Page 189 of Sebastian's Baby

“I doubt it,” Lita replies with a laugh. “Want me to pull up some Reddit threads for you?”

“I think I’ll survive without seeing those, thanks,” I tell her, but I smile as I start writing a reply with things she should find me good for other than looking at.

I’m good for making you look good at pool. I lose on purpose, you know, just so you seem amazing.

Not true, but she’s smiling, and that’s something. So I write another one out.

I’m good for basically getting you IN with your favorite band. You’ve gotta admit, that’s pretty good.

She laughs and replies.

Okay, I’ll agree, that is pretty good. I mean, I totally got to talk to Hayden Vega last night! He’s my favorite member of Cruise Control, you know…

I laugh out loud again before writing my reply to her.

I don’t believe you. I’m also good for writing songs for you before I even knew I was writing them for you. Remind me to write a song FOR you, sometime, though.

I really need to do that. I immediately think of the song I’m writing with Mirabella’s heartbeat in it. Nothing has really been perfect for it because I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I think I know now.

I’m distracted from my thoughts when my phone pings with another text from Lita.

Thank you for distracting me.

I smile and write back to her.

Any time, princess.

We fall into silence, and Lita slips her phone back into her pocket then looks down at the floor. I take her hand in mine and stroke her skin with my thumb, feeling comforted by it, and pushing away any dark thoughts that come to my mind. Maybe if I don’t think about what might happen to Mirabella, I can stop it from happening.

Lita looks up when a patient’s name is called, then casts her eyes over the waiting room and the people who are still looking at us before she looks down again. I squeeze her hand and hope it reminds her that I’m here and I’ll always support her. She smiles at the floor and squeezes my hand back.

When her name is called, we follow a nurse down a hallway to an examination room. Lita’s blood pressure is taken, and she answers some questions about her medical history before the nurse leads us into the doctor’s office.

Dr. Floyd is a tall black man, and he gives us a friendly smile when we walk into his office. “Hi, Lolita, Sebastian, it’s lovely to meet you both.”

“Call me Lita,” she says with a smile back at him.

“Lita, great. Take a seat.” He indicates to the chairs in front of his desk. “Dr. Sanders sent through your file, and I’m glad you were able to come in today for a scan. Obviously, we have your scans from Seattle, but Ilike to have my own scan done with our machine for a baseline, so there’s some consistency. I’ll be taking you through to do your scan in a few minutes. Do you have any questions for me before that?”

“How many cases like ours have you managed, and what was the survival rate in those?” Lita asks.

This is more interactive than Lita has been in most of our doctor’s visits, and I’m glad. I thought that I might have to take over for her again. I hope this is a sign that she’s comfortable with Dr. Floyd, especially if he’s going to be the one who ends up performing the surgery.

“Quite a few; this is not my first rodeo. I won’t be able to give any predictions of outcomes until after I’ve done the scan, and I would never presume to give certainties, but looking over your file, I am optimistic. I won’t sugarcoat any news that we get where it isn’t as positive.”

I’m grateful for this because I want to know if something bad is going to happen. He says he’s optimistic, but I just can’t allow myself to be.

“Obviously, yours is a high-profile case, so I will be personally handling it and will keep the file with me. I trust my staff implicitly, but I want to ensure everything for the rest of your pregnancy is as smooth as it can be, Lita.” He smiles at her.

I’m grateful for this because this whole fucking pregnancy shit is stressful enough as it is, the last thing we need is for Lita’s case file to be leaked to the media.

“Thank you. I appreciate it, Dr. Floyd,” she says.

“Call me Eric; we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so we might as well be on a first-name basis. If you don’t have any more questions for the moment, we’ll go do the scan, and we can talk more afterward.”

Eric leads us to a room with an ultrasound machine. Lita’s done this so many times now that she climbs onto the bed without being asked and pulls her top up under her breasts and her maternity pants down under her bump. She looks so beautiful and scared as she watches the screen, waiting to see our little girl.

“Busy baby,” Eric says as he starts taking measurements of Mirabella.

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