“You have quite the track record with fake spouses,” Andrew says quietly in my ear as people in the crowd either fret over Josh’s prone body or murmur about liability issues.
Sunny lights a sage smudge stick and starts muttering something while waving the burning leaves over my “husband”.
Andrew looks at my belly with a mixture of amusement and protectiveness. I want to touch him but I can’t. He has, obviously, figured out the ruse. While I technically can’t tell him that Josh and I are working, he clearly knows.
“Are you stalking me, Mr. McCormick?” I murmur, rubbing my pretend bump. “You appear in the most unusual moments in my life.”
“I’m on the board of directors of the hospital, Ms. Warrick,” he replies with a smile. “We’re doing an annual walk through.”
“I’m preparing for the most precious moment I never expected,” I answer, giving him a wink.
He smothers a grin.
Sunny glides over. She smells like roasted chicken, which makes my tummy growl. I am eating for two after all.
Me and Josh. He’s so green there’s no way he’ll be able to go out with me for dinner after this.
“Your husband is down for the count, I’m afraid,” Sunny says sadly.
A warrior’s cry erupts in the tiny room. We all turn toward the source of the sound.
A bloody baby’s head emerges on screen. Sunny pauses the video right there, the frame frozen in graphic detail.
“The miracle of life,” Sunny calls out. She claps her hands. “Let’s resume class now that Amanda’s husband is feeling better.” I shiver at the words Amanda’s husband.
“I’m not feeling better,” Josh argues as two nurses help him stand.
“We’re going to take him into the ER for a quick eval,” one of them tells me.
“But Amanda needs a partner for the next lesson!” Sunny says with a loud, slow sigh. “Who will help her to make the clay molds of cervixes that we’ll stretch open to welcome the baby?”
Josh retches violently as they lead him out the door.
“I guess I’ll handle my cervix by myself,” I say pleasantly to Sunny, who gives me a funny look.
“I can help you with your cervix,” Andrew replies. He catches the eye of one of the receding suits and gestures that he’s staying in the class.
“Don’t you have evil corporate overlords to entertain?” I ask, trying desperately not to lunge at him and kiss him silly. After more than a week apart, I can feel the pulsing parts of me trying to attach to him like suckers on the ends of tentacles.
“Who are you?” Sunny asks Andrew.
Oh, boy.
“This is my, um...brother,” I mumble.
Andrew’s shoulders begin to shake with repressed laughter.
She gives him a once over, then looks at me. “I see the family resemblance.”
What resemblance?
“Let’s try to resume some semblance of normalcy,” Sunny says, dimming the lights again and pressing Play on the video.
“I think that shark got jumped a while ago,” I mutter. Andrew looks around the room, tugs up lightly on his trouser legs, and bends to sit on the floor.
He looks up at me with an expression of expectation.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Waiting for you to get between my legs.” His hand is extended toward me. I take it and bend down.
My fake pregnant belly goes right up between my breasts again.
“Now there’s a look,” Andrew says, staring at my boobs.
“Pregnancy does strange things to a woman’s body.”
“I heard that breasts get bigger, but this is something else.”
I reach under my skirt—again—to pull the belly back in place.
A warm, helping palm slides up my leg.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m assisting you. Remember? I’m your birthing partner.”
“I’m not birthing anything right now.”
“Just practicing.” He gives me a hotter-than-hot smile.
“Practicing what? The childbirth part or the conception part?”
“I get a choice? Because I pick conception without the conception.”
“Then that’s not conception. It’s just sex.”
“You’re on to something there, Amanda. What a good student you are. Quick study.”
As I nestle in his arms, belly back where it belongs, his hand rests on my outer thigh. When I lean back against his chest, it’s a thick, warm wall of ahhhhhh.
“You have body fat,” I murmur as we watch a gooey baby being placed on a mother’s flaccid belly and crawl up, in search of a nipple. The scene reminds me of that one time I had sex with this really weird guy I met on Craigslist....
“I do.” An appreciative palm gives my thigh a squeeze. “So do you, in all the luscious places.”
“I thought she said he was her brother,” one of the women behind me hisses. “Why’s his hand up her skirt?”
“Ewww,” her husband grunts.
Andrew reluctantly removes his hand and sighs. Warm breath that smells like coffee and spices tickles my ear.
The video shows a woman latching the baby to her breast, a look of blissful contentment on her face. As the camera pans out, we see a doctor merrily stitching away at her torn bits, using a needle the size of an aluminum baseball bat with a meat hook at the end.
At least, that’s how my panicked brain views it.
All of the women in the room collectively gasp and bring our knees together.
“Don’t worry!” Sunny says cheerfully. “That won’t happen to you! Daily perineal massage for months before birth will make you stretch to fit anything in there.”