by Max Monroe
“I’m so sorry,” I say as soon as the door shuts behind Heidi and Ben. Harrison smiles and shakes his head.
“Don’t be. I’m excited to be here.”
“Still? How is that humanly possible at this point? Haven’t you, like, fused to the furniture? Grown roots? Started to foam at the mouth?”
He laughs. “I’m excited because I get to see our baby. And I’m happy to report I’ve somehow managed to escape all of those doomsday scenarios.”
I grin. Yeah. Seeing your unborn child for the first time is a pretty good reason to hold back from starting a mutiny, I guess.
“Still. I’m really sorry you had to sit around here all day.”
“No big deal.” He shrugs as he takes my hand and helps me climb up to sit on the exam table. “It was basically like being in a cubicle. I worked all day, and the nurses took good care of me.”
I work hard not to let my face show how hard that last part makes me cringe. I just bet they did. All rugged, scruffy jaw and bottomless green eyes, Harrison is a one-man lady trap. I’m fairly certain he’d be immensely successful if he decided he wanted to start a business venture in kidnapping. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t suggest it, given the repercussions both physically and morally, but all the ladies would climb inside his van.
So, I can only freaking imagine all the things the nurses offered to procure for him throughout the day.
“Oh.” It’s the only word I can manage, if it can even be counted as a word. Surely, Scrabble wouldn’t let Oh get by with actual points.
Harrison flashes a sexy little smirk that I silently—and probably irrationally, too—hope none of those nurses was privy to. “Don’t worry, Rock. They didn’t, like, give me a sponge bath or anything.”
“Am I that obvious?” I frown dramatically. For God’s sake, I’m an actress. Has my training taught me nothing about the art of playing some shit close to the vest?
“It’s cute,” he says with a laugh. “If I thought it was anything more than pregnancy hormones, I might hang out here every day.”
I blush. Sweet Jesus, the man can flirt. He probably doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. Just like how breathing or sweating through the armpits of every outfit I wear is to me—it just comes naturally.
I don’t even get the chance to open my mouth before a knock sounds on the door.
I rub my fingers together nervously and call out for the doctor to come in.
The door sweeps in and shuts behind her so quickly, you might miss it being opened if you blinked. I’d imagine it’s an exercise in privacy protocol, but I’m way too tired to give it any more thought than that.
It’s weird—thinking of the father of your child as a stranger. It’s not something I ever even considered when I was building fantasies as a young girl. I was much more traditional—straightforward. After all, I spent my childhood making movies.
Obviously, I envisioned a momentous meet-cute, a romantic but eventful pursuit, and eventually, a whole formal proposal.
I wanted the knee, the ring, the flowers—all of it.
Then, after a respectable amount of time spent suffering through boisterous Thanksgivings with both of our families giving us the third degree about babies, we’d finally be ready.
I’d get pregnant—probably with an unexpected set of twins—but all in all, our lives would be going according to plan. My husband would hold my hand as we listened to the magic of our baby’s first heartbeat, and—
“Dr. Simpson,” my doctor says, holding out a hand to Harrison. He takes it firmly with a smile. I honestly still can’t get over how calm he’s been every single day since showing up. It’s not like he was expecting to become a father, and yet, he seems unflappable.
Holding my hair back while I puked up all manner of food carcasses within an hour of paying a million dollars to see me? No big deal.
Getting choked out by my security team? Takes it with a smile.
Left for dead in the obstetrics desert? Unfazed.
He is the triathlon runner of Hollywood pregnancy scandal.
“Harrison Hughes.”
“Am I right to assume you’re the father?” Dr. Simpson asks carefully, and Harrison nods.
“That’s me.”
“How’s the morning sickness coming along, Raquel? Still feeling sick every day?”
I laugh at the understatement of the year, and the doctor jerks her attention over to me. I try to straighten my face into something less mocking. “Um, yeah. Still sick. Usually at very inopportune times.”
“Have you been taking the Diclegis we prescribed you?”
“Yes. Every night before bed.”
“Okay. Try taking two before bed and one in the morning. You can also take one in the afternoon if you’re still feeling nauseated during the day.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that this information would have been helpful some time ago, but I reel it in. It’s not like I can change the last month and a half of vomiting. It is what it is. No use crying over spilled milk and all that.
“Okay. I’ll definitely give that a shot.”
Dr. Simpson gives me a smile and grabs the handle on the bed. “Okay, let’s lie back and get a look at what’s going on with the baby.”
I do as she says, lying back as the bed does—not that I have much choice given my total lack of abdominal strength at this point—and she goes to turn the lights lower at the switch by the door.
Harrison reaches up and gives my knee a squeeze while her back is turned.
There’s no distinct reason for it—but the comfort of it feels good.
Dr. Simpson returns, wheeling the ultrasound machine closer to the bed and pulling on a pair of latex gloves.
I roll up my shirt and lay my arm across the top of my protruding stomach as she grabs the bottle of goo kept on the side of the cart.
Harrison watches avidly as she squirts it on my belly and then picks up the wand to spread it around. And within a few seconds, a hazy, white snow fills the screen at our side as she searches for the perfect angle to get a good look at the baby.
Having been here already, I find myself defaulting to watching Harrison rather than watching the screen.
I’d expect the baby to be giving me a stern lecture via instant nausea at the slight, but all in all, the little one seems content despite my diversion of attention.
A gentle, thumping whoosh fills the room as Dr. Simpson finds the peanut, and a tiny, wiggly human fills up the screen. Harrison’s face lights up in a way I didn’t know was possible. “That sound,” she says, “is your baby’s heartbeat.”
I’ve heard it before, back at my first appointment, but the sound of it still stops my thoughts in their tracks, and the sight of the little miracle living inside me makes my eyes well up a little with unshed tears.
“How’s it feel, Dad?” the doctor asks Harrison with a grin.
Slowly, I move my gaze from the screen to him again. When I get there, there’s no chance of turning back. Put intrinsically, Harrison is enraptured. The sound of his baby’s heartbeat has his own ready to thump right out of his chest. It’s written all over his face.
Without thinking, I reach out to take his hand, and he squeezes mine hard. I can’t help but smile. “Pretty incredible, huh?”
“It is, hands down, the best sound I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”
My heart flutters inside my chest at his words, and I have to blink my eyes several times to hold back the damn tears.
I suppose, if I had to pick a stranger to do this with, I could have picked a worse one.
Yeah…pretty sure you hit the jackpot of baby daddies.
Harrison
I’m pretty sure I’m the Clint Eastwood of Rocky’s living room. Lord knows when it comes to her staff—cough Heidi cough—I always seem to be In the Line of Fire.
A few weeks ago, I made my official move to LA, settling into an apartment in the same building as Rocky. It’s a nice place, spacious and full of all
sorts of ritzy updates, but the true best thing about my new California pad is its convenient location to the mother of my child. If I haul some ass, I can be out of my door and inside Rocky’s living room in a minute flat. Four minutes, if I take my time.
All to Heidi Morris’s dismay.
How do I know this? Well, every time I’m in the same room with her, it is written all over her sour, condescending face.
I don’t generally toss around the word shrew in the name of the opposite sex, but in Heidi’s case, shrew is starting to become pretty fucking accurate. Sometimes, I have a hard time understanding why Rocky puts up with her bullshit, the snide remarks and bossy demands, but at the same time, I do realize Hollywood is an animal I have zero experience taming.
Although, I feel pretty damn confident, if I were a celebrity’s manager, I could do the job without being an asshole. But what do I know, right? I’m just a CFO of one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world.
Thankfully, right now, the shrew is currently occupied with God knows what, and I can keep Rocky company without having to dodge verbal bullets like I’m Neo from the Matrix.
With her eyes closed, Rocky is stretched out on the couch while a woman with tweezers and reading glasses sits above her head.
“I’m sorry, but what exactly is happening right now?” I ask from my spot in the leather chair across from the couch.
A boisterous laugh shoots out of Rocky’s lips, and I don’t miss the way her ever-growing belly bounces with the movement. The view makes me grin and I have the strong urge to reach out and touch her stomach, but a heavy sigh from the woman with the tweezers as she pulls her hands away from Rocky’s face deters me.
“Shoot.” Laughter promptly squelched and eyes still closed, Rocky apologizes. “I’m so sorry. Sudden moves while you’re working on my lashes is a bad idea, huh?”
“A very bad idea,” the woman answers without hesitation.
“Consider me a statue from here on out.”
“Perfect.” The woman smiles and gets back to work. “Thank you.”
“I’m not sure if you know this,” I say ironically, “but we already come equipped with eyelashes. Part of our genetic makeup.”
Rocky snorts again, but this time, she does it while remaining motionless. “These are eyelash extensions. Vera is gluing them onto my existing eyelashes to make them look long and luscious without mascara.”
“Very interesting. I had no idea that was a thing.”
“Oh yeah. Big thing. Not even just with celebrities. There are probably women you’ve dated before who had them, but you didn’t realize.”
“What other secrets do you know?” I ask cheekily. “I obviously have much to learn about the female grooming ritual.”
“Well, there’s a lot to it—more than I can teach you in a day, that’s for sure. But you should probably just question everything. If it’s tanned, it’s probably naturally white. If it’s curly, it’s probably naturally straight. If it’s smooth and hairless, it probably grows more than your nearest national forest.”
“Jesus,” I mutter through an incredulous chuckle. “Anything women aren’t faking for our sake?”
She laughs again, and Vera sighs more heavily. This time, though, Rocky doesn’t apologize.
“You know what? Not really. Hair, nails, skin, eyelashes, eye color in some cases, waist size trimmed by Spanx, boob size enhanced by bras, orgasms… We’re pretty much faking it all.”
I take a temporary hit to my pride—which is ludicrous—but I’m convinced it’s a part of the male psyche to panic at the idea that we might be less than stellar in our sexual performance.
Beyond that, I’m really troubled by the idea that I might not have seen to her needs on our only time together—on her first time ever.
“You fake orgasms?” I ask, and her giggle stops abruptly.
“Oh…uh…” She bites her bottom lip, seemingly embarrassed at having this conversation in a room full of other people, but I’m finding out very quickly that if we don’t have the conversation with an audience, we’ll never have it at all. I’m willing to work under these conditions for the greater good of her sexual health. “Okay, so, no. Not me personally. Promise,” she eventually continues. “I was speaking in a general sense, as in the majority of the female population.”
I raise an eyebrow. “If everything is fake, how do I know you’re not just padding my ego?”
“Cross my heart,” she says with a tiny smile, running her long red nail in an X above her chest. “About this, I do not lie.”
“Okay, Yoda,” I reply with a chuckle.
The subtle curve at the corner of her mouth travels farther into her cheek and makes a tiny dimple. It’s almost imperceptible, but I’m looking at her hard enough that I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t notice.
Which is probably why it’s a surprise when her manager Heidi and agent Ruth start loudly discussing the plan for something called the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I didn’t even know they were in the room, let alone two feet away and in the mode to start an actual conversation about this while Rocky can’t even open her eyes.
“We’ve coordinated with Ben’s team, and you’ll arrive together early in the hour to maximize red-carpet time—”
Rocky, despite not being able to see, has the verbal ability to object. “Maximize red-carpet time? Why in the hell would we want to do that? The longer we’re out there, the more questions we have to answer.” She lowers her voice to a breathy whisper—one that I’m just close enough to hear—and adds, “And the longer I’m on my freaking mad-dog, rage-barking, six-inch-heel-wearing feet.”
“Because it’s good exposure, Raquel,” Ruth responds. “For Ben, too. You’re not the only one involved here, and he’s got a role next year that could get him nominated if we manage the right face time to get the public behind him.”
“Are you guys working for him or me?” she says with a laugh, clearly joking. But Ruth and Heidi share a look that makes me narrow my eyes.
I wouldn’t normally speak for Rocky, but given her current disadvantageous state, I can’t help myself. “Are you working for him too?” I challenge, and I can tell by the uncomfortable look on Ruth’s face that she is, in fact, working with the Huddleson dickhead.
Heidi’s face hardens slightly. “Ruth is a professional. And yes, she just signed Ben on as one of her many clients.”
Rocky is shocked. “Ruth?”
“He’s a big talent, Raquel,” Ruth comforts with a disingenuous hand to Rocky’s shoulder. “And with your pairing, this will be strategically beneficial for both of you.”
Rocky frowns but doesn’t argue. And I have to bite my tongue so hard, I wouldn’t be surprised if it bleeds.
Heidi’s radar never leaves me. She studies me closely, calculating her next move. I’d like to say she does it maliciously, but that’s maybe taking it a step too far. We’ve rubbed each other the wrong way since I arrived. So, I can’t thoroughly decide if the disdain she clearly feels for me is professional, personal, or if it’s going to leech toxically into the groundwater of Rocky’s and my relationship.
All I can do is keep an ear to the noise and sound the alarm if I hear anything that warrants it.
Done with the distraction of who’s working for whom, Rocky moves on—or back—to the issue at hand—the awards show strategy.
“And what about Harrison?” she asks, making a dimple dent deeply into my cheek. It’s sappy, but I have to admit I’m happy she’s even thinking about me at a time like this.
“What about him?” Heidi replies simply, and it’s so expected, I almost laugh. Instead, I sink my teeth gently into the flesh of my bottom lip and wait to see where Rocky takes it.
“Where’s he going to be during the awards?”
Heidi snorts. “In his apartment, I would presume.”
“What? I thought he was coming?” Rocky asks, her voice escalating with a slight edge of panic. I drop the smile now, concerned for why
she’s that upset about me not coming. She did just fine at the last one without me; I’m surprised to find she cares that much.
“Coming?” Heidi says derisively. “You can’t be serious, Raquel. Do you have any idea how complicated that would be? What exactly would you have me do with your extra boyfriend?”
“Vera, I need a minute.” Rocky bats a hand at the eyelash lady to clear her face of utensils and sits up dramatically. She looks a little discombobulated when she opens her half-finished eyes, but she’s still the prettiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Jesus.
I shake my head just slightly.
Those are the kinds of thoughts that could get me in trouble here. It’s already complicated enough as it is. I don’t want to mess up what I have by trying to push the envelope. Not when my kid is involved.
“I’m not suggesting he come walk the red carpet on my other arm. But you agreed to include him in my life,” Rocky says, shocking the hell out of me. I had no idea they’d been discussing this at all.
Ruth just continues to stand there, but Heidi, of course, is all ready for a rebuttal that indicates they’ve more than discussed it—me—at some length. “I agreed to get him to the doctor. Not to a red-carpet event with all manner of press, Raquel. Be realistic here.”
Rocky frowns, her mouth freezing in a hard line of frustration, but she doesn’t say anything else. Heidi’s mean mug melts into satisfaction.
“I understand your feelings, sweetie,” she says placatingly. “But this is your career, and you need to stay focused.”
I narrow my eyes at the reprimand veiled in faux compassion and have to bite my tongue again when I see Rocky nod hesitantly.
It’s not what she wants, but she’s going along with it anyway, and yet again, this is one of those situations where I’m having a hard time understanding why. Why she won’t stand up for herself. Why she doesn’t push the issue for the sake of her own comfort.
Heidi reaches out then, patting Rocky on the shoulder just like Ruth did. At the sight of it, something inside me snaps, and my teeth lose their hold on my tongue.