Page 53 of Doctor Daddy

She glanced at her smartwatch and replied, “In like twenty minutes.”

I pushed my feet and rubbed my lower back. I was going to be crazy sore. Angela lifted her arm and waved her hand at me. “You really shouldn’t do that, Brooke. It makes you look pregnant.”

I stopped and stared at her. “Do what?”

“Hold your back and pooch your tummy out like that.”

I looked down at my stomach. I didn’t take my hands off my back. I was kind of pushing it out, to be honest. Is this what I was gonna look like in a couple of months?

“Well,” I started, extending the word into several syllables. “Now that you’ve mentioned it.”

“Mentioned what?” she asked in a sharp tone. Angela was a smart cookie. By the look on her face, she had it figured out before I managed to say anything. “Oh my God. That’s why you’ve been sick.”

I let a grin play across my face. “Not exactly sick,” I said. “Pregnant.”

I wrapped my hands over my distended stomach, cradling the baby bump that really wasn’t there yet.

She blew out a long breath making her mouth into a perfect O shape. “Is this your secret doctor?”

I bit my lip and scrunched up my nose.

“This was why you wanted to get out of Atlanta so fast, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Both,” I confessed.

“Oh my God, Brooke, does your mother know? Never mind, of course, your mother doesn’t know. She would never have let you move if she knew you were going to have a baby. Seriously, you’re going to have a baby?”

I nodded.

“How is this going to impact school?”

“Well,” I started. “I did look up the schedule and the last testing day of the semester is in early December. I should be okay.”

“What do you mean it should be? When’s your due date?”

I made another face at her. “I don’t know exactly. I haven’t been to a doctor yet.”

“What do you mean you haven’t been to a doctor yet. You worked at a hospital full of doctors. How pregnant are you?”

I shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

“You’re killing me here. What do you mean you don’t know? Don’t you keep track of these things?”

I shook my head.

“Brooke, you’re supposed to keep track of these things. Otherwise, you end up not knowing how pregnant you are when you find out you’re pregnant. Oh my gosh.”

Her outrage wasn’t very serious because she was laughing the entire time.

“I guess when we go furniture shopping, we’re looking for a crib too.”

I nodded.

“It seems an extreme way of going about it, but, okay, you can have the bigger of the two bedrooms.”

I sat back down on the box and laughed to the point of tears. Both bedrooms were exactly the same tiny size. Each one would barely fit a single bed and a dresser. I guess in my case, that would be a single bed and a crib. I’d have to figure out where to put my clothes later.

“This is going to be…” Expressions played across her face.

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