Santa, Baby

by Blair Babylon

  “Which is why I’m telling you. I’m sorry. I would have stopped if I had known, but we were going at it so hard that I didn’t notice until afterward.”

  “Look, I need to know what else I need to do today. Do I need to start a course of acyclovir or triple cocktail or antibiotics? Have you been tested for such things?”

  Peyton held up both his hands, as if in surrender. “Andy tests us for everything that will come up on a blood test every couple of months. I had to have a physical for insurance reasons three weeks ago. Everything came back clear. I can have Andy order more tests just to double check, but just so you know, I haven’t had sex with anyone else, not since I met you.”

  “But you can’t tell Andy that you were with me. You can’t tell her that we are seeing each other. Why would you suddenly need tests for AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases if you aren’t seeing me?”

  Peyton’s blue eyes widened, startled. “Well, I suppose—I think I might—I could just tell her I fucked a groupie.”

  Raji pressed her hands on the table on either side of her plate to keep them from shaking. “Yeah, a groupie. That’ll work, right?”

  “Sometimes rock stars fuck groupies, I’m told. Surely it seems plausible, right?”

  “I think so.”

  Peyton told her, “I can sell it. I’ll make sure Andy never connects anything to you.”

  Raji nodded. Peyton had kept their secret for over two years now from everyone in Killer Valentine. If he had slipped even once, Andy would have been calling Raji’s phone within seconds, demanding an explanation and details.

  She sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee. The black brew was too hot and scalded her tongue. She coughed, and Peyton was around the table and rubbing her back as she spit the coffee into a napkin and hacked.

  He asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll just get some Plan B today. I’m sure it will be fine.”

  “I admit, I was kind of hoping you were on the Pill or something.”

  “I was last year, but the hormones got to be too much for my body. It was interfering with my concentration at work.”

  “I can see where that could happen.”

  Raji said, “It will be fine. I’ll make sure it will be fine.”

  He rubbed her back. “We’ve got hours before our flight. We can find a drug store here that carries it. If you tell me exactly what to get, I’ll get it for you. You don’t even have to leave the room.”

  “I’ll get it from the hospital pharmacy. It’s cheaper on my insurance, and you never know what’s going on with a retail pharmacy.” God, retail pharmacies. She might as well buy some M&Ms on the street from a teenager. “I’d rather get it from my Pharm-D’s tonight.”

  “I thought timeliness was important?”

  “It’ll be fine.” She added up her cycle, and she wasn’t even due to ovulate for another day or so. “Trust me. I’m a doctor.”

  He laughed. “In that case, I think we need a hearty breakfast to fortify us after last night.”

  “We’ve got hours until our flight leaves,” Raji said, tucking in some eggs even though she had suddenly lost her appetite. “I know I was drunk last night, but I distinctly remember that you promised to play me some of your songs.”

  Peyton ducked his head. “I have a new Killer Valentine song to work on. We are going to debut it in a club next week. I should practice that.”

  “Nope, you’re not getting out of it that easily this time, buddy. You won’t let me fill out a spreadsheet with your career goals and metrics to attain them, but you definitely promised me that you would play all of your new songs for me today. Get your guitar.”

  Peyton laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Raji drank coffee and lay on the couch while Peyton Cabot, the rock star, serenaded her with three sweet, lilting love songs. He ended up sitting on the floor beside the couch, his guitar resting on his rock hard stomach as he sang. Raji played with his blond hair, combing her fingers through the silken strands.

  When one died away to silence in the hotel room, Raji insisted, “More,” so he played a few more.

  By the end, she was floating dreamily, just listening. “Those are beautiful, Peyton. Even I can tell that they’re phenomenal. I can’t believe Xan Valentine gave them a pass.”

  Peyton loaded his guitar into its case. “He hasn’t heard them.”

  “You have to play them for him.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh.” Light dawned. Horrible, horrible light. “They’re about Georgie, his wife, aren’t they? Yeah, I can see where the alpha male lead-singing rock star with the precariously balanced psychiatric problems might not be your ideal audience for beautiful love songs about longing for his wife.”

  Peyton snapped the latches on the guitar case and grabbed Raji around the waist, hauling her bodily off the couch, while he laughed. “They’re not about Georgie, silly.”

  “But they’re about love and stuff,” she protested. Something stupid quivered in her chest.

  Peyton bent his head and whispered, “I’ve been over Georgie for years. When I said that she belongs with Xan, I meant it.”

  “Oh, so who—”

  “You, my darling, my favorite little lizard person, you. I wrote all those songs for you.”

  “But we can never see each other because you’re on tour. And I don’t have any time because I’m doing a residency and can’t ever leave the hospital.”

  Peyton pressed his lips to her temple. “When I’m on the road, locked in yet another beige hotel room, staring at the television and some ridiculous piece of commercially produced art on the wall, just before I go to sleep, I imagine you, lying on the other side of the bed and smiling at me. I reach out and take your hand, kiss your fingertips,” his soft lips brushed her knuckles, “and then I can close my eyes and sleep.”

  “Every night?” she asked him, a little breathless at the thought.

  “Every night.”

  “What if there’s someone else there?”

  “There’s never anyone else there.”

  “Never?”

  “Not since I met you. Never.”

  “I will, too,” Raji said. “I’ll think of you before I go to sleep, too.” She already had been.

  Peyton smiled. “It’s just a few weeks, this time. We’ll go to your hospital’s masquerade in under a month. I’ll see you again soon.”

  The Whizz Quiz

  THREE weeks later, Raji stood in the bathroom of her apartment, holding a pregnancy test.

  The two little blue lines on the device glared at her, accusing her of not getting to the pharmacy quite fast enough or swallowing the Plan B pills quite firmly enough.

  She dropped the pregnancy test in the stainless steel trash can, where it rattled on top of the other two positive pregnancy tests.

  This was insane. This was impossible.

  The white tile of the bathroom blurred in the bright lights above the sinks.

  She held onto the steel bathroom counter so she wouldn’t fall and told her phone, “Call Peyton.”

  The phone made a fucked-up rattling sound.

  Peyton’s voice asked, “Hello, Raji? Are you there?”

  Raji sucked in a deep breath. “You’re still coming to the masquerade ball for the hospital next week, aren’t you?”

  Peyton’s voice was throaty with sleep. “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

  Raji kicked the trash can. “Oh, no reason. I’ll be glad to see you.”

  “Me, too. I miss you when I’m touring.”

  She wrapped her arms around her treasonous body, willing it to get with the damn program. “I miss you, too.”

  Masquerade Ball

  THE hospital’s annual charity masquerade was held in the ballroom of one of the big downtown hotels in L.A. Enormous chandeliers like floating Mardi Gras floats glittered and threw spangles through the darkness over the people swaying on the dance floor.

  Peyton wore a differ
ent tuxedo than last month. This one had a traditional tailed jacket and a white bow tie, very formal and proper. He looked every inch—and there were many, many inches in his six-feet-and-more frame—the upper-class, elite heir to an old money fortune that he was. He wore the same Venetian half-face mask as last time, and Raji wore the silver filigree mask with rhinestones again, too.

  Beneath his mask and on the side of his face left bare, a pale, golden beard glinted on his cheeks and jaw, a new addition to his rock star image. His lengthening blond hair was just long enough to be gathered neatly at the nape of his neck.

  When he gathered her close to his chest, the scent of his herbal and citrus cologne soothed her.

  If only their night at the hospital’s charity ball could be as wonderful as that night a month ago at the Devilhouse, but Raji was going to ruin it.

  Was probably going to ruin it.

  Maybe she wouldn’t even mention her little pregnancy problem. After all, she had several options to deal with it. Peyton didn’t have to know about any of them.

  He would probably be grateful if she never brought it up, if he never had to be involved in such a heart-wrenching decision.

  And yet, she didn’t have anyone to talk to about it.

  Beth would flip her fucking lid if Raji admitted she’d gotten knocked up. God only knew what she would do.

  Her attendings would be icily supportive and then mark her down for not being committed enough.

  Raji wished she could talk to Peyton about it because he would give her the sympathy and support she was craving, but she didn’t want to burden him with it, either.

  He would have her back, but she wasn’t sure she needed to lay this on him.

  So she stewed for hours about it instead.

  Raji was wearing a different black dress than last time because her other dress had been too tight across the bust when she had tried it on. This dress did look awesome on her, though. Her boobs looked better than they ever had in her entire life. She was boobilicious. Might as well enjoy that part of it.

  Even Beth raised one eyebrow in surprise at Raji’s voluptuous figure when she popped up with her date, Joshua, the pencil-necked anesthesiologist. “Hey, Raji! Who’s your date?”

  “Um, this is—” Oh, crap. They hadn’t practiced anything. She hadn’t even mentioned to Peyton that he needed to be on the down-low.

  Peyton stepped up and extended his hand. “Alexander Astor of the Connecticut Astors, not those Massachusetts ones. A pleasure to meet you.”

  Beth laughed. “Beth Dansk of the New Jersey Dansks, all of us hoity-toity types off of Exit Eight-A. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.” Beth barely glanced at Peyton, so she probably hadn’t recognized him.

  Peyton said, “Charmed, I’m sure.” His accent was so broad with no Rs at all that it was almost Bostonian. He was chahmed, he was shu-uh.

  Beth said to Peyton, “I work with Raji here at the hospital. What do you do?”

  He grinned that sunny smile of his, his lips curving under his Venetian mask. “I’m a lawyer. Don’t hold it against me.”

  Beth laughed again. “Where did you go to school? What specialty?”

  “Yale and Yale Law, I’m afraid, and finance, the most boring of the law specialties. You must pity Raji for her poor choice in men.”

  Beth was still laughing at him, though her eyes were wandering off into the crowd.

  Raji grabbed Peyton’s hand to haul him away. “Good seeing you, Beth. Talk to you later.”

  Peyton had played that perfectly, even down to the broad Connectikite accent that he didn’t usually have and keeping his mask angled toward Beth. With all of Peyton’s diversions, Beth hadn’t recognized the Killer Valentine rock star at all, and Raji’s secrets were safe.

  Raji smiled at him.

  Peyton had her back.

  They danced and ate dinner at the hospital gala, never once removing their masks. Raji knew everyone there, of course, and recognized them all, even though they wore masks, too.

  Everybody recognized her, too, so she kept introducing Peyton as Alexander Astor. That took care of any Killer Valentine fans they might meet.

  A few of her girlfriends glanced downward at her boobs, with one eyebrow lowered, as if asking if whether Raji had had a boob job. They must know that she hadn’t, of course. A surgeon would never take the time for cosmetic surgery during her residency.

  They danced for hours on the huge dance floor. The band played covers from the last couple decades.

  Peyton appeared to be having a good time. He laughed at all the right times and was his usual charming, gregarious self.

  For minutes at a time, Raji forgot about the thing she really should tell him.

  She did ask him what he thought about the band, considering that Peyton played in a world-famous rock band and these guys didn’t know who was in their audience that night. Peyton insisted that the band was together, in tune, and had interesting interpretations of the songs, but he wouldn’t criticize them at all.

  Because he was kind. Because he was sweet.

  Raji needed to tell him.

  Some of her friends had just gone and had it taken care of when it had happened to them, without telling anyone at all.

  Telling him might not be the right thing to do.

  Why would it be better to share the misery?

  It would probably be kinder to not put him through it.

  After they had consumed what was indeed rubbery chicken and danced the night away, Raji drove Peyton back to her apartment.

  She was fine to drive because she hadn’t been drinking.

  Not that it was going to matter.

  She could have had a few drinks if she had wanted to, considering that she had every intention of medically solving the problem.

  So when they took the elevator up to Raji’s apartment in downtown Los Angeles, a building conveniently near the hospital because Raji was on-call day and night, she wasn’t particularly worried about anything. She was just going to let him know that she had a little medical condition that she would get taken care of, and it was no big deal.

  Peyton stood in her living room, stretching his arms over his head. The black ribbons from the Venetian mask that he held in one hand fluttered in the air conditioning. He pulled the covered elastic band out of his blond hair and shook it behind his shoulders. The ends trailed several inches past his collar. With his little scruff of beard, too, Raji had been teasing him all night that he looked like a noob lumberjack.

  Dressed in the white-tie tuxedo and standing in her living room, Peys didn’t look like a lumberjack. He looked like a blond nobleman from the 1800s, or maybe a Viking in a suit.

  He smoothed his hair to the back of his head and bound the elastic around it again.

  Raji hadn’t been sure how she’d felt about “manbuns” before, but watching his biceps bulge under his tux and the formal jacket rise above his slim waist while he tied his hair back made her appreciate the hairstyle far more than she would have, otherwise.

  Hey, they’d had a great night.

  Now was a spectacular time to ruin everything.

  Raji flipped the locks on the front door. “Hey, Peys. We kind of need to talk about something.”

  He smiled and walked over to where she was standing. His fingers trailed down her bare arm. “I’ve got a better idea than talking.”

  Maybe she should take that as a clue and just shut up about it. “So, you remember about a month ago when the condom broke—”

  Peyton laughed. “Yeah, it was flapping around like a popped balloon, and I didn’t even notice it.”

  Raji bit her lip. “Yeah, about that—”

  Whatever You Want To Do

  RIGHT then, at that moment—and Peyton didn’t know if it was the haunting vulnerability in Raji’s dark eyes, or the way the black silk dress clung to her voluptuous curves that he had been having trouble refraining from staring at all night long, or just that the scent of her had become yet more delicious�
�he knew what she was going to tell him.

  It staggered him.

  The concept of a child, of a perfect, soft child who was part of him and part of Raji, was a baseball bat blow to the backs of his knees and a club to his stomach.

  If he had tried to walk, he would have fallen.

  Because he had been raised in New England (and in Connecticut at that, the New Englandest of all of New England,) somehow, he didn’t fall to his knees.

  His hands reached out, almost without him thinking about it, and alighted on her hips.

  A phrase ran through his head: the cradle of life. He didn’t know why he thought that. When he wrote song lyrics, he tried to be spare and simple and terse with emotion, Hemingway-like, and he would never have written such a metaphorical phrase in a song as the cradle of life.

  Yet here she was, her body cradling a living child who was both of them.

  “Raji?” Peyton’s voice cracked as he tried to maintain his decorum.

  She said, “You know? This can wait. Your flight isn’t until tomorrow afternoon. We can talk over breakfast tomorrow. Heck, we could have an early lunch before you go. There’s no reason to talk about things tonight.” She picked his hands off of her body. “Come on. Let’s go to the bedroom.”

  Peyton wanted her to tell him. He wanted to be right. He wanted to stop the vagabond lives they both had been cobbling together and figure out how to be with her and how to be a family. “Tell me.”

  Raji sucked in a breath. “Promise that you won’t be mad.”

  “I could never be angry with you.” He held her fingers, hoping his hands weren’t shaking.

  “Well, about a month ago—”

  “Yes.”

  “—and you know that the condom—”

  “Tell me, Raji-lee.”

  “—I think I might have gotten pregnant,” she sighed.

  It was purely training, what he said after that. Even though his heart and his body yearned to say anything else, Peyton said what he had been taught to say because he was an upper-class New Englander and so very civilized.