Page 45 of Doctor’s Surprise Twins

“Oh, give me a break, Derek. You fucking know.” He took a few menacing steps closer to me.

“Curt, listen, I—”

“What happened?” He dropped his hat, his hands fisted at his sides. He hadn’t even bothered to take his jacket off or stomp the snow off his boots.

“I don’t know. I just—”

“So something happened?” Curt launched at me, fists blazing. I didn’t have a chance to even raise my hands to cover my face. His knee landed in my groin, and a hard right cross collided with my jawbone. I tried to push him away, but he had the upper advantage and I had been taken by surprise. He slammed another fist into my chest, and I recoiled, finding it hard to breathe.

“Whoa!” Peter’s voice sounded from behind me, and I heard beer bottles clink, then felt Curt lift off me. When I looked up, holding my jaw, Peter was pulling Curt back. “Curt, stop. Seriously.”

Curt yanked away from Peter and picked up his hat. “You motherfucker.” His voice shook with anger. He pointed a finger at me. “It was you, wasn’t it? Is that why she doesn’t want to see you? Did you hurt her?” Angry tears burned hot streaks down his cheeks.

“What’s going on?” Peter backed away, picking up his beer.

“Nothing,” I snapped, picking the other one up and pressing it to the sore spot on the side of my face.

“Well, I can’t very well leave if he’s going to attack you again.” Peter hovered, glancing between us.

Curt snatched the beer out of Peter’s hand and guzzled it, downing the entire thing then thrusting the empty bottle back into Peter’s hand. “We’re fine,” he spat.

“We’re fine, Pete. I’ll come by tomorrow and we can have that beer.”

We both waited as Peter put his coat on and left, his eyes locked on Curt until the door was shut. I wasn’t sure what to say except to be honest.

“I’m not sure what you know or how much you know, but you need to understand that I never... I would never hurt Maggie. I love her.”

Curt scoffed and shook his head. When he charged at me again, I winced, not willing to duke it out with him. Maggie meant more to me than that. He could beat me to a pulp and I would still love her. But when his hand came at me, it wasn’t a fist. He grabbed the beer away from the side of my face and tipped it up to his lips as he sat down next to me.

“I fucking knew it.” He shook his hanging head. “She lied to me. She told me the father wasn’t in the picture. She told me it wasn’t you.”

We sat in silence as the weight of his words sank in. She’d told me the same thing, but my gut knew better.

“It was you. Wasn’t it?” His voice had dropped, his tone so low I almost couldn’t hear him.

I shrugged. “Curt, I swear to you I don’t know. She told me the same thing. We had sex—alotof sex.” He scowled at me. “But when she moved away, I had no idea she was pregnant. I didn’t know it until I was called for an emergency cesarean and scrubbed in, only to see it was her. I could have lost everything just doing that surgery, you know? If those are my babies, it goes against every ethics board in the country. As it was, I shouldn’t have done it, simply for the fact that we’d had a relationship.”

I winced at my own words. What I now confessed was a relationship, I had thrown in her face as “sex and friendship”, and I realized for the first time how much that must have hurt her.

“But if I hadn’t operated, she’d be dead, and so would the babies. There was no doctor within an hour of that place to do that surgery. It’s too remote, and I was on call.”

Curt looked up at me, eyes still angry but searching now. “You saved her life?”

“I mean, I can’t say with 100% certainty that she’d have died, but it would have been close. She had a raging infection, likely caused by a leaking amniotic sac being contaminated. Maybe bath water or just bacteria of some sort. The babies would have contracted the same infection. It made her very sick. She was nearly septic when I did the surgery.”

“Fuck.” He raked his hand through his hair and set the beer down.

“I have a strong feeling they’re mine. I also know I probably hurt her somehow, or else she wouldn’t have walked away—left town. She probably thought I didn’t want her and wouldn’t want the babies, either.” My shoulders sank. I felt like I could let my guard down now.

“Wouldn’t want her? Why?” He angled to face me more, concern on his face again.

“I told her we couldn’t be more than friends, but the sex was really great. I worried about my job, the office, the way inner-office relationships get messy. I was selfish and stupid. I couldn't admit that I loved her. After Mom died, I didn’t trust that Maggie wouldn’t do the same thing—leave me out of important decisions I had a right to help make.”

“How did that work out for you?” Curt picked up the beer and took a swig. I grimaced, realizing I had created a self-fulfilling prophecy. She had done exactly what I was afraid she’d do, simply because I told her I didn’t want that level of relationship.

“Help me, Curt. My heart is just destroyed. Even if she doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore, she needs help with those babies at the very least. They’re mine. I know it.”

Curt hung his head again and said, “Alright, but if you hurt her, Iwillkill you.”

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