Page 23 of Home Run (The New York Lions #5)

ELEVEN

MILLIE

The ding of the elevator followed by the muted hum of voices in the kitchen told me Tanner was here, and I was officially running late.

I spun around, it didn’t matter that I now had a closet almost bigger than my bedroom back in D.C.

, my capabilities for emptying said closet onto the floor of my room knew no bounds, and I had nothing to wear.

Correction.

I had plenty to wear, but unless it came with an elasticated waistband, I wasn’t fitting into it.

The jeans I’d managed to squeeze into a couple of weeks ago, save for the top button, now wouldn’t do up at all.

And it wasn’t limited to jeans and top buttons, it had taken me ten minutes of attempting to pull a sports bra on before Radley had to rescue me from the confines of too tightly structured Lycra and lend me one of hers.

Which is how I came to be wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants, usually reserved for Saturday nights in on the couch, and a tank I’d never worn because it was too big for my formally flat chest and kept falling inappropriately low. At least it was one step up from pajamas, which I’d also considered.

There’s the silver lining, Radley had announced, taking one look at the tank top, only to slowly back away as the scowl on my face deepened.

I’d already made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror this morning—which had only blackened my mood—so I didn’t bother again before I left my room. I barely remembered to say goodbye to the framed photo of my dad, resting on my desk.

No doubt Radley was in the kitchen warning Tanner of my Wednesday morning disposition, and when I found him leaning over the counter watching Radley pour two coffees out into to-go cups, my teeth ground so hard I swear I heard a crack.

It was entirely unfair.

Not only had my body expanded overnight, but so had my face. I used to have cheekbones, and now I resembled a child’s rudimentary drawing of the moon.

But there was Tanner in all his chiseled glory, perfect tight ass on display, laughing at whatever Radley was saying, while showing off a side profile any Roman god would die for—razor-sharp jawline, strong nose, and the sculpted cheekbones I was now missing.

Radley’s eyes sliced to mine as I padded into the kitchen. “There she is.”

Tanner spun around, dazzling smile splitting his perfectly proportioned face as he leaned back onto the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. “There’s the most beautiful girl I know. And may I say, you look very pretty this morning. ”

From his weirdly upbeat tone, it was clear Radley had ratted me out, made more obvious by the smirk she was trying to hide.

“I don’t look pretty. I look fat and puffy,” I snapped.

Tanner pushed off the counter and in three long strides was standing in front of me, encasing me in an invisible cloud of that all-familiar Tanner scent, the one which always had the same heart-racing, breath-shallowing effect on me.

His bright blue eyes roamed my face until I almost couldn’t bear the intensity of them.

“What?”

Pushing away a curl of hair stuck to one of my now-sizable cheeks, his palm stayed in place, holding my face. “That’s no way to talk about the mother of my future child. You are nothing short of stunning, and you get prettier every single time I see you.”

Leaning in, he kissed my cheek, his lips lingering against my skin long enough for me to forget about my lack of clothing, overnight expansion of my body, and all-around bad mood.

When he turned and walked back to the kitchen counter, my entire body had uncurled from the tension it had been carrying since five minutes after I’d woken.

“Now, are you ready to go and see our baby?” Tanner picked up the two coffee cups and passed one to me.

I nodded, though my focus was on Radley, along with the sheepish smile I was sending directly her way. “I’m sorry for being such a grump this morning.”

“You’re forgiven.”

“I’ll bring you back a sonogram picture and take you to lunch as an apology. ”

“I would have accepted just the picture, but I’m not saying no to lunch.”

“Tick tock.” Tanner stood by the elevator and tapped his watch. “Let’s go, Mama Bear.”

Ignoring the hand he was holding out for me, I frowned instead, and stepped into the elevator. “What?”

“What? That not work either? The mama bear got grumpy in the morning too.”

“That’s because someone broke into her house and stole her porridge.”

“You sure she wasn’t just grumpy?”

“I’m sure.”

“Huh,” he replied, hitting the button for the entrance lobby.

Twenty minutes later, we entered the same reception room we’d been in over a month earlier, when Doctor Scott had delivered our news.

The month had passed both quickly and painfully slowly.

And in two months we’d be back for the twenty-week ultrasound, where I’d no doubt be thinking exactly the same thing.

Tanner sat down in the same chair as he had before while I registered with the receptionist. For reasons I couldn’t explain, I sat across the room, and when he looked up from the magazine he was reading, confusion fell on his face.

“What are you doing over there?”

“We sat there last time.”

Tossing the magazine back on the coffee table, he stood and moved next to me. “Okay, but next time I get to choose where we sit.” Long fingers drummed against his chin, making me chuckle. “Hmm, where to choose, where to choose.”

He was still deciding when the receptionist called us in.

“Millie? Doctor Humphries is ready for you. Down the corridor, second door on the right.”

“Thank you.”

This time when Tanner’s hand closed around mine I didn’t pull away.

It wasn’t so much the nerves I was feeling; it was the near silence of making our way down the plushily carpeted hallway, without the clue of what to expect next, that found comfort in his grip.

And the light squeeze of his fingers told me he needed it as much as I did.

Tanner rapped his knuckles against the door and stepped aside to let me go in first.

Not unlike Doctor Scott’s office, the walls were adorned with all the qualifications and certificates Doctor Humphries had earned in her journey through medical school.

But where the rest of Doctor Scott’s office walls were blank, these were covered in framed photos of babies I assumed she’d helped bring into the world.

A huge bookcase was heaving under the weight of pregnancy books, models of the womb, ovaries, and some antique-looking medical contraptions I hoped she wasn’t planning to use.

Doctor Humphries peered over the huge screen on her desk and pushed a set of thick-rimmed glasses onto her head. “Hi, Millie, you’re here for your twelve-week scan?”

I nodded.

“And this is dad, I presume?” She glanced briefly at Tanner, before focusing back on her screen.

“Doctor Scott referred you, and I have your blood tests here. So what we’re going to do today is scan to make sure baby is growing properly and check we’re all on track for your due date. Then we can go through any questions.”

“Sure, got it.”

Doctor Humphries nodded over to the bed at the end of the room. “There’s a gown you can change into and hop up on the bed when you’re ready.”

I hadn’t realized we’d jump straight in, I thought she’d talk me through the process. But I guess she was busy. Tanner got up to examine the bookshelf.

“Hey, I’ve read that one.” Tanner ran his fingers along the spines. “And that one. And that one. But Parker read that one.”

He moved onto the photo wall as I ducked behind the curtain to strip off and pull the gown on. I tried not to think about the fact it was the only thing I’d put on today that fit first time.

“Some of these babies are super ugly.”

“Tanner!”

“What? They are. Ours won’t be though, there’s no way that our baby will be anything but super cute. Your big brown eyes and my dimples, it’ll be the best-looking baby anyone has ever seen.”

I’d been attempting to tie the gown around my waist, but my hands stilled.

The idea that Tanner had been wondering what our baby would look like was another check in the box for making this all too real.

We were having a baby . Something I still, quite unbelievably, given how puffy and fat I was becoming, had to remind myself of daily.

Our lives would be forever twined. At some point, we were going to have to have a conversation about how we were going to have this baby. How we would raise it together .

What we would name it.

Before I fell into a full-on spiral, I pulled the curtain back to find Tanner sitting in the chair by the bed. His gaze dropped to the white socks I’d left on and slowly traveled up the length of the pale blue paper covering. Then he went back to the book he was holding.

“What? You’re not going to say anything?”

He shrugged but didn’t bother looking up from the page. “Told you, you get prettier every time I see you.”

My eyes rolled so hard they almost stuck, and I ignored the tiny flip in my belly as I shuffled onto the bed and pulled the separate paper roll over my legs. I didn’t have a chance to think about it, either, as Doctor Humphries returned.

“Great,” she said, marching over to the faucets to wash her hands. “How’ve you been feeling?”

“Good,” I replied, frowning at Tanner as he scoffed loudly.

“You’ve been like that girl from The Exorcist .”

“Your morning sickness was bad?” asked Doctor Humphries, peering over her glasses.

“It wasn’t great,” I conceded, “but I haven’t been sick for a couple of days. I think it’s going. I don’t feel so nauseous when I wake up.”

“That’s good, but come and see me if it continues and we’ll get you something to help.”

“I will, thank you.”

Doctor Humphries pulled a monitor around to the bed and unclipped the ultrasound wand. Lifting up my gown to expose my belly she positioned a tube of gel over it.

“This is going to be cold,” she said.

Tanner’s hand slipped into mine, but even with the warning I flinched as the gel hit my skin.