Wild Tendy (IceCats 2)

“No, I don’t. I don’t hate him for taking Shelli. I hate him because he’s a fuckbag.”

She doesn’t believe me. “Do you truly think that?”

Why is this so exhausting? “Fine, maybe I do because she chose him. But it doesn’t matter. Aiden. There. Or hell, Brooks. I can call him Brooks.”

She doesn’t seem convinced, but why are we even speaking of that guy? They don’t matter. “Let’s move on,” she sighs.

“Thank God.”

Her gaze seems annoyed, but hey, she signed up for this. I know they pay her good money to deal with me. “Do you feel maybe it was a fluke? The bad games?”

I move in my seat, trying to readjust. “Could be. But I know I wasn’t focused.”

“Okay, so we’ve learned from that?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Let’s move on,” she says, tapping her pen to my folder. It probably reads that I’m a huge asshole. “So, things are going well with Aviva?”

“Yes,” I say, and I look her in the eye. “Really good. I love every second with her, and we have a blast.”

“Has there been anything that you second-guessed yourself about or felt you shouldn’t have said?”

I laugh. “I say a lot of things, but she goes with it.”

A small smile pulls at her lips.

“But not really. Well, I assumed she would let me take her sister to Barcelona, but Chandler told me she wouldn’t. I didn’t really see anything wrong with it, but apparently it’s weird. Plus, Aviva wants to go.”

“Did that upset you?”

I shake my head. “No, I kind of felt bad. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.”

“You hurt her feelings?”

“I think so, by trying to leave her out.”

“And you realized that?”

I nod. “I did, actually, which now surprises me.” I kind of feel proud of myself.

She grins. “I think that’s the first social cue you’ve picked up on since we’ve been working together. I’m very proud of you, Nico.”

I grin back at her. “It’s easy with her, if that makes sense. I try to be in tune. I want her to be happy.”

“That’s wonderful, Nico,” she says softly. “Have you told her about your diagnosis?”

I let my head drop back. How’d I know she was going to ask that? “No, but I did tell Chandler.”

I sit up, and she looks as if she won the lottery. “You did?”

“I did,” I say on an exhale. “He already knew. He overheard it a while back.”

“And he never said anything?”

“Nope. He says it doesn’t matter.” Still, it doesn’t seem real to me. It all seems like a dream. I wish everyone would react like Chandler and Callie have, but I know they won’t. Which is why I haven’t told Aviva.

“That’s fantastic. I’m glad that worked out,” she says, and she’s marking some stuff down. “Can we create our next goal sheet to have ‘Tell Aviva’ as goal one?”

Why does my throat hurt? “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. It puts this fire in the pit of my stomach. We were talking a couple weeks ago, and we got on the subject of wanting kids. And all I could think was would she want them with me if she knew?”

“Kids? That was fast.”

I shrug. “I don’t think so. It was in passing. Do you want kids? And she asked me. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“It didn’t freak you out?”

“No,” I say simply. “Except when I realized, what if she doesn’t want to have them with me because our child could have autism and it could be worse?”

She exhales heavily. “Okay, that one sentence brings up a lot of questions for me, but we’re running out of time.”

“What?” I ask, needing to know. “We can go over.”

She meets my gaze, probably surprised since I’m almost always running for the door. “Okay. When you thought of having kids before, did your autism worry you?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“So, why now?”

I think that over. “I think maybe it’s because I don’t want to lose Aviva, and my diagnosis could make me lose her.”

“Nico, she is a breast cancer survivor. Do you think she’s thinking you wouldn’t want to have a baby with her because the same thing could happen to your daughter?”

I think about that for a moment and then nod. “Actually, she probably is.”

She smiles. “Okay, that doesn’t help.”

I laugh. “I get it. I shouldn’t fear the future. I should embrace it.”

“Absolutely.” She holds my gaze. “I come from a long line of alcoholics, and I broke that chain, but that doesn’t mean my children won’t have it as a vice. But you better believe I’m gonna have a baby, and I will love that baby no matter what. The same goes for you and, I’m sure, Aviva.”

Dr. Jenkins has never spoken about herself. I nod slowly. “Okay.”

Her eyes haven’t left mine, and it’s making me itch. It’s almost like she’s challenging me to look away, and that always makes me uncomfortable. “Next, Nico, do you feel you love Aviva?”