Page 13 of The MC's Surprise
I pressed my lips together, debating. It felt awkward to talk to Sierra about Charlotte but I couldn’t just ignore her question either.
“She’s my floor manager. Or, one of them anyway. She works the day shift.”
Sierra hummed and I heard the paper on the table crinkle as she sat down. “Is she new?”
I peeked over my shoulder, making sure she was covered before turning around. “No, actually she’s been my manager for about two years now.”
“Huh. I never met her when I worked with you.”
She plucked at the weird paper blanket, trying to cover more of herself. I moved to help her automatically, straightening it out so she was more comfortable.
“She was actually on vacation when you worked with me. Some big European trip with her family or something. She got back not long after you left.”
Something about her face was off, but I didn’t have time to figure out why. The tech came back in, smiling brightly as they explained what they’d be doing. I was directed to a chair on Sierra’s other side, out of the way of the tech. The whole situation was awkward, but it all fell away when the image appeared on the screen.
I sucked in a sharp breath, choking a little on my own spit. “Holy shit. That’s a whole ass baby.”
The image shook and for a second I freaked out until I realized Sierra was laughing at me. Even the tech looked amused, head tipped curiously. “Is this Daddy’s first ultrasound?”
My mouth fell open and Sierra started laughing harder, to the point the tech had to pull the little stick thing off her belly. “Not like that! They mean baby daddy!”
My cheeks heated and I wrinkled my nose. “Shut up. You can see how I got there.”
The tech let out a startled laugh, their cheeks turning a bright shade of pink. “Oh, god. Now I’m going to think about that every time a dad comes in for an ultrasound. I mean, you’re cute, but I don’t really see you as a Daddy.”
They gave me an elevator look, which only shocked me again and my jaw hit the floor. Sierra burst into laughter again, tearsgathering in her eyes from laughing so hard. This shit was heavy and awkward, but at least she was laughing. Even if it was at my expense.
“How about we get back to business?” the tech snickered. “I’m going to take measurements, and we’ll get you lots and lots of pictures too. Do we want to know the gender?”
Sobering a little, Sierra shrugged. “I guess?” She shot me a questioning look, but I didn’t mind either way.
“Why not? The crew kids are about even on gender. Let’s find out who’s going to pull out a winner.”
“The gender wars,” Sierra said dramatically, which made me snort.
After the scan,where we didn’t get to find out the gender thanks to the baby having their legs crossed, and I spent way too long making vibrator jokes during the internal scan thing, Sierra told me we need to head downstairs for bloodwork. While we were there, she would request a paternity test. I thought they would have to wait until the baby was born, but I guess things have changed and there was a non-invasive option that we could do right away. In two weeks, give or take, we’d find out for sure if the kid was mine.
Internally, I had pretty much accepted that it was. I only knew her for a short time, but Sierra wasn’t the kind of person to lie. And when the tech gave a rough estimate on the date of conception, it was smack in the middle of when we were hooking up. It felt stupid to pretend for another two weeks that we weren’t in this mess together.
“That’ll be four hundred dollars. How did you want to pay today?”
Yanked out of my thoughts, I swung around just in time to see the grimace flash across Sierra’s face as she offered her credit card. I lunged forward, snatching it out of her hand, and gave the nurse mine instead.
“I’ve got it.”
“You don’t have to–”
“Yes, I do,” I cut her off. “You’re not doing this alone, Sierra. That’s my kid too. It’s only right that I pay for shit since you’re doing the lion’s share of the work carrying it.”
Sierra didn’t seem to know what to say to that. The nurse eyed us both for a moment before inputting my card into the system. When she offered it back, she smiled at me before looking at Sierra.
“Good partners step up. He’s doing the right thing. There’s nothing wrong with accepting help while you’re expecting.”
A muscle in Sierra’s jaw twitched, but she forced herself to smile. “Thank you. What floor is the lab on?”
“First floor, on the left. Have a nice day.”
The awkwardness was back as we headed for the lab, the elevator ride silent as the grave. I hated it after seeing her smiling like I remembered, so I turned to face her. “Listen…”
