Page 69 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
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I stood beside the door of the OB/GYN, leaning against the concrete wall and forcing myself to breathe.He would show.I had to tell myself that. Thinking that he wouldn’t only made it twenty times worse, but avoiding thinking about it made me want to sob from just how hard I had to actively put it out of my head.
I scanned the parking lot, eyes snagging on Jules’s car where she sat in the cool air conditioning, then roaming again. I knew what I was looking for — Matt’s dark blue Maserati with the red interior he’d shown up in at my apartment last week.
But I didn’t see it anywhere.
I swallowed down the nausea that was trying to force its way up my throat. There were still five minutes until my appointment—five minutes left for him to prove to me that he wasn’t running from this.
But I needed to sign in, needed to tell them I was here for my appointment, so I pushed down any residual hope to try to help myself and walked through the front door expecting fully to do this alone.
Hazel eyes locked with mine the second the air conditioning blasted me in the face.
The air left my lungs in a heartbeat.
Matt stood off to the side of the receptionist in a dark grey business suit, his mostly grey hair styled back out of his face, his jawline clean-shaven. His hands were tucked in the pockets of his slacks like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, and his eyes looked a little sunken, a little dark, like he hadn’t been sleeping well.
He straightened, clearing his throat like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
“Hi,” I said instead, the word almost squeaked from how badly my throat was closing in.
“Hey.”
I felt awkward, unsure in the formality of it, not used to holding back the bullshit I wanted to say to him —shocked you actually came, are you expecting a medal?— but the relief that was washing over me, wave after wave, kept me from opening my mouth again.
“Let’s get you signed in,” he said softly, taking a single step toward me to usher me to the counter. I wrote my name down and the current time beside it, then slid it across the counter to the woman waiting with a paid-for smile across her cheeks.
We sat down across from each other to wait, his gaze holding mine, his jaw tight. He must’ve come from work based on his clothes, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d told his employees, if he’d said anything at all or just walked out. If he’d mentionedme.
“I didn’t see your car.” The words came out smaller than I’d intended, and I cringed, knowing damn well what he’d pick up from that.
His expression softened just a hair. “I took the Range Rover today. Dropped Zach off at school before work.”
Christ, I felt like an idiot.
“Sienna?”
I nearly jumped at the sound of my name, but the nurse at the doorway smiled softly at me. Matt offered me a hand up and I ignored it, pushing up with a stifled grunt, my head spinning just a little.
The hallway was quiet, the fluorescent lights above making me squint as they hummed faintly. The nurse led us into a room that smelled overly sterile, the exam bed coated with a thin paper that crinkled under me as I climbed up onto it and lay back. Matt lingered awkwardly beside me, hands in his pockets again, his gaze flicking about the room like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be part of this.
And maybe I wasn’t entirely sure either. But it wasstrangeseeing him no longer be the ever-confident version of himself.
The doctor came in with a clipboard and a kind smile, introduced herself as Dr. Hayworth, and explained how this would work in a calm, practiced voice like she’d done this a million times for women who had never gone through this before. I tried to breathe through the anxiety building in my chest — the room felt both too warm and too cold, my thin cotton shirt sticking slightly to my back as I adjusted myself on the bed at her request.
I pulled the fabric up when she asked, baring my stomach, and winced when I realized this was the first time Matt was actually seeing it like this.
A little swollen. Not much, just a small bump, but it wasthere. Small, but undeniable, normally hidden beneath a loose shirt or, like when Matt had come, a hoodie. But seeing it here in the clinical lighting made something twist inside of me.
Real. It wasrealnow.
Dr. Hayworth spread the jelly over my skin, and I flinched a little from the chill, her soft“sorry, it’ll warm up”lost to the loud pulse in my ears. The wand moved across the curve of my stomach, and the screen flickered on, confusing images flashing up that I didn’t understand how to read.
Warm, lightly calloused fingers found mine.
It wasn’t a dramatic gesture or some sweeping apology. Just his fingers, hesitant but firm, curling gently around mine and threading through the gaps, warm and steady and something tohold.
I looked up at him, expecting a reassuring glance or a tight-lipped smile, but his eyes were glued to the monitor, his mouth parted, jaw tight, like he was just as anxious as I was to know that whoever was growing inside of me was healthy.
