Page 21

EIGHTEEN

HANNAH

“This is easily the strangest first date I’ve ever been on,” I say as the woman leads us into the room.

I just peed in a cup while Daniel stood in the hall outside the door. Again.

The nurse giggles, but Daniel’s eyes widen.

“This is not our first date,” he murmurs when she turns toward the computer.

I shrug. “If you say so.”

He steps closer. “I took you to dinner the night we—” He waves his hands. “You know.”

“The night we fucked?”

The nurse is still turned away, but she stiffens, and the clacking of her fingers on the keyboard stops.

Oops. Oh well.

Daniel huffs. “No. The night we?—”

“The night you knocked me up?” I grin. “It’s okay, Baby Hall. She knows we had sex. That’s why we’re here, after all.”

He exhales loudly through his nose, his jaw pulsing. “You like pushing me, don’t you?”

I smile. Yeah, I really do. It’s the one fun thing I’ve got going on right now. Also, if I don’t tease him a bit, all his sweetness will get to me. The present? Adorable. The way he showed up thirty minutes early and sat in his car? Not expected.

That’s what he is. Unexpected. At every turn.

The tongue, the dick, the sweetness. The way he reacted when I blurted out that we could be pregnant. How he held me that night. All of it. Every minute since the night of our first date—yes, I’m aware it was a date; doesn’t mean I can’t tease him—has been a surprise.

A very pleasant one.

But I’ve reached my limit when it comes to surprises. The pregnancy itself is too much. I can’t allow myself to get sucked into a fantasy.

Eventually he’ll tire of my sarcasm, of my need to push him—just like every one of my stepfathers did with my mother. So when that happens, it’ll be better for the baby and me if we’re prepared.

“I’ll step out so you can change into that gown.” The nurse nods at the faded piece of fabric folded on the white paper covering the exam table. “Leave it open in the front. The doctor will be in shortly.”

She’s gone quickly, probably running for cover, and Daniel settles into a chair, one leg bent at the knee and the other kicked out, his entire focus set on me.

“Not going to offer to turn around?” I tease as I start to strip. I have no shame. He knows that.

His pupils dilate, making his irises look even darker, though his expression remains impassive. It’s annoyingly hot. “Nothing I haven’t seen.”

I pull my jeans off and toss them onto the empty chair beside him. Immediately, he picks them up and folds them neatly.

He takes my shirt before I can toss it as well. Just as I’m backing up to hoist myself onto the exam table, he’s behind me. With warm hands on my hips, he skirts around me and lifts me with ease.

For a moment, we’re frozen like that: my breaths shallow, his lips parted. Only when a knock sounds from the door do we startle back into reality.

I clear my throat and find my voice, letting the doctor know I’m decent, and a heartbeat later, she strides in, attention fixed on a chart.

And still, my body buzzes. The touch was simple, gentle, quick, but the effect is clearly long-lasting.

“Are you dad?” She smiles at Daniel.

With a nod, he holds out his hand and introduces himself.

She points to a spot near my shoulder. “I’m going to examine her, but if you want to stand over there, you’ll be in a good spot.”

I blow out a breath as he saunters closer again, eyes locked on me. With every step he takes, the tension in the room ratchets up.

When the doctor turns to her computer, he leans down and brings his lips to my ear. “If it makes it easier for you to push me, I’ll play along. But I’m not going anywhere.”

With a squeeze of my hand, he backs off. Rather than anger or cockiness, all I see in his expression is open honesty. He sees right through me. He knows I use sarcasm to hide my nerves, my insecurities. He doesn’t know the details of the emotional damage of my childhood, but it doesn’t matter. He sees me. He understands.

Shit.

“Based on your HCG levels, you’re about seven weeks. That means you’re far enough along for a sonogram if you want to see the baby.”

Daniel angles forward, his hand splayed between my shoulder blades. “Oh, we can get a picture of the baby this way, right?”

I study him over my shoulder. “How do you know that?”

He’s still staring at the machine when he replies. “The guys on the vlog talked about it.”

“What guys?”

Finally he turns to me, his cheeks an adorable shade of pink, and shakes his head.

I point a finger at him. “You made me promise I’d tell you everything I was thinking. Don’t go quiet on me now, Hall.”

His face splits into a wide smile. What the hell?

“Why are you smiling?” Despite my best efforts, I can’t help but return the expression. His happiness is contagious.

“You called me Hall.”

I roll my eyes and turn back. “Dork.”

The doctor chuckles and turns from the machine set up next to the table. “You two are adorable. So often, parents come in here scared and quiet.”

I glance at Daniel. I’m pretty sure we’re both scared, but he doesn’t let me go quiet. I kind of love it.

She examines me, and afterward, when she detaches a long device from the sonogram machine, explaining how she’ll use it to see the baby, I swear Daniel almost passes out.

“You have to put that inside her?”

I snort and turn my head so I can see him, the paper crinkling beneath me. “I’ve had bigger dildos. Calm yourself.”

The doctor drops her head back and barks out a laugh.

“You’re brutal, you know that?” Daniel squeezes my hand again, his tone light, easy.

I smile. “And you’re stuck with me for the next eighteen years. That’s quite a sentence.”

“I’ll become a career criminal,” he murmurs quickly, like no thought was put into it at all.

Once again, I’m trapped in his gaze, my lips lifting of their own accord.

I only break the expression to press my lips together when the doctor slides her special tool inside me.

Despite my effort to hide my discomfort, Daniel’s brow creases in concern.

“You okay?” he mouths.

With a nod, I smile again, hoping to ease his worry.

“Just give me a few seconds.” She shifts the object around, and a moment later, a whooshing sound fills the quiet room.

“Is that our—” My heart stutters as I study the image on the screen. It’s a little misshapen bean, its heart fluttering along with the beat echoing off the walls. Unbidden, tears prick at my eyes. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.

“That’s our baby’s heartbeat,” Daniel murmurs, his face next to mine.

I look back at him, and his lips brush against my cheek.

“That’s our baby,” he says, his voice stronger now.

“It is.” Despite all my fears and reservations, this moment just may be the greatest of my life. And though I was worried about lingering awkwardness, Daniel’s presence is nothing but a comfort.

“Everything looks good. The baby’s heartbeat is 178, and you’re measuring right at seven weeks. That puts your due date at”—she squints at her computer screen—“January twentieth.”

Somehow hearing that date makes it all seem more real. It only now hits me that we’ve got a finite period of time before our child arrives and upends our entire world.

“Right in the middle of hockey season,” Daniel mutters, his tone defeated.

Unfortunately, that’s life for both of us. Hockey season and baseball season both seem endless sometimes. There’s no way around it. Our lives are going to have to change. Mine will, at least. Daniel can’t just take time off from his hockey career.

I’ve been around long enough to meet many players with families. And every one of them has a spouse who does all the heavy lifting when it comes to day-to-day care. The parent that isn’t the athlete. I get it. It comes with the territory. But it doesn’t make the pill any easier to swallow.

Then again, Daniel is determined to be a good dad. Plenty of men wouldn’t be so eager. He’ll show up when he physically can. And I have to remind myself that it’s more than I could hope for from a one-night stand.

“Could you print a picture for us?”

Daniel’s question has me peeking over at the doctor. Is that possible?

“Of course. I’ll print out a few.”

My breath catches. Pictures of our baby? “I’ll have to get a magnet so I can put it on the fridge or something.”

Daniel smirks. “That’s the last gift.”

“A magnet?”

With a chuckle, he presses a kiss to my cheek. “No, a frame for our baby’s first picture.”

Heart stumbling, I lift up on an elbow and study him. His messy hair, his warm eyes, his easy posture. “You got the baby its own picture frame?”

“I got the baby its own album.” His expression is bashful again, but there’s all kinds of joy radiating from him too. “Figure we can add pictures of you throughout the pregnancy and of all the ultrasounds. Maybe pictures of our family when we give them the news and find out the sex?—”

He ticks off one milestone after another, all the moments he wants to commemorate.

All I can do is stare in complete wonder.

I don’t have a photo album to commemorate anything. Not my birth, not my high school graduation. Nothing. Yet Daniel has already started one for our unborn child.

Who is this man, and what do I need to do to keep from breaking him?