The nurse hung Beck’s chart back on the bed’s foot rail and returned to the clipboard she’d brought in with her. A look of bewilderment crossed her face. “You’re type O. Beckett is AB. ” She frowned. “You’re saying Beckett is your biological son?”
“Yes.”
She looked to Alexa and then to me, shaking her head. “That’s not possible. An O can’t genetically make a child with type AB blood.”
I was exhausted from one hell of a day, between burying my father and my wife and child getting into an accident. I had to have misunderstood.
“The lab made a mistake then?”
The nurse shook her head. “They’re usually pretty good…” She looked back and forth between me and my wife again. “…but I’ll have them come up and draw a fresh sample.” After that, she practically ran out of the room.
I turned to look at my wife, whose head was hanging down. “This is a mistake in the lab, right, Alexa?”
I almost vomited when she looked up. She didn’t have to say a goddamn word for me to know.
There was no mistake.
No fucking mistake!
Beck wasn’t my son.
Emerie
“You have a son?” I craned my neck back to look at Drew. We were still in the bathtub, and it wasn’t easy to maneuver much sitting between his legs.
Drew nodded with his eyes closed before opening them to look at me. There was so much pain in his expression; my stomach dropped in anticipation of what was to come next. “It’s a long story. How about we get out, and I’ll make you something to eat while I explain?”
“Okay.”
Drew got out first to get us towels. After he dried off, including a three-second rub of the towel to his hair, he wrapped it around his waist and offered me a hand.
His face was still contemplative, and I wanted to lighten the mood for him. Whatever he was going to tell me about his son clearly wasn’t an easy story.
I took his hand and stepped out of the tub. “You look like you could film a shaving cream commercial right now, and I probably look like a wet rat.” My hair was stuck to my face, and I was glad the mirror was fogged with steam so I couldn’t get a good look at my reflection.
Drew reached around me with a plush bath towel and began to dry me off.
“You provide nice primping services,” I teased as he reached down to dry one leg and then the other.
He winked. “It goes with my prodding service.”
“Your prodding was pretty damn spectacular, too.”
“I’m a full-service type of guy.”
When he was all done drying my body (my boobs and between my legs were extra dry from all the time he spent there), Drew wrapped the towel around my chest and tucked it in at the corner. His sweet side was still on display when he tangled our fingers together for the walk from the bathroom.
In the kitchen, he pulled a stool out from under the granite island and patted the top. “Have a seat.”
I swiveled around on it a few times as Drew pulled things out of the cabinets and refrigerator. Remembering what we’d done up against the glass a few hours ago, I stopped twirling and looked at the window. It was dark outside now, and I could see the lights from the city illuminated so clearly.
“Can people…can they really see inside?” A mixture of panic and embarrassment crept up my cheeks as I remembered how my breasts had been pushed up against the glass. In the moment, it had seemed exciting that someone could possibly see—added to the eroticism. But I definitely didn’t want to wind up on YouTube because some creeper had filmed us through a telescope.
Drew chuckled. “No. It’s one-way glass. I wouldn’t put you at risk like that.” He reached over my head to grab a pan and kissed my forehead on his way down with it. “Plus, I don’t share things that are mine.”
The first part of his response made the rational part of me breathe a sigh of relief, but the latter gave me warm fuzzies inside.
Drew was also still wearing just a towel, his wrapped around his narrow waist, and I was enjoying the view of his back muscles flexing as he chopped an onion, when I noticed a scar. It ran diagonally along the side of his torso, extending from the front to the back. The mark was faded to a lighter shade of tan than the rest of his skin—definitely not new, but something serious had happened.
“Did you have surgery?” I asked.
“Hmmm?” Drew dropped some butter into the frying pan and turned with brows drawn.
I pointed. “Your scar.”
A flicker of something passed over his face. Sadness, I thought. He turned back around as he responded. “Yeah. Surgery a few years back.”
Maybe I was looking too much into things, scrutinizing everything he did, but I couldn’t help it. My mind was trying to put together a puzzle without knowing what the picture looked like.
Drew chopped up a bunch of other things, refusing to let me help. When he plated two gorgeous Western omelets, they looked like they could have been made at one of Baldwin’s fancy restaurants.
Baldwin.