Very, very naughty thoughts flashed through her mind as they locked eyes. And then a second series of thoughts berated her, guilted her over thinking about anything but her poor best friend, who was about to have her vagina split open by a speeding eight-pound flesh ball, all the nibbly parts on display for a crew of eight or nine people, not including the dads and Josie. This was a teaching hospital, after all, and the only way the interns and the residents and the nursing students going through clinicals could learn was to watch people like Laura on display, to make notes, to get the queasiness over with and to learn by doing.
Right now she’d like to learn some really nice hands-on sexual lessons, lessons involving his hands on her na**d ass, his mouth on other parts, her body entwined with Mr. Alex Derjian here—Dr. Alex Derjian, she corrected herself. Ever since a very messy failed affair her first year of nursing—an entangled, sweeping disaster that involved two doctors at work—she’d had a pretty firm rule: no dating doctors. But rules were made to be broken, right?
Introductions complete, he pulled his hand away, leaving her drained and empty and full of self-doubt. Had she been alone in the feeling that had just jolted through her? She wasn’t imagining it, though—he seemed to feel it too. Fidgety and a little ill at ease, Josie pretended to study the silver doors as the elevator hummed its way up to an even bigger, more chaotic mess that they both encountered as the doors wheezed open.
There stood Mike and Dylan and Sherri outside Laura’s door, engaged in an angry whisper campaign with another nurse who stood there. The pained expression on Dylan’s face was shifting more and more into anger, while Mike coiled with a tension diametrically opposite his normal state. Snippets of their conversation floated into Josie’s awareness as they approached.
“But there’s a limit…”
“I don’t care about the limit…”
“Why can’t we…?”
“Does it really matter?”
“Is there a reason why we can’t…?”
“What’s going on?” Alex said, his voice commanding and clear.
It made Josie stand up straight and listen intently—not that she had any choice. She could have listened to him read a Windows 7 installation guide and been in a state of bliss for hours on end. A melodic baritone, he didn’t have the standard Boston accent that so many men had, and there was a lilt, something foreign, but not quite. He wasn’t a Midwesterner, not a New Yorker, and nothing from the South came into his voice. The sound of his voice was more his own accent, as if he had honed it carefully himself, born of an internal core that made him something distinct and unique and well worthy of everyone’s immediate attention.
As he spoke, her eyes combed over his body. Brown, shiny waves in hair that needed a cut, but looked perfect tousled the way it was. Dark brown eyes, similar to hers, but with little specks of orange in them. His face was wide, with high cheekbones but the sprinklings of early five o’clock shadow. She knew, too well, that shadow would end up quite thick by the end of his long shift, the kind of stubble that left a slight, rough, red rug burn on a woman’s face after a perfect, intense kiss…or twenty.
Broad shoulders and a body that indicated that he worked out. His scrubs lay flat against his skin, not too tight, but not the baggy, shapeless look that so many men acquired as residency added some paunch to their under-exercised, over-carbed forms. This was a man who took care of himself. And as the conversation continued, she recognized that he was a man accustomed to finding solutions and having them carried out.
Sherri turned to him. “Thank you, Alex. I’m glad you’re here. I need you to consult on Laura’s polyhydramnios case,” she said, pulling him aside. “But we also have another issue here that has nothing to do with you.”
The nurse who stood next to them was arguing with Dylan and Mike, and Josie heard, “But there can’t be two fathers in the room.”
“But there are two fathers.”
“No, there can’t be two fathers. Our rooms are small and we can only allow one support person and one father.”
“Well, I’m the support person,” Josie said. “I’m also an RN. What’s going on?”
The nurse gave her a grateful look, as if Josie were an instant ally in whatever argument she was having with the men. Josie didn’t like the assumption because she had a feeling that this was going to be one of those moments where she got rip-shit pissed and lost her cool. Doing that in front of Alex was a hell of a first impression she didn’t want to make.
“Did Lisa call you, too?” the nurse asked.
“Lisa?” Josie shook her head, confused. The sly look on the woman’s face pinched off instantly, shifting from a conspirator’s countenance to one of officiousness.
“Both of these men say that they’re the father.” The nurse was in her mid-sixties, no nonsense, about as wide as she was tall. She had extremely short gray hair, thick bifocals, and the body language of someone who didn’t take crap, ever. And Josie could respect that. If she worked here for forty years she’d be an impenetrable fortress of rules too.
“Haven’t you heard of a kid having two dads?” They were quite a crowd in the hallway now— Mike, Dylan, Josie, and the nurse clustered together, Alex and Sherri just behind them. The OB and midwife, whispering, backed up a few paces.
“Is this a surrogacy case?” the nurse asked, arms crossing over her chest tighter. A loud scream poured into the hallway from a nearby room, followed by the muted sound of a man’s soothing voice.
Dylan and Mike exchanged a glance, and Dylan said, “If it was, could we both be in there?”
“Well, that depends. Is it?” The nurse was so cynical and challenging that Josie wondered if there was something personal going on here. Maybe she was homophobic and assumed Dylan and Mike were g*y? Overt discrimination was very rare in the Boston area, but it did happen.
Honesty prevailed, Dylan’s instinct to lie not strong enough, Josie noticed. Ironic considering he had no problem lying when it came to other things. Maybe he really has reformed, she thought. “No, it’s not,” he admitted reluctantly, shoulders slumping in defeat.
The nurse pointed to Josie. “So, you’re the support person.”
“Yes.”
“Who is the dad?”
“I am,” both men said in unison.
Out of the corner of her eye Josie saw Alex do a double-take and then whisper something to Sherri, who whispered something back. Alex’s jaw dropped. Oh, boy, she thought, this is getting interesting. Who was she kidding? This had been interesting about ten minutes ago—no, make that nine and a half months ago.