The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(28)

Graham has emerged from his lair, unfortunately. One eye narrows on the sweatshirt. “You didn’t go to Tulane.”

“It belonged to an ex. It’s the only one I have that still fits.”

His nostrils flare in irritation—God knows why. I take my cardboard container from Erewhon and flop on the couch, only to discover nothing but white rice inside. The idiot behind the counter didn’t give me my chicken, and I was too busy arguing with Patel to notice. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I throw the container on the table and groan. I’m too tired and too hungry to drive all the way back, park, and demand my chicken. Fucking Dr. Patel.

“What’s the matter?” Graham asks. “Not enough marshmallow bits in tonight’s bowl of Lucky Charms?” His brow is furrowed, though, as if he’s actually concerned.

I press my face to the couch pillow. “I just wanted to eat. I did my best.”

Saying those words out loud has me near tears. I did my best, and I still failed. What happens when I have a small kid to feed? Sorry, hon, we’re just eating white rice for dinner tonight. Even my mom managed to do better than that, and she was practically a child herself when I was born.

I loved my mom, a lot. But I never envisioned I’d be a worse parent than she was.

Graham quietly sets a sub in front of me. “I wasn’t going to eat it anyway,” he says before he walks into his room.





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18





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GRAHAM





The next morning, I meet Keeley at her twenty-two-week exam. I’m introduced to Julie, who is theoretically an ob/gyn though I have to wonder, given that we’re on a first-name basis.

“Ah, so you’re the mysterious father?” she asks, giving Keeley a look I can’t interpret. God only knows what Keeley has told her.

She leaves and a nurse ushers us into a room and hands Keeley a hospital gown. “You know what to do,” she says cheerfully, with a quick, curious glance at me.

It’s only when Keeley kicks off her shoes that I realize she’s planning to undress.

I scrub a hand over my face. “Should I, uh, leave?”

“Under the circumstances, they probably assume this is nothing you haven’t seen before. Just turn around.”

I stare at the poster on the wall, which documents the progression of a fetus.

“Our kid…looks like a baby already,” I announce, mostly to drown out the sounds of her undressing: the soft slide of a zipper, the jangle of a hanger being used. I have fairly distinct memories of what Keeley looks like naked. I’m trying very hard to forget each of them now.

“Let me see,” she says, shoving in beside me. Her bare arm brushes against me, which is when I glimpse a very sheer bra and creamy skin, and all my efforts to make this not weird go to hell. “Keeley, for fuck’s sake, put on the gown,” I snap.

“Look at the size of these things,” she demands, cupping her breasts. “Someone should see them.”

“Put on the gown, goddammit.” I turn away and subtly adjust myself.

She crosses the room. “It’s increasingly difficult to imagine how you could have gotten me pregnant.”

I jam my hands into my pockets. “It’s increasingly difficult to believe I’m actually the first one who did.”

She finishes putting on the gown and climbs onto the exam table just as Julie walks in with a younger guy in a lab coat.

“This is Scott. He’s doing his obstetrics rotation. You don’t mind him sitting in, right?”

“Gotta learn sometime,” Keeley says.

I’m not sure he does gotta learn, not given the way he’s currently checking Keeley out.

Keeley’s feet slide into the stirrups. The gown is bunched around her thighs. I can’t see a thing, but this punk has a clear view.

Julie slips on gloves and he does the same. She takes two fingers and her hand slides beneath the gown. “At this stage, we’re just checking for dilation and position of the cervix,” she says to Scott. “Go ahead.”

And then…he’s got his fingers inside my wife. If this were all real, I’d be pissed. Actually, I’m really pissed anyway.

“How dilated would you say she is?” Julie asks, and he glances at me and away. Yeah, I know you’re enjoying this, you smug bastard.

“Uh…she’s not?” he asks.

“Right,” says Julie and he finally withdraws his hand.

That’s an experience we won’t be fucking repeating. I’ll make sure of it.

“I’m just going to check the baby’s heart rate.” Julie reaches beneath the gown to press a wand to Keeley’s stomach. There’s a whirr and a woosh and…it’s there, a tiny galloping beat.

My child’s heart.

I step closer, almost instinctively, as the sound begins to echo through the room.

And it all becomes a little more real to me.

I came out here to make sure Keeley was up to the task, and to make sure things were ready. But this…is really happening. And if there’s anything I can do to make a difference, I need to be doing it.

When the appointment is over, I walk Keeley to her car. “I’ll cook tonight,” I tell her as we part. “So don’t load up on Mike and Ike’s or white rice.”