Page 34 of Doctor Daddies

I’ve met him a few times now, generally in passing, when I’ve stopped by to drop off some groceries or medication to Millie after a long day, and I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that this boy might be mine.

His face lights up when he sees us, and I can’t help but notice how much better he looks already. There is a brightness to him that was lacking when I first met him, and I hope that the changes she made to his diet have started to settle in.

“Hey,” he greets us both.

Cole stoops down, grinning as he locks eyes with him. “Hey, little buddy,” he replies. “How was school? You had that book reading, right?”

Lewis nods, hopping up into one of the seats, and I take one myself, watching as he fills Cole in on everything he’s been up to. There’s something oddly…domestic about it, coming to Millie’s place after a day of work.

I have to admit, I was a little surprised when Ross came to us to let us know that she had invited us for dinner, but there was no way I would turn it down. She’s carrying our children, after all. I mean, we haven’t been able to confirm the multiples yet, but I just know at the bottom of my heart that we’re going to have the triplets that we are hoping for. I know that the kind of person Millie is won’t have much impact on the kind of surrogate she will be for our kids, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see a little more of her.

Especially after what happened between us on the day she moved in.

Sure, there’s a part of me that would like nothing more than to pick up where we left off, before we got interrupted by Ross, but I’m not sure I’ll get away with that, not without causing more drama than it’s worth. Ross and I haven’t even discussed it yet, let alone me and Millie, and I know that the best thing I can do is pretend like none of it happened and move on with my life. Everything is too complicated to let things take that turn, no matter how much I might want to.

“Well, that sounds like a lot of fun,” Cole remarks, as Millie appears in the doorway once more, carrying a few glasses of wine and distributing them between us at the table. She’s wearing a dress, a floaty fabric that skims over her body, but I’m sure Ican already see some of the changes starting to form in her. Not a bump, exactly, but when you have worked in this area for as long as I have, you start to spot the other little giveaways that tell when someone is a month into a pregnancy—the softness in the face, the way they move, the way they carry themselves.

Of course, it’s a little different this time around, given that she’s carryingmychild, but I can’t let my mind linger too long on that or I’ll get distracted.

“There you go,” she murmurs, as she plants a glass of wine down in front of me, her eyes locking onto mine for just a moment. It’s dim in the dining room, but I’m still sure that I can see a flush of pink to her cheeks, and I wonder if she’s flashing back to the first time we stepped into this place together. When we were last alone together, the way she felt under my tongue…

But before I can let my mind drift too far in that direction, Ross appears in the doorway with a pair of plates.

“Smells good,” Cole remarks, as he hands them out to everyone, and Millie pulls a face.

“Ugh, I don’t think I would have been able to pull it off without Ross,” she admits. “I totally under-spiced it?—”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Ross replies, shaking his head.

“You don’t have to be modest,” Millie protests. “I made a mess of it?—”

“You really didn’t,” he assures her, and he plants a plate down in front of Lewis, who grabs his fork and tucks in at once. It’s good to see him with such an appetite—I know the shit he’s suffering with can make it hard to enjoy food without worrying about what might happen if their body rebels against them, but clearly, hehasn’t had much reason to concern himself with that lately. I hope it carries on that way for a long time. He deserves it.

“Hey, Lewis, you have to wait for everyone else to have their food before you start,” Millie scolds him lightly, though there’s no real tone of malice in her voice.

“It’s fine,” Cole assures her. “Let him eat. We’ll all catch up soon enough, right, Lewis?”

Soon, we’re all eating, and Millie is right—Ross really did manage to pull this one out of the bag. It tastes delicious, even by my standards, and it goes perfectly with the wine that I picked out for the occasion.

As I glance around the table, I let my mind wander a little. Wander toward the possibility of something like this happening even after she has given birth.

I mean, I know that she will likely want to move back to a place of her own, when this is all done, with the money that she made from the surrogacy. She’ll want to focus on her own life and making sure that she can take care of Lewis. But it’s been a long time since I’ve sat down and had a meal like this with other people, at least a home-cooked one at someone’s house, and there’s a pleasant domesticity to it that I can’t seem to shake.

It’s the kind of thing that I thought Caroline and I were going to have one day, in that way you do when you’re young and it seems like everyone is going to be in your life forever. I still don’t know if we would have made it work, but shit, she deserved to have this with someone, even if it wasn’t me. A pang tears at my chest, and I focus on the glass of wine in front of me, wishing all of a sudden that it was alcoholic so I had something to distract from what’s going on inside my head.

“Lewis was telling me about the book reading he had to do at school,” Cole remarks, as he pauses for a moment, leaning back from the table to take a sip of his wine.

“Oh, yeah, he did so well,” Millie gushes proudly, looking over at her son with a beaming smile. “He got up in front of the whole school and did a reading at the assembly. I don’t think I could have pulled something like that off, you know?”

“Nah, I would have been way too nervous,” Ross agrees, flashing him a grin. “Well done, Lewis. You should be proud of yourself.”

Lewis doesn’t reply, shifting in his seat slightly as though he’s not sure what to do with all of this praise, but I can tell he’s pleased to be the center of attention like this—and for a good reason, for a change, not just because of his illness.

We chat over dinner, nothing heavy, just about work and school and everything that they have been up to since they moved into the apartment. It’s clear that they like it here—Lewis has already decorated a few of the walls with drawings, and there are books scattered across the living room floor that I can see even from where I sit. The entire place feels like a family home, somewhere that couldn’t be more suited for a pair like them.

Well. And the children that are growing in her womb right now too.

“That,” Cole announces, when he has finished his food, “was amazing.”