Page 65 of Just Like in the Movies
Micah
Iwas highlighting my lines for the new movie while we waited in the doctor’s office for the baby’s twenty-week scan. Lew sat beside me paging idly through something on his phone. I couldn’t figure out how he was so calm—I was a bundle of nerves, to the point where I couldn’t even find my own lines in this damn script to learn them. But Lew just sat there and snickered at whatever was on his screen as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Llewellyn King?” the nurse called from behind the desk. I shot to my feet, dropping my script in the process and turned to help Lew up.
“Relax.” He scooped up the script and handed it to me. “It’s just an ultrasound.”
“Yeah, well…” I didn’t want to tell him that I had a script in my car for a medical drama that my agent wanted me to consider, and the very first episode dealt with a bad pregnancy. Ever since then, I’d been paranoid. And the dreams…
I nodded to the nurse when we got to the desk and Lew asked quietly if it was okay if I went with him.
“He’s the father?” the nurse asked, looking me over.
“Yes.” Lew slipped his hand casually into mine. “I think if he can hear it from the doctor that the baby is fine, he’ll stop waking me up with nightmares.”
I stared at him, aghast. “Why didn’t you tell me I was waking you up?”
He smiled and squeezed my hand before leading me through the door into the hallway with the exam rooms. “You’ve been getting more and more anxious since a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t want to give you anything more to be upset about. What did you do, watch a medical drama on TV that freaked you out?” He watched me closely, then his eyes narrowed. “Or does that have anything to do with that script I found in the trunk of your car the other day?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the nurse stifle a giggle. “It’s for a pilot,” I told him, shamefaced. “I don’t think I want to do it. Angelia thought I might want to look at TV instead of movies, with the baby coming. She said I might like to be home more.”
He looked thoughtful at that, then shook his head. “You do what you need to do to get yourself established. I can follow you around until the baby is old enough for babysitters.” He tugged me into the room the nurse led us too and pointed to a chair. “Sit. I think my seat is up here.” He kicked a little steel stool over by a padded exam table and hopped up on it. “Nothing is wrong with our baby.”
“Yeah.” But I’d be glad to hear the doctor say that.
We waited there just long enough for Lew to get bored and start poking around at the stuff on the countertop at the side of the room, and then the doctor came in.
“Good afternoon!” he boomed. “Congratulations to you two! Which of you is Llewellyn?”
Lew turned and held out his hand while I went slightly pink at being mistaken for an omega. “That would be me, but everyone calls me Lew,” he said, and shook the doctor’s hand. “This is Mike, my fiancé.”
The doctor held his hand out and I shook it. “We’re going to get Lew up on the table here while I do a quick examination,” he said. “Then we’ll see if we can your baby to pose for a picture.”
I nodded anxiously and watched the doctor like a hawk while he listened to Lew’s chest and took his blood pressure, sucked some blood out of his arm and made him undress behind a screen so he could be weighed.
Lew came out in that ugly hospital blue wrap-around thing, and that was when it really hit me. He was pregnant—we were pregnant. There was a baby coming and I was going to be a father and, oh my God, did I even have the first clue what the hell I was doing?
But then Lew looked at me and smiled and everything was all right again. Lew would know what to do, and he’d make sure I did too.
Lew stepped up on the scale and made a face when the doctor announced his weight.
“It’s perfectly normal. You’ve maybe gained about five pounds more than you should have, but cutting back on the ice cream will help with that.”
Lew looked shocked, and I laughed at him, because ice cream had been the last food obsession before the current one. Good guess on the doctor’s part.
“Up on the table with you,” the doctor said, digging in one of the nearby drawers.
Lew winked at me and followed the doctor’s instructions, lying down and making himself comfortable. They had a quiet conversation while the doctor pressed around on his belly, then took a measuring tape out and measured a vertical line underneath Lew’s bellybutton. I caught the words, “This is usually when it hits them,” from the doctor, and then Lew’s low laughter, but I didn’t have much time to think about it before Lew called me over to stand by his head.
“So far, everything looks right on schedule,” the doctor announced. “Good size, audible heartbeat, all your vital signs are in the normal ranges. You’re having an ideal pregnancy. Now, I’m just going to leave you two here for a moment while I get the ultrasound machine and then we’ll have a peek at your little bundle,” the doctor told us. “Just stay there, I won’t be long.” He disappeared out the door and I reached for Lew’s hand.
“Everything’s okay?” I asked him, even though I’d just heard the doctor say it was.
“It’s fine. My legs are cold. Darn air conditioning.”
I laughed. “You’d complain if they didn’t have it.”
“I know.” He squeezed my fingers. “I don’t know if they can tell yet, but do you want to know if we’re having a boy or a girl?”
