Josie frowned. “You can amend a birth certificate later, right?”
“I think so,” Laura whispered.
“Why don’t you just pick one guy and then amend it later if it’s wrong.”
Tears filled Laura’s eyes and Josie felt guilty for upsetting her. Then Laura inhaled deeply and her face shifted to a more practical look. “You’re right. You pick.” She pulled a piece of paper from a sheath on the nightstand.
“What?”
“I will sign this. I already filled most of it out.” It was a birth certificate form. “And you just add the name of the father. I don’t want to know who you pick. And then when the DNA tests come back, if it’s wrong, we amend. If it’s right, we leave it alone.”
“Geez, you don’t ask much from your best friend, do you?”
Laura nudged her. “C’mon. Do it for me?”
Josie bit her lower lip, grabbed the form, and just picked the first guy who came into her mind—other than Dr. Alex. Scribbling quickly, she folded the form and handed it to Laura, who put it in an envelope.
“Done,” Laura said, a huge sigh escaping from her.
Not quite, thought Josie.
The grateful, tired smile that greeted her words was all Josie needed. Well, maybe not all. “May I?” she asked, reaching for the baby.
Laura smiled and leaned forward to hand Jillian to her. As she shifted, though, she winced, flinching with a wretched look on her face. The calm but tired look was replaced with a tight, pained expression, then a deep breath. Two deep breaths. Three. Ouch. Josie imagined that her nether regions must look like hamburger right now—really nasty hamburger—and knew that the ice packs and the Lidocaine spray were probably the only thing keeping Laura sane. That and baby Jillian.
On the fourth exhale, Laura’s shoulders slowly relaxed, her breathing went back to normal, and her back unfurled a bit, allowing her to sit back, looser and in less pain. She tried again, keeping her back against her pillows, stretching her arms out with the baby instead, and Josie hurried to make up the distance.
Josie very carefully, tentatively, took the baby, gingerly wrapping herself around so that her whole tiny body was supported with the length of Josie’s arms and both of Josie’s hands. She felt so lightweight, like a kickball, one of those big ones at Toys“R”Us that you grab and expect to be heavier than they are. Not even eight pounds, little Jillian was a heavy soul, one born into an incredibly unique situation with a family structure that made Josie see it in a different light for the first time.
Josie’d first been derisive, and then accepting, of Laura, Mike, and Dylan’s triad. But now, holding the baby, new thoughts emerged. How would society view the child of two men and one woman? Getting people to understand that some kids had two mommies and some kids had two daddies was hard enough. How was little Jillian supposed to walk into preschool and announce that she had two daddies and a mommy? This kid was going to have to be tough, to know herself deeply, to stand up to the taunts, to neutralize ignorance. Jillian was up to the task—but was Josie?
A deep, steely protectiveness poured into Josie as the baby snurgled and then sighed, nestling against Josie’s arm. Josie smiled and kissed her little head, breathing the baby smell deeply and smiling harder at its sweetness. All worries for the future could wait. Huffing this newborn reminded her that life was good, and this was already shaping up to be a fabulous day. Seeing Alex had sent her body into overdrive, senses alight and primed for something. Would he really be interested in her today, or was yesterday just some sort of fluke? Dressed in casual clothes, he seemed to be here not as part of a shift, but for a personal reason.
Was she the personal reason? The kiss in the elevator, the near-sex in the on-call room, his steady support as she nearly fainted—did it really add up to more? Maybe she hadn’t misread a damn thing. Maybe he was as attracted to her as she was to him and made a special trip on his day off not to check in on Jillian and Laura, but to check her out.
“Is that Dr. Alex’s voice I heard out in the hallway?” Laura asked. As they both looked, the giant stuffed head of a giraffe walked into the room as if it were animated and stalking all newborn babies on the wing. After the head, the neck entered the room, then the body, and finally Dylan, as if the giraffe were in control, pulling him in. His grinning face was stretched from ear to ear with a level of excitement and love that was contagious.
Josie matched his grin and looked down at Jillian and said, “That’s one of your crazy dads. He’s the craziest one.” As Mike came in, she went on. “The other daddy is calm and peaceful and placid on the outside, but he’s kind of weird, too. You’ll just have to deal with it. Your mama is unconventional, but in a different way, so…Jillian, the deck is really stacked against you. Good thing you have your Aunt Josie to keep you normal.”
Jillian’s three parents all snorted in unison, and Alex walked into the room just in time to overhear Dylan tease back, “If teabagging the set of balls from Jeddy’s in front of an audience is normal, then—”
“Shh,” Laura said, noticing Alex. “Hi, Doctor…I forgot your last name,” she said, reaching for a glass of water and chugging it, a sheepish look on her face.
“Alex. Alex Derjian,” he said, reintroducing himself, shaking Laura’s hand. “You had quite a bit on your plate last night, Laura. It’s no wonder you don’t remember my name.”
“Thanks,” she replied, tipping her head at the baby, who now rested in Josie’s arms, her little pink cheeks slack with sleep.
“Teabagging?” He cocked one eyebrow and looked at Josie. “It sounds like I interrupted a very interesting conversation.”
Shooting daggers at Dylan, who just smirked, she said, “Not as interesting as Dylan’s butt—”
“Hey!” Dylan snapped. “Man Code says we don’t talk about that.”
“Man Code says you don’t show somebody your brown starfish, either,” she retorted.
Alex and Mike managed to stay neutral, their faces impassive, but from the flare of their nostrils she could tell they were trying not to laugh.
“Show what?” Alex finally said.
Dylan reached out to shake his hand once again. “That’s my man.”
Changing topics, Alex stared at the baby pointedly and reached toward Josie. “May I?”
Josie caught his eyes. He looked just as good this morning as he did yesterday. Clean shaven now, the same spicy but dark scent she’d noticed yesterday coming off of him again. His face was open and he really did just want to hold the baby—she knew that.