And although he knew the answer, he had to ask, “This your boyfriend?”
Is he protecting you? he added silently. Fucking you right? Like I would if you were mine?
She had the smarts to start looking afraid again and the even better instinct not to answer his question.
Good. That meant she wasn’t an idiot.
“Thank you for letting me know about Dawn, Mr.…” she trailed off, obviously waiting for his name.
Phantom wondered what it would be like to hear his name—his real name covered in her flowers and molasses voice. But he wasn’t an idiot either.
Instead of answering her question, he simply stood up and left. He walked past the goddess doctor without another word and figured he’d never see her again.
But yeah, no.
This story is about how he couldn’t have been more wrong about that. So turn the page to find out what happens next!
1
OLIVIA
“Happy Birthday!”
I looked up to find my best friend, Eric, standing in my office doorway along with our front desk receptionist, Bernice, and her cutie pie daughter.
“What’s all this?” I asked, taking off my computer glasses.
They burst into a round of “Happy Birthday to You” in answer. And I came around the desk with my hands clasped to my completely touched heart.
Eric’s voice sounded a little reedy and strained. But Bernice “put her foot in it,” as Minerva, her aunt and my former nanny/housekeeper back in Kentucky, would have said. And her little daughter sang with a voice more robust and pitch-perfect than I would have ever expected from a three-year-old. Even if she hadn’t been raised in a black church choir in Tennessee like her mother, it was clear that apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.
“Happy Birthday, Aunt Olivia!” she cheered when they finished. Then she handed me a mylar balloon with the same sentiment minus the “Aunt Olivia” written across its front.
“Thank you, O2,” I answered. O2 is what we all called the little girl since she was also named Olivia. Bernice had been extremely grateful that I was willing to take her on as a front office clerk at the Women with Disabilities clinic, even though she was visibly pregnant—simply because she was a relation to Minerva.
I picked O2 up for a huge hug to thank her for the balloon and song.
Big mistake. O2’s sweet coconut hair product and little kid scent scratched at my heart and filled it with longing for a child of my own.
I buried my nose in her curls, and my namesake pretty much had to pry herself away to tell me, “I wanted to get you a birthday cake, but Uncle Eric said no because you were about to go to the gym.”
My fellow OB/GYN Eric wasn’t really her uncle, just like I wasn’t really her aunt—despite her move to the Big Apple, Bernice remained the kind of southern that couldn’t bear to hear a child call an adult by their first name without some sort of title attached.
But the handsome Korean-American and I had been best friends ever since we met at orientation for Manhattan University’s six-year BS/MD dual degree program. And he’d even left his job at Chelsea Sinai to come work with me at the clinic when our patient roster became more than one OB/GYN could handle by herself. So it truly felt like I was addressing my actual brother when I said, “Uncle Eric, seriously?”
“First of all, you are a straight-up snitch,” Eric declared, pointing his finger at the darling little girl in my arms. “And, second of all, sugar is evil. And third of all, we need to head out, like, five minutes ago, if we don’t want to miss the spin class that will get you into wedding shape!”
“Wedding shape for the ceremony she still hasn’t picked a date for,” Bernice edited out of the side of her mouth. “And it’s obvious from the way she’s hugging on my daughter that she’s way more interested in babies than weddings right now.”
I guiltily set O2 down but let Bernice know, “This is all your daughter’s fault. You should tell her to stop being so dang cute.”
“You want me to change my face?” O2 asked with a crushed look. “But I can’t! I don’t know how!”
And there went my heart again, sending all types of messages to my now thirty-six-year-old ovaries. I’d gone off the pill back when Garrett proposed, but the few times since then that we’d manage to coordinate our busy schedules for sex, I’d made him use a condom with the idea that we should wait for official baby-making until after the wedding. Maybe Bernice was right, and I should just get to that part sooner than later.
Meanwhile, I picked O2 right back up and gave her hugs and kisses as I told her, “No, sweetie-bug, of course not. I was just joking. There is not a thing in the world I would change about you.”