Rock the Cradle: An Mpreg Romance (Silver Oak Medical Center Book 6)

by Aiden Bates

  "I can't sit here and watch him grow. I can't. And honestly, I think someone like me should probably not be living in a place that shares walls with neighbors. I haven't been a good neighbor to Derek, not since he moved in, and I think I just need my space."

  "Maybe the neighbors need their space," Ivy muttered. But that didn't stop her from helping with the search.

  They found the perfect place within minutes of starting their search. It was down in Onondaga Hill, where it seemed a lot of the doctors had bought houses lately. This one was a beautiful, light-filled contemporary masterpiece on two and a half wooded acres. All of the rooms were built along corridors that led down into a well-lit atrium, which turned out to be a giant family room.

  "This," Alex said, pointing. "I can bring Joey there sometimes, and there's space for the nanny to have her privacy. Mama could come and stay there if she wanted to, and Ayla if she came to visit or for a case."

  "Derek?" Ayla tilted her head and gave Alex a little smile.

  "I doubt Derek will ever see the inside of it." Alex looked at the floor for a second. "I can see him here, though. It would be a beautiful place for him to be, don't you think? Good for him to heal." He bit his lip. "But it isn't an issue, because he's never going to see it. Anyone want to come with me for an appointment tomorrow? I want to be out of this condo before Derek gets out of the hospital."

  Ivy slurped a gulp from her martini. "You don't think that's a little childish? I'm totally with you on the house. I think it's gorgeous and I can't wait to see you moved in. But to do it just because you don't want to see your ex again? That's a little much."

  Alex gripped his laptop tight. Then he let it go. He was being absurd. This was not the hill to die on. "You know what? Maybe I am being ridiculous. But either way, it's probably better for both of us to have our space. Are you with me or not?"

  Alex called the realtor the next day and made the appointment. The woman, Paula, seemed a little bit nonplussed when he called and asked to see it that day, but she made it happen as soon as she heard the word "doctor." Alex’s decision was made by the time he finished his tour of the property, and he had an offer in by the end of the day.

  Maybe it was a little impulsive, but he could live with that for now. That house was the perfect family gathering place. His new family might be a little weird, and a little unconventional, but he was determined to be proud of it.

  They would have the perfect place to do it in, too.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was a good thing that Dr. Idoni was hot, because Derek realized very quickly he was going to be seeing a lot of him. "I don't want to make a prisoner of you, Derek, but I can't send you home without help either. You're on bed rest. That means no driving, no lifting, no nothing unless it's moving from the bed to the bathroom. You need help."

  Derek tried to be a pleasant person, as a general rule. He tried not to get bitter about his lot in life, because it was actually pretty good. Right now, though, it was looking a little grim. He had friends, but no one close enough to call on for something so intimate. There was Amadi, but Derek wasn't willing to make that kind of request and Amadi worked just as hard as Derek did.

  And so Derek was stuck in a small room in the back of the obstetrics wing, where they put carrier parents who weren't going home with a baby in their arms. He got a steady stream of visitors, which helped him to keep his spirits up. The visitors didn't last more than a few minutes at a time, or an hour at most. For the most part, Derek spent his days in the quiet hospital room, alone.

  Carmela wasn't his ward anymore. Derek guessed a guardian needed to be able to do things like get out of the bed. That was okay. He loved Carmela, but her parents had gotten jobs and an apartment in Dewitt. She'd moved in with them and continued with her homeschooling as the trial continued.

  The big excitement Derek got was when lawyers from both sides, along with the judge and a video camera, live streamed Derek's testimony for the jury back downtown. He felt absurd sitting in a hospital bed, propped up by the mattress, for court. Even the judge cracked a joke about how he should have at least worn a jacket to the courtroom.

  Derek was in too much pain to be amused just then.

  He swore his oath, asked for some ice chips and got ready to speak.

  The prosecutor's questions were easy enough to handle. They asked him to give an account of the events that happened that day at the fair. He explained what he'd seen, and how he'd decided to use the tools in front of himm to intervene for Carmela. He identified the brothers Greer, in photos shown to him on camera, as the men who'd been chasing her.

  The defense had plenty of questions for him on cross examination. Their lawyer wanted to know why he'd assumed they wanted something inappropriate with the running girl, and why he'd chosen to intervene with them and not with the woman screaming at her child nearby. "Isn't it true, Mr. Brown, that you profiled my clients based on economic class?"

  Derek had enough capacity to laugh. "No. It is not true. I based it on the fact that they were chasing the girl, and she was barefoot. The pavement was too hot to run safely with bare feet, so I looked a little closer. I noticed bruising around the girl's throat that made me suspicious, so I took action to help the girl get to the police."

  "Couldn't they have simply been playing a sex game gone awry?" The attorney gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look.

  "Sir, I don't know if you've seen Ms. Melendez, but she in no way appeared to be of age to be having a 'sex game gone awry' with two adult men. And if your idea of sex games involve someone bolting across burning pavement in a crowd of thousands, I hear they've got a great behavioral unit downstairs."

  The defense attorney spluttered, and the judge covered his laugh with a cough.

  "Do you feel Ms. Melendez is precocious for her age? Sexually, I mean?" the defense attorney asked when he'd recovered.

  "I lived with her for several months. We didn't discuss sex or sexuality once. She didn't act out sexually in any way."

  "I'd expect that was a little disappointing for you."

  Derek blinked. "Come again?"

  "Oh come on. What kind of a grown man lives with a girl like that, invites her into his home? She knew what you expected of her." The lawyer waggled his eyebrows.

  The prosecutor's face was twisted into a snarl of disgust. "Your Honor, I object. That's a repulsive line of inquiry and not relevant to these proceedings."

  The defense attorney held up a hand. "I'm merely trying to establish Mr. Brown's character, Your Honor."

  The judge's lip curled. "Much as it turns my stomach, I'll allow it. Answer the question, Mr. Brown."

  "There was a question in there?" Derek raised his eyebrows. "I'm the most publicly out, gay public figure in Syracuse media. I'm the most publicly out omega in Syracuse, or at least I was until Dylan Parker moved here. Ms. Melendez knew she was perfectly safe with me."

  The lawyer cleared his throat. "I see. And you are, in fact, pregnant." He looked around for dramatic effect. "We are speaking from an obstetrics ward, are we not?"

  "I am pregnant." Derek steeled himself for the inevitable bashing to follow.

  "Who's the father?"

  "That's private and irrelevant."

  "On the contrary. I think it's very relevant to establishing your character. The jury needs to know who you are, before they can decide if you're trustworthy or not."

  Derek glanced over at the judge. "Irrelevant, counselor."

  "My apologies." The lawyer beamed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He didn't need to get an answer to the question. He'd put the seeds of doubt into the jury's mind. Derek had sex outside of a good marriage. Derek had gotten pregnant, and wouldn't disclose the father's identity. He must be a whore.

  That was his most exciting moment for the rest of his hospital stay. Amadi brought him his computer, so he surfed the Internet. He played some games. He slept a lot.

  Ayla came to tell him that Alex was moving out. "He's having trouble with the id
ea of living next door to you now." She hung her head. "It's hard, you know? I know he treated you pretty badly, but he's upset. He understands that he was wrong. I don't suppose you'd consider taking him back?"

  "Has he said he wants me back? As his actual boyfriend that he does things with?" Derek fixed her with a steely gaze.

  "Not in so many words, but I know he does." She sat down on the edge of his bed. "The new place is nice. It's down in Onondaga Hill. I think you'd like it. It's full of light."

  Derek shook his head. "Even if he did come back, I'd never see the inside of his house. I've never seen the inside of his apartment."

  "True. Have you started reaching out to adoption agencies yet?" She smiled at him.

  Derek made a face. "I know I need to do that sooner rather than later, but they all want interviews and I'm here in a hospital johnny and all that. I'm just not up for it. I don't think they're up for it. I hope they're not up for it. That would be creepy."

  "Yeah it would." She shuddered. "The reason I'm asking is because Alex asked me to ask you if you would please let him raise your child."

  The room spun. Monitors beeped, and a nurse ran into the room. "Mr. Brown? Is everything all right?"

  "Yes, of course." Derek forced a smile. "Everything is fine. Why?"

  "Your blood pressure just skyrocketed." She took a look at Derek's monitor. "Well, everything else looks good, but your pulse is erratic. Should I call for a doctor?"

  "No." Derek swallowed. "No, please, don’t. I'll behave, I promise."

  She wagged her finger at him. "See that you do." She sauntered off.

  Ayla turned back to him. "I'm guessing that's a pretty resounding no."

  Derek shook his head. "I don't think I even have words for that. I mean how could I? I'm not a damn incubator for him."

  "You'll give it up to strangers but not to him?" She clasped her hands together. "That's a little unusual."

  "Not really." He closed his eyes again. "With strangers, it was, 'Oh, okay. This was a thing that happened, and it wasn't great, but here was me doing the responsible thing and trying to do the best for my baby. Giving it to him is… not that." He clawed at his head. Staying in the hospital all alone was eating at his brain. "It's, 'You weren't good enough but I'll clean up this mess.' It's 'Okay, well, what do I need you for? I got the kid.' It's just proof that I'm as disposable as I thought I was. And I'm not okay with it."

  Ayla sighed. "Okay. Fair enough. I told him I'd try. For what it's worth, while I support your choice and I agree with your decision, I do think he'd make a good parent. He's prepared to get a nanny, and the new house has plenty of space."

  Derek burst into tears. He'd thought he was done crying about Alex. He'd promised himself he was done crying over Alex. Apparently his body had other ideas. "I don't want to hear about the house."

  Ayla took his hand. "It's everything you ever wanted, isn't it? The house, the kid, the someone taking care of you."

  "And it's all an illusion." Derek gently disentangled their hands. "That's the thing. He'd never bring me to that nice new house of his. He sneaked into my room in the middle of the night so no one would tell your dad he was speaking to me, Ayla. I shouldn't be mad that he's moving on. I shouldn't be surprised either. It hurts."

  "Do you want me to get the nurse back in here?"

  "No." Derek pulled the covers up. "I want a life where I don't have to spend four weeks in the hospital because I'm on bed rest and there's no one who will take care of me. I want a life where the person who helped make the child I'm carrying doesn't treat that child like an entitlement he can take or leave at his pleasure, and who doesn't think of me as something to be ashamed of. And I want to know I'm going home to something, instead of to an empty apartment where the heat was turned off to save money."

  "Oh my God, who did that?"

  "Me." He held up his phone. "The miracle of modern technology. Anyway. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have sat there and vented to you."

  "If you wanted that, why did you kick him out?" Ayla's tone wasn't judgmental. She just sounded curious, and a little bit sad.

  "He wasn't offering any of those things. He kept saying he needed time. The baby and I needed to be a secret until the right time. I told him I wasn't having any part of that. I told him I was worth more. He didn't like that. So I kicked him out."

  Ayla licked her lips and fell silent. She didn't stay very long after that. Instead, she headed home. Derek wouldn't have stayed very long after an outburst like that either.

  He spent Thanksgiving in the hospital. It wasn't a fun place to spend Thanksgiving. He poked at his Tofurkey and tried to watch some football on TV, but it didn't get him very far.

  Idoni and Wade finally sent him home from the hospital in the second week of December. Amadi gave him a ride. He wasn't allowed to drive himself anywhere, or to do much else. He was still on activity restriction, although he was allowed to move around his apartment if he did so quietly and "without fighting off hit men, if you please."

  Amadi stuck around for a little while, but he couldn't stay forever. He had to run to work. Instead of hanging around alone in the hospital room, Derek could hang around alone in his apartment.

  At least he had his own bed. He had his own bed, and his own shower, and no one coming over to poke or prod at him. He hopped into the shower and washed the hospital stink off of himself, and then he crawled into bed.

  The condo on the other side of the landing had a lockbox on it. That meant Alex was already moved out. Derek wanted to bury his face in his pillow and scream for a hundred years. Sure, they'd broken up. Sure, they were going to get into a big, acrimonious fight about the baby Derek carried. But surely a civilized person would have at least found a way to say goodbye?

  Of course, Derek had told him not to come back.

  He stood by his dismissal. Alex hadn't learned a thing. Ayla could tell him that he was doing better, that he missed Derek, whatever. Derek had told Alex what was going on. He'd let Alex know, repeatedly, that he was not willing to be his dirty little secret. And all Alex wanted now was the baby he'd rejected before anyway.

  He turned his face to the wall. Alex’s condo felt cold, somehow. If it was vacant they probably turned the heat down, just like Derek had in his place.

  Maybe Derek should think about moving on, too.

  He liked Syracuse. A lot of people complained about the weather, but Derek liked the people here and he liked the scenery. Maybe the time had come to move on, though. If he'd gotten to a point where he had to be locked up in a hospital for four weeks because no one could help him at home, maybe it was time to look for greener pastures.

  He would talk to Dr. Idoni about getting his tubes tied during the delivery. He wanted to make sure this could never happen again. Then, after that, who knew what the world might hold for him? Maybe another place had opened up at that radio station in Seattle. There was a station in Miami that was looking for a bilingual DJ; he could do that job in his sleep. It paid pretty well, too.

  No one out there would know he'd ever been pregnant. No one out there would give him looks of pity.

  When he'd come to Syracuse, he'd figured that maybe he could find Mr. Right. He wouldn't leave with that same naiveté. There was no Mr. Right, no soul mate, none of that. There was trust and affection, but that wasn't part of his world. He was older and wiser. He understood now.

  He pulled the covers up and dreamed about the Miami coastline.

  ***

  Alex got the house. He'd been fairly confident that he would. He could offer cash, after all, which allowed the previous owners to move on with their lives in whatever way they saw fit. The place was in turnkey condition, so the only thing left for him to do was to order furniture and wait.

  When he shopped for his new furniture, he knew he wasn't just thinking of himself. Derek's hand, missing though it was, guided every choice he made. Alex knew his choices were better for it, too. Soon his new house had exactly as much minimalist, comfortable furni
ture as he could want. He didn't put much on the walls, because he wanted to wait until he had memories associated with the things he put there. Shelves full of books were fair game, though.

  He decorated for Christmas alongside Ayla and Ivy. Ayla left her hotel and moved into Alex’s place, even though she was mad at him. She'd go home to Albany as soon as Carmela's and Joey's cases were wrapped up, but for now she figured she might as well stay with family for the holiday season.

  Ayla's presence here allowed Alex to enlist her help with Derek. Derek had told Alex not to come back, and he had to accept that, but he hadn't said anything about it to Ayla. Ayla agreed to approach him about taking the baby, but she didn't come back with great news. "He was hurt by the request. He cried."

  Alex turned away. "Everything I do hurts him, for crying out loud."