Page 9 of Beneath His Alpha's Wings
“Please.” Avery gestured to the bed. “Make yourself comfortable. This won't take long.”
I yawned and considered finally getting to bed. I wondered how many hours of sleep I was currently running on. Not many. I wasn't sure if I wanted to count. I started to turn away, but hesitated, feeling oddly reluctant to leave. But there was no reason to stay and intrude and make Lucas even more uncomfortable. Maybe I’d just grab more coffee. It probably wouldn’t be long before I had to take Lucas to my place anyway. A short nap would just make me feel more tired in the end.
“I'll be in the break room if you need me,” I said, not entirely sure who I was speaking to. I started to close the door, when a hesitant call from Lucas stopped me.
“Kessel?”
“Yeah? Can… can you stay?” He looked like he wanted to add something but wasn't sure what. He closed his mouth, watching me nervously.
“Of course,” I said. Instead of leaving, I moved into the room reintroduce room and closed the door behind me. “If that's okay?” I looked at Avery.
The doctor shrugged. “As long as he's okay with it. I've done this with plenty of couples before.”
“We're not a couple,” Lucas and I said at the same time.
“Sorry,” Avery said quickly. “I just meant I'm used to doing it with an audience. Typically,” he added with a chuckle. “An overprotective alpha. This will be a refreshing change.”
He gestured to the bed again and this time Lucas climbed up and settled in, propped up with a bunch of pillows.
“What exactly are you going to do?” Lucas said nervously.
“Well.” Avery held up a funny little paddle on a wire that was connected to his laptop. “I'm going to use this to look at your baby. Can you roll up your shirt for me?” Lucas looked uncertain but did as he was told. “This is cold,” Avery said calmly, before he squeezed a tube of something on to Lucas's stomach and smeared it around.
A moment later he started to rub the paddle across Lucas and the black screen of his laptop turned into a mass of grays. “You can watch,” Avery said, nodding toward his laptop screen. Curiosity got the better of me and I edged closer. “Here we go,” Avery said as the blob on the screen materialized into the familiar shape of a baby on an ultrasound.
I had never seen one live, but I had seen plenty of printouts in my life, most recently courtesy of Tagger, who had plastered them around the office for three long months.
“That's… my baby?” Lucas said.
Avery nodded and pointed to a spot on laptop screen. “The head is right here.” He traced along it with his finger. “Here's an arm, and a couple of feet. And right here…” He tapped a spot. “Looks like we've got a boy.”
“A boy?” Lucas gasped. His voice broke and he cleared his throat, then raised a hand quickly and wiped at his cheek, clearing his throat a second time. “Excuse me.”
“Not to worry,” Avery chuckled. “It's a little emotional seeing it for the first time.”
“Yeah.” Lucas turned away from laptop screen. “I didn't expect to be so emotional.”
To my surprise, I actually felt a little choked up too. “Yeah,” I said hoarsely. “It's something else.”
“Did they have ultrasounds when you had your kid?” Avery asked me.
“No.” It came out a bit shorter and snappier than I intended. They both looked at me in surprise. I swallowed. “No,” I said, a bit less aggressively. “No, I don't think they did.”
Avery narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but thankfully didn't say anything.
“You have a kid?” Lucas asked me.
“Yes.” That was a much easier question. “A son,” I added.
He smiled and looked back at the laptop screen. “A son…”
“Would you like me to print a couple of these out for you?” Avery offered.
”Oh,” Lucas said. “Sure. Thank you.”
Avery did, and then started doing something with the device on Lucas’s stomach.
“What are you doing now?” Lucas asked.
