So, for the last few days, I had been doing everything humanly possible to figure out a way to get her on my good side. We needed to build a relationship so our child didn’t grow up with seemingly strangers for parents. And I had to figure it out fast. Relationships took a lot of work and if I screwed it up along the way, which I was bound to, there would be setbacks. I just needed everything to go smoothly.
I put the finishing touches on the tile I had been grouting and stood back to inspect my work. This was a small job, so none of the guys were with me on this one. I was finishing up this renovation on my own, and I was just about done. My phone rang several times while I was cleaning up, but I couldn’t answer it with my hands so filthy. When I finally checked my phone, I saw that Katherine had called, along with a few other clients. The clients could wait. I needed to know what Katherine was calling about. Taking a deep breath, I dialed her number and waited to hear her voice.
It was like a punch to the gut. I swore, every time I heard her speak, it got to me even more than the last time. How had I thought that she was just some slut in a bar? Well, I guess she still could be, but her voice was sweet and beautiful. Melodic…God, I sounded like a pussy.
“Eric?”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I was just finishing up some work.”
“No problem. I just wanted to let you know that I have my first doctor’s appointment tomorrow. You said you wanted to know, so I’m calling,” Katherine said through the phone.
“Yes, of course. What time is it?”
“One o’clock. But they said it was more of an informational appointment.”
“What does that mean?”
“I guess they’re going to get my medical history and stuff like that.”
“Well, then I should be there. In case they have any questions for me.”
I could have sworn she chuckled over the phone, but chose to ignore it. “Yeah. Anyway, it’s at the women’s clinic. I’m supposed to be there at quarter to one.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then.”
I hung up and grinned to myself. I was still terrified about this whole thing and I hadn’t come up with any good ways to tell my parents about this, but I had made peace with the fact that I was going to be a father. I wondered how soon I could find out if it was a boy or girl. There had to be some resource that could tell me this information. I needed to be prepared going into this appointment for any questions I would have.
I had pretty much finished up work for the day and as I was on my way home, I passed a bookstore and thought I should stop in. They had to have some books on raising babies, right? I parked my truck in front of the store and got out. It was only when I opened the door to the bookstore that I remembered that my old elementary school librarian was now the owner of this shop. I would just turn around and leave. She would never know I was here. I headed for the door when I heard her voice.
“Eric? Is that you?” She came out from behind a bookshelf, smiling and holding out her arms as she walked toward me. “Why, I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Hi, Mrs. Greene.”
“Oh, nonsense,” she said, pulling me in for a hug. “Call me Shirley. You’re not my student anymore. So, did you come in here for a book or just to say hi?”
It would be weird if I came in here to say hi, but I couldn’t exactly tell her that I was looking for a pregnancy book.
“Uh, I just came to browse. You know, just looking for something good to read.”
“Oh, well, we have plenty here. What do you like to read?”
“Uh…” I blew out a breath, not able to come up with anything at the moment. “You know, I think I’ll just browse.”
“Okay, let me know if you need any help.”
She walked away and started unloading some boxes, so I wandered around the store, trying to look inconspicuous. I made my way through the fiction section and over to the self-help section. I picked up a random book and pretended to flip through it as I scoured the section for baby books. When I found it, I started looking at all the choices and scowled. There were so many different books and I had no idea which one to go for. Half of them were listed as the number one baby book. They couldn’t all be number one, which meant that most of them were lying.
“Did you find something?” Mrs. Greene asked.
I quickly straightened and cleared my throat, holding up the book in my hand. “I found what I was looking for.”
She glanced at my book and then her eyebrows shot up in surprise. I finally looked at the book and groaned. Rock on the Wild Side: Gay Male Images in Popular Music of the Rock Era.
“Uh…” I laughed nervously, not sure what to say about that.
“You know, a bookstore is a lot like a therapist’s office.”
“In what way?”
“Well, I believe in doctor/client privileges. Oh, I’m not a doctor, but people shouldn’t be judged for what they read.” Her eyes flicked to the pregnancy books and then back to me. “Some people like erotica. Others like historical fiction. Who am I to judge? And then there are some that come in for purely informational purposes. Oh, I’ve had a lot of women come in and they always want this book,” she said, pulling one off the shelf. “It seems to be the most popular pregnancy book I own.”
I nodded as she smiled and walked away, taking the gay images book out of my hands as she left. I picked up the book she had pointed out and flipped through it. There was a lot of information in there, way more than I could take in just standing in the store. And the longer I stood here, the more likely it would be that someone would see me. I took the book to the counter and she immediately rang it up, then put it in a bag and slid it across to me.
“That’s twenty-three ninety-nine.”
I paid for the book, all the while watching her reactions. She didn’t seem even the least bit interested in pulling any information out of me. When she handed me the receipt, she smiled.
“Thank you for coming in, and don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t,” I smiled back. I turned for the door.
“Oh, and Eric-“ I turned around, seeing her sincere smile. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Greene.”
“Shirley.”
“Shirley,” I nodded and headed for the door.
Katherine
I rushed through the last of my patients and shoved the charts back in their respective spots. I was running late, and if I didn’t hurry, I would miss my first doctor appointment. I checked my watch and saw that I only had a few minutes to get to the clinic across the street.
“Kiki, can you take the call for room 312?” my boss, Charlene, asked.
I wanted to scream at her in frustration. She knew that I had this appointment today. I had put in for the time off and she knew that I needed to leave. I had reminded her a half hour ago. But she didn’t like me for some reason. If I spent too much time with the patients, she got angry with me. She said I wasn’t doing my job, whereas I felt like I was helping them even more.
“I have an appointment. I have to leave now or I’ll miss it.”
She gave me a stern look and shook her head. “Fine, I’ll just pull one of the other girls. At least they don’t call off in the middle of a shift.”
“It’s the first time I’ve done it,” I reminded her. “Besides, I’ll be back when my appointment is done.”
“Don’t take too long. You know we’re short-staffed as it is.”
I refused to roll my eyes at her. I knew exactly how short-staffed we were because she was constantly loading me up on the schedule, even when it was supposed to be my day off. That was going to have to change soon. I had to get into the mindset that I was having a baby and I couldn’t be working non-stop. I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do for day care or how I was going to manage being a mother to an infant while working such demanding hours. I knew that Eric wanted to be involved, but I had no idea how much, and I was a little afraid to ask based on how he had reacted the last few t
imes we talked.
I grabbed my purse and hurried to the elevator, taking it down to the ground level. I rushed across the street and ran through the door to check in, huffing and puffing as I ran up to the desk. The lady behind the counter barely looked up at me as she asked for my name. Then she couldn’t find me in her computer and insisted there must be some mistake. Meanwhile, my appointment was about to start and this would all be for nothing if she couldn’t find me in the system.
“Katherine.” I heard the sexy, deep timbre from behind me and tried not to squeeze my thighs together. I spun around to see Eric approaching. His clothes were dirty and he smelled like sweat. The sound of his voice no longer turned me on as I stared at the man in front of me.
“We’re at a doctor’s office. You couldn’t have cleaned up first?”
“I came right from a job. I had some issues and didn’t have time to get home to change.”
I shook my head. “I told you that you didn’t need to come. This appointment is just medical stuff anyway.”
“Well, I wanted to be here for it. Sorry if a little dirt is bothering you.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled, turning back to the woman behind the desk. “Can you please just look again. My appointment is supposed to start in just a few minutes.”
“Ma’am, I already told you-“
“Is there something wrong?” Eric asked.
The woman behind the counter suddenly looked up and stared at the sexy man behind me. I swore she even batted her eyelashes at him. Um…hello? I was here for an appointment with my OB-GYN. Why wouldn’t she assume that I was here with my husband, or at the very least, my baby daddy, and that he was off limits? I glared at the woman, but she didn’t seem to notice. She just kept staring at Eric, completely ignoring me.
“This woman says that she can’t find my appointment.”
The woman smiled brightly at Eric. “She’s not in the system. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to reschedule. What works for you?” she asked Eric.
My mouth dropped open and I blatantly turned to Eric with a scowl. He hid a smirk and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in closer to his side. I flinched as I felt something wet touch my skin. Sweat, great, he was sweating and getting it all over me.
“Why don’t you check again?” he asked. “Maybe you spelled it wrong.”
She blushed and smiled, but glanced back at her computer. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check again. What was the name?”
I rolled my eyes, irritated that it took a hot man to get her to listen to reason. “Katherine Beck.”
Her eyes narrowed in on the screen and then lit up. “Well, what do you know. It was right there!”
“Wow!” I said in mock surprise. “Imagine that.”
Eric tightened his grip on me a little, giving the woman a charming smile. “Perfect. Should we just sit over there?”
“Yep. The nurse will call you back in a few minutes. Here’s the paperwork you’ll need.”
She handed it over to Eric and I snatched it out of her hand before he could grab it. I glared at her one last time before turning to the seating area, but she only had eyes for my man. Well, my baby man. Baby daddy? Whatever. I shrugged Eric’s arm off me and took my seat.
“You know, you’ll catch more bees with honey,” he said as we took a seat.
“Thanks, Grandma. I’ll keep that in mind next time.”
He held up his hands and chuckled. “I’m just saying, scowling at her isn’t going to make her want to help you.”
“I wouldn’t have been scowling at her if she could just learn to read the damn schedule. And what was with all that charming bullshit you were laying on back there?”
“Charming bullshit?” he asked in confusion. “Oh, you mean the part where I was nice to her. Well, I’m a businessman and I know that being rude to people doesn’t get you very far.”
“Yeah, I got that with the whole bees and honey thing. What I don’t get is why you were flirting with her.”
He quirked his head to the side and his lips just barely tipped up. “Are you jealous?”
“Not at all. But you’ve already knocked up one woman this month. Maybe you should stop there,” I said with a sweet smile.
“You know, it’s not like this has happened to me before. I don’t just go around knocking up women for fun. I already told you, what happened between us was a one time thing. I don’t do one-night stands.”
“Well, I don’t either, so it seems we both got screwed over here.”
He snorted beside me and I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” he asked, not looking at me.
“That snort. What? You think I’m lying?”
“Look, I’m just saying, the way you were dressed that night and how you greeted me, it just screams that you’re easy.”
“Really? So, I get dressed up one night for fun and that makes me easy?”
He turned to me, resting his sweaty arm on the back on my chair. “You know what the problem with women is?”
“Please, inform me.”
“You don’t want to be objectified or judged based on your looks, but then you dress slutty and go home with a man at the end of the night. What else would I have gathered about you from that night?”
“Well, I guess I’ll dress like a nun from now on so that no one mistakes me for a slut,” I snapped.
“And maybe stop calling yourself Kiki. You sound like either a stripper or a parrot.”
My anger boiled inside. This man was so rude and judgmental. “Seriously? Now there’s a problem with my name too?”
“Katherine is such a nice name. Why would you think Kiki is the way to go?”
“Maybe because I didn’t want to sound like an uptight bitch, Eric.”
We glared at each other for a moment, but then the nurse called me back. I almost told him to go fuck himself and leave me alone, but I didn’t want to cause a scene in the middle of the sitting area. He got up and followed me back to an office. I really didn’t see the point in him being here.
The appointment took about an hour, while a woman took down all my medical history and informed me about what kind of schedule I would have once I was seen by the doctor. My first appointment wouldn’t be until I was three months along. And the whole time, Eric sat beside me and took notes in this little notebook. It pissed me off that he was taking such an interest in this pregnancy. Every time I saw him, I swore he pissed me off even more than the last.
There was nothing about us that was compatible. I just didn’t see how any of this was going to work. Would we be those parents that shared custody, but could only barely be civil toward each other? And he was so judgmental. Would he be that way when we were raising our child?
We left after the appointment, neither of us saying a word to each other as we walked out of the building. The only thing I could hope for was that we would grow to be civil toward one another throughout the pregnancy.
“Katherine,” he shouted as I headed toward the crosswalk to go back to work. I turned back to him with a raised eyebrow. “Call me if you need anything.”
The thing was, he looked sincere, and that pissed me off even more. I knew that he would do whatever he could for me, but that didn’t make me feel better. That made me feel worse, because that meant that deep down, all these issues were just surface problems. It meant that he really was a good guy. I nodded and turned away, but I noticed that he didn’t walk away until I was safely inside the other building.
Eric
I watched her walk across the street, pretending not to notice how great her ass looked in those scrub pants. I was in deep shit with this woman. She was such a pain in the ass and now I was stuck with her for the next nine months. And then twenty years after that. Fuck, I was screwed.
I ran a hand over my head as I turned and headed for my truck. I caught a whiff of myself and grimaced. Yeah, I looked like shit and smelled terrible
too. This was not how I usually presented myself in a situation like this. Not that I had been in a situation like this, but if I was going somewhere other than a job, I tried to look nice. I most definitely did not look nice today.
I had problems on the job with the plumbing, and since the plumber didn’t show up when he was supposed to, I had to try and find a quick fix. Let’s just say that nothing had gone this morning as planned. I was lucky that I even made it to the appointment on time. Though, when I got there, Katherine made it pretty clear that she really didn’t want me there.
My phone rang and I pulled it out, sucking in a deep breath before answering. It was my brother, Derek.
“Hey, man. What’s up?” I asked, my throat cracking.
“Am I getting you at a bad time?”
“Uh, no.” I glanced back at the hospital where Katherine had just walked in. Shit, I was going to have to tell him at some point. There was only so long that Andrew would keep this to himself. But now wasn’t the right time. “How are things with you and Claire?”
“You know, wild and crazy. She had me do this thing the other night where I dressed up as Deadpool and she was-“
“You now, when I asked how things were, I didn’t really need a description of what sexual acts you performed last night.”
He chuckled into the phone. “Trust me, if you knew what happened, you’d want a description.”
I headed for my truck, cringing at my own bad luck. “I’ve had enough of sex to last me a lifetime,” I muttered, not really intending him to hear it.
“Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good. What happened?”
“Nothing, I was just…you know, it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, obviously it’s something. No man says that he’s had enough sex.”
I sighed and got into my truck, not wanting anyone else to hear this conversation. “I met this woman last month at The End Zone.”
“Nice,” his voice grinned.
“Not nice. It was…a huge drunken mistake. I was in knots all night with this woman-“
“Oh, man, that sounds so dirty. So, you finally met the woman that would take you down.”
Maintenance Required: A small town romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 1) Page 8