Mateo smirks at me. “Because he’s scolding you?”
“Because he hits on me way too hard and he’s not one of us. Yeah, maybe he’s a Morelli, but he doesn’t fit in here and I think we’ll all feel better if he leaves.” I raise an accusing eyebrow. “By the way, he told me today you didn’t say anything to him about groping me.”
He shrugs lightly. “Wanted to see if he’d tell me himself.”
“Well, he didn’t. People who fail tests need to leave.”
Mateo smiles, shaking his head at me. “God, he gets under your skin.”
“He does not,” I argue. “I just don’t like the things he says. Not even just inappropriate things, but things he says about you. He’s not respectful of you and I’m fed up with him.”
“What kind of things?”
“I debriefed Adrian before dinner; he didn’t tell you?”
“Rafe had drinks with us; he probably didn’t have a chance. He must not have been too alarmed or he would’ve caught up with me afterward. I’ll catch up tomorrow.”
The thought of tomorrow fills me up with warmth. “Are you excited to find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“The doctor said we may not know until the next appointment,” he reminds me, trying to temper my hopes.
“I know, but he always tries harder to please you. He’ll spend an hour searching if he has to. I think we’ll find out tomorrow,” I say, confidently, before poking him in the side. “And you didn’t answer me.”
“Yes, I’m excited,” he replies, dutifully.
I dismiss his lack of enthusiasm. “You’ll be excited. Especially if it’s a girl.”
“I will be very excited if it’s a girl,” he agrees.
“We’ll go straight to the store and buy her 20 pairs of shoes to get her started.”
“Isabella has her heart set on a brother,” he says, rolling his eyes.
I nod my head. “The girls have very strong opinions about what I should have. Rosalie told me she’s hoping it’s a puppy.”
This causes Mateo to smirk. “Well, Vince is a little bitch, so I guess there’s a chance.”
“That’s not nice.”
“I don’t care,” he informs me.
I don’t want to talk about Vince, so I steer the conversation back to the girls. “Lily told me if it’s a girl, we have to name her Luna. I had to respectfully decline.”
He already knows the names I have ready. He’s had to take the baby name book away from me on multiple occasions so we could go to bed. “Our little Annalise.”
I smile, rubbing my belly. “I can’t wait.”
—
It’s a boy.
The doctor looks like he’d rather chew his own arm off than tell us that, but apparently our son is not shy; he’s waving his business around for all to see, proudly displaying his boy parts so we know not to buy him any pretty pink shoes.
“No chance it’s the umbilical cord?” Mateo asks, watching the monitor.
The doctor shakes his head. “I’m afraid not.”
Mateo nods his head, hands shoved into his pockets. “Of course.”
“I’ll schedule you for another ultrasound at your next appointment to be sure, but these things generally don’t disappear.”
Since he’s clearly not psyched that I’m having Vince’s son, I reach for Mateo’s hand and try to drag him into my happy bubble. “We’ll get him a little suit instead of shoes,” I offer.
Expression carefully blank, he nods his head. “Gotta start ‘em young.”
“He can rock baby loafers. Do they make baby loafers? I’m sure they do. I’ll look into it.”
I hate that he’s disappointed. This is the stickiest situation I’ve ever had to muck my way through with him, and that’s saying something. On one hand, I feel guilty for making him go through this when it’s not what he wants, but on the other hand… this is my baby, and I need my husband to embrace him. I know he will. I know he was just hoping—like I was—that it would be a girl. It’s not the end of the world that it’s a boy instead.
He doesn’t get pulled into my happy bubble the way I hoped, but now that the gender is no longer a mystery and my appointment is more or less finished, Mateo and the doctor step away to discuss Meg. I know he’s making house calls for this last appointment since Mateo doesn’t want to bring her in. I know they’re planning a home birth. That’s about the end of what I know.
The doctor is more Mateo’s than mine anyway, despite being my OB-GYN. I acknowledge realistically that I’m the third woman Mateo has brought in to see him, and the first whose baby isn’t actually his, so I guess I see why the doctor is dismissive with me. It’s still super annoying.
Whatever kind of shoes my son wears, he’s going to have more respect for women than his predecessors, that’s for damn sure. Even though I shouldn’t, even though it’s not even what I wanted, it’s difficult not to imagine what this appointment might have been like with Vince instead. He didn’t want kids at all, prior to his change of heart in Vegas. If he’d gotten me pregnant under normal circumstances and we could’ve raised him in the normal environment Vince tried to sell me on, I’m sure he would’ve been happy to have a son. A quiet life in a suburban house, far removed from Chicago, a big back yard where he’d teach him to do ordinary things like play catch.