blew a raspberry at me and Jordan laughed. “Don’t you love having two brothers, Shelbs?”
“Oh yeah. It’s the best.”
Shelby might have been sarcastic, but her smile was open and joyful. And having family was the best. I had lost my birth family to treachery and betrayal, but I’d found a new one. They’d claimed me. Both the Novaks and the Pattersons, two groups from very different worlds, and yet they came together to support Jordan and me, just the way that family should.
20
Jordan
The onsite medical clinic at The Haven Center was simple and familiar. Charts about heats and the omega reproductive system and baby growth decorated the walls.
Once a week, Dr. Evan came by to handle appointments. We’d seen him a couple times already, but today was different.
Today we were going to see our baby.
A knock on the door made us both jump, and then a moment later it opened as Dr. Evan backed in, dragging a wheeled machine about the size of a small man with a monitor on top.
“Sorry it took so long. The cords got tangled and I nearly toppled the whole thing—which is not easy, let me tell you. It would have been impressive if it hadn’t been so terrifying. You do not want to know what one of these cost. Okay. Let me just plug this sucker in...”
The machine hummed as it came to life.
“While we’re waiting for that to finish booting up, why don’t we get you settled, Wyatt? I need you to lie back, roll up your shirt... Do you mind if I roll down the top of your pants? I don’t need all-access, just full access.”
Wyatt snorted.
“We’ll leave all-access to your mate here, huh?”
Dr. Evan wasn’t like any doctor I’d ever had. He was an alpha, which I’d worried about triggering Wyatt, but a rabbit shifter, which seemed to offset Wyatt’s normal discomfort with strange alphas. It helped he was lighthearted, a bit clumsy, and extremely talkative.
“How are you feeling? Comfortable? Make sure you’re in a position you can hold for about forty minutes because once we get started, you’re strapped in until the end of the ride. I’m kidding. There are no straps.”
Wyatt adjusted himself, crinkling the paper cover of the examination table. “I’m good.”
“Excellent. We’re just going to frost you up with the gel. Sorry, it’s a bit cold. And then the magic wand. But not that kind of magic wand. I gotta stop calling it that.”
Wyatt snickered and Dr. Evan glared at him playfully.
“You better not be giggling during the ultrasound. This isn’t a bowlful of jelly we’re trying to snap a picture of.”
“Then you’re going to have to cut back on the jokes, Doc.”
Dr. Evan sighed dramatically. “Everyone’s a critic. All I need to do is set some defaults... okay. Now let’s find that baby. I’m gonna try and grab the money shot, but first, let me know—do you want to know the gender or not?”
“We want to know,” I said. Wyatt and I had talked about it before and we felt the same. It didn’t matter, but knowing made it more real.
“Good. Because it’s damn hard for me to keep a secret, but I manage. Let’s see. Oop! There we are! Look at that sweet nose.”
And there, in black, white, and gray, was our baby’s profile. Big head, cute nose,
“Wow,” Wyatt whispered.
“I can’t believe how fast they go from being little bits of nothing to boom! Baby,” Dr. Evan said. “Doesn’t matter how many times I see it.”
“Does it ever stop feeling special?”
The doctor shook his head, smiling. “Never. Even if the scan part becomes routine and meh, the magic part is watching you parents’ faces when you see the little one. And that never gets old. It reminds me we’re looking at a tiny person, not a case study, not a blob on a screen. A person who didn’t exist a few months ago. And that is priceless.”
He froze the screen and clicked a few buttons. “Just gonna grab a few photos for you to take with you. Now let’s see if we can get a peek at the goods, little one.”
As he adjusted settings, the image shifted and blurred back and forth. His lips thinned in concentration, and he moved the wand from one side of Wyatt’s stomach to the other.
Wyatt and I shared excited looks. We’d been considering different names for our little one, trying them out on Wyatt’s round baby bump, but nothing had felt perfect. Maybe it was because we didn’t know