby to be here any day, I’d had a slow-leaking flat.
Since Murphy didn’t do slow-leaking flats, or tires at all, he’d switched out my tire with the spare and told me to go get it fixed.
Only…I hadn’t.
And now I was on the side of the road, with a flat on the donut tire he told me not to ride around on for long, and in labor.
How did I know I was in labor?
When I bent down to inspect my tire, a massive whoosh of water had left from between my legs, soaking my shorts, my socks, and my tennis shoes.
Luckily, I had a plastic trash bag that I could lay on my seat.
Unluckily, when my phone had gone to call out—Jesus Christ, why did I live so far out of town?—I’d been in a dead zone.
I’d been hoping for the last thirty minutes that someone would stop—someone that wasn’t a complete creepo—but I’d had to send the one and only car that’d stopped along because he’d looked a little too serial killer to me.
Out of everyone I’d been hoping to come by, Alessio Murphy Romano would’ve been last on my list.
Because, he’d gotten worse since the time I’d seen him at the hospital, and I didn’t know why.
When I’d arrived last week to get my car checked out, he’d been in the middle of a heated conversation with his mother about something—him not trying hard enough about something—and he hadn’t heard me come inside until I cleared my throat.