Sinning in Vegas (Vegas Morellis 2)

Rafe smirks, stepping forward and coming over to surprise me by taking my hand. “I’ll get you all the milkshakes you want.”

The doctor looks like he wants to say something about that, but he holds his tongue. It’s still a little startling when he slides this Doppler dildo thing inside me with Rafe and Sin both standing right here. I steal the most fleeting glance at Sin, but he’s looking at the monitor. I turn my attention to the noisy white and gray image on the screen. There’s a black hole in the shape of an eggplant with a little gray blur inside. The doctor moves the wand inside of me and the shape changes.

“Okay,” the doctor says, pointing to the little gray blob. He moves the wand slightly and all of a sudden, it’s baby-shaped. There are little legs, little arms, and a bulbous head. My hand flies to my mouth, all thoughts melting out of my brain except for one: that’s my baby.

My heart beats strangely, my stomach rocking like this is the first time anyone has ever bothered to tell me I’m pregnant.

“He’s wiggling a little, let me try to get a picture for you,” the doctor says.

“He’s wiggling?” I question, my eyes darting to the little movements. Oh, my god, it is wiggling. “Oh, my god, it’s so cute,” I gush, unable to help myself.

The doctor smiles faintly, pointing to a spot on the screen. “The heart is right here. Looks good. You want to hear the heartbeat?”

“Yes,” I say, nodding vehemently.

The baby wiggles along the side of the sac like it’s snuggling me.

“Oh, my god.” I can’t take my eyes off the screen, so I reach a hand in Rafe’s direction. “Are you seeing this? Do you see how cute this is?”

“He’s an active little guy,” Rafe says.

“Or girl,” I offer, glancing at the doctor. “Right?”

“Of course, too little to tell. At the 20 week appointment you should be able to tell. Sometimes the 16, but we like to wait until 20 to say anything.”

I glance over at Rafe, remembering belatedly that Carly asked me to record this. My mind completely blanked the minute I saw the baby, but thankfully it’s covered. By Sin. Face impassive, he stands beside Rafe, holding up a phone and recording all this. My stomach sinks and I look back at the gray monitor.

“Now, if the heartbeat cuts in and out, don’t worry,” the doctor says. “Since he’s moving around so much, that might happen. It doesn’t mean anything.”

The sound of a rapid little heartbeat fills the room, and I clutch my own, certain it’s going to either race out of my chest or drop out of my body.

“There we go, there’s baby’s heartbeat,” the doctor says. “Sounds good.” He measures something on the screen to get the beats per minute, then switches the screen back to the live view. Baby is dancing around again, then it snuggles me.

It’s the cutest thing in the whole entire world. “I want to stay here forever and watch its cute little dance moves.”

The doctor smiles and flicks a glance back at me. “I can make a DVD for you, if you’d like.”

“Oh, yes, I would like. Thank you.”

“Of course. I’ll take a few more photos, too.”

“You are my favorite OB-GYN ever, hands-down.”

I moon at the screen the whole time. I might have thought it would get old watching the same few inches of space over and over, but it doesn’t. I could move into this room and spend all of my days watching the baby dance to its own little beat, then snuggle me.

That’s probably not what it’s doing, but I don’t care. That’s what it looks like, and that’s what I’m going to believe.

I didn’t think I’d fall in love once in Vegas, let alone twice, but here I am—completely in love with the little wiggle worm snuggled up in my womb.

It would be nice if the first time had been with its father, but hey, life isn’t perfect. As happy as I am, it’s easy not to look at Sin right now. I don’t want to worry about how he feels or what he’s thinking. I refuse to feel guilty that I’ve been holding Rafe’s hand this whole time. I ignore their drama and focus on the most important thing in the room—my little wiggle worm.

I’m in a daze now, removed from this earthly plane, floating on cloud nine. It’s funny that as recently as a half hour ago, just thinking about it as a baby was vaguely stressful. Everything has changed. The doctor gives me two long strips of photos to look at and tells me come December 23rd, everything will change even more.

I’m gonna be a mommy.

The doc

tor is still talking. I assume Rafe is paying attention, because I’m not. All I can focus on now is my pictures. I touch my tummy and know this adorable little thing is nestled away in there. I’m much less mad at Rafe and the condom company about this situation now. Ideal? No. But holy cuteness, I can’t be mad about it.